Arab World

For many Americans -- as well as in the preponderance of media -- the Persian Gulf war is understood in stark terms: Bad guy Saddam Hussein invaded the little country of Kuwait, the United Nations coalition drew a line in the sand, gave the new Hitler an ultimatum and finally went in and forced him out.OK, so why is there still savage fighting in Iraq? We hear about at least four factions -- Kurds, Shiites, Palestinians and Saddam's Revolutionary Guard. What's the difference between them?

It is troubling that neither The Sun's news coverage nor its editorial regarding the United Nations' recognition of Palestine as a non-member observer state bothered to mention what Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas actually said in his speech to the General Assembly preceding the vote. President Abbas could have used the U.N. forum to confirm Palestine's commitment to peaceful coexistence with Israel and to underscore how its enhanced U.N. status will further that goal. Instead, Mr. Abbas defamed Israel by repeating the scurrilous lies and distortions that are common parlance in the Arab world.

WASHINGTON -- On a recent tour of India, I was visiting with an Indian Muslim community leader, Syed Shahabuddin, and the conversation drifted to the question of why the Muslim world seems so angry with the West. "Whenever I am in America," he said, "people ask me, `Why do they hate us?' They don't hate you. If they hated you, would they send their kids to be educated by you? Would they look up to you as a model? They hate that you are monopolizing all the nonrenewable resources [oil].

For all those who believe The Sun's position on Palestinian statehood has merit, the following is offered for consideration ("Pressure on Israel to negotiate," Nov. 30). The Palestinian statehood that they are seeking now, they could have had in 1948 with an internationalized Jerusalem if not for the Arab world's belligerence in and out of the United Nations to this very day. The territory they lost to the Israelis was a direct result of the many attacks and provocations the Arab world initiated and against which the Israelis defended themselves successfully.

DAMASCUS, Syria -- The rapidly escalating conflict in Lebanon has divided the Arab world, deepening the gulf between rulers and ruled and reinforcing in the public's mind the impotence of regimes that for two generations have been unable to produce a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, governments with ties to the United States have guardedly denounced Hezbollah for the attack on Israel that triggered the fighting - even as the people began tacking up posters of Hassan Nasrallah, the bearded, turbaned cleric who heads the Shiite militia group and has vowed to bring "war on every level" to Israel's door.

WASHINGTON - Amid grievances on both sides, President Bush will welcome one of America's most powerful Middle East allies to his Crawford, Texas, ranch today in hopes that discussions in a relaxed setting will bridge a widening rift between the United States and the Arab world. The visit of Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia offers Bush a possible vehicle for seeking an end to the 19-month guerrilla war between Israelis and Palestinians. Bush has praised a peace proposal by Prince Abdullah, adopted last month by the Arab League, that offers Israel normal relations with the Arab world in return for a full withdrawal from land that the Jewish state occupied during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. But today's meeting comes against the backdrop of widespread Arab anger over U.S. support for Israel and mounting resentment in the United States over a failure by Arab leaders to condemn and combat terrorism against Israelis.

Within days of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, President Bush learned his first lesson about the difficulties of cross-cultural communication when he referred to the fight against terrorism as a "crusade." That word went virtually unnoticed in America and Europe but enraged people in the Islamic world where it is forever associated with bloody, racist wars as medieval Christians sought time and again to wrest the Holy Land from Muslim control. Was Christendom on the warpath again? Bush's press secretary issued an apology, and the word "crusade" has not cropped up again.

The most surprising aspect of President Barack Obama's speech Thursday on U.S. policy in the Middle East may have been his strongly worded call for a two-state solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, based on Israel's boundaries before 1967. Observers had been speculating for weeks about whether Mr. Obama would offer his own plan for a Mideast peace agreement as the White House scrupulously declined to comment on the subject. Yet the outline for peace unveiled by the president Thursday was surprising not so much because it was anything new but because, as the president acknowledged, everybody has known all along that's what ultimately has to happen - even though they've spent decades pretending otherwise.

WASHINGTON - President Bush defended yesterday Israel's continued occupation of the West Bank towns of Ramallah and Bethlehem, calling Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon a "man of peace" who is trying to bring "killers" to justice. Speaking a day after Secretary of State Colin L. Powell returned from the Middle East without the cease-fire he had hoped to broker, Bush made clear that the U.S. peace efforts cannot move forward until Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and leaders in the Arab world crack down on terrorists.

The first crisis of united Germany is massive unemployment from collapse of the spy biz.The Arab world would have more moderate leaders if they didn't get bumped off with such frequency.

