Arabs Fear Warming Ties With Israel Will Cause Democracy, Freedoms

“Democracy is a nice word, but it’s a foreign idea that should never have been introduced into the region.”

Abu Dhabi, October 31 – A high-profile visit by the Jewish State’s Minister of Culture this week to this Arabian Gulf emirate, coupled with a recent trip to Oman by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, have regional leaders concerned that a friendlier relationship with Israel will bring unwelcome consequences to their nations, in the form of civil rights, governmental accountability, and other values that democratic Israel preserves.

Officials in Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain, and several other states in the Middle East expressed their worries this week in interviews, taking care to couch their warnings in terms of Israeli or Jewish perfidy or ethnocentrism.

“It’s merely a new form of imperialism,” contended one Egyptian minister. “The indigenous peoples of this region are perfectly happy to remain dedicated to hereditary dynasties, whether the heads of those dictatorial dynasties call themselves emirs, presidents, or whatever. If they’re unhappy – which of course they are not unless agitated by outsiders looking to foment and exploit trouble – they can just tell those in power, and in due course those who complain will no longer be complaining.”

“Democracy is a nice word, but it’s a foreign idea that should never have been introduced into the region,” argued a Jordanian prince. “Imagine having to answer to the people or not be reelected? The very thought nauseates me. What the hell do the people know, anyway? Israel’s closer ties to some Arab states might bring certain short-term military, economic, or diplomatic benefits, but you can’t let a virus such as individual liberty into the system. It may never leave.”

Concerned Arab leaders have scrambled to issue such danger signals in new ways, observers note, now that the rhetorical cudgel of solidarity with Palestinians has lost most of its effectiveness. “It used to be you could simply invoke ‘Palestine’ or ‘our oppressed brethren under the Zionist boot’ and no one would cross the line,” remarked a Bahraini analyst. “But lo these decades later, the Palestinians have become entitled whiners, and entitled whiners are exactly what we’re trying to avoid by introducing real democratic institutions. Just think of how demanding the people will become if we start giving them little reforms – like the Palestinians, they’ll just keep pushing for more, never compromising, and taking every concession as a sign of weakness and vulnerability, not of goodwill to be reciprocated. No thank you.”

Still, on Tuesday officials in Bahrain convened a meeting to discuss the possible purchase from Israel of a defensive system to shield the country from Palestinian B.S.

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