Reporter Interviews Al-Jazeera Editor-In-Chief

Via Little Green Footballs comes the link to this interview of the Editor-in-Chief of al-Jazeera, the "Arab CNN". This interview shows clearly what I call the "Arab mindset" regarding, among other things, Israel:

Who is responsible for the situation?

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of the most important reasons why these crises and problems continue to simmer. The day when Israel was founded created the basis for our problems. The West should finally come to understand this. Everything would be much calmer if the Palestinians were given their rights.

Do you mean to say that if Israel did not exist, there would suddenly be democracy in Egypt, that the schools in Morocco would be better, that the public clinics in Jordan would function better?

I think so.

If you think this guy is a crackpot, if you think he's not representative of thinking in that part of the world, then you haven't been paying attention.

In the end, is it a matter of feelings of self-esteem?

Exactly. It's because we always lose to Israel. It gnaws at the people in the Middle East that such a small country as Israel, with only about 7 million inhabitants, can defeat the Arab nation with its 350 million. That hurts our collective ego. The Palestinian problem is in the genes of every Arab. The West's problem is that it does not understand this.

As Charles at Little Green Footballs says:

Wrong, Ahmed. The West does understand. In this part of the world, blaming all your problems on a super-powerful fantasy opponent is called “mental illness.”