But there's something else going on as well. Arabs are beginning to question the wisdom of this al Qaeda "jihad" against the rest of the world. People throughout the Arab world cheered as pictures of the burning towers appeared on their TV sets on September 11. Here was an Arab accomplishment. The sad fact is that there have been very few Arab accomplishments in the past century or so. Currently, the 300 million citizens of the Arab league countries, with a population ten times that of the state of California, have an economy (GDP) half the size of Californias. Even with all the oil wealth, the majority of the worlds known oil deposits in fact, the Arab world has fallen behind every other region in the world, except black Africa, in economic growth and development. Israel, with a population of six million, produces more scientific papers each year than 300 million Arabs. Greece, with a population of 12 million, translates more foreign language books each year than 300 million Arabs. Ignoring new, or foreign, ideas, has long been an Arab custom. But now many more Arabs are beginning to see it as a bad idea.
Another bad idea is blaming Israel for all the Arab world's troubles. Most of the Arabs killed in wars and terrorist violence during the last half century had nothing to do with Israel. For example, the 1980s war between Iraq and Iran, which killed several hundred thousand Arabs, had nothing to do with Israel. Nor did the bloody Yemen civil war of the 1960s and 70s. Westerners generally ignored this one, perhaps because Egypt sent troops, who used poison gas against the rebels. The civil war that is raging in Sudan right now, has nothing to do with Israel. The bloody campaigns between dictators and their opponents (democrats and religious fundamentalists) in so many Arab countries (Algeria, Syria, Egypt, Iraq), which has killed hundreds of thousands of Arabs, has nothing to do with Israel. Even the fifteen year civil war in Lebanon (1975-90), which is often blamed on Israel, was all about a centuries old battle between Christian and Islamic (from several different sects) Lebanese Arabs.
It's been very popular blame someone else for the failure of the Arab world. But there is a growing chorus of Arab opinion that states the obvious; there's something wrong with the way Arabs are running their own affairs. The current array of tyrants and unceasing anti-Western propaganda that defines the lives of most Arabs is being questioned. Radical Islam has been active for over two decades, and has a track record of failure and over a hundred thousand dead Arabs. The occupation of Iraq, and establishment of a democratic government there, poses yet another threat to the traditional Arab way of doing things. But millions of Arabs know that it will work, because these Arabs have emigrated to Western democracies in the last two decades, and found that this alien form of government fit them quite well.
Pride plays a role as well. Arabs don't want to dwell on all the lies they traded in for so many years. But the situation grows desperate. While Arab economies are stalled, their birth rates are not. A new generation of unhappy Arabs is coming of age, and by now there can be no illusions about how badly this will go if real reforms are not enacted quickly.
