May 4th, 2011
Mordechai Kedar
(In whichever language he is speaking, Dr. Mordechai Kedar will always be both interesting, and challenging. While 23 minutes long, it is time well invested for anyone who wishes to have a better understanding of the forces driving the region. His understanding of how Israel needs to address it's neighbors, while requiring both a new tone and message, may actually for a change, be capable of yielding results. Yosef)
This event was held in the Congressional Auditorium on Capitol Hill. Z STREET Presents: RETHINKING THE END GAME: Improving Lives in The Middle East May 4th 2011, Washington DC.
Speaker: Dr Mordechai Kedar
Thank you Harold.
The name of this conference is rethinking the end game: improving lives in the Middle East – endgame – what was the beginning? If you don’t know how it all began, what are the genetic problems of the Middle East, which in part we heard of today: dictatorships, corruption, these are all outcomes of something which very few people in this part of the world are aware of.
COLONIALIST BORDER-SETTING ROOT PROBLEM
All the Islamic states, starting with Bangladesh in the East through Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq , Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Egypt Israel as well in this region, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Somalia: not even one of them was created by its own people. Borders between states, which marked the states, were placed by the colonialists, the British, the French the Italians. When they marked the borders they couldn’t care less about the natives, about those ethnic groups , they couldn’t care less about the religious groups, about the communities, about tribes. They just marked borders just like in Africa where borders were marked according to interests, like gold, silver, copper, timber, slaves and later oil.
Colonialism left those countries decades ago, but its still alive and kicking and, unfortunately, alive and killing because all the agonies of those states are the outcome of the fact that these unfortunate states are mosaics of groups: ethnic groups, community groups, religious groups and tribes which never in any cases lived in peace which each other. And they continue the wars until this very day. Those states are governed by a small group that took over the whole country, which is why they are dictators using Islam as a pretext,basing it on a Koranic verse: To Obey Allah, the Prophet, and those who are governing you.
Not surprisingly, Hafez al-Assad, the dictator of Syria, above his grave he has this very verse on a banner even though he wasn’t even a Muslim. They use and abuse the Koran in order to establish their dictatorship, using Islamic verses even when the person buried there is not even a Muslim! (6:40)
Those states are all failing states: no democracy, no human rights, no women’s rights, no political freedoms, no openness of the media, corruption only, because they are illegitimate states governed by illegitimate groups (7:09). I wouldn’t say elites, they are not elites, they are rulers, blood-thirsty in too many cases. This is the problem and this is where the problem starts.
WHAT ARAB STATES ARE DIFFERENT, AND WHY
One group of states that do not carry those genetic problems are the Gulf Emirates States and I exclude Bahrain. I talk about Kuwait, Qatar and the seven emirates of the UAE, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Ras-al haima. These states are stable, they are not dictatorships, and they are flourishing. Okay, you say they have oil? That’s wrong. Iraq has more oil than the Gulf, Libya has oil, so why were Iraq and Libya dictatorships while the states in the Gulf are normal states? The reason is again: sociology. Iraq and Libya are conglomerates of tribes, religions. Iraq has ten religions - I can count them for you - and communities like sunnis and shias and ethnic groups like Kurds and Arabs, while each and every one of those emirates are comprised of only one tribe. This is why nobody fights anybody else there, they can sit around one fire and sing Kumbaya, something that never happened in the Arab States. As long as these states remain as they were, marked decades/centuries ago by colonialism, this will never happen. And this is the problem of those states and this actually gives you the endgame. This problem is the fact that at some point in history somebody came from Europe and merged together groups that never lived peacefully or nicely together, and they still keep fighting each other. Just look at the sunnis and shias who have been fighting for over 14 centuries about who was the legitimate caliph in the 7th Century - whether it was Ali or Moawi - they are still fighting.
Remember what happened here in this country in 2000 when George W Bush and Al Gore had a dispute in Florida about a few hundred of ballots so everyone went to the Supreme Court and the Court decided what it decided. And America had a president for 4 years and then another 4 years. Who thought to question the legitimacy of George W. Bush following what happened in Florida after the verdict of the Supreme Court? Imagine America splits to two parts, one supports George W. Bush and the other Al Gore, and these two parts fight each other for 14 centuries – this is the struggle between the Sunni and Shia Islam. Different cultures, different mindset, and this is the problem of the Middle East merging together groups that cannot live together - they can die together, but not live together. (11:21)
This was the initial sin which was made by creating these failed states in the Middle East and in Africa as well because if we trace sources of the atrocities of Biafra in the 70’s, and Rwanda in the 90’s, I think the problem was the same.
PROPOSED SOLUTION
So what’s the remedy? What is the endgame? The only solution to the problems of the Middle East which very nicely exports its problem to this part of the world, is to rethink the colonialism or the results of the colonialism. This means to let those nations, groups mark the borders around themselves by themselves. And what do I mean by this? For example, Afghanistan has 9 ethnic groups which cannot speak to each other which think differently, have different laws, different mindset, goals, different approach. Who can think that they can make one solid stable state?
