By Mordechai Kedar, ISRAEL HAYOM
Revelry and rivers of enthusiasm washed over Israeli media over the past week: “Saudi newspaper interviews Israeli chief of staff!” “Peace with Saudi Arabia has begun!” “The days of the messiah are upon us!” That was the general spirit of the responses to the interview Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot gave to the Arabic news website Elaph last Thursday.
This site is, in fact, not at all a Saudi newspaper, as claimed in the various reports, and is run from London by two people, one born in Saudi Arabia and the other in Iraq.
Few Israelis know that the interviewer was not some Saudi journalist who landed in Israel in secret, as was suggested, but by Druze-Israeli Majdi Halabi, one of our own, who serves as Elaph’s Israel correspondent.
This site has given a platform to a number of Israeli writers since its establishment in 2001, including articles by my mentor, the late Prof. Shmuel Moreh, and even yours truly. But by all means, if we can get everyone excited about a historical event or the coming of the messiah, why not?
Incidentally, I combed the Saudi news outlets for any mention of the interview, but I did not find one.
It is true that Eizenkot said very interesting things in the interview, including that “we will not tolerate the entrenchment of an Iranian presence in Syria in general, and particularly west of the Damascus-Suwayda road [forming a line running roughly parallel to the Israel-Syrian border]. We will never allow any Iranian presence – we warned them against building military facilities and bases, and we will not allow it.”
What he said, in other words, is that we control a strip of land inside Syria, dozens of kilometers wide, along our border, and we will do everything in our power to expel the Iranians from there. But what will happen if the Iranians do build a base there to test our mettle? What if they publicly declare that an attack on their base will spark a big war? Will the IDF actually strike?
It seems that Israelis – both senior officials and professional interviewees – have forgotten the first rule of the Middle East bazaar culture, a rule we learned from the godfather of negotiations in our region (and my esteemed teacher, may he live many years), Professor Moshe Sharon: “Never show excitement, because then the price will climb to a level you won’t be able to afford.” The Saudis need us because of the Iranians. They would be willing to get into bed with the devil himself if he would protect them from the Persians.
We must maintain a neutral poker face so that they feel they have to work hard to convince us to give them what they want on our terms. For example, a Saudi embassy in Jerusalem. Why? Because. That’s our demand.
Seventy years of solitude, hatred, boycotts and insults from our neighbors have caused us to be moved by any semblance of a smile, to lose our cool over a handshake, to become excited when a question asked by an Israeli reporter is answered begrudgingly by a lowly Saudi prince, to cry with joy after a Kuwaiti representative remains in the auditorium when our ambassador speaks. Our obsession with displays of Arab attention and Arab gestures has become a psychological disorder. They fully exploit our desperate desire for their smiles, delighting in our “learned” commentators’ analyses of their every move.
This unbridled excitement proves that we did not learn the lesson our neighbors learned from the Quran: “Verily, God is with the patient” (2:153) – meaning that if you want God to help you, do not become overexcited, do not leave the safety of your front yard, do not show emotions and do not make haste. Be cool-headed and patient and make sure to maintain your poker face.
The stress and fear of Iran that is pushing the Saudis in our direction is presenting us, perhaps for the first time, with an opportunity to set our own terms: direct peace negotiations solely with the Saudis, without any foreign intervention; a Saudi embassy in Jerusalem; recognition of Jewish rights to live everywhere in Israel; a clear distinction between Israeli-Saudi peace and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; a Saudi pledge to refrain from voting against Israel in international forums; full normalization, including scientific, cultural, commercial and industry cooperation and the acceptance of flags and anthems at sports events. Have a problem with that? See ya.
Anyone who thinks that this sort of peace – which would be much better than the agreements Israel currently has with Egypt and Jordan – is impossible, is stuck in the mentality of Moses’ 12 spies, who told him after scouting the Holy Land: “We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and seemed the same in their eyes” (Numbers 13:33). On the day that we see ourselves at our true size, our neighbors will treat us properly. Until that day, however, let’s hol
As usual, Mordecai Kedar is right on the mark.
@ ArnoldHarris:
If they are as purcheasable as postage stamps, doesn’t that make them a security risk and if there are no civil liberties, doesn’t that create an incentive for Arabs to flee to Jewish communities in Israel?
@ Sebastien Zorn:
SZ,
The Moslems living in the eight Arab cities of Shomron and Yehuda which are the focal points of Mordecai Kedar’s master plan will not be rule directly by Jewish Israelis. That will be the job of the urban Arab extended family-based hamulas, most of whom can be counted upon to be as purchasable as postage stamps. Any trouble-makers among the Arab masses will be treated by their bosses as trouble-makers anywhere else living in such circumstances.
Don’t ever make the mistake of classifying me as any kind of Jewish liberal you have encountered. I really don’t care about the civil liberties of my enemies. And no, I feel no guilt whatsoever for being guided by such instincts.
