On Jan. 6, the Foreign Ministry released a statement in Arabic revealing that a number of delegations from Iraq had visited Israel, including influential Sunni and Shiite figures in the country, in 2018. The Foreign Ministry did not name names. The news made waves in Iraq after it was leaked to the press that some of the officials that took part in the delegation were sitting members of parliament. Many lawmakers, including the head of Iraq’s parliament, demanded an investigative committee be established and officials who came into contact with the “Zionist entity” be punished to the full extent of the law. Everyone in the country was outspoken about their opposition to the normalization of ties with Israel, everyone that is, except for one former lawmaker. But we’ll get to him later.
A majority of Israelis would like to be at peace with our neighbors, but decades of experience have led us to seriously contemplate the concessions we are interested in making in return for a false peace. Peace with Egypt is very cold, and peace ties with Jordan are at a rough spot following Amman’s refusal to renew part of the Hashemite kingdom’s 1994 peace treaty with Israel that allows Israel to lease two small areas of land – Naharayim in the northern Jordan Valley and Ghamr in the south.
It Is evident that our neighbors are only interested in making peace with us because they are in distress. They have learned how to acquire Israeli aid through empty promises of future peaceful relations. The examples of this are many. In the 1980s, the Christians in Lebanon sold Israel the illusion of a future peace that would be made possible once the Palestinians were removed from Lebanon. This led Israel to show up in Beirut and expel the Palestinians, among other things. The outcome of all this is of course well-known.
With the help of social media networks and mass Syrian immigration to Europe, many Israelis have been able to communicate with members of Syria’s opposition in recent years. These opposition members have expressed interest in making peace with Israel, after it helps bring down President Bashar Assad’s regime. Well, Assad hasn’t been removed from power, and there is no peace with Syria.
Immediately after the fall of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, dozens of Iraqi parliamentarians arrived in Israel, a majority of them afraid to make their visit public. The most conspicuous of them was MP Mithal al-Alusi, who did not fear public knowledge of his Israel visit. Israeli commentators saw his bold stance as proof the winds of peace were blowing from Baghdad. Except a short while later, he was kicked out of parliament and his two children were murdered. Al-Alusi was never again elected to parliament. He wasn’t able to pass the electoral threshold.
Iraq is a failed state. Despite being one of the richest countries when it comes to natural resources, it is unable to provide its residents with electricity and drinking water. Iraqis are sick of living such lives. They are sick of standing idly by as their oil and other natural treasures are stolen by Iran, which has controlled Iraq through Shiite militias ever since Hussein’s fall from power. The Iraqis, who are interested in freeing themselves of the Iranians at any price, are now asking for Israel’s military assistance in return for empty promises of peace. Unfortunately, Israel is allocating substantial resources toward this hopeless end.
There are tens of thousands of Iraqi refugees in Europe who cannot return to their homeland. They hope Israel will help remove the Iranians from Iraq, and promise us peace when they return home and take control of the government. And so, let us add Iraq to the list of Arab countries that seek Israeli aid in return for promises of a future peace, and pay us the same kind of lip service we were paid by the Christians in Lebanon in the 1980s, and most recently with the opposition fighters in Syria.
Peace with Iraq is light years away. In October 2017, the Iraqi parliament passed a law prohibiting the raising of the Israeli flag in the country and punishing violators with jail time. If we haven’t learned from past experiences, let us at the very least read the present situation correctly.
Real peace like between US & Canada is not anywhere near the horizon due to Antisemitism of Muslims towards Jews. Luckily Israel is no longer at war with all its neighbors and cooperates on things of mutual interest. This can be gradually expanded.
The Anti Iran conference to be help in Poland will include Arabs and Israelis. A new first. Israel is also doing more business with the Gulf States and Egypt. Any such normalization done for common interests is good.
If Iran keeps weakening itself (helped by Trumps sanctions) and running into Israel headfirst in Syria without a helmet on are positives. Iran is short of money and water. This is a real problem for them!
@ dreuveni: I agree.
Light years or heavy years or dark years. A year is still a year.
It will take many years to convince our cousins that we have our own best interests at heart, just like themselves.
Excellent, perceptive analysis.
I believe that peace is possible, but not through concessions, withdrawals, or pieces of paper signed by enemies. Shouln’t the 1938 Munich experience have taught Israelis, and everyone else, this lesson for all time? Peace with the Arabs can come in only two ways: 1) The Arab world loses interest in fighting Israel. It realizes that Israel could be a friend and even ally, and that conflict with Israel has given them nothing. This will only be possible if a more secular, democratic outlook on life takes hold in the Arab world, and Islamic fundamentals and jihadist ferver wane. There are some indications that there are a growing number of Arabs whose thinking has begun to move in this more secularist, humane and democratic direction. But it will take a long time for this trend to enable Arab governments to make peace with Israel. This kind of peace must be without Israeli concessions, and involve “trading peace for peace.”
The second possible route to peace is if the Arab countries suffer such very severe defeats in future wars with Israel that they realize that their very existence as societies in in question unless they surrender to Israel and make peace on its terms. This is unlikely to happen unless the Western powers realize that jihadism is threatening their own existence, declare war on the entire Muslim-Arab world, and however grudgingly and reluctantly (because the Western leaders are mainly antisemitic bastards themselves), form a military-political alliance with Israel that includes recognition of Israeli sovereignty over all “Palestine,” the resettlement of the Palestinian Arabs elsewhere, etc. This is a fairly remote possibility, but it may happen some day if the Muslim states and “non-state actors” continue to wage a jihad against the West.
The jist of my strategy for peace is this–Israel must be prepared to hold out under decades of siege by the Arab-Muslim world, until the Arabs become more rational and civilized in their outlook and voluntarily agree to peace with Israel, or Israel acquires the military-political power to compel them to make peace. One or the other of these possibilities will probably happen some day if Israel is prepared to hold out and keep fighting its enemies. But it will take enormous perseverance, deep national feeling, and faith to succeed. Do we Jews have it in us? I just don’t know.