The Michael Philips reported kidnapped in Nabulus yesterday was Michael Phillips with two Ls and was released. You know the guy was rather pathetic because he said he didn’t change his position on Palestinians. Which is to say he is your standard ideologue, incapable of learning.
Before I went to Israel for the first time in 1958, my father, who had been there the year before Israel was created, told me: ‘You’ll find the Arabs the most charming people in the world and the Israelis quite difficult.’ I did and it took me years to learn why.
The Arabs are charming because they will say anything to flatter you. The Israelis, like the Japanese are, as a rule, as honest , nea candid, as human beings can get. As time goes by, in my life, I have grown to appreciate honesty and candor, unequivocally, over flattery.
Arabs have a wonderful saying: ‘Never let your enemy know he is your enemy.’ To put it more bluntly, Arabs lie to save face at all times. That sounds like bigotry on my part, it is only stereotyping because I’m willing to believe that there is some Arab somewhere who doesn’t lie for convenience sake.
I’ve worked with dozens of Arabs on a very close basis for more than a dozen years. That has been my unqualified experience: incredibly charming and flattering, lying to save face 24 hours a day seven days a week.
I will go even further, I don’t find Arabs, including intellectuals like the late Edward Said, capable of “reason.” I suspect that what we call reason is based on a combination of honesty and consistency. Without either, the Arab condition, is one without the possibility of ‘reason.’
I’ve said it before and repeat here. We are exposed to endless lies and prevarications by Arab leaders and Arab spokespeople and never hear a rebuttal from another public Arab. Give me a counter example.
A typical offense was a few weeks ago in a letter to the Wall Street Journal from an Arab businessman who lied and said he created the first Coke franchise and then said Israeli’s were making life so difficult that foreign businessmen couldn’t help create jobs for Palestinians. Never for one moment did this Arab suggest that the Palestinians could do something to help themselves by stopping the Kasam missiles or suicide bombers. Never even hinted at it. I claim that is typical.