After decades of being poisoned by lying propaganda, carefully instilled hatred, deliberately cultivated conspiracy theories, cultural brainwashing, and the development of conflict-based ideologies, there is no simple division between groups #1, #2 or #3, and members of #4 mostly belong to #1, #2 and/or #3 as well. Just because someone wants to reform his own society does not mean that he has necessarily recognized and beaten back the decades of mental poisoning that his rulers have performed on him vis a vis Israel. And even reformers who HAVE overcome this poisoning often attack Israel in order to showcase their nationalism, so that they can call for reforms in other areas. The Muslim Brotherhood is an example (no they're not liberal reformers, but they are not supporters of governments). There ARE some Arab reformers (al-Aloussi of Iraq and Sari Nusseibeh of Israel/PA, for example, who open their eyes and also refuse to do "boycott as usual." They rarely come to power, though, because their cultures have been poisoned for far too long. Arabs must see Israelis (and Arabs from different faiths) as human beings before the mental poison will abate.

you indeed called it right. however, you most certainly forgot to mention that this jealousy the arab moderates feel for us is not so much over our political transparecy and democracy as much as it is a severe and diabolical jealousy of our national success in each and every aspect of life, in innovation and in modernization. it is a threat to the arabs; our success, viability and survival as a modern vibrant nation despite the terrorism and death wish they have for israel. arab jealousy in not translated into looking at themselves to see what is wrong in their society. this jealousy is not thought of as an opportunity to self examine, as a door to open and advance as israel has. this jealousy turns to hatered, not self reflection, turns to resentment, not self criticism, turns to terrorism, not self inspection. in this way, this particular jealousy these arabs feel for israel is not turned into a productive self criticism where they can also take the reigns and start working on their civic and political institutions. it is in the arab immature personality to cry victim and act helpless and then resent and hate and blame all others for their faults and misery. they never take responsibility for their own actions and they never self reflect to see what is their role in their present abysmal situation, in the terrorism, in the unrest, in the murders and assassinations and lack of progress and education, etc... arabs are an emotional people and many of them uneducated and backwards (by political design), unfortunatelly. this is a great thing for the arab leaders that repress and subjugate them over the centuries. as much as arab muslims cannot question the kuran, they cannot question their leaders, otherwise, they are killed or eliminated. it is not easy for the arabs surrounding israel to see the amount of sucess israel is experiencing while they wallow in self pity, terror and backwardness. it will make the most moderates arabs jealous, with good reason. instead of examminig what is going on that is wrong in their societies, it is more comfortable for arabs to hate and resent, to kill and terrorise, to riot than talk. arabs are tribal and this is what the west doesn't comprehend. tribalism has no national unity and therefore only a dictator can quiet down the masses. arab unity is a concept invented in the 20th century that failed miserably because of this exact tribalism. khadafi of lybia was right....."we are basically tribes that can't get along with one another. so, how can we expect to get along with israel and the world"?. khadafi calls it as it is and no matter how much one would like to bring the horse to water, they can't make him drink. there has never been in the history of arab nations or "nationalism" a modern, visionary leader who had his civilians' welfare in mind. there has never been one who demanded progress and stability for their country and there has mostly never been one that was elected through fair elections where the people's voices demanded fair hearings. they were either deposed by assasination or murdered after they left office. no arab leader can ever make realistic peace with israel because there will always be an immediate anwar sadat incidence. anwar sadat is the SINGLE MOST INTELLIGENT ARAB LEADER THAT HAS EVER HAD HIS PEOPLE'S HOPES AND DREAMS IN MIND. this dream was killed with his assasination.

