Arabs are nice — really

But don't let that sway you.

One of the things I keep running into is people telling me stories about how they’re friends with this or that Arab, and how nice they are. Helpful. Kind. Generous in the extreme.

Duh.

I’m well aware of this. Westerners have this image of the enemy as a really nasty piece of work. Hans Gruber. Darth Vader. Someone who is mean. Who would steal candy from a baby. They have to. Westerners no longer believe in archaic ideas like right and wrong, or good and bad. It’s gone very utilitarian. If someone behaves well, they’re good, because who has the right to judge them as being other than good?

Try and comprehend this: the enemy can be good in any number of ways. They can help old ladies cross the street. They can give to the poor. They can be welcoming and cheerful. None of that stops them from being the enemy.

And when an enemy like that turns around and slits your throat, or guts you from sternum to crotch, or blows you up in a pizza shop, you’re always so surprised.

Look at the victims of October 7. Many of the vicious murderers and rapists that attacked that day were friends of people they attacked. And that doesn’t mean their friendship was false. It was not.

An Arab can be a true friend. A truer friend than most, in fact. But Arab culture is fundamentally an honor-based society. And honor means more to them than friendship. It means more to them than love. You’ve heard stories about fathers murdering their daughters for dressing immodestly? You probably read those stories and think, “What kind of father could hate his daughter like that?” And the father in question would probably retort that he loved his daughter more than anything. And mean it. Anything but honor, that is.

There’s a video — one of the most pathetic things I’ve ever seen — of one of the hostages pleading with her captors. “I have friends in Gaza! I have Palestinian friends!” Thereby showing an utter lack of understanding for their culture. I would go so far as to say showing contempt for their culture. Because anyone with the least bit of respect for their culture would realize that friendship and honor are separate issues. And that assuming that friendship would override the imperatives of honor did nothing but show her to be as fundamentally dishonorable as they thought she was.

Now… if you’re a Westerner reading this who has Arab friends, you’re absolutely guaranteed to be thinking, “This is bullshit. My friend is different.” And maybe your friend is assimilated enough into Western culture that you’re right. But are you willing to bet your life on it? Because if they are part of an Arab family with even a little bit of tradition, or connection to Islam (not that Christian Arabs are free of this, mind you), that’s what you’re risking.

I tell this story sometimes about when I used to work at a bank in Israel, in the commercial loan department. There was a guy — let’s call him Hassan — who worked in collections, upstairs. The people in my department were aware that he was what was then called an Ashafist. A PLO supporter. At a time — this was the early 90s — when virtually everyone recognized that the PLO is nothing more than a terrorist group, and before they started pretending that they were “moderates”.

They also knew that I was a supporter of Rabbi Meir Kahane, of blessed memory, may God avenge his blood.

So they thought it would be hilarious to introduce us and watch the sparks fly.

They brought him over to my desk, and made the introductions. And we looked at each other. And we started to laugh. And then he sat down, and we started talking about computer games. It turned out he’d spoken with Rabbi Kahane in person once, and he had respect for him. While recognizing him as the enemy. We discussed politics a little, and we wound up trading some computer games on floppy disks, as you did in those days.

We were entirely comfortable with one another. More than either of us could really ever be with the clowns in my office. And both of us knew a secret. That if the day came, whichever of us was faster would live. The other would not. And that made absolutely no difference whatsoever.

This is a monstrous concept to Westerners. I’m well aware of that. How can you live your life if bad guys don’t act like bad guys all the time? If nice people can turn around and slaughter you for — of all the ridiculous things — ideology?

But this particular Western kind of blindness is unique in history. It hasn’t been around for long, and it won’t be around much longer. And one of the biggest reasons that it’s going to disappear is that their charming Arab neighbor is going to help make it disappear.

I’m not entirely sure why I’m writing this. The people who need to understand it and internalize it almost certainly won’t. And the people who already know it don’t need it. Maybe I just needed to get it out there, in hopes that someone will realize that it explains a lot of things they didn’t understand before.