Orientalism’s core doctrine asserts the Semite’s arrested development and inherent weakness

Evidence

Of itself, in itself, as a set of beliefs, as a method of analysis, Orientalism cannot develop. Indeed, it is the doctrinal antithesis of development. Its central argument is the myth of the arrested development of the Semites. From this matrix other myths pour forth, each of them showing the Semite to be the opposite of the Westerner and irremediably the victim of his own weaknesses. By a concatenation of events and circumstances the Semitic myth bifurcated in the Zionist movement; one Semite went the way of Orientalism, the other, the Arab, was forced to go the way of the Oriental. Each time tent and tribe are solicited, the myth is being employed; each time the concept of Arab national character is evoked, the myth is being employed. — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 777

Categorization

• DEFINE: Identifies the core generative myth of Orientalism: arrested Semitic development, which bifurcates into the Zionist and the ‘Oriental’ Arab.
• XREF: The bifurcation of the Semite into Zionist vs. Oriental Arab connects to how ‘race-thinking’ splits identity in Arendt and later Islamophobia discourse.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 777