With thanks: Ian
Former Wall St Journal journalist Bret Stephens, now at the New York Times.
This Prager education video may be a year old, but it remains highly topical: the journalist Brett Stephens (now at the New York Times) explains why antisemitism is at the root of the Arab world’s stunted growth and corrupts every aspect of Arab society.
You will not hear this explanation from journalists and academics, who assume that antisemitism in the Arab world is as natural as desert sand. The culprit is not colonialism, unemployed youth, the Sunni-Shia divide or any other politically-correct excuse.
The flight and expulsion of some 900,000 Jewish citizens led to a social, economic and intellectual decline. It is a documented fact that post-Inquisition Spain went into decline after expelling its Jews; so did Tsarist Russia at the turn of the 20th century. The Arab mind tries to find a scapegoat for its failures. Antisemitism makes the world seems simple: it all boils down to a malevolent Jewish conspiracy.
Nor is Israel the cause of antisemitism: pogroms in Palestine, Iraq and Libya predate the creation of Israel, and the ‘Oslo peace’ years saw the worst violence against Israel.
Successful nations learn from their neighbours; Arab states have made a point of hating theirs. For Israel it’s a pity, for the Arabs it’s a calamity.
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