My time in the Middle East led me to realize that, with a few rare exceptions, the dominant political ideology there-whether you were talking about Sunnis or Shiites or Kurds, Israelis, Arabs, Persians, Turks, or Palestinians-was "I am weak, how can I compromise? I am strong, why should I compromise?" The notion of there being "a common good" and "a middle ground" that we all compromise for and upon-not to mention a higher community calling we work to sustain-was simply not in the lexicon.
( Thomas L. Friedman )
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