>> "Arab Empire."
There really has never been an "Arab Empire". Even the idea of a mildly cohesive Arab entity is just a fiction concocted by the British to get the Peninsula Arabs to rebel against the Moslem Ottoman Empire.
From the inception of Islam to The Great War there was only a Moslem Nation. There never was a feeling of Arab Nationalism at all. When Britain was fighting the Ottomans, they convinced the Bedouin tribes to betray their Moslem rulers with the idea that there was an Arab Identity that was distinct from the Moslem Identity.
But as the world has seen, the Palestinian Arabs were never allowed to get citizenship in any Arab country, In fact, an Egyptian family can go and work in Iraq for 30 years, have all their children and grandchildren born in Iraq, and none of them would be granted citizenship in Iraq, even if they stay there their entire life. Palestinians were expelled from Kuwait even after some of them had been living there for 20 years. They were never granted citizenship.
When Algeria was fighting French rule, they were not helped by any other Arab country. And Arabs did not defend Libya against Italian invasion and occupation which lasted 20 years.
So really, it has never been little Israel against 22 Arab countries. It has been Israel armed to the teeth by the US against Palestinians with some light arms that they smuggle occasionally.
And now when Syria is being accused of assisting Iraq, you don't see them saying, "well, we're all one Arab nation, we have to help our brothers."
So I think finally, the fiction of Arab Nation cannot be maintained any longer. |
