Why do they hate West so much?

This question has been asked again and again on this board almost every day ands after much debate the conclusion is that the west is guilty of killing civilians, fueling war, and never apologising. the answer's are almost always given the same response: "but the terrorists use civilian sites to hide"...

I came across an article by Robert Fisk - the same Robert Fisk who has spent decades upon decades building a career as a correspondent on Middle Eastern affairs and was there to see first hand the russian war on the extremists. I always find his commentries more than insightful and full of harsh truths. He outlines some in his latest one dated 7th Jan 2009:
Robert Fisk: Why do the hate the west so much, we will ask

For those who don't have the opportunity to read the whole thing, here are some quotes which are especially applicable today:

What is amazing is that so many Western leaders, so many presidents and prime ministers and, I fear, so many editors and journalists, bought the old lie; that Israelis take such great care to avoid civilian casualties. "Israel makes every possible effort to avoid civilian casualties," yet another Israeli ambassador said only hours before the Gaza massacre. And every president and prime minister who repeated this mendacity as an excuse to avoid a ceasefire has the blood of last night's butchery on their hands. Had George Bush had the courage to demand an immediate ceasefire 48 hours earlier, those 40 civilians, the old and the women and children, would be alive.

The Sabra and Chatila massacre was committed by Israel's right-wing Lebanese Phalangist allies while Israeli troops, as Israel's own commission of inquiry revealed, watched for 48 hours and did nothing. When Israel was blamed, Menachem Begin's government accused the world of a blood libel. After Israeli artillery had fired shells into the UN base at Qana in 1996, the Israelis claimed that Hizbollah gunmen were also sheltering in the base. It was a lie. The more than 1,000 dead of 2006 – a war started when Hizbollah captured two Israeli soldiers on the border – were simply dismissed as the responsibility of the Hizbollah. Israel claimed the bodies of children killed in a second Qana massacre may have been taken from a graveyard. It was another lie. The Marwahin massacre was never excused. The people of the village were ordered to flee, obeyed Israeli orders and were then attacked by an Israeli gunship. The refugees took their children and stood them around the truck in which they were travelling so that Israeli pilots would see they were innocents. Then the Israeli helicopter mowed them down at close range. Only two survived, by playing dead. Israel didn't even apologise.

Twelve years earlier, another Israeli helicopter attacked an ambulance carrying civilians from a neighbouring village – again after they were ordered to leave by Israel – and killed three children and two women. The Israelis claimed that a Hizbollah fighter was in the ambulance. It was untrue. I covered all these atrocities, I investigated them all, talked to the survivors. So did a number of my colleagues. Our fate, of course, was that most slanderous of libels: we were accused of being anti-Semitic.

Yes, Israelis deserve security. Twenty Israelis dead in 10 years around Gaza is a grim figure indeed. But 600 Palestinians dead in just over a week, thousands over the years since 1948 – when the Israeli massacre at Deir Yassin helped to kick-start the flight of Palestinians from that part of Palestine that was to become Israel – is on a quite different scale. This recalls not a normal Middle East bloodletting but an atrocity on the level of the Balkan wars of the 1990s. And of course, when an Arab bestirs himself with unrestrained fury and takes out his incendiary, blind anger on the West, we will say it has nothing to do with us. Why do they hate us, we will ask? But let us not say we do not know the answer

For once, perhaps we have the true answer...

I am hoping that ATS'rs who find this article informative, will flag this thread. To date i feel that this is the most honest answer to age old question that the west has asked the east.

i appreciate your help and many thanks.

Good post. If the Americans only knew this information they would furious. Americans understand fair play and true justice but MSM has them so propagandised they have an inverted understanding of the truth of the Palestinian narrative.

Originally posted by masonwatcher
Good post. If the Americans only knew this information they would furious. Americans understand fair play and true justice but MSM has them so propagandised they have an inverted understanding of the truth of the Palestinian narrative.

They said this about Stalin, 'if only he knew.' The west is taking all of the resources of the third world and making them poorer for it. They aren't stupid, they know. Where they have oil we corrupt them, where they do not, we impoverish them. It's history now.

reply to post by redled


i have no doubt that the PTB (and that includes the current gov's) know exactly what they are doing. It is unfathomable that we on ATS can figure it out, yet the power brokers and the advisors with their qualifications and special insights don't know the consequences of their actions.

It is the people who are being misled.

I bet my bottom dollar that on the day the nukes fly, the advisors would be far underground with their families whilst the rest of us are left to cook as human sacrifices.

sickening really!

For the same reason we are sick of the people that run our government. greedy sacks of crap. They are the ones who create our image over there... what did you expect?

reply to post by Wertdagf


so true! all the leaders are corrupt as all get whilst the civilians pay the price. I bet if this escalates into a global war, we will be the ones being left as human sacrifices whilst the leaders hide in their bunkers.

There is far more behind the stereotypical hate of the west than the recent Gaza actions....

For starters, there's the cultural differences... They see our society as decadent compared to their strict religious doghma, and therefore we are all contemptuous sinners.

Then, there's our history of being two-faced in the region...we support Iran, then we turn on them, we support Afghanistan, then we turn on them, we support Iraq, then we turn on them, etc., etc. Not that there weren't reasons behind these stances, but the average middle easterner, receiving state-run news, and typically with little outside access to other sources, isn't going to consider that.

Then, there's the double standard with Israel. It's an atrocity when a Hamas rocket kills an Israeli shopper, but somehow a lesser atrocity when an IDF shell takes out 20 school children in Gaza...because Israel was responding to the rocket attack. It's ridiculous, yet any attempt by the western media to criticize instantly receives the "anti-Semite" label, so its not condemned.

It's little wonder they hate us so, for valid, and invalid reasons....but it's easy to see why they view us the way they do...

If USA destabalizes im sure we will see russia, china, and india looking at us like we are the newest crumbling governement with nuclear weapons.... you know what that means? We might have our missle installations distroyed.

One of the main reasons why they hate us so much is still religeon.
It says in their bible "convert the infidels (us)if they dont convert kill them"

nice thread

for years and years all israel wants is the land.. but what can we really do? i myself hope the army with rocks wins these battles... carma will soon hit israel