‘Those who seek peace are seen as losers’

Middle East expert Dr. Mordechai Kedar explains how Arabs see Israel’s requests for peace, explains how true peace can be achieved.

By Hezki Baruch, INN

Middle East expert Dr. Mordechai Kedar spoke at a Knesset meeting about how Israel’s neighbors see peace, and what Israel should do to achieve a true and lasting peace.

Slamming the Knesset,, he said, “You really want to stop the incitement? Have you ever closed a TV or radio station run by the Palestinian Authority (PA)? You always blame the Supreme Court, it’s time that you, the members of the Knesset, start functioning.”

“We are the ones responsible for the fact that Jibril Rajoub (a PA leader and terrorist – ed.) still walks free. PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas gives money for terror – how come he is still the PA chairman?

“We are the ones guilty, not them. They do whatever we allow them to do.”

Dr. Kedar then explained what “peace” means to Israel’s neighbors.

“I hear people like MK Yehuda Glick (Likud) talking about peace,” he said. “You need to understand how the other side hears that. Whoever seeks peace is seen as a person who has already lost the battle. He’s weak and he’s asking for mercy, begging that they should leave his head attached to his shoulders. After he loses the battle, he asks for mercy and calls it peace….the moment we seek peace, peace runs away from us. Because they raise the price to something that we’re not willing to pay.”

“That’s how everyone [seeking peace] is seen, whether he’s from the right or the left.”

In his opinion, the way to make peace is to flip the tables.

“We need to tell the Arabs something very simple: We don’t need peace. We’ve been a state for 70 years, we’re a democratic country, we’re organized, OECD, Israeli medicine….look at Syria, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, they’re failures!” he said.

“[We need to tell them, ‘Who needs peace with you? Who wants peace with you? Make peace between yourselves and we’ll join. You guys don’t even know what peace is.’ Someone who doesn’t have something, can’t give that item to someone else.

“In the Arab world there’s no such concept as peace. An Arab without a war isn’t an Arab. He fights with his father-in-law, with his wife, or with a different country. That’s the culture there. That’s how things are – it’s a desert… Dozens of thousands of years of living in the desert has made those people tough. They see war as the only way to negotiate.

“When we say we want peace, that means we recognize the fact that they were victorious over us, and we’re begging for a bit of peace, we’re begging that they leave our heads attached to our bodies. We need to ask the Arabs, ‘How much are you willing to give us, for us to give you peace?’ That’s the only way to achieve true peace.”