The Arab leaders in the Middle-East are afraid of peace. They simply cannot afford it. Peace and closer relations with Israel means democracy in the Arab countries, the end of the dictatorship in the Arab countries first, and then, in the Muslim countries. Can the Saudi King Abdullah accept this ? can Basher al-Assad accept this ? can all the petty tyrants of the Arabic Peninsula accept this ? Besides, can the Arab countries abandon Jihad ? In order to understand what that means you should consult : http://xrl.us/bi7kq

Whadda ya mean that "Israel is able to topple Prime Ministers". We couldn't get rid of Sharon, who began our recent destruction. Oilymert has been clinging to power like the corrupt leech that he is. And, when we finally are able to get rid of him, YEARS too late, (and we didn't do it, the investigations did) his party is electing a successor, who will be just as bad as he was, and we can't seem to do anything about it.. SO, what's good about that. I believe that the political and police corruption in Israel; is keeping thousands of potential families of Olim from coming on Aliya. I with my family of 6, am one of them.

any one, israeli or arab that can respond to #4? i find her/his analysis very interesting and in depth magdi reghli cairo, egypt a muslim reformist by nature

Afraid of getting your manicure blemished? You aren't making aliya because you don't want to, not because of any corruption. If you wanted to make aliya you'd be here and you'd be working to get the reforms in place to battle corruption. What a lazy, sad-assed excuse to not make aliya! Don't want you playing on my hockey team, that's for sure. You'd be sitting on the bench making every excuse as to why everybody else is no good with the puck, but you're the greatest. Greatest benchsitter, that is.

Unfortunately for you and your analysis, the Arabs already know what is wrong with their societies and with the dictatorships that they live under. You arrogantly assume that the Arabs are perpetually ignorant and unaware. Not so, they are involved in politics as much as any one. The difference being that Arabs prefer making political changes on the qt, hence the lack of any real coverage of such issues in newspapers and media outlets. Those who try to make a big splash are usually silenced one way or another. Things change slowly in the Arab world because we are patient and long-suffering people. If democracy were to suddenly appear in a dictatorship, there wold be a period of chaos and most of the leaders would be lynched. Understandably, dictators want some form of immunity should they ever be kicked out of office. As for there being no history of Arab nationalism, you're right: the Western powers arbitrarily divided the Arabs into smaller groups in a divide-and-conquer strategy, which makes the present countries rather awkward. Instead, the Arabs should have created one massive empire after the fall of the Ottoman empire. The British and French cleverly found the greediest tribal leaders and gave them their fiefs, the Hashemite tribe being top of the list. Think of the Arabs as the ancient Greek city states: they share a comman language, culture (to some extent) and religion, but each region views itself as distinct and unique. Lumping all Arbs thinkers into convenient categories (something Israelis and Jews decry) is unfair. And just for your information, Israel thinks too much of itself: its not as if the only thing the Arabs do, day and night, is follow Israel or Israeli politics! Furthermore, there are signs of success in the Arab world, with the beacon pointing towards the UAE. Lastly, but certainly not least, the author forgot an important fifth group: the indifferent. Many Arabs, and many of them are business men and entrepeneurs in the Arab world (I know from talking to them) couldn't care less what happens in Israel and are not overly sympathetic to the Palestinians. They're an important group because of the money and business they control. I know its hard for Israelis to believe that not everyone thinks they're the center of the world, but its true!

We're not the center of the world? really? WOW what a revelation!! I feel neglected now. LOL!! Just kidding. I like the way you write.

Both of you made very good observations. However, I believe there is a fundamental reason, why Arabs cannot reform their societies. That reason is a value system with some key flaws. The most obvious flaw is the lack of worth of human life. This results in general apathy to the murders of reform minded people. Thus tyranny endures. A second more subtle but very basic flaw is the importance Arabs place on Honour. The obsession with honour feeds one of the worst of human traits – pride, which leads to ego, selfishness, anger and many other forms of negative behaviour. Honour and self absorption negates the loftiest of human traits – humility. Thus by having a value system which replaces the best of human traits (humility) with one of its worst (honour), the Arabs created a dysfunctional society that cannot possibly succeed.

