Writers In Arab Press Discuss Why Israel Is Superior To Arab Countries - MEMRI

In recent months, several Arab writers have published articles in the Arab press discussing why Israel is superior to the weaker Arab states. The reasons, they said, lie in Israel's strong and effective judicial system that tackles corruption in the country, even investigating and prosecuting leaders and senior officials who have transgressed, while corruption is rampant in the Arab countries and the regimes silence all those who call for integrity. Other reasons they gave are that Israel is a democracy and respects the will of its citizens and voters, and that over the years it has invested a great deal in education, science, health, and technology.

MEMRI.org..
Special Dispatch No.7446..
27 April '18..

The writers went on to call on their countries to learn from Israel – to develop their judicial systems and a democratic form of government, to stop repressing citizens, and to invest in education. If they do not do so, they added, the Arab countries will be left even farther behind.

The following are translated excerpts from some of these articles:

Former Egyptian Official: Israel Has Advanced Because Of Its Investment In Education, Science, And Industry – And The Arabs Are Left Behind

Reda Abd Al-Salam, former governor of Egypt's Al-Sharqiya province who is today a lecturer at Mansoura University in Egypt, wrote that Israel surpasses the Arab countries in many ways because over the years it has invested in education, health, science, and technology, and in building a democracy, while the Arabs have remained behind, mired in primitiveness and tyranny. He called on Egypt not to blame the gap between them on the U.S. support for Israel, and not to expect supplications to Allah during Friday prayers to defeat Israel, but to invest in education and universities in order to bring the country out of ignorance and darkness into the light of science and industry. He wrote:

"'Allah, punish the sons of apes and pigs, so they will not escape you; Allah, expel them, Allah, show me the wonders of Your might by [punishing them]... 'Our forefathers were born, and we were born and grew up and become old and grey, and we still reiterate this supplication to Allah in Friday sermons, with flowing tears... But what have we accomplished [with this]? Has Allah answered our millions of supplications? Have we seen the wonders of Allah's capabilities in carrying out judgment against the sons of Zion and the sons of apes and pigs, as we plead again and again in our prayers? No, not at all – the result has been great disappointment and shame for the Arab leaders, since the opposite happened! Allah has done the complete opposite: It is the Arabs and Muslims who have been torn to shreds and expelled, and through whom Allah has revealed his signs.

"Yes, Israel is growing stronger, and it is becoming more and more advanced and cohesive, and wins more and more land every day – while it is surrounded by decrepit Bedouin who fight each other and feverishly race to the bottom and atrophy in every area; and [while it is surrounded by] peoples and regimes mired deeply in primitiveness, disease, and dictatorship...

"Why has Israel advanced and the Arabs and Muslims fallen behind? How long will we keep our heads in the sand or stop up our ears and listen only to sorcerers, to idiots in power, and to the mouthpieces [of the regimes] of hypocrisy [as we have been doing] for decades? How long?! To put it bluntly, let the numbers speak for themselves: since they are the best expression of progress and backwardness, and with them we will understand why Allah has not answered our supplications of millions of Arabs and Muslims for 60 years, but has instead done the complete opposite [of what we ask] – the Zionists have advanced and the Arabs and Muslims have been left behind...

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When Arabs say they care about Palestinians, but... - by Elder of Ziyon

The Gulf states would insist on how important Palestinians were - but then let the West pay for most of the aid they receive. One day, Europe will catch up with the Arab world and the current US administration and realize that they've been lied too for many years and many billions of euros.

Elder of Ziyon..
15 March '18..

For decades, the narrative has dominated how Arabs talked to the West, especially Western diplomats, was that the Palestinians are the top priority in the Arab world. Every meeting between US diplomats and Arab leaders, as documented in Wikileaks, seem to have prioritized the importance of the Palestinian issue.

An article in Arab American News this week lists ten "core Arab values" and of course support for Palestinians is considered one of them.

Ever since the declaration of Israel in 1948, the Palestinian cause has been the core consideration of all Arabs. Different Arab states, groups, and people advocate for the basic rights of Palestinian people. After the turmoil of Arab Spring, Arab states, and people became overwhelmed with their own issues that the Palestinian case became marginalized. However, Trump’s announcement to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem to become the capital of Israel revived the issue and ignited anger across the Arab world for Palestinian people and Jerusalem, as an Arab holy city.

But as we have seen for many years, Arab countries - even rich Gulf states - have had a habit of pledging lots of money to Palestinians paying only a tiny percentage.

