They speak much but do little — this is a sad but accurate description of our modern leaders. While we make great claims to be an honorable and chivalrous people, the dead children and demolished houses in Jenin, Gaza and Jericho tell us there is no honor or chivalry in us.
Another of our favorite choruses is that we are a united people with unanimous views. At the same time, the countless different views and mutually antagonistic movements in our midst prove that there is nothing known even as “unanimity of word” in our society.
Our words are never a prelude to action. Even the little action which follows our wildest words is, in most cases, contrary to what we said.
In the past, many of us shouted, “Push Israel into the sea.” In the end, it was the person who made that statement who ended up helpless while the Zionists moved quietly along according to their own plans and schemes.
One of us in the recent past declared that he would torch Israel but what happened was exactly the opposite. We watched helplessly while Israel destroyed Arab lands with bombs.
While we make highly charged emotional statements, our enemy acts with meticulous planning, converting his wishes and emotions into action. Unlike us, he does not babble about his plans for future attacks. He speaks only after all the arrangements for action are in place. Is there an Arab leader in modern history who carried out the threats he made to his enemies?
Our enemies listen to what they know very well are meaningless threats by Arab or Muslim leaders and then make defensive preparations. The defensive moves end up as successful offensives since we never do anything beyond verbally threatening our enemies.
We forget our words once they have been spoken. The enemy’s response, however, often comes before we hear our own echo. Do we have any right or justification in complaining about our present helpless state? We should accept that not a word uttered by one of us is taken seriously by our enemies. They simply make necessary preparations to prevent our moves.
In the past, on the other hand, the Arabs never uttered a threat without meaning it. When the First Caliph Abu Bakr, may Allah be merciful to him, said he would strike back at the Romans, he meant what he said and he did what he said he would do.
The same was true of other famous leaders in our history. They never said what they did not intend to do. The Abbasid Caliph, Harun Al-Rashid, said to an invader, “Our reply is what you see, not what you hear.”
These, alas, are tales from our glorious past. If only we could learn from them and change our ways, we would win both our battles and our wars.