Arnold Harris, Outspeaker
I can chip in here to both Arnold and Sebastien. S..The British would easily have been able to control the Arabs but they were in sympathy withthem. I have Herbert Samuel’s auto-biography and it is made very clear there. He took the road of placating them and was the idiot who appointed Amin Al Husseini as the Grand Mufti, a brand new position which he made up from thi air. He though this would please the Arabs…… It pleased them alright because they were able to use the position to persecute and attack the Jews.
As for the spreading population needing expansion into thre Sinai, I don’t see that ever happening. First of all, the higher Jewish birth rate over the Arabs has happened for the very first time THIS YEAR, and who knows if it will continue. It could flicker and sink, and the Arab birth rate could rise again. So it’s not to be counted on.
Then a very big overlooking of a very common phenomena. Yordim. If the population starts to squeeze the population, they’ll emigrate to Argentina, Brazil, (Sephardim) or to the US or Canada. Many Israelis have already been lost permanently by the same process without being pressured out. And the Jews are now by nature urban people and the Municipalities need people close together to get the best use of the utilities and facilities.
Just like building a bathroom and a kitchen on the same wall but in different rooms. The contractors can run all the piping through the same apertures at the same time.
Just my opinion.
@ ArnoldHarris:
Awesome, but what about my question. Do you believe that Muslims will submit to Kafir, especially Jewish, rule the way they submitted to foreign Muslim rule? Should we really be thinking of replacing one autonomy disaster which split into two on its own with eight? Moreover, these hamullas would be openly unelected, right? We’re talking clan leadership. With Sharia law for all? oy. At least the Soviets gave people in central asia a choice between sharia and civil courts.
@ Sebastien Zorn:
SZ,
Israel one day will retake the Sinai for the third time since 1956, irrespective of whomever rules Egypt. The Jewish population of Israel has a birthrate now surpassing that of the Arabs, and even if the national average hovers around 2 percent, the Jewish population growth will double every 36 years. That could mean a population of 25 million Jews in Israel before the end of this century.
Not for nothing did I spend a year studying city and regional planning, part of the curriculum of the Department of Geography at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1973-1974. Jewish expansionism was my interest then, and still is.
I have no knowledge of whether or not HaShem planned things that way, and I wouldn’t care in any case. I want our Jewish nation to join the ranks of the successful aggressors. And I think I could make a convincing argument that the Jewish nation has no option but to conquer enough space to become a permanent winner. The Arabs, I understand, think we have a permanent goal of conquering all the land from the Nile to the Euphrates. That’s one prediction that can be made to come true. Because there is only thing that keeps nations alive and viable, and that’s the successful and permanent pursuit of national power.
Do I despise losers? You’re damned right I do.
Arnold Harris, Outspeaker
@ ArnoldHarris:
Submitting to Muslim rule is one thing. Will they submit to Jewish rule? The British were unable to control them in their brief reign. I really see no practical alternative to restoring the status quo ante Oslo and ante Lebanon withdrawal. If Egypt falls into the wrong hands and goes to war against Israel again, it will be time to take Sinai back, permanently this time. At the end of the day, might makes right. Towards this end, the most important fight is the one to disenfranchise the domestic Left while building international alliances and cutting off terror funding.
@ Sebastien Zorn:
SZ,
It would be useful if all or nearly all the Arabs who make up the urban populations of Area A and Area B could be talked into vacating the eight cities for which Professor Kedar wants local autonomy. But I compare the possibility of that to the City of Chicago convincing all the gang members who control the black ghettos of that city to move out to one or more of the Southern US states.
In place of that, a system of local councils of the urban Arab hamulas would be far easier for the government of Israel to work with for purposes of keeping the local Arabs relatively peaceful.
That was the experience of the Ottoman Turks for many centuries, and Israel could — and should — take the same approach. In any case, rings of Jewish suburbs are likely one day to grow around all those Area A Arab central cities.
If you cannot get rid of them, then you must either have a hand in governing them, or getting used to the idea of running away from them.
Arnold Harris, Outspeaker
@ ArnoldHarris:
Should foreign residents who should be encouraged to leave get any form of autonomy? And, what if they use it the way the PA has and terror bases re-emerge in a different form, at some point? This is a deeply-brainwashed population, brain-washed for generations, now, even beyond more than a millenium of Muslim arrogance, bigotry and violence — that has never been de-Nazified, if that is even possible. At least, Stephen Plaut’s system of blacklisting and isolating communities that permit terror would have to be implemented. But, that would still require military oversight and control which the Left will bitterly oppose. As Ted put it, “You can’t suck and blow at the same time.” They must not be given incentives to stay but to go.
On ne peut etre plus correct que Mordechai.
Good Article with very good insight.
Dr Mordechai Kedar, justifiably famed for his authorship of the “Eight State Solution”, is always at or near the top of my reading list of proposals of Israeli annexation of nearly all of Shomron and Yehuda.
My only point of difference with his solution is that I favor turning over local control in the main Arab cities to councils of the various local hamulas, which is exactly how the Ottoman Empire ruled Aretz-Yisrael for the centuries leading up to World War I and the British takeover of most of the Middle East.
Arnold Harris, Outspeaker