Sunday, April 8, 2007

war of narratives

david brooks's column today finally acknowledges how the situation between the west and the middle east has no solution. he went to a conference in jordan between americans and moderate arab reformers intended to open up a dialogue on iran and iraq but the two groups but in the end "they had their narrative and we had ours." While Americans wanted to discuss "the Sunni-Shiite split, the Iraqi civil war and the rise of Iran" the Arabs wanted to talk about the Israel lobby and attribute all of its problems to it.

i think this is most unfortunate for the people suffering in Iraq: obviously it is hard to hear their voices via the mainstream media, but i can't believe the people that witness the bloodshed in their neighborhoods are focusing on a clandestine Israeli conspiracy. i think they want the violence to end and not to be used as leverage in a political issue. the moderate Arab reformers should focus on helping their own people first and their political aspirations second.

1 comment:

Teleportation Station said...

how are you gonna post that and not link to that shmuck's column?