A different View of the Arab World

For a view of the Arab World by an Arab read this article by Robert Freer. Dr. Haim Hariri, Chair of the Davidson Institute of Science Education and past president of the Weizmann Institute of Education. See how Dr. Hariri describes the four main pillars of the world conflict. This is a different view than what we looked as Churchill’s in a preceding article.

By Robert E. Freer, Jr., President of The Free Enterprise Foundation

Following my column on Churchill’s Peace, one of my readers sent me an article sited as the view of the Arab world by an Arab. Haim Hariri is described as Chair of the Davidson Institute of Science Education and past president of the Weizmann Institute of Education. His comments were delivered before the international advisory board of an unidentified trans national corporation.

Having read a dozen or more such offerings in the past year or so, I can tell you his views are numbered among the more moderate and least cataclysmic of those I have come across. All confirm we are in the early stages of a world war. All express optimism we will eventually overcome the challenge to civilization posed by the terrorists, but all also say we have many rough days ahead of us and imply the battle if won will require us to change as well.

Dr. Hariri first notes that Israel and its intrusion into God’s cradle of civilization has little if anything to do with the roiling storms tossing the Muslim world. He notes many examples from Iraq, Algeria and Afghanistan to prove his point and concludes by saying that... “[t]he root of the trouble is that this entire Moslem region is totally dysfunctional and would be so even if the Israelis weren’t part of the picture”. He describes the Arab world as consisting of 22 nations, with 300 million people covering an area larger than the U.S. or Europe. He notes their wealth in energy resources and suggests that one measure of their dysfunction is that with all this going for them, they only collectively produce one half of the GDP for California and concludes… “That almost everybody in the region blames this situation on The United States, on Israel, on Western Civilization, on Judaism, on Christianity, and on anyone and anything except themselves.” He indicts the “vast silent majority” of “decent honest good people” in the region as enablers of those who have brought this plague on themselves and the rest of the world.

Dr. Hariri points to 4 main pillars of the world conflict: The first pillar he states is suicide-murder which creates terror well beyond the total numbers for such deaths. Any comparison with deaths from AIDS in Africa or all the deaths in Russia or Bosnia as a result of the war in Chechnya would dwarf those caused by murder suicide. But one 9/11 incident or any similar scenario shocks and frightens by its sheer unpredictability. The impossibility of effectively countering these threats while maintaining anything like free movement of our citizens creates a level of continuing terror previously unknown. It also forces us to consider changes to the ordering of our society that appear Hobsonian in what they force us to sacrifice in cherished freedoms.

The second element is lies. “..The level of incitement and total absolute deliberate fabrications… have reached new heights in the region” says Hariri. I would add that the Western press has become a handmaiden to the deliberate distortions by giving those distortions and the ensuing round of additional falsifications that occur far more respect than they deserve. By failing to project a Western humanistic perspective in its reporting, our free press is failing to follow the precedent of most of the media in prior wars not to give aid and comfort to those who would destroy us. Thank heavens for email from our service personnel which counters the falsehoods and is for the most part supportive of our mission as well as their role in it.

The third element is money in obscene amounts that circulates to support munitions, travel, terrorists, hideouts, logistics, the layered support of planners, commanders, preachers and others all serving as a “terror infrastructure”. Again we need to decide that if we are at “war, we will use all the tools at our disposal to starve it of the resources used to wage its crimes against humanity.

Faced with this situation the Administration has had to scramble to reorder staffing and resource priorities for a war of ideas, a war that could in the view of one senior military commander very well last thirty years, and it has to devise a strategy that allows our society to continue to advance while satisfying the public that the very real losses continuing to be suffered are necessary, that we will win because we are right in the long run and that there is no less painful approach to make it all just go away.

The last pillar of the Muslim war is the breaking of all laws both moral and state ordained. Nothing other than the total victory of their medieval view of society is acceptable to them. They offer no quarter and view us as ripe for the taking because of our soft and fuzzy humanistic values. Reason is not to prevail in their system, only their rigid view of the requirements of the often conflicting dictates of their faith will do.

While I don’t have the answer to make it all go away, I have made the point to one member of the President’s national security team that the public is prepared to sacrifice so long as they understand what is at stake for them. Under close questioning, the response is that the President is firm in his resolve, is speaking out regularly laying out the case and is not receiving the media coverage necessary to reach our citizens with his cogent message. The administration understands that it has a serious communications problem but doesn’t seem to me as if they have any well thought out plan to solve it. Maybe it is the media moguls who need to be called to The White House for a chat on what is at stake and perhaps as well, the administration needs to add some right thinking Democrats to its team to make it clear that at least in this area we must be united. When accepting the reins of responsibility for defending the British Isles, Winston Churchill noted that all he had to offer his fellow citizens was “blood toil tears and sweat…” While our situation is not so dire, it is equally as serious, longer in term and more difficult of resolution. Our leadership is being tested but more importantly each of us is being tested as well, and this is a battle we dare not lose.

Copyright © 2007 by Robert E. Freer, Jr. All rights reserved

About the author: Robert E. Freer, Jr. is President of The Free Enterprise Foundation. He is a Visiting Professor, at The Citadel and elected in 2005 to be their first John S. Grinalds Leader in Residence. A regular contributor to the Mercury, He can be reached by E-mail at The Citadel . Copies of his earlier columns can be found The Free Enterprise Foundation.

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