I was swimming yesterday and still thinking about this article. Two points:
1) There is a basic problem of false causality in the article. Let us say that the authors are right, that in "Muslim countries" (and they defined that so badly to include countries with a small Muslim population) when the two sides of the Islamists and the reformers (you see, according to our authors, there are only two sides in all Muslim countries because Muslims--you see--are incapable of producing more than two political trends and that is due to genetic deficiencies), are in deeper conflict, the population exhibits more anti-American attitudes. Yet, they failed to make the logical leap from there to the contention that the elite in that country then engages in anti-American agitation. How did they go from A to B?? We are not told. And if the elite feels the need to engage in anti-American agitation, it surely means that that they care catering to public opinion, which can only mean that the public is making the elite anti-American, and NOT VICE VERSA. But the logical abilities of our authors is lacking especially that they are under the impression (they state so in the article) that they have produced a theory of their own.
2) I am intrigued by another "theory" of them in the article. They contend that Muslims who are far from Jerusalem feel less about the Palestinian issue (yes, the authors are unaware of the feelings on Palestine by non-Islamist Arabs--they really think that Christian Arabs and non-religious Arabs don't give a damn about Palestine. So this example occurred to me: so according to them, if we put a Palestinian from Jerusalem on plane on its way to Glasgow, let us say, then the Palestinian will care less about Palestine as his/her plane moves away from Jerusalem?? I mean, how dumb could things get with this article?
PS It turns out that one of the authors (the professor at Stanford) has studied the Middle East at UCLA and did her dissertation--I am told--on Egyptian politics. But how did she study Egyptian politics? By reading French newspaper in Cairo?
1) There is a basic problem of false causality in the article. Let us say that the authors are right, that in "Muslim countries" (and they defined that so badly to include countries with a small Muslim population) when the two sides of the Islamists and the reformers (you see, according to our authors, there are only two sides in all Muslim countries because Muslims--you see--are incapable of producing more than two political trends and that is due to genetic deficiencies), are in deeper conflict, the population exhibits more anti-American attitudes. Yet, they failed to make the logical leap from there to the contention that the elite in that country then engages in anti-American agitation. How did they go from A to B?? We are not told. And if the elite feels the need to engage in anti-American agitation, it surely means that that they care catering to public opinion, which can only mean that the public is making the elite anti-American, and NOT VICE VERSA. But the logical abilities of our authors is lacking especially that they are under the impression (they state so in the article) that they have produced a theory of their own.
2) I am intrigued by another "theory" of them in the article. They contend that Muslims who are far from Jerusalem feel less about the Palestinian issue (yes, the authors are unaware of the feelings on Palestine by non-Islamist Arabs--they really think that Christian Arabs and non-religious Arabs don't give a damn about Palestine. So this example occurred to me: so according to them, if we put a Palestinian from Jerusalem on plane on its way to Glasgow, let us say, then the Palestinian will care less about Palestine as his/her plane moves away from Jerusalem?? I mean, how dumb could things get with this article?
PS It turns out that one of the authors (the professor at Stanford) has studied the Middle East at UCLA and did her dissertation--I am told--on Egyptian politics. But how did she study Egyptian politics? By reading French newspaper in Cairo?