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Read other letters about this article
As a Muslim, I share much of Fisk's anger at the way the Western powers (most recently the U.S.) have wronged the Islamic world, first through the Crusades, then through imperialism/colonialism, the carving up of the lands after WWI and WWII, and the continual military and economic support for corrupt puppet governments. The blatant injustice against the Palestinians is an especially sharp slap that stings everywhere and poisons good will.
The hypocrisy of Western powers is astonishing. They believe in all the wonderful ideals of democracy, liberal humanism, and material progess for themselves, but not for others. The "third world" (not just Muslim lands, but Africa, Latin America, much of Asia) is a commodity for them, to be used for oil or cheap labor or geopolitical strategy. They don't really give a damn about the welfare of non-Western people, no matter how much they invoke their moral superiority or their God. (By "they" I mean mean those in power. The average Western citizen, especially American, is too self-involved or ignorant to care about what his/her government is doing abroad and whether the noble ideals of "liberty and justice for all" are actually practiced beyond the national borders.)
One of the other letter writers mentioned that Fisk is too one-sided in blaming the West for all the woes of the Middle East, that he ignores internal pathologies of Middle Eastern societies. That is very true. However, I would add that Middle Eastern societies were barely given a chance for their own Enlightenment like Europe had after its period of intellectual and civic stagnation. The possibility of a Middle Eastern Enlightenment was thwarted when Europe and then America began their inhumane and cruel meddling. Muslims reacted to the invasions by withdrawing into an inflexible and deeply conservative attitude towards their traditions and sense of identity.
Now, for many Middle Easterners, any Western idea or practice is seen as anathema, even if it is a good idea on its own (democracy, human rights, women's empowerment, secular education, meritocracy rather than nepotism, etc.). The challenge for Middle Easterners and Muslims is to be able to separate the message from the messenger if they want to advance as a society and free themselves from the shackles of Western power.
