Stephen, you really need to lighten up and quit jumping down everybody's throat for every single remark that they make. As it happens, Howard is largely correct. Israel is the only real democracy in the Middle East, and it just happens to be non-Arab. Most Arabs were not exposed to Western ideas and practices until oil was discovered underneath them. Mind you, I wholeheartedly believe that they can live the way we do--IF they want to. The radical Islamists very emphatically do not want to, and they are perfectly willing to kill those around them who do. Even if the Middle East as a whole does want to, these things take time; a few decades, at the very least, and a few generations. We're talking about a whole country or countries changing large chunks of their culture. Just look at the immigrants who come to Western countries. By and large, they actively want to change their ways, and yet it typically takes three generations to become fully assimilated. And lastly, it is not racist to point out what should be perfectly obvious to everyone, that different countries, in different parts of the world, which happen to be populated by different-looking people, have different practices and cultures.