Their actions have never followed their words. And lately, as even this article shows, their words have become less supportive of Palestinians in recent years as well, and Jerusalem has not changed that at all (there were no major protests in the Arab world over the Trump Jerusalem decision, even though reporters looked hard.)

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Arabs say what the West dares not admit - "Palestine's capital can be Ramallah" - by Elder of Ziyon

...At the very same time that the Palestinians are celebrating their UN victories, their entire support system is rotting under them. And when their support collapses, they won't know what hit them.

Elder of Ziyon..
07 January '18..

The New York Times reported on Saturday:

As President Trump moved last month to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, an Egyptian intelligence officer quietly placed phone calls to the hosts of several influential talk shows in Egypt.

“Like all our Arab brothers,” Egypt would denounce the decision in public, the officer, Capt. Ashraf al-Kholi, told the hosts.

But strife with Israel was not in Egypt’s national interest, Captain Kholi said. He told the hosts that instead of condemning the decision, they should persuade their viewers to accept it. Palestinians, he suggested, should content themselves with the dreary West Bank town that currently houses the Palestinian Authority, Ramallah.

“How is Jerusalem different from Ramallah, really?” Captain Kholi asked repeatedly in four audio recordings of his telephone calls obtained by The New York Times.

“Exactly that,” agreed one host, Azmi Megahed, who confirmed the authenticity of the recording.

For decades, powerful Arab states like Egypt and Saudi Arabia have publicly criticized Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, while privately acquiescing to Israel’s continued occupation of territory the Palestinians claim as their homeland.

But now a de facto alliance against shared foes such as Iran, the Muslim Brotherhood, Islamic State militants and the Arab Spring uprisings is drawing the Arab leaders into an ever-closer collaboration with their one-time nemesis, Israel — producing especially stark juxtapositions between their posturing in public and private.

“At the end of the day, later on, Jerusalem won’t be much different from Ramallah. What matters is ending the suffering of the Palestinian people,” Captain Kholi concluded. “Concessions are a must and if we reach a concession whereby Jerusalem will be — Ramallah will be the capital of Palestine, to end the war and so no one else dies, then we would go for it.”

All three recipients of his calls pledged to convey his messages, and some echoed his arguments in broadcasts. “Enough already. It got old,” Mr. Megahed told his viewers about the issue of Jerusalem.

What is amazing here isn't that Egypt is telling these influential hosts to downplay the Jerusalem issue. It is also likely not too amazing for those who watch the Middle East closely to understand that the Arab governments are sick of the Palestinian issue and don't want a new intifada, which could radicalize people and embolden the Islamists under their rule.

What is incredible is that the governments are willing to go with an Israeli-ruled Jerusalem as part of a permanent peace agreement, and to tell the Palestinians to stop using it as a roadblock to peace.

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Jewish Jerusalem: The ultimate obsessive distraction from Muslim failure - by Daniel Krygier

...Turkey’s Sultan-aspiring leader Erdogan cynically uses Jerusalem and Israel to boost his own standing in the Islamic world. Enjoying being at the center of the Muslim summit in Istanbul, Erdogan repeated the lie that reborn Israel is built on “occupied Palestine”. It is especially ironic given the fact that Erdogan’s Ottoman predecessors occupied the land of Israel for four centuries and oppressed Arabs and Jews alike.

Daniel Krygier..
MiDA.org.il..
19 December '17..
Link: http://en.mida.org.il/2017/12/19/obsessive-distraction-muslim-failure/

Ranting about Jerusalem, Jews and the West has become the Muslim world’s mental Colosseum, where the Muslim masses are temporarily distracted from their increasingly destitute existence and self-inflicted failures.

No other part of the world shields itself more from reality than the Muslim world. It should therefore come as no surprise that the Muslim world strongly disapproves of President Trump’s recognition of reality: Jerusalem is the historic and modern capital of Israel and the Jewish people.

The leaders of 57 Muslim states representing the world’s 1.7 billion Muslims, convened in Turkey to project a unified front against Israel and America. Behind the façade of hysterical Muslim rage, Jerusalem and Jews represent a rare opportunity for the deeply fractured and divided Muslim and Arab world to divert the attention of its increasingly dissatisfied masses.

While the despots in the Muslim world enjoy a life of unimaginable luxury, the vast majority of their populations remain stuck in chronic and severe socio-economic poverty and illiteracy. Not only is most of the Muslim and Arab world not closing the gap with the developed world, it is increasingly lagging behind the rapidly growing emerging markets in Asia and elsewhere.

