According to a United Nations study, the number of books translated annually into Arabic in all Arab countries combined was, as of 2011, one-fifth the number translated into Greek in Greece. It found that in the past 1,000 years only about 10,000 books have been translated into Arabic – equivalent to the number of books translated in Spain each year.
2003, the last year in which a survey was taken, the UN found that just 330 books had been translated into Arabic in Arab countries that year.
The total number of books translated into Arabic during the 1,000 years since the age of Caliph Al-Ma’moun (the ninth-century Arab ruler who was a patron of cultural interaction between Arab, Persian, and Greek scholars) to this day is less than those translated in Spain in one year. The report noted that Arab rulers stay in office all their lives and create dynasties that inherit power, and the peoples are unable to institute change.
Now, if we consider this, the problems involving the Arab countries is rooted in a lack of linguistic freedom and lack of knowledge of the rest of the world.
When the city of Jerusalem fell to Christian Crusaders in 1099, the defenders had been a combined force of Jews and Muslims. After the Crusaders captured the city, they massacred Muslim and Jewish citizens alike and left the survivors to flee Jerusalem. Not until Saladin defeated the Crusaders in 1187, did the Jewish population even begin to return to Jerusalem.
Jerusalem's Jewish community continued to prosper under the Muslim Nahmanides in 1267. But the community's golden age occurred during the 15th and 16th centuries, when a large influx of Jews were welcomed into Jerusalem by the Ottoman Empire after being expelled from Spain.
For four centuries under Ottoman rule, Arab and Jewish neighborhoods peacefully coexisted. After the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War I, the region came under British mandate. The early days under the British also saw relatively peaceful coexistence continuing and manifesting itself in the form of Arab and Jewish neighborhoods springing up in the "garden neighborhoods" of Talpiot, Rehavia and Beit Hakerem.
However, after over 700 years of peaceful coexistence, the actual start of the Arab-Israeli conflict can be dated to 1920 and the rise of Nazi sympathizer, Haj Amin Muhammad Al Husseini, the grand mufti of Jerusalem. As grand mufti, al Husseini presided as the Imam of the Al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, the highest Muslim authority in the British mandate.In 1920 and again in 1929, Al- Husseini incited anti-Jewish riots by claining that Jews were aiming to destroy the Al-Aqsa mosque. The riots resulted in the massacre of hundreds of Jewish civilians and an almost end to the Jewish presence in Hebron. The riots resulted in the massacre of hundreds of Jewish civilians and a virtual end to the Jewish presence in Hebron.
Al Husseini found the Nazis to be a strong ideological match with his anti-Jewish brand of Islam, and schemed with Hitler and the Nazi hierarchy to create a pro-Nazi pan-Arabic form of government in the Middle East.
The Nazis provided Al Husseini with luxurious accommodations in Berlin and a monthly stipend in excess of $10,000. In return, he regularly appeared on German radio touting the Jews as the "most fierce enemies of Muslims," and implored an adoption of the Nazi "final solution" by Arabs. After the Nazi defeat at El Alamein in 1942, Al Husseini broadcast radio messages on Radio Berlin calling for continued Arabic resistance to Allied forces. In time, he came to be known as the "Fuhrer's Mufti" and the "Arab Fuhrer."
In March 1944, Al Husseini broadcast a call for a jihad to "kill the Jews wherever you find them. This pleases God, history, and religion." After the fall of Nazi Germany, Al Husseini fled to Cairo, Egypt in 1946 rather than face war crime charges for his actions in Yugoslavia.
Several of his descendants remain active in Palestinian affairs today.
Al Husseini's grandson, Faisal Husseini, was part of the PLO since 1964 and served as minister in the Palestinian National Authority, with responsibility for Jerusalem until his death in May 2001.
The radical imam's nephew, Rahman Abdul Rauf el-Qudwa el Husseini, has been a major player in Palestinian terrorism for almost 40 years. He was the guiding force behind the merging of the Fatah faction into the PLO. In 1990, Rahman Abdul Rauf el-Qudwa el Husseini was responsible for the Palestinian community's support of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait.
Most today recognize the younger Al Husseini by the secular name he adopted as his own in 1952, Yasser Arafat.
Osama bin Laden in one of his "Letters to the American People" echoed al Husseini's propaganda claim that "the Israelis are planning to destroy the Al Aqsa mosque."
When the allies won WW2, an all out guerrilla and propaganda war was waging in Germany. After the eventual outcome of a divided Berlin, not much attention was given to the propaganda in the Arab states. With the founding of Israel things could only get worse.
Fast forward to the post 911 era and the west is aligning itself with The Muslim Brotherhood.
As of November 2011, The Brotherhood’s party has won more than 40 percent of the seats in the incoming parliament, scheduled to convene on Jan. 23. Its main task is to appoint a 100-member panel to write a new constitution. parliamentary system.
The Muslim Brotherhood is the world's oldest, largest, and most influential Islamist organization.
The Brotherhood (according to their website platform) favors a mixed of presidential and parliamentary system. Jihadists aren’t fond of them for their “supposed” embrace of democracy and rejection of global jihad. I say “supposed”, because The Brotherhood is a collection of national groups with differing outlooks, and the various factions disagree about how best to advance its mission. Given the history of the region and it’s lack of outside influence, it is hard to say.
If Washington is to be successful in fostering a democratic change and stability in the Arab States, It must factor in linguistic freedom as well. A dumbed downed population only serves the likes of those promoting disunity for their own advantages, as evidenced by all dictatorships, even if it sometimes is self imposed.
