Wednesday, April 26, 2006

SCAPEGOATS OF THE MODERN WORLD

Who is to blame for the terrorist attacks in Dahab? The Israelis, of course!
Retired General Salah al-Din Salim, an Egyptian researcher at the Strategic Studies Institute in Cairo, said that it could not be ruled out that the Israeli Mossad was involved in the terror attack in Dahab.

"The Mossad's ability to penetrate the Bedouins in Sinai is known," Salim said in an interview with al-Jazeera. (Roee Nahmias)


The Big Pharaoh blogging from Egypt reports that:(hat tip: The Belmont Club)
The poll above was posted on Egypt's number one web portal Masrawy.com. The question asks people whom they think was behind the bombings in Dahab yesterday. 48.9% of the respondents so far think that the Israeli Mossad was behind the terrorist attack. 4.2% believe it was Al-Qaeda and 21% think it was the work of internal terrorist groups.

The above poll is a clear indication of the trouble we as a nation are in. Up till now the vast majority among us and especially among our intelligentsia don't want to admit that we have a terrorist problem in our society, in our currently practiced religiosity. Up till now we don't want to look in the mirror and see what's wrong with us and with our culture. This is the reason why I don't see light at the end of tunnel anytime soon as far as our Arab/Islamic world is concerned.


The poll cited by him shows that almost half of all Egyptians believe that Israel's Mossad is behind the attacks. I heard one Egyptian official on TV ask plaintively, "Why would Muslims kill other Muslims?"

Why indeed. I suppose he believes that the carnage inflicted by Al Qaeda and Zarqawi in Iraq is also a clever Jewish plot to destabilize Iraq. The unwillingness of Islam to face it own brutality and uncontrollable murderous rage is merely the primitive denial of projection and paranoia. It allows them to continue their self-deception that Islam is a religion of peace and that they are victims of the rage and insidious plotting of nefarious forces.

The definition of a scapegoat is "one that bears th e blame for others; one that is the object of irrational hostility."

Scapegoats are common when the psychological defenses of denial and projection are being used. Projection, to quickly remind you, is the psychological process of attributing one's own unacknowledged or unacceptable feelings, thoughts and behaviors to others.

The Arab world has this defense mechanism down pat. One of the expressions of a shame culture is the rampant psychological projection and refusal to accept responsibility for the atrocities committed in the name of Islam. Not only are we regularly subjected to imams, religious leaders, and leaders of Muslim states stating even now that 9/11 or the London bombings were not committed by Muslims; they also regularly blame the Jews for such acts. In this way they can avoid the shame of taking responsibility for evil.

The Arabs and the Islamic world are certainly not the only ones who have a marked preference for scapegoating the Jews rather than take responsibility for their own actions, feelings and thoughts. It is, in fact, a worldwide phenomenon.

The Jews--as exemplified by Israel--are the favored scapegoats of the modern world.

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