You Are an Arab; Imagine That

“Why are Arabs always angry?” a reader recently asked me, in a message filled with sarcasm and thoughtlessness. I refrained from replying right a way, because he seemed little interested in listening. I couldn’t help but wonder how he might feel if he himself was an Arab. So, I am writing back ..

Imagine for a moment that you are an Arab.

For years you watch Palestinians being slaughtered, their land invaded and reinvaded, and for years witnessing the United States government block any attempt to punish those who aggressed upon the people whom you call “my people”.

Not only have the United States’ vetoes at the United Nations Security Council suffocated any initiative to deploy even unarmed observers to provide badly needed protection for Palestinians, but, thanks to billions of annual US funds, Israel manages to expand illegal settlements and provide its army with the greatest killing machines of all time.

Your human rights are never brought up unless an outside power is using the subject to inflict political pressure on your ruler. You’re worth a press release by a human rights group once every blue moon, a release that no one bothers to read. You simply matter to no one.
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  thanks to thoughts on the eve of the apocalypse