Does Said's own life debunk his thesis?

Submitted by Prashant (United States), Jun 6, 2022 at 11:23

Dear Dr Pipes, My fundamental belief is that the world should not give any special treatment to Islam and Muslim and should judge them by the same standard that is applied to everyone else. Under that guideline, I am wondering if Edward Said's life itself debunks his thesis about creating a Palestinian homeland in Israel.

Said belonged to a Palestinian Christian family. After the events of the 1940s his family followed a very successful path, lived in Egypt, the UK, and USA and made a name for themselves. Whether we agree with Said's opinions or not, no one can deny that all Said siblings became very accomplished individuals and followed
career paths that will make any one proud.

Therein lies the problem. Whatever harm the establishment of Israel did to the Muslims of the region, it did the exact same harm to the Christians of the region. Why then Christians of the region produced an intellectual of Said's caliber but the Muslims produced a terrorist of Yassir Arafat's caliber (the Nobel peace price notwithstanding). To my mind, either Arafat should have been a Columbia professor or Said should also have been a rifle trotting terrorist. In any case, I wonder why (the so called) Palestinian Muslims took the planet as hostage for 80 years but the Christians of the same region did nothing?

No analogy is perfect but I like to cite the examples of Sindhi Hindus. The case of Sindh in the western region of ancient India has similarities with Israel with some roles reversed. The Islamic incursions in Sindh started around the same time when the first Islamic siege of Jerusalem took place. Almost 1400 years later, the British gave Sindh to Muslims to create Pakistan but took way (the so called) Palestine from Muslims. As many or even more Hindu Sindhis were uprooted as Palestinian Muslims were. But Hindus of Sindh did not create a decades long murderous campaign. They moved to all parts of the world and became bakers, engineers, doctors, professors, film producers, and whatever else. In almost similar situations, Hindus of Sindh became productive people but Muslims of Palestine became terrorists!

At the core of it is the faulty Islamic doctrinal belief that all land is fundamentally Islamic and any land once occupied by Muslims becomes Islamic for ever.
Small philosophical mistakes can change the course of history. The analogies that I have presented here may have some missing pieces but for the most part they hold. I will like to be corrected here (specially by Muslims), if some of my arguments do not hold entirely.

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