Arab regimes and the Palestinian problem

Take this article by Michael Slackman. It contains the oft-repeated cliche that Arab regimes use and misuse the Palestinian question. Let us dispel this cliche once and for all. This was true back in the 1960s and early 1970s but not anymore. It is no more true that Arab regimes use the Palestinian question to divert the attention of the population. It is now the reverse: the Arab people insist on keeping the flame of the Palestinian problem alive, and the Arab regimes all want the issue to go away because any reference to the issue exposes Arab regimes' incompetence, defeats, weakness, and duplicities. Arab regimes now focus in their media on sleaze, sports, and Danish cartoons. In other words, anything except Palestine. Get that? Secondly, the article which deals with Arab politics interviews two Arab intellectuals: both of whom are conservative right-wingers who staunchly support the royal family of Kuwait. Fair and balanced? You bet.