On the long flight home from Israel (we just arrived a few hours ago) I played hooky from digesting today’s newspapers and instead passed the time going through the most influential and popular book ever written about the conflict in the Middle East. Though written in a politically incorrect age some fifty years ago, the book provides timeless words about “the Arab character” that offer useful perspective on the continuing tragedies among Iraqis and Palestinians.
After acknowledging the long-ago glories of Islamic civilization, the author notes that conquest by the Ottoman Turks brought the Arabs “five centuries of feudalism an corruption.”
“….The Arab world disintegrated into filth; unspeakable disease, illiteracy, and poverty were universal. There was little song or laughter or joy in Arab life. It was a constant struggle to survive.
“In this atmosphere cunning, treachery, murder, feuds, and jealousies became a way of life. The cruel realities that had gone into forming the Arab character puzzled outsiders.
“Cruelty from brother to brother was common. In parts of the Arab world thousands of slaves were kept, and punishment for a thief was amputation of a hand, for a prostitute amputation of ears and nose. There was little compassion from Arab to Arab… It was small wonder that the Arabs mistrusted all outsiders… The masses were but pawns in the schemes of the effendis and sheiks. They could be stirred into religious hysteria at the least provocation and were thus useful as political weapons…Greed and lust, hatred and cunning, shrewdness and violence, friendliness and warmth were all part of that fantastic brew that made the Arab character such an enormous mystery to an outsider.”
Of course, apologists for Islamist excess will dismiss these words as the biased ravings of a “Zionist propagandist” and literary “hack”, since novelist Leon Uris hardly concealed his love for the State of Israel in the famous 1958 blockbuster, Exodus. But having just spent ten days leading 200 listeners through an exhausting but uplifting tour through the most dynamic society in the Mille East, it seems obvious that anyone who feels no admiration or sympathy for Israel displays a far more sinister bias. Yes, it’s easy to deride some of the clumsy elements of the novel Exodus, since Uris sprinkles every page with a cringe-inducing surplus of exclamation points and writes about romance in a heavy-breathing, flat-footed style that would make most adolescents blush. A typical passage declares: “Laughter and fire and tears and passion. Being with Marina was like being in a bubbling volcano ready to erupt.”
Nevertheless, Exodus delivers the goods, wrapping surprisingly detailed and accurate history in melodramatic but engaging plot lines involving fictional characters. Despite the contempt the book provokes among contemporary critics and other would-be intellectuals, it still provides a panoramic view of the origins of the state of Israel and its place in Jewish history.
Most importantly, it remains blessedly free of trendy notions of sensitivity, diversity and moral equivalence. This fifty year-old book, still haunted by ghosts of World War II, makes clear that the dysfunctions and dementia of Arab culture never amounted to a reaction to controversial US policies (like the War in Iraq or support for Israel) since those dysfunctions (so memorably delineated by Uris) clearly pre-dated the nation’s current posture toward the Middle East.
In other words, US foreign policy didn’t cause the pathetic breakdown of Arab societies, but rather those policies did represent a reaction to that long-standing record of breakdown and violence. The novelist noted that “cruelty from brother to brother was common” among the Arabs and commented on the “cunning, treachery, murder feuds and jealousies” in their culture—a situation that can hardly be blamed on George W. Bush since he was only in Middle School when those words were written.
For all his faults, Uris also sounds downright prophetic regarding the power of oil. Early in the book, a British general lectures his subordinate that he should never expect fairness in affairs of state. “Foreign policies of this or any other, country are not based on right and wrong. Right and wrong? It is not for you and me to argue the right or the wrong of this question. The only kingdom that runs on righteousness is the kingdom of heaven. The kingdoms of the earth run on oil. The Arabs have oil.”
Of course, Exodus remains a work of fiction, not a prescription for foreign policy, but by using his runaway international bestseller to expose the perpetually self-destructive values and attitudes among Arab leaders, he makes it clear that the prevailing decadence and corruption can hardly be blamed on George W. Bush, the “neo-cons,” or, for that matter the State of Israel.