Titillation over David Petraeus and political posturing over Susan Rice aside, here is the most important unasked question: Why did we foster regime change in Libya and Egypt that gave the Muslim Brotherhood control in the latter and produced a gaggle of Islamic militias in the former? Earlier, we forced elections in Lebanon and Palestine that gave Hezbollah control in Lebanon and Hamas the Gaza Strip. Again, why? Replacing the Mubarak government has left the border between Gaza and Egypt more open for weapons deliveries to Hamas, which produced the latest conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

Your editorial on Katie Moody's tasteless tweet was either written by two different people in two different worlds or is a prime example of the lunacy that is all too common in our culture today ("Offensive tweet, outrageous response," Sept. 27). In the same editorial, Ms. Moody's right to free speech, however moronic, was defended, while the rights of her equally moronic respondents were dismissed out of hand. No doubt most of those respondents hid behind some cowardly pseudonym, which is detestable.

Prior to leaving Egypt for the United Nations General Assembly, Egypt's Islamist President Mohamed Morsi told The New York Timesthe United States needs to "fundamentally change" its approach to the Arab world. That includes, he said, showing greater respect for Arab values, as well as helping to build a Palestinian state. Is there an Arab equivalent for the Yiddish word "chutzpah"? It isn't the policies and attitude of the United States toward the Arab world that need changing. It's the attitude and policies of the Arab world that need to change.

With all the protests and violence in Arab and Muslim countries generated by a despicable and demeaning film about Islam, here is a sobering prediction: There will be more such films and clips, they will be even more provocative, and they will generate even more violent reaction among Arabs and Muslims. And no matter who is behind them, many will see the hands of Israel and the United States. Yet this is not time for panic but for steady and intensive diplomacy. This is an easy prediction to make.

When the violence in Syria began spinning out of control last year, the Obama administration made the unusual decision to bring its ambassador to the troubled country home. And for Ambassador Robert Ford, coming home has long meant returning to Baltimore. The 54-year-old veteran diplomat, who won worldwide acclaim for making a dramatic trip last summer to meet with Syrian protesters, has for years chosen to live in Baltimore when stateside. He has embraced the city's culture and character, which fit his personality far better than Washington ever could.

As a psychologist who has spent more than a year in the Middle East, I have been following with great interest the commentary following the massacre in Afghanistan by the U.S. soldier last Saturday ("Killings of 16 appall Afghans," March 12). Almost all of the opinions expressed by leaders, pundits and talk show listeners betray a fundamental cultural myopia. They seek to find the pathology in the individual and not in the wider society. We think that the soldier must suffer combat fatigue from multiple deployments or suffer from post traumatic stress disorder or another mental illness and rush to declare the incident an isolated one of a rogue soldier.

For all those who believe The Sun's position on Palestinian statehood has merit, the following is offered for consideration ("Pressure on Israel to negotiate," Nov. 30). The Palestinian statehood that they are seeking now, they could have had in 1948 with an internationalized Jerusalem if not for the Arab world's belligerence in and out of the United Nations to this very day. The territory they lost to the Israelis was a direct result of the many attacks and provocations the Arab world initiated and against which the Israelis defended themselves successfully.

WASHINGTON -- While a deeply divided nation and its candidates for president and vice president debate the issue of who or what is to blame for why America is hated in the world today, the real work of bridging the divide between the United States and its enemies goes undone. Regardless of who becomes president in January, we have to communicate better with large parts of the world, particularly the Arab and Muslim world, where skepticism and disdain for the United States run deep. And we must figure out better ways to support citizens of the Arab world who need access to information about their lives and about the globe on which they live.

Regarding your editorial "Obama and the Arab Spring" (May 20), your assessment that the president laid out a "pragmatic, nuanced approach to the region" is not borne out by the realities on the ground. The region is still embroiled in chaos and conflict. Most recently Coptic Christians and Islamists have clashed in Egypt. Libya seems mired in stalemate. Bahrain and Syria continue repression and murder of protesters on the streets. And Saudi Arabia's royal family is not even remotely ready for democracy.

The most surprising aspect of President Barack Obama's speech Thursday on U.S. policy in the Middle East may have been his strongly worded call for a two-state solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, based on Israel's boundaries before 1967. Observers had been speculating for weeks about whether Mr. Obama would offer his own plan for a Mideast peace agreement as the White House scrupulously declined to comment on the subject. Yet the outline for peace unveiled by the president Thursday was surprising not so much because it was anything new but because, as the president acknowledged, everybody has known all along that's what ultimately has to happen - even though they've spent decades pretending otherwise.