The Arab world’s real problems are not a tiny Jewish state but a severe deficit in three crucial areas: freedom, knowledge and gender equality. Nowhere else in the world are women and minorities more oppressed and persecuted than in the Muslim Arab world. Needless to say, a society that oppresses more than half of its citizens is undermining its potential.

No other region in the world represses knowledge and freedom with more zeal than the Muslim Arab world. Since the knowledge economy is the future, it puts the Arab world at a distinct disadvantage compared to the rest of the world.

Arab and Muslim paranoia about Israel continues - by Elder of Ziyon

...The old ways of thinking that Israel and Jews must be behind everything have never left the Arab and Muslim world.

Elder of Ziyon..
13 November '17..

Three completely different articles from wildly different Arab and Muslim sources all agree that Israel is behind everything.

From the Daily News Egypt:

All developments in the region are in favour of Israel, and lead it to regional and civil wars, former Egyptian assistant to the foreign minister, Hussein Haridy, said.

He added that the US president’s speech in October, the resignation of Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Al-Hariry, and the recent developments in Saudi Arabia, all revealed a plan to eliminate Iran’s influence in the Arab region, as a prelude to a general confrontation, where all conflicting parties would stand to lose, except Israel. If the Israeli plan succeeds, they would end up with a declaration of the Greater Israel.

Why is Israel involved in this confrontation? One of the goals of this war is to stop the expansion of the Iranian belt from Tehran to the Mediterranean Sea. Israel and Saudi Arabia share that goal, whether by agreement or not.So Israel is the main player in the current scene? Israel is the catalyst of events and its interests coincide with American arms manufacturers’. The Israeli strategy does not only aim at the elimination of Iran but also exhausting the main Arab forces and draining their economic resources, in preparation for establishing Greater Israel.

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Seething over Saudi writer's pro-Jewish and anti-Pal stance - by Elder of Ziyon

...The cracks in the antisemitic, anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian stances in the Arab world are getting wider every day.

Elder of Ziyon..
25 October '17..

Palestinian Arabs and other anti-Israel and antisemitic Arabs are seething over two tweets by Saudi writer Saud al-Fawzan, a columnist for the Saudi Al Asharq newspaper.

Al-Fawzan's first tweet said:

I rented furniture from a Jewish store, and when my flat burned down, I met the owner of the store, who said (to his workers): “Furnish the flat on my account”. I regretted each time that I “paid a Riyal to save an Arab”

“Pay a Riyal, save an Arab” was the name of a campaign of donations for the Palestinians, conducted in Saudi schools, organized by the Saudi government 30 years ago.

That tweet was met with a torrent of antisemitic replies, but not a small amount of support for al-Fawzan as well.

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Why the Arab world is not taking up the Palestinian Arab struggle - by Dr. Mordechai Kedar

This article is not about how Israelis feel. It is about why the Arab world is not taking up the Palestinian Arab struggle.

Dr. Mordechi Kedar..
Israelnationalnews.com..
03 February '17..
Link: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/20123


I would like to raise a few pointed questions at the start of this article:

Why doesn't the Arab world make an all out effort to free "Falestin" from the Jews and give it to the Palestinian Arabs?

How come the Arab world, most of which has not recognized Israel's right to exist - goes on about its business, despite the fact that two major countries, Egypt and Jordan, have made peace with Israel? Why doesn't it boycott those two countries, except for the short period during which Egypt was ousted from the Arab League?

Why hasn't the Arab world waged a total war against Israel for the last 44 years - that is,since 1973?

Why did the Iraqis expel the Palestinians from Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003?

Why did the Egyptian regime persecute the Gazan Palestinians? Is it a political struggle against Hamas or does it signal something deeper?

Why did all the sides fighting one another in Syria - Assad, Hezbollah, the rebels, Islamic State - behave with such cruelty to the Palestinians living in refugee camps in Syria?

Why do the Arabs continue to keep the Palestinians in refugee camps?

Why, over the past 68 years, haven't the Arab countries, except for Jordan, granted citizenship to the refugees within their borders?

These are only a few of the questions that can be raised regarding the antipathy of the Arab nations and the Arab people to the so-called "Palestinians" - despite the constant mantras of "Arab unity" and "Arab solidarity". The only explanation which answers most of the questions asked above is that the Arab world's treatment of the "Palestinians" is the result of some deep seated negative feelings about them which no one is willing to reveal, let alone discuss.

