You are right. I should have been a bit more careful in differentiating between the Palestinians and the GCC Arabs.
However, it is not a trivial matter that the GCC Arabs, while they were under the colonial Turks then, are now under the thumb of a far worse colonial thumb, if they only know that. The recent gains and prosperity in the GCC is extremely vulnerable should they even try not to please the interests of remote power and their dagger pointed to their necks. At least the Turks shared the religion and geography!
I don't think that's true. At the end of the day what is important is that Arabs are ruling themselves now based on the social contract between the citizenry and State.
With regard to global politics and balancing interests of global powers - all States need to do that. Every state navigates global power politics through compromises in some aspects in return for gains aligned to their interests. To their credit the Arabs have navigated it in a manner that they have yielded historically unprecedented prosperity and safety for their people. Have they had to make compromises? Of course.
However, literally every country in the world - from China to India to Maldives - makes compromises on some interests in return for gains in other interests in a global power marketplace. No country can have it all across the board, not even the US. That is how global state politics has worked since time immemorial.
Under Turkish colonialism under the guise of 'same religion and geography' the Arabs would have had neither self-rule, nor economic prosperity, nor peace. Under self-rule they have achieved both prosperity and peace. Frankly, even if they got neither, self-rule is still better.
GCC is only doing good because of oil wealth. Let’s not pretend the entire Arab world is not behind so far from Western counterparts from technology, militarily, education, etc
Does that mean that Arabs should have remained subservient to the Turks who were themselves behind the West in technology, military, education, etc.? Ultimately, the entire rest of the world is behind the Western counterparts in varying degrees.
All countries leverage the resources they have (i.e., play the cards they are dealt with). For some it is natural resources, for others its sitting on favourable trade routes, for others still it is fertile land. The Arabs got oil and they have played it well to build up their society. They could have become a Venezuela but they did not. In fact they are taking active efforts to diversify their economy for the post oil era and frankly, doing quite well.
All of this still points to one indisputable fact - the Arabs did not 'backstab' the Ottomans/Turks. Their fight for self-rule was noble at best and righteous at worst.
t.co
