The great LaTulippe review of The Saudis also brings to mind David Lean’s masterpiece Lawrence of Arabia. In one of the opening scenes to the movie, a conflict arises when Lawrence’s guide a Bedouin Hazimi of the Beni Salem drinks from a well owned by Sherif Ali of the Bedouin tribe of Harif. Ali shoots and kills the guide who tried to shoot Ali first. Afterward an argument occurs between Lawrence and Ali:

Ali (Omar Sarif): What is your name?

Lawrence (Peter O’Toole): My name is for my friends. None of my friends is a murderer.

Ali: You are angry English. He was nothing. The Hazimi may not drink at our wells. He knew that. Salaam.

Lawrence: Sherif Ali, so long as the Arabs fight tribe against tribe they will remain a little people, greedy barbarous and cruel.

This is a classic example of the west’s loss of respect for property rights. Although it may seem extreme to many of us “enlightened” westerners, at least these Bedowin have the courage to exercise their rights. Of course later Lawrence’s condemnation is later turned againt him when Ali rightly criticizes Lawrence’s unnecessary ordering of the black flag in the slaughter of thousands in a Turkish column.

Enlightened westerners seem to love to criticize the defense of property rights, but seem to have less problem and more of an aptitute to senseless mass slaughter.

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