The Arab anti-Israel front which existed for over 60 years is in the process of disintegrating

...Support for the establishment of a Palestinian state may continue to exist in Washington, Brussels, and at the UN, and among the Israeli opposition, but it is losing support in much of the Arab world. Israel has enemies in the Middle East but it is also gaining friends in the Middle East. These friends may prefer to meet their Israeli counterparts in back alleys, but you can be sure that these meetings are taking place with increasing frequency.

Moshe Arens..
Haaretz..
12 July '15..

What is generally referred to as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has, in effect, been over the years, a three-dimensional conflict involving, in addition to the Palestinians, also the Arab world and the Muslim world. Hostility to Israel has been the one unifying factor in the Arab and Muslim world, which overcame disagreements on other matters between the constituent members. Since the founding of the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1964, the Palestinian issue has served as the linchpin around which hostility to Israel has been built and unity maintained.

Israel’s existence was endangered three times — in 1948, 1967, and 1973 — by the combined attacks of Arab armies, which enjoyed the support of the entire Muslim world. Although the Israel Defense Forces brilliant victory in the Yom Kippur War of 1973 has served as a deterrent against further attempts by Arab armies to attack Israel, the continued hostility of the Arab and Muslim world toward Israel has been demonstrated by their support for terrorist activities against Israel and their backing of anti-Israeli motions at international forums like the United Nations.

But there is a change in the wind as far as the Arab world is concerned. For some Arab rulers greater enemies than Israel have appeared in recent years. Iran, reaching out for nuclear weapons, Al-Qaida, the Islamic State (also known as ISIS and ISIL), Hamas, and assorted Arab terrorist groups, are aiming for the jugular of the ruling classes in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt. They are a mortal danger to them, the kind of danger that Israel never constituted. Averting this danger is far more important to them than backing the Palestinian cause. From this new perspective, in the eyes of these Arab rulers Israel is beginning to look not like an enemy, but rather like a potential ally.

An Iranian nuclear bomb scares the wits out of them. They see little future for themselves in a Middle East dominated by an Iran with nuclear weapons in its arsenal. Most threatened is the Saudi ruling class who are likely to be the first in line to be toppled as Iranian influence grows. They surely must have quietly applauded Benjamin Netanyahu as he appeared in front of both Houses of the U.S. Congress in March to make the case against a nuclear armed Iran. The Israeli opposition may have criticized him, but the Saudis were surely on his side.

Surprised? Israel simply isn’t one of the Arab world’s major problems anymore

...What the poll shows, in a nutshell, is that young Arabs have reached the same conclusion Arab leaders made glaringly evident at the last year’s inaugural session of the Abu Dhabi Strategic Debate: Israel simply isn’t one of the Arab world’s major problems anymore, if it ever was. Now all Israel needs is for the West to finally come to the same realization.

Evelyn Gordon..
Commentary Magazine..
24 April '15..

One of the most positive strategic developments for Israel of the past few years has been its marked improvement in relations with significant parts of the Arab world. Three years ago, for instance, the most cockeyed optimist wouldn’t have predicted a letter like Israel received this week from a senior official of the Free Syrian Army, who congratulated it on its 67th anniversary and voiced hope that next year, Israel’s Independence Day would be celebrated at an Israeli embassy in Damascus.

Yet many analysts have cautioned that even if Arab leaders were quietly cooperating with Israel for reasons of realpolitik, anti-Israel hostility in the “Arab street” hadn’t abated. So a new poll showing that this, too, is changing came as a lovely Independence Day gift.

The ASDA’A Burson-Marsteller Arab Youth Survey, which has been conducted annually for the last seven years, polls 3,500 Arabs aged 18 to 24 from 16 Arab countries in face-to-face interviews. One of the standard questions is “What do you believe is the biggest obstacle facing the Middle East?”

This year, defying a long tradition of blaming all the Arab world’s problems on Israel, only 23 percent of respondents cited the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as the region’s main obstacle. In fact, the conflict came in fourth, trailing ISIS (37 percent), terrorism (32 percent) and unemployment (29 percent). Given that respondents were evidently allowed to choose more than one of the 15 options (the total adds up to 235 percent rather than 100), it’s even more noteworthy that only 23 percent thought the conflict worth mentioning.

A comparison to previous surveys shows that this figure has been declining slowly but steadily for the past few years: In 2012, for instance, it was 27 percent, a statistically significant difference given the poll’s margin of error (1.65 percent). But the 2015 decline is particularly remarkable because last summer’s war in Gaza made the past year the conflict’s bloodiest in decades for Palestinians. Hence one would have expected Arab concern about the conflict to increase. Instead, it dropped.

