Shadi Hamid peddles his old pathetic argument that Israel is the source of the Arab worlds’ problems. Actually, Shadi, it’s people like you who are the source of the Arab worlds’ problems — who ensure that even when procedural democracy is achieved in Arab countries, like Lebanon, they turn into nightmarish failed states. Why? Because there’s no ownership of society’s ills, and therefore those ills can’t be diagnosed or treated. It’s always someone else who creates the problem — the dictator, the West, the Jews, whatever — and then you try to project that mentality in the West as some kind of epiphany when it’s just a worn-out conspiracy theory to avoid responsibility. Laughable that anyone takes this guy seriously, or would attempt to run interference to defend him. Oh, and this brilliant scholar of the Middle East doesn’t even speak any of its languages. How’s that for authority? And maybe that’s why he falls back on conspiracy theories, because properly understanding the reasons for dictatorship’s rise, prevalence, and durability in the Arab world are beyond his skillset. https://bird.makeup/@shadihamid/1789006815138562106
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