In addition to twenty-five years experience in the IDF Military Intelligence, Lieutenant Colonel Dr. Mordechai Kedar is a world expert on understanding the geo-political and military situation in the Middle East. Dr. Mordechai Kedar is an Israeli scholar of Arabic and Islam, a lecturer at Bar-Ilan University and the director of the Center for the Study of the Middle East and Islam (under formation), Bar Ilan University, Israel. He specializes in Islamic ideology and movements, the political discourse of Arab countries, the Arabic mass media, and the Syrian domestic arena. He is one of the leading international authorities on the political discourse of Arab countries, terrorism, the Arab Spring and Palestinian statehood, and has published many works. * He Knows What He Is Talking About!
To the Honorable Leaders of the Arab States,
We in Israel received with great pleasure your agreement to normalize
relations with Israel on condition that we agree to the establishment of
a Palestinian state and exchanges of territories between that state and
Israel. The Palestinian state that you propose to establish in Judea
and Samaria would be the second Palestinian state, since the first
Palestinian state was established six years ago in the Gaza Strip, and
you clearly recognize it as such in practice. How else can the state
visits of the Emir of Qatar and the secretary of the Arab League in Gaza
be understood? Now you propose the establishment of a second
Palestinian state? Perhaps a third!! Because Jordan is also a state with
a Palestinian majority. And all of these states were established~as
you know~on land that the League of Nations had designated for a
Jewish state at the San Remo Conference, in April of 1920. So why should
we agree to exchange territories with any state or states that have
been established or will be established on our land?
PA Land-Swap... |
We
in Israel are very touched by the fact that you, as an Arab collective,
not as individual states that have made a peace agreement with us,
finally agree to accept us as an existing state in the Middle East.
Indeed, it has taken you 65 years to understand that we are here, on the
land of our fathers, that we have come back to stay in our land forever
and ever until eternity. But why do you call to dis-plant Jerusalem, the
historical capital of the Jewish people, from the Jewish state? Was
Jerusalem ever a capital of something connected to the Arab world or
Islam? Throughout all of history, did an Emir, Sultan Caliph or Arab or
Islamic King rule in it even for one day? Do you not remember that since
the Islamic conquest in 637, the capital of “Jund Filastin” (the region
of Palestine) was called Ramallah? Then why has Jerusalem suddenly
emerged as a candidate for capital of the second Palestinian state? Just
because it is our capital?
Just To Remind You: Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria were under Jordanian
occupation for 7000 days, from May of 1948 until June of 1967. You had
7000 golden opportunities to establish a Palestinian state on this
territory with Jerusalem as its capital. Why didn’t you do it? Why
did you think of it only after the Jewish people liberated the territory
from the Jordanian occupation whose legality even you, the Arab League,
never recognized? What did you know all those years about “the rights
of the Palestinian people” that you don’t know today? And why is Israeli
“occupation” worse than Jordanian occupation?
Just
imagine that we had made a peace agreement with Asad’s Syria. Would the
Saudi Arabian jihadists, followers of al-Qaida who want to eliminate
Asad, honor the peace agreement that he signed with the Zionists? And
what about the Palestinians in Jordan~if they will also rise up and
overthrow the royal house that the British imported from Saudi Arabia,
are you sure that they would honor the agreement that that royal house
signed with us over the Palestinians’ objections? Are you willing to
assure us that the Muslim Brotherhood, which has taken over Egypt, will
always honor the peace agreement with Israel after all the years that
they said that they would cancel it when they could? Just to remind you,
Israel has had agreements of mutual recognition on different levels
with Qatar, the United Emirates and Tunisia. Why did they cancel these
agreements and close the Israeli diplomatic missions? Is this what your
signature is worth?
And
in general, why should we, the citizens of Israel, believe you? Is your
promise worth anything? Does the Arab League indeed function as a
relevant and effective body? In the covenant of the Arab League, which
all of the Arab states have signed, there are articles that state
principles of behavior among yourselves, but you behave in the totally
opposite way!! Article 5 prohibits your states from using force against
each other. Were there not wars between Egypt and Libya? Between Egypt
and Sudan? Between Saudi Arabia and Yemen? Between Iraq and Kuwait?
Between Syria and Iraq? And while we’re on the subject of Syria and
Iraq, Article 6 of the League’s covenant states that if a foreign state
attacks an Arab state, the League must take measures against this
attacker. What did you do when your brother, Saddam Hussein, was
attacked in 2003 by foreign states? Not only did you not help him but
you joined the attackers!!! So can anyone trust you?
