The ever logical mind of Victor David Hanson explaining the Muslim mentality:
“But above all, for decades leaders like Gamal Nasser, Ayatollah Khomeini, Saddam Hussein, Yasser Arafat and Osama bin Laden have scapegoated tiny Israel.
It is the closest Western bogeyman, and its Holocaust survivors transformed a part of desert into a technologically sophisticated Western state. Israel ‘s astounding success is a constant irritant to many nearby Muslims, representing the infidel’s ability to fashion a prosperous Middle Eastern society without oil revenues under democratic auspices.
Victimization turns out to be the real creed of the Middle East , uniting disparate Shiites, Sunnis, dictators, theocrats and terrorists. “They did it to us” offers an easy explanation of why Islamic states are now weak and offer little hope to millions of their poor, who, ironically, emigrate to the much pilloried West by the millions.
American cash aid, Israeli concessions, windfall petrol profits and, most of all, appeasement of radical Islamists can do nothing to alleviate these perceived grievances.
Instead, there will be no peace in the general Middle East until Iranians and Arabs have true constitutional government, free institutions, open markets and the rule of law. Without these reforms, they will continue to fail, seeking easy refuge in the shreds of mythical ancestral honor — and this pathetic neurosis of blaming nearby Israel for the loss of it.”
Here in Van Nuys 
Armed militias, independant armies, groups of thugs, and internationally funded terrorist wackos are a tough bunch to corral, I imagine.
I am a bit more familiar with the gang situation in Los Angeles. When I look at the middle east today, am reminded of what happened in Los Angeles’ black communities in the 1960’s (according to Aljandro Alonso).
To quote from Mr. Alonso: “The attack on … political leadership [in the 1960’s], … and the power vacuum that remained, created a large void … that coincided with the resurgence of black gangs [in the 1970’s]”
Legitimate (by force or by application of laws) political leadership in various regions of the middle east has long since been shattered. As I see it there are two ways to resolve this issue: (1) total massacre of all residents of this region of the planet not on a chosen “side”; or, (2) working towards establishing legitmate political leadership in the region.
Any person with a conscience would choose resolution (2). However, even a brief perusal of the history of the region will demonstrate that there has been a non-insignificant amount of undermining of legitimate political leadership in the region by larger foreign powers. The language of victimization is an easy pardigm to work within given this context. Gangbangers in Los Angeles use it today in their criminal trials – and though it may ring hollow to some of us, there is truth in it.
“[T]rue constitutional government, free institutions, open markets and the rule of law … ” are an endpoint to a long line of tactical policy and logistic decisions. These traits must be cultivated, not installed. It must be openly recognized that these traits of a free society have been intentionally destroyed in this region in the past. In the human details of their earlier destruction, I believe we will find a means to reestablish these traits of a free society. The paradigm of vicitmization is a symptom, and not the problem.
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Not all Muslims are in the Middle East. The largest Muslim population is in Indonesia, which has a history that has little in common with the Middle Eastern experience.
As for Israel, the Jewish nation is a useful safety valve for the Muslim nations to scapegoat. The problem is that Israel must remain a totem for the peoples’ hatred. Every Middle Eastern nation can unite and overwhelm Israel if they wanted to, but the nations can live off at most one generation of victory before the population becomes restive again and turns all hostility inward. And if you think it’s tough to get oil out of there now …
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There are legitimate gripes about Israel, but given that the territory includes such lovely governments as Iran, Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Libya and Algeria, and co-religionists such as Pakistan and Indonesia…that is one billion persons calling themselves Muslim…one would hope they could find a way to reconcile themselves to accepting and co-existing with the fractionally tiny minority state of 5 million called Israel.
Instead, they support armed militias who have independent armies not answerable to any government, law or reason.
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I am not a middle east specialist, but you have to agree that people native to the region do have some legitimate gripes about the negative aspects of the creation of the Israeli state.
There is a lot of 19th and 20th century meddling by westerners that eliminated the ability for anyone other than a gangster or a zealot to rise to power.
I don’t think that any particular physcological mindset predominates in the people of the mideast – other than the typical views that people anywhere have. For example, they would like to live in a nice place, enjoy the opportunities that life presents them with, have a family that is successful, etc.
Of course, I’m no scholar on this topic. All I’ve got to use is the lens of Anthropology I picked up in college – which stressed our common humanity.
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There is a great video of an Arab-American woman who really sums it up, and strikes back at a fellow Arab on a newscast… makes you want to stand up and clap! http://youtube.com/watch?v=DwRPNis93HU
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