Even in the comments here people will bring up countries like japan as a contrast. Why did the Japanese, unlike the Arabs, rise again after their fall?
Could the centuries of direct colonial rule by the Ottomans and Europeans played a role? The Ottomans were by no measure gentle but the Europeans were nothing short of barbaric. Take Palestine. To solidify their hold the British simply rounded up and executed fighting age men the moment rebellion started brewing.
The stakes are high and the Europeans knew this. The Arabs sat on oil. Lots of it. Colonialism is doomed to fail because the uncivilized eventually rise up (imagine that). Enter Sykes-Picot and neo-colonialism. Give them the illusion of being free, back brutal dictators over the people, and divide and conquer along sectarian lines.
Finally enter Israel. To really support for Israel Herzl, the founder of Zionism, wrote that Israel would “form part of a wall of defense for Europe in Asia, an outpost of civilization against barbarism.”. And they played their part. They are the wildcard ready to bomb any middle eastern country should they rise up and crawl towards independence. See all the nuclear power plants they bombed while they were still being built.
> Why did the Japanese, unlike the Arabs, rise again after their fall?
Because the ways Japan and Middle East were neo-colonized was different. After the bombs Japan wasn’t allowed to hold any army of significance and was enforced to have democratic institutions, which makes it very difficult for any dictatorial player to emerge, whereas in the middle east dictatorial regimes were not only embraced but even sometimes installed in the hopes that they could be easily controlled.
Authoritarianism wreaks havoc on meritocratic processes such as scientific knowledge production, intellectual property rights and other institutions democracies take for granted to flourish.
Japan had democracy imposed on them and so did Germany, both had them imposed by winning forces. The comment you are responding to complains about demoracy in Arab world being subverted by west.
Could the centuries of direct colonial rule by the Ottomans and Europeans played a role? The Ottomans were by no measure gentle but the Europeans were nothing short of barbaric. Take Palestine. To solidify their hold the British simply rounded up and executed fighting age men the moment rebellion started brewing.
The stakes are high and the Europeans knew this. The Arabs sat on oil. Lots of it. Colonialism is doomed to fail because the uncivilized eventually rise up (imagine that). Enter Sykes-Picot and neo-colonialism. Give them the illusion of being free, back brutal dictators over the people, and divide and conquer along sectarian lines.
Finally enter Israel. To really support for Israel Herzl, the founder of Zionism, wrote that Israel would “form part of a wall of defense for Europe in Asia, an outpost of civilization against barbarism.”. And they played their part. They are the wildcard ready to bomb any middle eastern country should they rise up and crawl towards independence. See all the nuclear power plants they bombed while they were still being built.