And
when Syria occupied Lebanon what did you do? And in August 1976, when
Syria slaughtered Palestinians in the Tel al-Za’atar refugee camp in
Lebanon, what did you do? and when Kuwait eliminated many thousands of
Palestinians after it was liberated from Iraqi occupation, what did you
do to your Palestinian brothers? And what did you do in order to solve ~not perpetuate~the problem of your brothers, the “Palestinian
refugees” since 1948? Why have you not allowed those “refugees”, who
originally came to Israel from your countries before 1948, to return to
their homes in your countries after they fled the wars that you started?
And when Qadhaffi slaughtered 50,000 of his citizens, what did you do
as an Arab collective besides calling on Europe to do your work for you,
to rescue Arabs from the knife of the Arab butcher!!! When ‘Ali abdAlla
Salah, the former dictator of Yemen, slaughtered his citizens what did
you do? And during the past two years, while your brother Bashar Asad,
has been slaughtering 80,000 of his citizens until today, where have you
been? If this is the way you behave, allowing so very many thousands of
Arabs, your brothers, to suffer and be killed in vain, only because
they want to live the normative lifestyle of a human being, then why
should we, citizens of Israel, think that you would care at all about
us? Would you come to our aid if one of your countries decided to attack
us?
The
way you relate to one another is so terrible that we are not sure that
we want anything to do with you. Can an Arab travel to another Arab
state without a visa? How does any Arab state treat foreign workers who
come from other Arab states? And why do the Egyptians kill Sudanese
living in Egypt when they demonstrate against the humiliating way they
are treated by their Egyptian brothers? And what did the Iraqis do to
the Palestinians who were in Iraq until 2003? Did they not persecute
them and chase them with knives into refugee camps of Rawishad on the
Iraqi-Jordanian border and al-Kaaam on the border of Iraq and Syria? And
why have Arab citizens of Lebanon been slaughtering Arab citizens of
Syria for the past year? Only because the killers are Shiites and the
victims are Sunnis? And why does Saudi Arabia send criminals to Syria in
order to slaughter Assad’s soldiers, who only wanted to slaughter
Syrian citizens? And why does the Sudanese government slaughter its
citizens in Darfur? Is this any way for a nation that proposes peace to
the citizens of Israel to behave? And what has the Arab League ever done
in order to bring a little calm to the Arab nation? Why do people say
that the Arab League is like a frozen body in a morgue, that no one has
the courage to declare as dead?
And
even if we assume that there will be peace between us and all of the
Arab states, what will that give us? Will you be able to buy our
products? Do you think that we will allow tourists from your countries
to visit us freely? We tried this in the nineties, when hordes of
tourists came from Jordan, and more than a hundred thousand of them
“disappeared” into Israel. We have learned the lesson, and many years
will pass until we’ll want to see your tourists in Israel again.
Husseine & Hitler "BFF" |
You
have nothing to offer us besides the poverty, unemployment, corruption,
backwardness, violence and neglect that characterizes your societies and
countries. Believe us, nothing, absolutely nothing, makes us want to
connect ourselves with you. Do you want peace with us? We’re willing~but what do you offer us in return? What will you give to us in exchange
for our agreement to get into the same picture frame with you and to
sit around the same table with you?
Peace
with you will come only after we see that you really want peace. As
long as you encourage and arm terror organizations who act against us,
incite against us in your media, erase the state of Israel from the
geography books in your schools and act against us in
international arenas, why should we believe that you indeed want peace? A peace agreement should be a recognition of actual peace in the field, for one important reason: when we see how you behave with yourselves, no one in Israel believes even one word of yours, because you have no idea what peace is. If you want peace with us, show us please that you have some concept of the term “peace”. Begin with making peace within your countries, continue with peace between your countries and then perhaps we will believe that you know what peace is.
international arenas, why should we believe that you indeed want peace? A peace agreement should be a recognition of actual peace in the field, for one important reason: when we see how you behave with yourselves, no one in Israel believes even one word of yours, because you have no idea what peace is. If you want peace with us, show us please that you have some concept of the term “peace”. Begin with making peace within your countries, continue with peace between your countries and then perhaps we will believe that you know what peace is.
And
if anyone thinks that our requirement is absurd, because there will
never be peace in the Arab world, this is the proof that we are right.
There is a saying in Arabic “Faqd a-Shay la y’atiha”~“He who has
nothing, cannot give to someone else.” How can a nation that has no
notion of peace, give peace to others?
In conclusion, dear neighbors, we~citizens of Israel~want very much to live in Peace, in a region of peace where you and we enjoy it together. But we do not think that there is any point in signing an agreement with someone who today is here and tomorrow is in a grave, and his successors won’t honor his signature. When the Middle East becomes a region of peace, give us a call, perhaps we will join the peace that you will begin in the Middle East. until then please leave us alone.
Signed,
Mordechai Kedar, and many, many more citizens of Israel.
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