The Israel Lobby, U.S. Foreign Policy and the “Arab Mind”

The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy 

Articles

• The Israel lobby John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt
• The storm over the Israel lobby Michael Massing
• The Israel lobby? Noam Chomsky
• The Israel lobby Norman Finkelstein

“Both U.S. and Israeli elites have always believed that the Arabs need to be kept subordinate. However, once the U.S. solidified its alliance with Israel after June 1967, it began to look at Israelis ­ and Israelis projected themselves ­ as experts on the “Arab mind.” Accordingly, the alliance with Israel has abetted the most truculent U.S. policies, Israelis believing that “Arabs only understand the language of force” and every few years this or that Arab country needs to be smashed up. The spectrum of U.S. policy differences might be narrow, but in terms of impact on the real lives of real people in the Arab world these differences are probably meaningful, the Israeli influence making things worse.” Norman Finkelstein

The “Arab Mind” 

The above Finkelstein quote makes reference to a book called “the arab mind” the Guardian has an article on this titled “its best use is as a doorstop”

The book says, the Arabs who are lazy, sex-obsessed, and apt to turn violent over the slightest little thing.Writing about Arabs, rather than black people, in these terms apparently makes all the difference between a racist smear and an admirable work of scholarship.

Hersh was discussing the chain of command that led US troops to torture Iraqi prisoners. Referring specifically to the sexual nature of some of this abuse, he wrote: “The notion that Arabs are particularly vulnerable to sexual humiliation became a talking point among pro-war Washington conservatives in the months before the March 2003 invasion of Iraq.

“One book that was frequently cited was The Arab Mind … the book includes a 25-page chapter on Arabs and sex, depicting sex as a taboo vested with shame and repression.”

Hersh continued: “The Patai book, an academic told me, was ‘the bible of the neocons on Arab behaviour’. In their discussions, he said, two themes emerged – ‘one, that Arabs only understand force, and two, that the biggest weakness of Arabs is shame and humiliation’.”

Last week, my own further enquiries about the book revealed something even more alarming. Not only is it the bible of neocon headbangers, but it is also the bible on Arab behaviour for the US military.

More on the author of “the Arab Mind” Raphael Patai