Insecurities of the Colonized: I have noticed this tendency among some liberal and conservative Arabs. Whenever they are in the presence of Westerners or Israelis, and reflecting deep-seated intellectual insecurities, they feel that if they parrot the discourse and slogans of the colonizers (especially about accepting Zionism and badmouthing the Palestinians) they must come across as intelligent, and that they must therefore impress the colonizers. You see those Arab liberals (whose utterances and sneezes are transmitted with daily regularity by MEMRI (I read that in a new book, Brian Whitaker of the Guardian has an excellent chapter on MEMRI--does anybody know anything about that book? Whitaker had written on (and exposed) MEMRI before) wanting so bad to get Western approval. They feel that if they get Western approval they must appear to be "civilized," just as "civilized" as the colonial masters. It (their problem that is) is partly political and partly psychological. I thought about that when I read this account of the Qatari foreign minister in New York. He wants Arabs to engage in dialogue with Israel, as if Palestinian leaders (Arafat and Abu Abbas as the two lousy examples) have not engaged in enough dialogue, to my chagrin. The issue is not asking Israel out for a drink; this is about an occupied homeland. For my one-time encounter with the Qatari foreign minister, read this.