THE BRITISH COLONIZED MANY......INDIA,EGYPT THE INDIANS ARE BUILDING MICRO CHIPS EGYPT&THE ARAB REGIMES MAKING POTATO CHIPS.THE HOUSE OF SAUD DEVASTATED THE ARAB NATIONAL MOVEMENT NOT THE WEST REMEMBER NASSER,S ARMY IN YAMEN.THEN HAMAS COMM,S OUT WITH A NARROW MINDED SLOGAN ISLAM IS THE SOLUTION,I SAY NO TO THEM INSTITUTIONS ARE OUR REMEDY ,TECHNICALLY ISLAM&THE ARAB LANDS STUCK IN CIVILIZATION---LIMBO

How IS Israel different than the Arab couuntries? We have the same criminal politicians year after year. They get richer and more civilians die. I don't see the difference.

said, i am the person who wrote #4. first, i notice from reading your post that again, you do as most arabs do.....blame the west for colonization and "opression" of the arabs during the ottoman empire. you know, india and pakistan were also colonized. however, india is an economical power house now. india has gone to produce microchips, research with computers, science, medicine, etc... even with the political turmoil in the county's various regions. many other present day cpountries were colonized and "oppressed", as you call it, yet, managed to surface as stable, productive, technologiocal and advanced. "palestine" and jews were also oppressed and dictated to by britain and the ottoman empire. however, they managed to build a country that is top notch in industry, research, educational institutions, medicine, technology and high tech. and no one in these mentioned countries has assassinated leaders and created the havoc you see in arab societies and countries. you, again, are playing the "we blame the west" card, which is precicely what you, as arabs, sohuld stop doing. blaming is just blaming. it is not progress. to blame others as opressors for all your woes is not going to make a bit of difference in the arab world. it will keep it stagnant forever. so, take responsibility for your actions and place in your history and backwardsness and do something about it. blaming will never produce the results needed for the arab society and political entities. israel, in its inception, could have blamed the nazis for jewish annihilation, and the entire world for standing by quietly while 6 million of its people were burned to death. BUT THEY DIDN'T. yes, they blamed, but it didn't stop millions of jews who came to israel, devastated, poor, hungry, unsafe, demoralized and emaciated, to build a flourishing democracy based on justice and hope for a better future. it didn't stop these jews from creating, educating, advancing and building a nation that is a top model for deemocracy in the middle east and that is so advanced as to say, indeed, the arabs are left in the 7th century. israel may be arrogant. but it sure has a very good reason to be, don't you think? that despite the wars, bombings, political insecurity of this area, terror, etc... they still managed to build a top notch economically prosperous and a technological, medical, scientific giant of a country. all this, while the entire arab world surrounding it has not managed to achieve an eigth of what israel achieved. and why is that???? can you possibly say the arabs suffered more than the holocaust jews? can you say the arabs were as politically and humanely opressed as the jews of nazi germany? can yu seriously claim that the arabs in now israel were in as much human danger as the jews in europe? yet, the jews succeeded! stop the blame game. it will get you nowhere and will not make progress in the arab world happen. stop the blaming already! and start by creating a society that is normal and sound, that produces rather than kill. i wish you were right, that arabs are not obsessed with israel's existence. but you are wrong. they have an admiration-hate relationship with it. hence, the jealousy.i

Readers shouldn't listen to Guy Bechor, he is an Olmert apologist, and probably on the PMs payroll. This corruption scandal is a terrible thing, and Olmert's utter lack of shame is killing Israeli society.

A hirise or a 6-star hotel do not make a country viable but the educational and research centers do. There is nothing of that sort in UAE and it is still a dictatorship although a practical dictatorship.

"This group realizes that while in Israel the public controls its rulers" really, that's funny, most Israelis don't realize that (because it's not true)

This article is nothing but self-serving spin. We haven't "toppled" Olmert, nor do "the Arabs" admire us. What we have is really no different from what our neighbors have- extremist secular dictatorships who are indifferent to the will of the governed. This isn't democracy.

