Arab Leaders and Israel: Diplomatic progress or taqiyyah?

By Dogan Akman

Prime Minister Netanyahu considers his dealings with the heads of the Arab states at the Warsaw international conference to be a reflection of the progress in Israel’s improving diplomatic relations with these states. And he is not alone on this subject.

Netanyahu declared: “I can reveal that something happened here. Of the five Arab foreign ministers who spoke, four spoke out against Iran and spoke of Israel’s right to defend itself. They talked about the fact that once the main issue was the   Palestinian issue, but today they said that the Iranian issue should be at the top….There is a change here; the change is in terms of the things they said, and the things that will be done…The big issue was Iran, while the Palestinians were just mentioned. This was once inconceivable.”

So what is the big deal? Does Israel have the right to defend itself against the salaried terrorists of the Palestinian Authority? Hamas? Hezbollah? Or only against Iran?

This was once inconceivable because Iran, as we know it today, with its military might; violence financing and fostering self and territorial ambitions did not exist until relatively recently. With Iran threateningly  breathing down the necks of Israel and  of the  of Arab states in question, at this critical juncture, surely no government  of sober mind would focus on the Palestinian issue and give it priority over the  Iranian  front.

The question is whether this presages a genuine positive long term change   in the diplomatic relations between Israel and the Arab countries or are these states engaging in taqiyyah (dissimulation)?

I submit that for these countries taqqiyah is the order of the day.

I was raised and schooled in Turkey. The history of the Ottoman Empire and Turkey was my favourite subject. Back in the years 1951-1957, during my middle and high school days, Turkish history teachers used to express strong hostility to and resentment, not to say hate, of Arabs for what the teachers described as their treacherous behaviour against the Ottoman Empire during WWI, when they aligned themselves with the British to help defeat the Empire in the Middle East. And I think, with brief interludes, this hostility carried on until the AKP strengthened its roots in power, and Turkey developed good relations with Israel.

The hostility towards the Arabs was accompanied by statements to the effect that the Islam practiced by the Turks was by far superior to that practiced by the Arabs.

In a nutshell, my history teachers had nothing good to say about the Arabs. Nor did the newspapers, editorialists and commentators. Inevitably, this left its mark in my world-view of the Middle East since then.

This  view of the Arabs was  lent credence ,among  many others, by  the late pre-Oslo  edition  of Shimon Peres, who in his book “Tomorrow is Now” (1978) wrote : “The major issue is not [attaining] an agreement  but ensuring  the actual implementation of the of the agreement in practice. The number of agreements which the Arabs have violated is no less than [the] number which they have kept.” What really, deep down, caused him to change his mind to sign the treacherous Oslo Accords some 25 years later and to stick to them, despite the facts on the ground is something which I never quite figured out to my satisfaction?

Certainly, in the case of Iran, there is no question of Israel and the Arab states reaching a formal pact of  mutual  defence, as this would amount to the formal recognition of the State of Israel by the signatory states; an absolute no-no.

Nor would Israel enter into even an informal understanding or agreement whereby she and the Arab states would assume reciprocal obligations to defend one another against an Iranian attack.

At all events, in the event G-d forbid, Israel were to be attacked first,  the old Turkish view of the Arabs  prompts  me  to very much doubt that any of the Arab states involved would ,or for that matter, realistically could  come to the defence of Israel.

After all, while all this “diplomatic progress” is being made, inwardly none of the Arab states in question are doing much to change the public perceptions and opinions of Jews and Israel in their respective countries. Thus, the teaching of history of the Arab-Jewish relations is still venomous enough against Jews and Israel. Saudi Arabia is still exporting its venomous text books to the Arab diaspora for use in some of their schools and in some instances financing these schools.  A fundamentalist approach to Islam is still the flavour of the day. “Jihad” is not far from the populaces’ minds and lips. The Palestinian slogan “from the river to the sea” remains the slogan of the day. And last but not least, these states are still voting reflexively in favour of all kinds of egregious anti-Israeli motions at the United Nations and its various emanations   and, even sponsoring some of them.

And short of a miracle, this has been the state of affairs too long for the peoples of these countries to change their beliefs, feelings, frame of mind and thinking about Jews and Israel.

Hence, the Warsaw meeting and all the present and future discussions and cooperation about the Iranian threat are just the flavours of the present dangerous times.

If and when the Iran problem is fixed, surely the Palestinian issue will resume its place at or near center-stage.

Then what about the prospects of long term diplomatic progress between Israel and the five Arab states?

If anyone is thinking, hoping or expecting that the current progress in diplomatic relations will eventually lead to the establishment of formal diplomatic relations between the Arab states and Israel, before the resolution of the Palestinian issue, they better think again.

As for the evidence to sustain the foregoing prediction, one need go no further than the recent pronouncements of Saudi Prince Turki bin Faisal Al Saud an influential and high ranking former Saudi diplomat, during his unprecedented interview in London on February 13th inst. on Israeli TV Channel 13, reported in the February 14th issue of Israpundit by the staff of the Times of Israel.

To the point,  the Prince declared: ”Israeli public opinion should not be deceived into believing that the Palestinian issue is a dead issue…From the Israeli point of view, Mr. Netanyahu would like us to have a relationship, and then we can fix the Palestinian issue. From the Saudi point of view, it’s the other way around.”

And with the Saudis adopting this position, probability of any of the other Arab states taking a different stance is practically nil.

And assuming that the Arab states would directly or indirectly get involved in any future negotiations between the P.A., and Israel, realistically speaking, will they succeed in convincing the P.A to stop financing terrorism and even to outlaw it? I doubt t it. Will they ever concede to Israel her sovereignty over the undivided Jerusalem? Surely, this is wholly out of question. Would they force the Palestinian Authority to be reasonable in its demands and expectations regarding the terms of a peace treaty? Maybe yes, may be no. Would they succeed? I doubt it. Will they get P.A. to abandon its demand for the Right of Return? May be. Will they push or vote for the dismantling of the UNWRA? I doubt it.  Will they push the P.A. to agree to demilitarise the future Palestinian state? Unlikely. Will they urge the P.A. to allow Israel to keep “Area C”? No.  How about doing something on their own initiative or helping Israel to get rid of Hamas? No.  Would they support Israel’s military action against Hamas to get rid of them and re-assert Israeli sovereignty over the Gaza strip? No.

And why not do these things or at least a good number of them? Well, to do so would be disrespectful of the honour and dignity of the Palestinian people and breach their fundamental rights (not to mention that such actions would not play well back home).

Assuming the parties reach agreement on the terms of a peace treaty, would the Palestinian state honour the terms of the treaty, to put it in the words of a representative of the Canadian government  who entered into treaty  on behalf of the Crown with some of Canadian indigenous peoples, “ so long as the rivers flow and the sun shines? Well, I think the late Simon Peres answered that question.

So much for the happenings in Warsaw and all that “so-called” progress in the diplomatic relations of Israel with the five Arab states.

In the meantime, I am curious to know which country’s foreign minister did not join the chorus of his four colleagues and why?

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The writer lives in Canada. Prior to his retirement in 2009, he taught university, served as a Judge of the Provincial Court of the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador, and then joined the Federal Department of Justice where he was employed first, as a Crown prosecutor, and then as a civil litigator. Besides his academic publications, since his retirement, the writer published papers on a variety of subjects, mostly focused on political issues.

February 26, 2019 | Comments »

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