If you’re
like most non-Arabs, you probably don’t read the Arab Press. That could be a
mistake.
The Arab
world is not monolithic. It’s dynamic. It’s a living entity. It’s home to
almost 350 million people. Many of these people know about you. What do
you know about them?
Every
Thursday before Noon ET, return here for something you may not see elsewhere:
Arab news.
Here are
headlines for—and personal comments about-- Arab news stories for November 7 –13,
2013.
Israel
-Israeli
plan for Jewish Negev town 'racist'
-Israel
implicated in shooting death of Palestinian bystander
-Israeli forces raid three Palestinian
neighborhoods, detain one
-Jordan
calls for action against Israeli renovation at Jerusalem holy site
-Palestinian
right to return irrevocable — activists
--Jerusalem man forced to demolish his own house
Internal Regional Arab news
- Child drowns in Hebron well
-Hebron man injures himself in
fireworks accident
-Over 1,000 Syrians entered
Jordan over past 72 hours’
-Statistics put inflation rate
at 6.1% (in Jordan)
-Illegal migrants in Saudi
Arabia surrender after deadly riots
-Kingdom’s economy picks up
steam; inflation slows
-Egypt player suspended over
Islamist salute
-Egyptian court orders end to
state of emergency
-Tunisia: Search continues for
new prime minister
-Gunman killed, police wounded
in Tunisia clashes
-Khamenei controls massive
financial empire built on property seizures
-Pro-Syrian regime cleric
killed in north Lebanon
-Sudan polio vaccination
campaign has failed
-Arab Spring nations backtrack
on women’s rights, poll says
-Abused women must come out of
their closets
-450,000 Saudis to be trained
-33% of govt projects face
disruption every year
Arafat’s death
-Thousands mark Arafat's death
across the West Bank
-Abbas pledges to uncover
truth behind Arafat's death
-Arafat’s murderers must face
justice
-FM: PA determined to uncover
truth about Arafat death
This Arab
news cycle prompts two observations: (1) the farther one gets from Israel’s
borders, the less interest Arabs appear to have in the entire Arab-Israel conflict;
and (2) the PA’s obsession with demonizing Israel just doesn’t seem to compare
very well with other, more urgent Regional problems.
For example,
Syria is destroying itself. Over 100,000 have been officially killed since March 2011
number could be considerably higher. More than two million refugees have been
driven from their homes. Cities, towns and villages have been turned into
rubble. More than 600,000 Syrians have fled to Jordan alone, causing an enormous
humanitarian and economic problem for the Jordanian government.
Tunisia
still can’t choose a leader. That provokes unrest—and that unrest provokes an
orgy of deadly clashes between government and anti-government forces.
Egypt continues
to totter. It is just now coming out of a state of emergency. Its population is
still split between pro-and anti-Muslim Brotherhood factions. Even a soccer
player has been suspended from his team because of Islamist-non-Islamist
differences. Inflation reaches double digits.
Sudan is on a
political and social death-bed. The situation there is so bad that the UN now
admits that both government and rebel forces have refused to allow U.N. aid workers to vaccinate some 160,000 children
against polio. The UN’s Sudanese polio campaign is now, officially, a failure.
The children continue to
suffer.
Iran threatens the entire gulf
region. The US so far has refused to act with strength against Iran’s nuclear
ambitions. The Saudis, in particular, are unhappy with America’s soft approach.
They don’t think ‘soft’ is going to stop Iran.
The Saudis
and the Kuwaitis didn’t follow PA news in this cycle. Instead, they focus on distinctly
different issues. Their concerns in this news cycle are illegal immigrants—and
business. For example, in an effort to reduce reliance on foreign workers, the
Saudis announce they will create programs to train 450,000 Saudi youth to do
skilled labour. It’s a five-year plan. They’ll open more than 300 training
sites throughout the Kingdom.
Saudi Inflation
is now ‘slowing’. Their news report doesn’t give numbers—the Saudis apparently don’t
do that. But their inflation report is a positive for them--if it's accurate.
The main
focus for both Saudi Arabia and Kuwait seems to be the business of business. The
Saudis report they are concerned about disruptions in construction projects. They
do a lot of constructing. Their economy could be impacted by too much
disruption. They report that fully one-third of all projects face major
disruptions each year. That’s too much.
Their news
reports list reasons for this disruption. They express concern over the
potential negative impact of disruption on the Saudi economy. They identify
solutions.
The report
suggests a sense of urgency. These problems have to be solved.
It all
paints a picture: we are in the business of business. We know we are not perfect.
We work to get better. We will get better.
These reports
suggest that Saudi businessmen haven’t yet matured to American standards. These
businessmen are, for example, concerned about government inefficiencies and
what an American might call shockingly incompetent money management by
contractors.
But such
concerns don’t appear unique to the Arab Middle East. They could just as easily
have been written about Israeli projects.
The stories,
however, have nothing to do with Israel. They have everything to do with trying
to build a thriving, stable economy.
The PA news
outlet doesn’t run many of these kinds of stories. If you compare Jordanian,
Saudi and Kuwaiti news against PA news in this current news cycle, you may come
to a simple conclusion: the PA is not in the same economic league as these
other places. Read PA news alongside
these other Arab news vendors and you realize that the PA has only one
industry: hate Israel.
That industry
attracts as much as a billion dollars a year. It’s not a small industry. But
it’s a limited industry. Its size and money-making capability is dwarfed by
what Kuwait and the other Gulf states can generate.
The
hate-Israel industry no doubt keeps some in the PA happy. A few get very rich
from it. But it’s not a winning formula. It’s more like an economic dead-end.
The stories above
covered a week’s news cycle. Certainly, there were other stories in the Arab
media. The majority of those stories had nothing to do with the ‘Palestinian
struggle.’
Is the PA
playing a loser’s game?
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