“No Arab Spring protester, however much he or she might identify with the plight of the Palestinians or decry the cruel policies of Israeli occupation (as I do), would think today to attribute all the ills of Arab polities to empty abstractions like "imperialism" and "Zionism". They understand in their bones that those phrases were tools of a language designed to prop up nasty regimes and distract people like them from the struggle for a better life.”

—  Kanan Makiya

"The Arab Spring started in Iraq", The New York Times (April 6, 2013)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Kanan Makiya 35
American orientalist 1949

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