When society is fragmented, there cannot be a political system that can work and when there is no political system that can work you resuscitate a dead body politic, unfortunately with the blood of American boys and girls and billions of dollars which are poured on this dead body politic named Afghanistan in vain.
It will never work, it never worked and every penny and drop of blood that is poured into Afghanistan is a total waste. What should have been done is take a very sharp pencil and dividE Afghanistan into ethnic groups or tribes like Dubai. Dubai as you know, has no oil. Dubai has business so they don’t even need oil. Their mindset is normal, they don’t fight with each other, and high fences, as you know, make good neighbors.
TRIBAL AND ETHNIC DIFFERENCES DOOMS A PALESTINIAN STATE
Today we are approaching the establishment of new failing Arab State named Palestine, which is already fragmented between Gaza and the West Bank and whoever thinks that Hamas will give up one percent of their independence which they have in Gaza Strip has no idea what he is talking about.
Gaza and the West Bank will never be one entity because of the differences between the different cultures and societies. Gaza: Ninety percent of the Gazans are Bedouins, those who came from the deserts of the Middle East, Sinai, Saudi Arabia , the Israeli Negev or Jordan. Those who live in the West Bank are those who live in cities and villages - totally different cultures. It would be like trying to make a state out of Eskimos and Aborigines, they are so far from each other they don’t speak to each other it doesn’t work out.
And this is exactly what happens between Gaza and the West Bank, there is a difference in the age of leadership. The average age of a Fatah leader is between sixty - seventy years old, and the average age of a Hamas leader is between thirty and forty years old.
In Gaza they mostly represent the refugee camps, while those in the West Bank don’t even want to see refugees, they ignore them. Again the goals are different.
Peace in the Middle East is something that people here think about from an American point of view because people here have an American mindset and they think that whoever sits with whomever can make peace.
America was built on a dream of people who came from all over the world, from Europe, Africa, South America wherever they came from and they share one American dream of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. In the Middle East people have no dream. (17:30) People live in very harsh environments of desert and if in the desert you don’t kill you will be killed, which is the essence of tribalism.
A tribe is not only a group of people who are related. First of all, a tribe is a fighting militia of relatives which has its own interests, flag and anthem, and in many cases it has its own dialect - when someone opens his mouth, others know from what tribe he is from.
INVINCIBLE VERSUS SUBMISSIVE
This is actually the name of the game in the Middle East. Only the powerful remains alive, and peace is only given to the invincible. Israel, unfortunately, is not viewed as an invincible state. By the way, I can prove what I say about invincible, Sadat gave peace to Israel after the failure of Egypt in 1948, 1956, 1967, 1973.
In 1975, when the talks between Tohami (the PM of Egypt) and Dayan started in Morocco, it was only after Sadat realized that Israel was invincible. This is why Israel got peace with Egypt, not because of any other reason. The PLO signed an agreement with Israel only after they totally failed in their first intifada, which ended 1992. So this is actually the essence of peace: Whoever seeks peace in the Middle East – Salam - actually means surrender. Because one who asks for peace is someone who was defeated and is now begging for peace so he can keep his head attached to his shoulders. (20:11)
So, when Israel has so many groups who call themselves peace groups it is interpreted in the Arab side as a weak society and this is why there no peace until this very day. Because Israel seeks peace. Israel should have said to its neighbors “We are here and here to stay. What will you pay for peace? Why should only we pay for peace? And actually we need you like a headache. We are a democratic state, we are in front in world industry, we are 30K per capita country while you are 400 or less in many Arab states. And Intel is inside of Israel because of the Israeli brains – this is Israel as such, what will you pay to have peace with us?”
Unfortunately, Israel doesn’t use the right discourse while talking to its neighbors, discourse which they can understand. Another thing for which I blame my fellow Israelis. They don’t speak Arabic, they don’t understand Arabic they are viewed as strange and stranger in the Middle East because their heads are in Europe and America, instead of being something which is part of the Middle East. The Middle East will accept us when we start talking Arabic to the Middle East. I am not talking about giving up anything, just start to talk to them, first of all through an Arabic speaking channel – a satellite TV channel.
America has Al Hura, the Germans, the Italians, the British the French many, many states broadcast in Arabic because they feel they have something to say to the Arab world. Unfortunately, Israel doesn’t feel like it has to talk to the Arab world and I absolutely have no explanation of why this is. In sum, Israel will stay forever when its neighbors understand that the game is finished, they have to start dealing with their own problems, to start marking their borders according to their own divide and to start building their societies like the Gulf States and this will bring the new gospel to the Middle East. Peace between them and peace with Israel as a byproduct.
Thank you very much.
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