Please Mr. Bechor. Look at the real picture here. Arabs are not jealous. There is no jealousy in a history filled with virulent hate and incitement as in the entire Palestinian society when it comes to Israel. I hate to tell you but history is filled with stories of people who made the choice to rise upon against their own tyrannical leaders even if their own lives were lost doing so. History does not lie, sir. Free societies gained freedom only from sacrifice made inward not outward. PERIOD. BTW When Abbas picked up his phone and called to congratulate the newly released Jew Killer Samir Kuntar this was an act not driven by jealousy but deep hate by a man whitewashed quite easily by the west. When Abbas then traveled to Lebanon and met with the Jew KILLER Kuntar he proved his true feelings of a perversion of reality with the groundwork laid in a demented society. And why not do what Abbas did, after all it was not spoken of or written about anywhere in the West. When society is driven by hate then HATE IT WILL BE. Until such hate is washed out of their society by 'themselves' there will be freedom and peace. Jealousy is a rather normal phenomenon but wishing in all facets of society to throw Israel into the sea goes far deeper than the depth and breadth of mere jealousy. Having said that, in Palestinian society it was deemed to not make sacrifices onto ones own but unto others even if there was the slim possibility of of feeling bad about doing so. Furthermore, Palestinians are co-dependents upon others both Jew and non Jew who feed their hate by feeding them expecting nothing given in return.

You don't know what the hell you're talking about. We already lived for 14 years in Israel, we were married in Ramat Gan, my 4 children were born there . We HAD to leave because we became embroiled in a legal tzimmis with the Moetza Mekomit, actually the VERY corrupt mayor, who actually stole some of our bought and paid for migrash, to give to his City Engineer friend, my next door "neighbour. All he did was move a line on the Platt. The mayor told us, "if you don't like it, go back where you came from" his EXACT WORDS. THIS WAS ALL HE SAID, I was thinking he didn't understand English, until he said this. Our apartment was "vandalized" when we were away, over $250,000 damage,. EVERYTHING trashed. LP records snpped in 2, 250 of them, hundreds of books torn to pieces, sheets and towels shredded. NOBODY in the 25 apartment block heard a THING. I filled a dumper with over 50 boxes of ex-valuable items. My stamp collection , jewellery-EVERYTHING. The police knew the culprits but fingerprinted ME when I went to complain about the slowness of the "investigation". I heard NOTHING more..NEVER-to this day. We HAD to leave, the lawyers finally broke us. We'd like to go back, BUT....... We originally went, inspired by Menachem Begin... when he resigned it was a struggle with no ending...............AND..what the hell is a "wussie"??. If you want to know more, and get involved in this I'd be happy to send you my email address, in fact I give this column permission to give it to you on request...........Wussie !! Pshaw.......

Wrong, arabs do not envy israel while olmert is in power. They mock it, laugh at it and humiliate it. Never has israel had such a cowardly and weak leader matched by a cowardly family. Even eshkol was better as he had some inner morality. Olmert is crooked to the core and would sell his own father Micheal out and ripped off a holocaust charity according to the police.Aliza would be interested in this because she comes out of a holocaust family. Imagine that lador is saying that Olmert stole from a holocaust charity. Alliza, Shaul, Ariel and Dana-Lador is calling your father a crook, lier and criminal. Did it sink in yet?

someone here said that there is nothing spectacular about the uae. i disagree. they made lots of progress in building beautiful tourist sites. they made lots of progress importing snow and building a ski "mountain" for their rich to enjoy. they made progress in building homes and gardens for the very rich and very politically/religiously/royalty connected. HOWEVER.... did they make this beautifying/modernization progress with their own brains and hard work? no! they imported knowhow from other civilized advanced nations, imported cheap labour from asia and other arab countries (even palestinians), imported all the goods (which they do not produce) to be flown into uae and build all these magnificent things. there is not one iota of reality in thinking that these beautifications were arab made or arab invented, or arab researched. they still do not have the knowhow to extract their oil from the ground unless the usa helps them or helped them. without the petro dollars generated because the world is dependent on oil, they used all this money for modernization. however, if they didn't have these dollars, i doubt that, even today, they themselves would have been able to come up with the materials, architechture and construction knowhow of these magnificent, though gaudy, buildings. moreover, i do not see any money in any arab country, even the richest one of all, made available to build research institutions, universities and intellect knowhow, medical research, technological advancements, etc... which are indeed the cornerstone to building a sound democracy, sound viable economy and stability and progress into the 21st century. as well, all this money is in the hands of the elite and never trickles down to the masses to aleviate the desperate poverty, desperate economical situation of its citizens and desperate educational abyss they find themselves in even today. you can only blame this not on "occupation and colonialization, but on the arabs themselves. by any stretch of the imagination, israel was not supposed to succeed and win the 48 war. the reason they won is because they had a dream to achieve, a hope to advance, a desire to work hard and develop themselves into a high ranking nation, a people with tons to give back to humanity in terms of culture, know how and fantastic innovations in major fields all over the globe. do you know why they succedded while the arabs didn't? because they faught a war to survive, not a war of hate. because they faught a war of INDEPENDENCE, while the arabs were already independent. so, said. look inside closely. look inside and tell yourself the truth. look and do not judge or hate others for their sucess, but try to observe how it was done so that an intelligent person such as yourself can bring this change to your people. by the way, if arabs are not obssessed with israel, how do you explain the constant trash propaganda on their radios, tv specials, antisemetic books in their markets and street stand and the constant belligerence towards israel in the middle east and abroad?

