Emirati Writer: Instead Of Believing In Conspiracy Theories, Arabs Must Find Common Ground With Their Foes, Such As Israel And U.S., In Order To Secure Their Interests

In a June 6, 2015 article for the English-language UAE daily Gulf News, writer Dr. Khalifa Rashid Al-Sha'ali decried the Arab fondness for conspiracy theories, which he said is shared by the elites, the masses, and the media. For example, he wrote, the Arabs once thought that the "Zionist entity" and the U.S. were their supreme enemies, only to discover one day that it is actually possible to cooperate with them. Such conspiratorial thinking, he said, was responsible for many of the Arabs' defeats and problems – including the loss of Palestine in 1948 – because conspiracy theories provide a convenient excuse for Arab governments to explain away their failures. In addition, conspiratorial thinking also renders the Arabs unable to compromise with their enemies in order to secure their supreme interests, as other nations are able to do – such as the U.S. and Iran, for example, in their current relations. Al-Sha'ali concluded that the Arabs must find common ground with those they believe are their foes, in order to "spare [their] societies the scourge of wars, destruction, and invasions."

The following are excerpts from his article


http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/8613.htm