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This essay is adapted from a lecture at Hannah Arendt: Right Now, a conference co-sponsored by the NYU Institute for the Humanities and the Humanities Council at NYU, in December [...]

Fouad Moughrabi's review of 'Cruelty and Silence' is based on personal attacks and baseless accusations. He has apparently misunderstood the thesis of the book, which focuses more on the silence of secular nationalist intellectuals who acquiesced in the gross cruelties that have been going on inside Iraq and other parts of the Arab world for a quarter of a century. It is also about matters that have caused a rift between Palestinians and anti-Ba'th Iraqis since Saddam Hussein entered Kuwait.

Comments on the theme political victimhood evident in Iraq's foreign relations. Explanation of how victims and victimizers in the nation's political structure can change places with ease; Comparison of the country's political victimhood with similar incidents in the Middle East.