Palestine in the 19th Century had a limited fixed or in place population that would then respond to the development of an expanding Jewish agricultural economy. Talking up jealousy serves convenience in that it may be easier to comprehend and imagine — and we do so all the time — than the hamstrung state of being held powerless within an autocratic and totalitarian system. Jealousy may be the latch that opens a channel for rage; to my thinking, however, the source of that same rage may be broadly distributed political impotence and suffocation as stage managed by Arab leaders.
Gloating, jealousy, and simmering work together.
In fact, for storytelling, those three suffice for comic panels and storyboards — king of the mountain, the scrambling underdog, the fury of effort to claim defend and claim the hill would seem eternal, and yet beneath that template is simply the fact the the powerful in autocratic states manage the survival of others through the caprice and the grace or denial of their favor and patronage.
Related from earlier this year (2014):
Report: Palestinian Authority, Hamas Cited for Widespread Human Rights Abuses
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4192/human-rights-palestinian-islamic-culture
http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.599642 (“Palestinians in the West should speak out against Hamas’ human rights abuses”)
From 2013:
http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/11/25/gaza-abuse-harassment-activists
From 2012:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/steve-feldman/gaza-prison-or-paradise/
http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/10/03/gaza-arbitrary-arrests-torture-unfair-trials
The prompt had to do with response to the success of others (http://www.prageruniversity.com/Political-Science/Do-You-Pass-the-Israel-Test.html#.U70n65RdV8F). Perhaps for empathy, perhaps for my humanitarian rejection of the self-flattering adoption of the pioneer outlook — that same “myself against the world” that fits the personality that becomes the powerful malignant narcissist — I felt the difference in outlook between that and “myself with the world” in a world deeply confused by and mired in suffering.
In the URL just noted, the speaker appears to set up the familiar model: Industrious Smart Jews vs Dumb Lazy Arabs / Winning Achievers vs Jealous Losers.
The model itself is egregious in that while it speaks to appearance overlooks the political conditions in which the vast majority of Arabs struggle with power in their own right beneath the architecture of deeply fascistic regimes. Dispense with “dumb lazy” and replace with leaders who exhibit themselves as supremely selfish and frequently stupid as regards their regard for others, especially the mass of their constituents over whom the same often exert extensive and absolute control.
It should go without saying that the same, whether somewhat secular dictatorship or religious monolith, deflect toward the Jews and the House of Israel the angers and resentments that they themselves provoke and sustain.
I should think it counterproductive for Jews to gloat before such downtrodden while ignoring the structural and true contributing agents to their plight.
My comment continues with a note from the Middle East Forum (from 2003) on the subject of Palestinian demographics.
“The great economic development of the coastal plains—largely due to Jewish immigration—was accompanied both in 1922-1931 and in 1931-1944 by a much stronger increase of the Muslim and Christian populations in this region than that registered in other regions. This was probably due to two reasons: stronger decrease in mortality of the non-Jewish population in the neighborhood of Jewish areas and internal migration toward the more developed zones”
http://www.meforum.org/522/the-smoking-gun-arab-immigration-into-palestine
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