oh, the arrogance

As her former top aide, Philip Zelikow, puts it: "The paramount problem is what is the future of the Arab and Muslim world and how it relates to modernity and globalization. What do they want to be when they grow up? … The Palestinian issue is not at [the] center of that framework, but moving down that process is essential to progress because this issue is a source of constant resentment across the Arab world that makes it harder to focus on the future. They keep looking at this open sore instead of thinking of what they're going to do tomorrow."

I came across this quote in an article on Rice's efforts to put together a peace conference between the Israelis and the Palestinians, written by Newsweek's Michael Hirsh. Hirsh made no comment on these absurd comments, as if to agree tacitly with the notion that Palestinians were somehow stuck in the past simply because of cultural immaturity and not the monstrous fact of military occupation. How patronizing, for this official living in total comfort and privilege, to make such comments. If only these towel heads would think about the future, instead of about trivial details like lack of rights, sovereignty, respect, water, health care, etc etc. Surely, if we Americans were in their position, under foreign rule, we would have already turned that desert into the next Hong Kong! The arrogance, the arrogance -- which is just another word for the laziness of privilege.