you are mistaken. look around you at your dear neighbors. you do have a democracy!!!! if you didn't, all those protesting and wanting to topple government figures WOULD BE DEAD BY NOW. if you didn't have democracy, you would not have the opportunity to read smears and political criticism in your papers, radios, periodicals and magazines or even in university lecture halls. what you have is a lying elite and a corrupt one at that. that has nothing to do with not having a democracy!

You stated: “And just for your information, Israel thinks too much of itself: its not as if the only thing the Arabs do, day and night, is follow Israel or Israeli politics!” Do you ever read Arab newspapers? Pick just about any of them, and read the front page of their website for a few days, and count how many stories are about Israel or the Palestinians. There are about 15 million Palestinians and Israeli’s, and somewhere around a billion Arabs, yet Israel/Palestine often cover 10 to 30 per cent of the front page. There is seldom a day where there are NO stories about Israel or the Palestinians. For example, take a look at www.arabamericannews.com/news/, often half of their opinion page is about Israel or the Palestinians. Another example, last week Egypt suffered from a terrible land slide that killed many. Yet the Egyptian Al-Ahram weekly front page reported far more on Israel and the Palestinians then it did on the disaster. And the ironic part – it was a slow news week in Israel/Palestine, the biggest story was about that British women not being allowed into Israel or Egypt. And now that the US Elections are in full swing just about every Arab paper has multiple columns on each candidate’s views on Israel. And most have theories on the how AIPAC is controlling the candidates and the elections. So maybe you’re right, they don’t follow Israeli politics day and night, but the Arab press is ensuring they can’t go very long without hearing about Israel.

First of all, thanks to all who answered - your comments were insightful and interesting. But I would like you to read my first post somewhat more carefully. I stated: "The British and French cleverly found the greediest tribal leaders and gave them their fiefs, the Hashemite tribe being top of the list." Hence, it is the Arabs at fault, not the European powers. The Arabs themselves should have rejected the arbitrary partition of their land into countries that suited the West - and the West naturally does what is best for itself, as should every nation. I do not begrudge them that, I merely pointed out the stupidity and greed of tribal leaders. I put the blame on Arab backwardness squarely on the Arabs - I know because I grew up in an Arab country, and lived in their culture as something of an outsider. Secondly, as I state before, things move slowly in the Arab world. Craig from the USA (#19) says that no educatinal institutions are being set up: actually there are. Branches of top American universities are being opened there and in other Gulf countries, museusm, art galleries (both Western and Islamic) and so forth. Even though these countries are dictatorships (as are most Arab countries), at least they don't let the vast majority of their people live in squalor, such as: Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Saudi, Iraq (under Saddam). Furthermore, they'er moving their economies away from the oil industry (especially the UAE) to such things as financial hubs and tourism hotspots. In other words, they're giving their citizens a future - any future better than squalor, when the oil runs out or is no longer used. That at least, is worthy of some praise. Third, when I said "And just for your information, Israel thinks too much of itself: its not as if the only thing the Arabs do, day and night, is follow Israel or Israeli politics!", I was naturally not referring to the government controlled media outlets. Obviously, Israel to them is a useful scapegoat for their own incompetence, greed and corruption. And its a rather absurd one "I'm incompetent, greedy and corrupt because Israel exists!" Only an Arab leader of the worst caliber (which they almost all of them are) could come up with such brazen nonesense. What I meant was the common man in the street. For them, their livelihoods, their businesses and their families (i.e. like everyone else in the world) take precedence over everything. Sometime I get the impression that Israelis and Westerners think Arabs foaming at the mouth at the mention of Israel. Most actually shrug and change the subject. They're not all that interested comapred to their next day (an problem) at work. Lastly, the guy (girl?) who wrote #4 (sorry, you didn't mention your name) mentioned in passing that I should change the Arab world I tried preaching (too strong a word?) to the children of the highest echelons of a certain Arab country. They were supposedly, the richest and the most openminded in that country, but they wouldn't listen because they refused to face their own faults, they refused (especially the boys) to let go of the power tradition bequeathed to them. And this was when I was still at school, when you'd think that their minds would be nost open to free thought and to outside influences and impressions from different viewpoints. I'm not going to be the one who brings change to the Arab world because I'll be crucified in two seconds. Its not that I fear pain or death, its just that I'd be wasting my one life on some worthless, stubborn people!

