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Why No Arab Rage Over Darfur?

Martin Peretz questions the Arab world's priorities

By Nick McMaster, Newser Staff

Posted Aug 15, 2008 7:45 PM CDT

(Newser) – Israel's wrongs against Palestine are "minor" compared to other modern conflicts—yet Arab leaders continue to cry bloody murder over Palestine while ignoring and covering up atrocities in Darfur, writes Martin Peretz, editor-in-chief of The New Republic. Darfur "does not trouble the conscience of Islam," Peretz writes. "They are otherwise engaged in the hyper-drama of Palestine."

Peretz admits he too is obsessed with the "catastrophe that befell my people" and Israel's fate, but accuses Arab leaders of hypocrisy. "Arabs do not care a fig" for Palestinians and rarely hire them, he writes, while oil Arabs duck the self-assessed Palestine tax. But Arab nations' tacit approval of Darfur is last straw for Peretz: "It is the blood of their blood who are committing the genocide."

[Images (3)]

[Quotes (1)]

In this photo released by www.stopgenocidenow.org, Sudanese refugee women collect water supplies at a refugee camp in eastern Chad Friday, Aug. 1, 2008. (AP Photo/WWW.STOPGENOCIDENOW.ORG. HO)

Sudanese soldiers sit in front of posters supporting Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir during his visit to Darfur's capital of al-Fasher, Sudan, Wednesday, July 23, 2008. (AP Photo/Abd Raouf)

Sudanese Darfur survivor Ibrahim holds human skulls at the site of a mass grave where he says the remains of 25 of his fellow villagers lie, on the outskirts of the West Darfur town of Mukjar, Sudan. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser, File)

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The Palestine national movement is a fraud. Internecine killing has taken far more Arab lives than armed encounters with the Israelis. It is full of pomp but no ordinary circumstance. - Martin Peretz

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Why No Arab Rage Over Darfur?