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The Arabs are suffering from one of history's worst inferiority complexes, caused by the shock of discovering that a glorious past has become irrelevant in a powerless present. The original Arabs were the Semitic tribesmen of the Arabian Peninsula, the passionate nomads and born makers of creeds, whom T. E. Lawrence called "people of primary colors." Today one can hardly define an Arab; the name spans a racial rainbow. "Arabs" may be squat Lebanese, tall Saudis, white Syrians or grape-black Sudanese. They include dollar-dizzy Kuwaiti, secretive Druzes, Gallicized Algerians and Christian Copts. Only about 10% are nomads, while most live in villages and cities (some very big: Baghdad, 2,200,000; Cairo, 4,200,000). Egypt is the Arab "capital," which fielded the largest army against Israel. But Egyptians were not originally Arabs, although they are now so considered. They come of Hamitic stock, a submissive people widely weakened by disease and the Nile climate, who have rarely in history won a war. The Saudis, among the purest Arabs, are also among the best fighters, but did not really fight Israel. Arabs fight bravely enough on their own soil—as the Algerians did against the French or the Jordanians in Palestine. Yet, despite all the anti-Israeli passion, few other Arabs are really eager to risk their lives for the Arabs in Palestine. The "Arab nation," which is so often talked about by the leaders, is nothing but "an act of will," says British Arabist Sir Hamilton Gibb. It does not correspond to any visible political entity. Pan Arabism is at once a Mitty-esque dream of things past and a poetic assertion of a unity that does not exist.
Still, the diverse Arab peoples do have much in common. They tend to be both puritan and morbidly erotic. They are emotional—at feasts or in war—to the point of delirium. They carry on ancient forms of politeness and hospitality, which, Princeton Scholar Morroe Berger suggests, help to control the most violent impulses of aggression. Yet they are also patient to the point of crippling fatalism, a trait reflected in the constant phrases, inshallah (if God wills it), malesh (it does not matter), and bukra (tomorrow). Above all, what they have in common is a language. "An Arab is anyone whose mother tongue is Arabic," says Gamal Abdel Nasser. It is not only the chief bond, but a chief source of trouble. Its whole stress is on rhetoric and resonance, not meaning and content. How poetically an Arab speaks is far more important than what he says. "In Arabic," asserts one specialist, "the medium squared is the message."
Forbidden wine by the Prophet, Arabs often grow intoxicated on words. Florid exaggeration is a supreme Arab art. An Arab refugee does not tell the facts; he utters an epic of lament: "Words cannot describe the disaster we have suffered!" An Arab general does not say he will attack with 50 tanks; he is more likely to mention 50,000. Arabs do not want to admit Israelis can shoot; they say enemy guns use a new "homing device." Damascus radio is not just critical of U.S. policy; it depicts "fat, mad" President Johnson "drinking Arab blood" and warns, "O Johnson, drinking blood will destroy your stomach."