Comment Trail:

Another stroll through the Arab blogosphere:

@Dubai Jazz: here and here (my comments are deleted, but here is my latest, which I posted Sunday morning and which will likely be deleted:

"I know of many Americans who would laugh at the notion that American foreign policy in the last 20 years went out of its way to protect and save Muslims (sometimes from themselves!)."

Your pathology is showing.

The US did not go out of its way to protect and save Muslims. It went out of its way to save and protect persecuted, genocided human beings, who happened to be Muslims.

Can you get the difference?

I suspect that your main beef is with this fact, that the US does not make it a priority to save Muslims qua Muslims but rather adheres to the the notion that human rights are universal, whether you are a Muslim, a Jew, a Bahai, black, white, yellow, whatever.

You are speaking from 14 centuries of indoctrination in the regularized contempt of him who is not like myself. It's strange experience to read this kind of medieval mentality in colloquial, modern, everyday English. )

@ Buj al arab, here

(Choice quote: "if you have any problems with the video, then go and bitch to your Jewish brothers")

Update (9 December):

The brave and upbeat blogger Buj predictably deleted my original comment. And is now careful to censor any other contribution. I left this comment which will naturally not be posted:

"go and bitch to your Jewish brothers that made this video."

This incontinent need to drag in Jews when you are out of reasonable answers seems like a favourite tactic in Arab lands. Why is that, I wonder? I don't suppose it would have anything to do with your educational institutions and media culture, would it?

Anyway, more to the point, here is the most recent piece of news coming from the Egypt side of Gaza:

http://www.newenglishreview.org/blog_direct_link.cfm/blog_id/24611

Why do you think Egypt is complicit in the blockading of Gaza? What could possibly be its reason for doing so? And how come most (by no means all), Arabs are only "bitching" about the blockade when it is done on the Israeli side?

I mean, Gazans do not launch rockets in El-Arish, do they? There has not been a campaign of genocidal terrorism against Egyptian towns residing near the border with Gaza, was there? So why is Egypt blocking passage of goods and people into Gaza?

These facts, these ideas, are considered as a breach of civilized conversation. Which makes you wonder what exactly is civilized discourse in intra-Arab conversation? What are the premises that underline what is acceptable to propose, notice, talk about in this milieu?