Moderation in the Middle East . . . ?

Here is an interesting report I first saw in the New York Times - Week-in-Review.

Read it and chew on it - there are some interesting connections and insights to be had.

The author is David Brooks - "A War of Narratives "
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Update - Wednesday, April 18, 2007 9:31:00 PM

Point #1 - why would Arabs with moderate views, even if strongly held, want to stand up and declare themselves? To set themselves up as targets for the extremist elements? Before there can be any progress, there has to be stability. Even a fairly large moderate center can be nullified by enough militants on "the fringes". There just isn't a reasonable basis for moderation to hold sway in most, perhaps all, countries in the Middle East for the foreseeable future. And though they appear "moderate" to us, to their own people, they will look like radicals of the extreme left.

Update April 29, 2007
Point #2 - notice how the Arab academics took the postion that various publications in the US prove that their "narrative" is right -
As in:

"Speaker after speaker triumphantly cited the work of Stephen Walt, John Mearsheimer and Jimmy Carter as proof that even Americans were coming to admit that the Israel lobby controls their government."

Point #3: Notice the similarity between point number 2 and the anti "climate-change" lobby?

Yup - quoting a isolated professor from MIT that no consensus exists about climate change is like quoting Jimmy Carter on Israel's failure to make peace with the Palestinians.

Give me a break! Huh?