As Arabs, we need to understand that Israel and the West are not our oppressors or enemies.

We, Arabs, are our own worst enemies.

We, Arabs, are our greatest oppressors.

We, Arabs, have killed and oppressed a million times more of our people than the West and Israel can ever do.

It is not Israel that married off my mother when she was a child. It is my people who did.

It is not the West or Israel that has been bombing Yemen for the past decade and killed 400,000. It is us, Arabs, who did it.

It is not the Israel that implanted Islamic extremism in the East and the West. It is our mosques, it is the books we worship, it is the Imams we follow, it is what we learn and what we teach.

It is not the West that forces us to treat women like commodities. It is our people.

And most of all, it is not the West or Israel that doesn’t value Arab lives.

It is us, Arabs, who do not value human life.

If we do not admit to ourselves that WE are the problem, that WE are refusing to progress, and that WE need to change – then change will never happen, blood will keep flowing, and we will never know peace.

How do we expect the world and the International Community to respect us, when we don’t respect ourselves?