Re: connected lights

On Sat, 14 Sep 2024 09:12:46 +0700, John B. <slocombjb@gmail.com>
wrote:

You'd think the Arabs would get tired of having their ass kicked by
the Jews.

The reason that Arabs are so horrible at winning the wars they usually
start is probably not what you think.  It's not because the Israeli
military is so great, but rather because the Arabs don't understand
why and for what they're fighting.  I can't cover the whole situation
in one hopefully brief article, so I'll just highlight the main
problem.  Note that the following is mostly my analysis and may not
conform with official dogma.

But first, a quiz.  What percentage of the land in Egypt is privately
owned?  Take your best guess and then read this article:

"Who owns Egypt"
<https://egyptindependent.com/who-owns-egypt/>
"For nearly another century, Egyptians have not owned more than 7
percent of the land, with the state owned - at least in theory - the
remaining 93 percent.

"And citizenship will always remain a vague concept unless it is
translated into ownership of land, on which agriculture, industries
and services are used by the people of Egypt"

I picked Egypt because I couldn't find much information on how land
ownership is distributed in the other Arab countries.

Visualize the armies of Egypt and Israel facing each other.  Israel
know exactly what they're fighting for and why they are there.  The
Egyptians ask themselves "Why are we fighting for land that we can't
own"?  Or more likely, "Why are we fighting over a pile of sand? Isn't
there enough sand for everyone"?  The result is that the Arabs have no
reason to fight over land gains because they can't own the land or use
it without paying rent.  The situation is like that among all the Arab
countries, where the military is mostly from the lower classes, who
don't own any land.

The Arab leaders are fully aware of the situation but are not inclined
to give up any land in trade for a more motivated military.  Instead,
they are motivating their army in the traditional manner.  They fight
because their tribe has been offended by the enemy and for promises of
spoils of war[1].  Depending on the alliances of the moment, the
various Arab tribes do not share a common leadership, common goals,
and common distribution of the spoils.  In other words, when they're
done fighting with Israel, they revert to fighting each other.

Enough for now...

[1]  The looting of the Turkish train in the movie Lawrence of Arabia
offers a clue:
"Lawrence launches a guerrilla ambush on a Turkish train"
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83OC6xDH-sM>   (6:13)





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Jeff Liebermann                 jeffl@cruzio.com
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