Birth rates in the region are very high, increasing the poverty, the social gaps and the cultural decline. And all of this is happening in a region, which only 30 years ago, was believed to be the next wealthy part of the world, and in a Moslem area, which developed, at some point in history, one of the most advanced cultures in the world.
It is fair to say that this creates an unprecedented breeding ground for cruel dictators, terror networks, fanaticism, incitement, suicide murders and general decline. It is also a fact that almost everybody in the region blames this situation on the United States, on Israel, on Western Civilization, on Judaism and Christianity, on anyone and anything, except themselves.
The Middle East hasn't developed like other regions of the world. The oil meant corrupt regimes were propped up by the west (principally America). Islam isn't the reason things are so badly wrong in the region, the Arabs see Islam as the alternative to what they have now.
Islam is to an Arab now what communism was to Russians in 1916.
It's an alternative to the corruption and oppresive rule of men who the man on the street thinks have sold out to the Americans.
Suicide murders are not a new invention but they have been made popular, if I may use this expression, only lately.
It depends how he's defining lately. Suicide murders were popularised by the (Hindu) Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, who carried out hundreds of such attacks since the 80s.
Finally, we find the third circle of so-called religious, educational and welfare organizations, which actually do some good, feed the hungry and provide some schooling, but brainwash a new generation with hatred, lies and ignorance. This circle operates mostly through mosques, madrasas and other religious establishments but also through inciting electronic and printed media. It is this circle that makes sure that women remain inferior, that democracy is unthinkable and that exposure to the outside world is minimal.
I think he's completely wrong there. Democracy is unthinkable to the Saudi Royal family, the various Emirs, Assad, Mubarak etc, not to the religious groups. Limited as it is, Iran has more democracy now than it did under the Shah.
It is also that circle that leads the way in blaming everybody outside the Moslem world, for the miseries of the region.
I don't think they do. They certainly blame their own governments too. It strikes me that most analysis of the Middle East ignores the fact that there is only one Islamic country, Iran, and an awful lot of corrupt dictatorships with Islamic opposition movements.
It's far more effective for an opposition movement to place blame on foreign forces. Hitler blamed the international Jewish conspiracy, the communists international capitalism.
The fourth element of the current world conflict is the total breaking of all laws. The civilized world believes in democracy, the rule of law, including international law, human rights, free speech and free press, among other liberties. There are naïve old-fashioned habits such as respecting religious sites and symbols, not using ambulances and hospitals for acts of war, avoiding the mutilation of dead bodies and not using children as human shields or human bombs. Never in history, not even in the Nazi period, was there such total disregard of all of the above as we observe now.
I think he's being silly claiming the Nazis respected laws and norms more than the Islamic world.
Do you raid a mosque, which serves as a terrorist ammunition storage? Do you return fire, if you are attacked from a hospital? Do you storm a church taken over by terrorists who took the priests hostages? Do you search every ambulance after a few suicide murderers use ambulances to reach their targets? Do you strip every woman because one pretended to be pregnant and carried a suicide bomb on her belly? Do you shoot back at someone trying to kill you, standing deliberately behind a group of children? Do you raid terrorist headquarters, hidden in a mental hospital? Do you shoot an arch-murderer who deliberately moves from one location to another, always surrounded by children? All of these happen daily in Iraq and in the Palestinian areas. What do you do? Well, you do not want to face the dilemma. But it cannot be avoided.
Do you condemn your opponents use of ambulances, whilst using them to transport your own soldiers on offensive missions against those opponents?
Do you drop a 2000lb bomb on an inhabited apartment block because it contains a man you want to kill? Do you fire a tank shell at a crowd in a market who are breaking curfew? Do you settle 300 of your citizens in amongst people you deny citizenship to, and set up a free fire zone around the settlement? Do you shoot children dead from a kilometre away when they cross an undefined line 200 yards from the settlement? Do you keep on establishing new settlements, knowing it will deprive the people you deny citizenship to of their freedom of movement, their livelihood, an adequate water supply, and will inevitably lead to the odd "accidental" death?
To focus on Palestinian crimes whilst not even mentioning some of the issues behind them is disengenuous.
Now that Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya are out, two and a half terrorist states remain: Iran, Syria and Lebanon, the latter being a Syrian colony
I think this betrays the Israeli agenda in this more than anything. Clearly, Saudi Arabia is the most dangerous terrorist state to the west. Not through the direct actions of their government, but through the situation that government has created. It was Saudis who were behind 911, not Iranian, Syrian or Lebanese. Iran, Syria and Lebanon are Israel's bugbears.
Is the solution a democratic Arab world? If by democracy we mean free elections but also free press, free speech, a functioning judicial system, civil liberties, equality to women, free international travel, exposure to international media and ideas, laws against racial incitement and against defamation, and avoidance of lawless behavior regarding hospitals, places of worship and children, then yes, democracy is the solution.
That I agree with.
On the other hand, a certain transition democracy, as in Jordan, may be a better temporary solution, paving the way for the real thing, perhaps in the same way that an immediate sudden democracy did not work in Russia and would not have worked in China.
Agree again. The West should have pushed for more openness amongst Arab regiemes decades ago. Instead we allowed them to behave as they liked as long as they didn't turn communist or fundamentalist and kept the oil flowing. (not that that was an unreasonable course to take, but it's led to the current situation)
What's your take on these situations then? How does Israel figure into each of them?
It doesn't. But there are literally dozens of wars going on in the world that have nothing to do with Islam either. Africa is full of them. Backward regions tend to have lots of wars.