said, i am a female, a jew and israeli now living in the usa. i lived in israel most of my life, did army service and spent a very long time researching arabs politics and their culture and mentality. i also am the person who wrote #4 and other talkback comments without putting my name down. i apologize. i do it because i am in a hurry and at times, lazy. anyway, i want to tell you that i 100% have the most respect for you both as an arab and what seems to be a very intelligent, feeling and modern individual. i believe that all these things you mention about your people are things that hurt you terribly, if not frustrate you indefinitely. as for israel, unfortunatelly, israel and jews have to pay for what you are saying simply because they live in the neighborhood of your people with continuous hate,terror, bloodshed and a chronic inability for israel to change this "stubborn" arab mindset you are talking about. yes, we pay the price also for those corrupt leaders and for centuries of antisemetic propaganda in the arab world. your leaders KNOW THEIR PEOPLE. they know how to rile the masses to hate, to bomb, to terrorise and to never accept peace. i don't have to tell you that. you lived amongst arabs most of your life, i suppose. however, no matter who the west put in charge of all these tribes, it still befalls on the arab masses to extract themselves and demand something better. look at iran and the shah revolution....unfortunatelly ending up in going backwards rather than forwards. but revolution, they had, nontheless. you can do the same thing. don't they see that if there is peace in these nations and with israel, the west will open its arms in terms of trade, bussiness, etc.... is it not in the interest of the arab man and woman and child to have a better future? israel can help its neighborhood SO VERY MUCH. why don't they let us? why the constant hate, the constant wars they foist on us? why the constant terror? it's because the arab world encourages it! the arabs and their leaders, in the same way. israel;is dream of peace. dream of coexistence, i more than anyone!!!! but arabs won't let go, won't let go until they kill us all. and for what? for what? what can they possibly accomplish if one tiny country is not amongst them? ha???? i just can't comprehend how your people think and behave. it's beyond me. i am not blaming you. i am respecting you and i have the most regard for your answer. i wish most were like you than the voices and faces we see and hear in the arab world. salam and shalom to you.....maybe one day, just maybe.

said, just curious. what do you do for a living? i am fascinated with your answer because i have never heard an arab speak like you do. (i am #4). what country do you come from and what are some of the things that have shaped your life, mind and thoughts? i come from the high political echelons of israel and have been involved with politics (from the sidelines, of course) most of my life. i reside in the usa now and am a adjunct prof at an elite university here. so, it'll be in my interest to hear about your background and experiences. secondly, have you ever been to israel? you should go, not just read about it in the papers. you would be amazed to discover that all that arab media you were exposed to is basically twisted and incorrect. israel is amazing, its people are a breed of a different color. it is politically vibrant, free and you can hear many opinions, criticism on a daily basis. you will find the country fascinating and its people, if not irritating at times, warm and welcoming to anyone. this is the kind of journey a person such as yourself, with an open mind and attitude, should take. i wish you well.