The Arab World, Islam and the West

This book is about the problematic and complex relations between the Arab World and the West historically but especially since WW1. A discussion of Islam, Arab Islamic history, and political culture is presented as a prerequisite to an understanding of the contemporary Arab World. The meaning and practice of Jihad is elaborated to demonstrate its true nature. It focuses on the accumulated grievances inflicted by the West on the Arab people, as well as the barriers of hostilities and hatred erected between the two by the former. The grievances come from within the Arab World inflicted by Arab autocracies and from without by the West's colonial past, hegemony, and interventionist policies - the destructive war of choice on Iraq in 2003 and its support for, justification and fueling of the ongoing war of genocide on Gaza are but the latest examples. Over time, a dependency of these Arab autocracies on the West had developed and served to support and protect their unelected regimes and compensate for their lack of political legitimacy. This dependency mutated into an unholy alliance between the Arab autocracies and the West which only deepened, consolidated, and perpetuated these grievances. This explains the utter failure of these autocracies to come to the aid of their severely aggrieved Palestinian brethren in Gaza in any meaningful way. It also explains the contagious rush of these regimes to "normalization" with the JAOR (Jewish Apartheid Occupation Regime) under US manipulation and arm twisting. Genuine democracy and the peaceful transfer of power are mostly non-existent in the Arab world.