Washington Examiner
· collected 2026-09-15 · by Hushang Manuchehri and Walter E. Block
A common narrative claims that before 1948, the Middle East was an interfaith paradise where religious minorities enjoyed full equality.
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minorities → claim → equality
This argument exists mainly to frame Israel’s founding as the single cause of sectarian strife across the region.
asserted
argument → exist → region
By depicting the pre-modern Middle East as an idyllic garden of mutual respect, critics present Jewish statehood not as an act of historical self-defense, but as an unnatural rupture that destroyed an organic peace.
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that → depict → peace
The historical record tells a very different story.
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record → tell → story
Non-Muslims lived under Islamic rule as “dhimmis,” second-class subjects whose safety was always conditional and purchased through submission.
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safety → live → submission
Under the Pact of Umar and centuries of Ottoman rule, Jews paid the extortionate jizya poll tax.
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Jews → pay → tax
They were forbidden to bear arms, their legal testimony carried little weight against a Muslim’s, and strict sumptuary laws enforced their lower social caste.
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laws → forbid → caste
Jews were barred from riding horses, building synagogues taller than mosques, or speaking in ways that offended Islamic sensibilities.
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that → bar → sensibilities
In Yemen, the Orphans’ Decree mandated the abduction and forced conversion of Jewish orphans.
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Decree → mandate → orphans
Tolerance was never an unalienable right; it was a revocable lease held at the whim of the ruler.
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it → hold → ruler
Stepping outside those boundaries invited quick violence.
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Stepping → step → violence
The 1066 Granada massacre occurred after a Jewish vizier gained political office, breaching the religious hierarchy and triggering the slaughter of thousands.
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vizier → occur → thousands
During the 1834 looting of Safed, rebels waged a monthlong campaign of murder, plunder, and rape against an unarmed Jewish population that had no means to defend itself.
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that → wag → itself
The 1929 Hebron massacre followed the same dynamic.
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massacre → follow → dynamic
Although stoked by Arab nationalist propaganda, the mobs avoided armed Zionist kibbutzim and attacked the traditional, non-Zionist religious community that had lived in Hebron for centuries, butchering more than 60 defenseless people.
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that → stoke → people
The pattern repeated from Damascus in 1840 to the 1941 Farhud in Baghdad.
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pattern → repeat → Baghdad
The so-called harmony of the pre-modern era was really just the quiet compliance of people who understood the danger of pushing back.
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who → call → danger
Western critics regularly skip this history, creating a severe double standard when judging the region today.
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critics → skip → region
Israel faces intense condemnation, yet few critics acknowledge the legal and political freedoms that actually exist there.
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that → face → freedoms
Even during major wars, Israel’s left-wing daily Haaretz runs front-page attacks on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the military, openly accusing leadership of strategic incompetence and moral failure.
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Haaretz → run → incompetence
The day after the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre, Haaretz’s editorial board declared Netanyahu directly responsible for the catastrophe — a degree of press freedom unthinkable in any of the region’s dictatorships.
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Netanyahu → declare → dictatorships
Domestic reporters investigate state corruption without fearing midnight arrests.
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reporters → investigate → arrests
Arab citizens vote, lead their own political parties, and serve as coalition partners in governing cabinets.
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citizens → vote → cabinets
Arab judges sit on the Israeli Supreme Court, adjudicating state policy and sentencing former prime ministers and presidents to prison.
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judges → sit → prison
Israel treats its Arab citizens better than they are dealt with in many neighboring countries.
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they → treat → countries
They are too busy being policemen, politicians, professors, and entrepreneurs, to engage in movements abroad.
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They → engage → movements
Yet, Israel is widely accused, in the West, of behaving toward minorities badly.
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Israel → accuse → minorities
You want evidence for that claim?
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You → want → claim
Many of them bitterly accuse the only civilized country in the Middle East of wrongdoing.
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Many → accuse → wrongdoing
Opposition in Iran routinely meets lethal force.
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Opposition → meet → force
Ordinary criticism of the regime is enough to draw a prison sentence, and when authorities assemble sufficient evidence against a critic, the penalty can be execution.
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penalty → draw → critic
Political dissidents are tortured in Evin Prison, and protesters are hanged from cranes.
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protesters → torture → cranes
, twenty-seven-year-old Mehran Samak honked his car horn in Bandar Anzali to celebrate the hated national (Mullah) team’s World Cup defeat to the United States.
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Samak → honk → States
In response, state security forces shot him dead through his car window.
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forces → shoot → window
Israeli citizens can freely publish blistering takedowns of their wartime prime minister on morning newsstands, while the theocratic regime underwriting Israel’s regional enemies executes its own young citizens for harmless street noise.
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regime → publish → noise
Western commentators often quote critical Israeli reporting to argue for dismantling the Jewish state.
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commentators → quote → state
They happily rely on the legal protections of a vibrant democratic press to build their indictment, all while giving surrounding dictatorships a total pass on human rights.
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They → rely → rights
It is a grotesque paradox: using the institutional liberties of a free society as supposed proof of its illegitimacy, while ignoring the absolute terror and state murder required to keep its rivals in power.
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It → use → power
Zionism started from the simple premise that the Jewish people could no longer trust their survival to foreign rulers whose tolerance was always temporary.
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tolerance → start → rulers
Nothing that has happened in the modern Middle East has proven that foundational premise wrong.
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premise → happen → East
…and 4 more, not listed.
The Aporia
