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The role of the media and Chinese mediators in the Arab-Israeli conflict
wchao37 Updated: 2004-02-13 11:28
There is a school of thought that the Israelis are genetically superior to the Arabs, and that's why they have been able to out-perform the more than one-hundred million Arabs with their six million.
I think this performance-based thesis is untenable:
First of all, according to the Western Bible, Abraham was the common ancestor of both the Jews and the Arabs. So genetically they are cousins, and therefore their raw intelligence levels should be about equal.
Let's take the Chinese as an example to argue against using performance as the main criteria in determining so-called 'superiority.'
During the Northern Sung Dynasty (960-1127 A.D.) the Chinese invented mariner's compass, gunpowder and movable-type printing, accounting for three of the four major inventions of ancient China that had far-reaching consequences for world civilization. (The other one, paper, was invented by Tsai Lun in 105 A.D. during Han He Di's reign)
Europe knew very little about Chinese inventions in pre-modern days, not knowing, for instance, that Italian pasta was actually introduced from Chang'an (now Xian), China, and that the modern-day 'pizza' was actually Chinese food long cherished by the people of Chang'an during Tang times.
Francis Bacon, the main prognosticator of Western Civilization before the modern age, and not knowing the origins of the three inventions in his time, independently evaluated the three pivotal inventions that led to the development of modern science -- and they were all Chinese inventions during the Sung Dynasty (960 - 1279 A.D. including Southern Sung).
So does that make the Chinese a genetically smarter people than the rest of mankind, just like some would say the Jews are smarter based on the achievement of a few individuals?
Of course not.
Viewed through the prism of the kaleidoscope of history, all human populations are about the same, and their apparent differences can be explained on the basis of environmental factors.
Give and take a few thousand years, Mankind's existence on the Blue Planet compared to that of the Earth's 4.6 billion years is but a heartbeat. Absolutely nothing should make us so conceited as to believe that some of us are racially or genetically superior to others, and neither the Jews nor the Chinese are exceptions.
I believe the misconception is due to the fact that in America, the superpower at the turn of the millennium, the Jews are in control of a great many vital enterprises, such as those in the entertainment industry and the media.
Indeed, have you ever wondered why all major newspapers of the Western world today that are using the name "Times" in the world -- such as New York Times, London Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Times, The Time Magazine -- all running on the same political thread? In fact, this similarity in namesake is telling evidence that public opinion in the Western world is shaped by a few secular, special interests, and their role in fanning the hatred between the Arabs and the Israelis cannot be underestimated.
Nothing the Israelis do are ever wrong, and nothing the Palestinian Arabs do are ever right.
It doesn't take the discerning acumen of a rocket scientist to see that there is actually no freedom of press in the Western world in view of this lack of freedom to interpret the news -- it is all monopolized by a few people who serve the interest of the ruling class in each individual country.
In contrast, in a newly free country like China, you hardly find two newspapers in that country that carry the same name. In my trips across the length and breadth of China, I have never run into a newspaper conglomerate with remotely comparable reach, bearing the same common name or behaving with presumptuous right to interpret world events as the "Times."
With that at the back of our minds, we have this gnawing feeling that the Jews are monopolizing the interpretation of the news. A similar undercurrent had prompted activists such as Gobineau in France to talk about "The Jewish problem" in pre-WWII days. Unfortunately this was used by the Nazis in their ethnic cleansing of the Jews of Europe during the implementation of the "Final Solution (complete elimination)." Even more unfortunately, the Jews themselves are using the same logic and racial hatred to carry out ethnic cleansing of their own in the Middle East today against the Palestinians.
The Palestinians, through no fault of their own -- are not as well educated as the Israelis, who had hailed mainly from the more industrialized nations of Europe at the end of WWII and are therefore better educated as a whole. They are, again through no fault of their own, far less well off than the Israelis.
However, the potential of the Palestinians cannot be doubted, as can be seen in the case of the achievement of the Arab Israelis inside Israel. If anything, their educational level is much higher than that of their compatriots living outside of Israel.
The most unfortunate aspect of the division of the Arab population in the Middle East into splintered nations as a result of the political legacy of the Britons -- who were past-masters in divide-and-rule colonial intrigues -- is that oil rich Arabs in the region do not see it as their responsibility to help their Palestinian brothers in trouble.
The fact that for decades Yassar Arafat, the Palestinian leader of the PLO, has to go to cash-poor China to ask for help shows that his Arab brothers were not ready to give him the full measure of assistance he needed.
Amongst ancient peoples, there is this unspoken bond of affinity. The Chinese respect the Palestinian Arabs as a people who are every bit as smart as they are, and who are unfortunately involved in an arduous struggle for survival.
The plight of the Palestinian Arabs is evident for all to see. I personally feel that the Chinese government will continue to work as a mediator towards an equitable Middle East settlement acceptable to all parties concerned. With China's good credentials with both the Israelis and Arabs alike, they can help in places where the Superpower cannot for obvious reasons.
In her own case, the Chinese had received little help from external sources -- like the 300 million rubles that Stalin agreed to loan Mao in 1950 -- and these meager sums came with harsh conditions and more strings attached than the cockades on the headgear of a Manchu gege (princess).
The Chinese will not act in a similar fashion in their aid package to the Arabs. They are doing this out of true concern for a friend in need, a friend with whom they have coexisted with mutual respect over countless centuries.
| The above content represents the view of the author only. |
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