Why All Middle Eastern Politics Can't Be Reduced Merely to the Arab-Israeli Conflict

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
16 August '10

I simply cannot comprehend why so many in the West refuse to see that Arabs can be revolutionaries. It is remarkable that so many who claim to be experts don’t incorporate the idea that Arabs, like other peoples, might dislike their existing societies or be motivated by ideologies claiming to be the blueprints for utopias.

After all, if Africans, Asians, Europeans, and Latin Americans think and behave this way, why aren’t Arabs going to act the same?

The two paragraphs above are written in response to yet another book, by a very experienced expert on the region, saying that al-Qaida is almost completely motivated by the Palestinian issue as well as a couple of articles claiming that the only reason why the United States or President Barack Obama isn't popular in the Middle East is due to Israel.

In fact, al-Qaida, Hamas, Hizballah, Muslim Brotherhoods, and other Islamist groups, have been overwhelmingly motivated by a desire to revolutionize the entire Muslim-majority world (and even the whole world) in line with its interpretation of Islam. Al-Qaida's original cause was to overthrow the Saudi royal family, followed by an effort to help Iraq against Western pressure. In al-Qaida documents before and after the September 11 attacks, the Palestinian issue was not mentioned more than about ten percent of the time and never highlighted.

In addition, radical Arab nationalists, including many intellectuals and several Arab regimes (Egypt, 1952-1970; Syria, 1949-present; Iraq, 1958-2003; Libya, 1973-present), have sought to unite the Arab world under their leadership, overthrow neighboring governments, and expel Western influence in line with their ambitions and ideology.

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