Not the Hero We Deserve, But the Hero We Need

Now, here is some history that Mr. Pino should become aware of:



Baghdad Delenda Est.

Opponents of Israel, like Mr. Said, love to point out that it is a creation of Western imperial powers, an unnatural, inorganic construct imposed by distant exploiters. This Zionist implant, they argue, has aroused the fury of the Arab body politic; anti-Jewish rage is simply a natural immune response to imperialism. Suicide bombers, this theory holds, are antibodies. Remove the foreign matter, and the normally peace-loving Arab and Muslim metabolism will return to normal.



There are some obvious problems with this analysis, the first being the notion that the region has any history of being peace-loving in the way we understand the phrase in the West. Peace in the Middle East has always -- always -- been imposed from above or without, not attained from within. Indeed, that the Islamic Middle East no longer has a ruling empire, caliphate, or dynasty, is one reason it is such a mess. Unable to accept the fact -- and it is a fact -- that the region is ever shrinking in the rearview mirror of the West, it has grown hobbled by rage. As David Pryce-Jones has eloquently argued, the Middle East is what anthropologists call a "shame society." In such societies, Jones argues, "the acquisition of honor and the converse, avoidance of shame, are the keys to motivation."

On and on, more and more. Read!