Anyone concerned about Arab War Crimes against Palestinians?

...That Palestinians are being killed by Arabs does not seem to bother even the Palestinian Authority, whose leaders are busy these days threatening to file "war crimes" charges against Israel with the International Criminal Court. As far as the Palestinian Authority is concerned — and the media, the EU, the UN and human rights groups — the only "war crimes" are being committed by Israelis, and not by Arabs who are killing, torturing and displacing tens of thousands of Palestinians. And all this is happening while the international community and media continue to display an obsession only with everything connected to Israel.

Khaled Abu Toameh..
Gatestone Institute..
06 January '15..

More than 2,500 Palestinians have been killed since the beginning of the conflict in Syria three years ago, according to a report published this week by the Working Group for Palestinians in Syria. It revealed that 2,596 Palestinians have been killed since the beginning of the conflict in that country in 2011.

But this is a news item that has hardly found its way into mainstream media in the West. Even Arab media outlets have almost entirely ignored the report about Palestinian casualties in Syria.

The reason for this apathy, of course, is clear. The Palestinians in Syria were killed by Arabs and not as a result of the conflict with Israel.

Journalists covering the Middle East do not believe that this is an important story because of the absence of any Israeli role in the killings.

Arabs slaughtering, executing and torturing Palestinians is not sensational enough to grab a headline in a major Western or Arab newspaper. That is why most Middle East correspondents have chosen to turn a blind eye to the report.

According to the report, the victims include 157 women who were killed in the fighting between Bashar Assad's army and various opposition groups in Syria. It also said that 268 Palestinians were killed by snipers, while another 84 were summarily executed. Another 984 Palestinians were killed when their homes and neighborhoods were shelled by the Syrian army and the opposition groups.

The report also reminded the international community that the Palestinian Yarmouk refugee camp near Damascus has been under siege by the Syrian army for the past 547 days. Approximately 160 residents of the camp have died as a result of the siege, the report said.

It also pointed out that the camp has been without electricity for more than 620 days. Camp residents have also been cut off from water for the past 117 days, the report added.

In addition to the deaths, some 80,000 Palestinians have fled their homes in Syria due to the ongoing conflict. Nearly 15,000 have crossed the border to Jordan, while another 42,000 have fled to Lebanon, the report disclosed.

Bahraini Moral Clarity versus the ‘Al-Aqsa in Danger’ Myth

...Thus while figures as diverse as Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and former British minister Sayeeda Warsi have implicitly justified the synagogue killing, and thereby encouraged more such crimes, by trying to paint it as morally equivalent to Jews visiting the Temple Mount the Bahraini foreign minister is trying to quench the flames by stating unequivocally that there’s never any excuse for killing worshippers at a house of prayer. For nobody understands the dangerous consequences of doing so better than Muslims elsewhere in the Middle East, who, unlike their Israeli-protected Palestinian brethren, have all too frequently been the victims of such killings.

Evelyn Gordon..
Commentary Magazine..
19 November '14..

The most surprising response to yesterday’s deadly attack on worshippers at a Jerusalem synagogue came from the Bahraini foreign minister. “It is forbidden to react to the crimes of the Israeli occupation against our brothers in Palestine by killing innocents in a house of prayer,” Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa reportedly wrote on his Arabic-language Twitter feed. “Those who will pay the price for the crime of killing innocents in a Jewish synagogue and for welcoming the crime are the Palestinian people.”

For a senior Arab official to publicly condemn the killing of Jews by Muslims at all–much less with such moral clarity, devoid of any attempt to create a false equivalence to Israeli “crimes–is so unusual that it cries out for explanation. And the most likely explanation lies in the violence that has swept the Middle East in recent years. In a world where Muslim innocents are being killed in houses of prayer on a regular basis by fellow Muslims, mosques in Israel and the West Bank–including Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque–remain among the safest places in the Mideast for Muslims to pray. And the Arab world’s pragmatic axis, of which Bahrain is part, has no interest in seeing that change.

In August, for instance, Shi’ite gunmen opened fire in a Sunni mosque in Iraq, killing at least 73 people. In October, a suicide bomber killed at least 18 people at a Shi’ite mosque in Iraq. Those are just two of the dozens of deadly mosque attacks in recent years that have killed thousands of Muslims in numerous countries, including Syria, Lebanon, Pakistan, India, and Nigeria. Almost all the perpetrators were fellow Muslims–usually Shi’ites or Sunnis attacking each other’s institutions.

By contrast, Israel and the West Bank are safe havens. True, there have been some vandalistic attacks on mosques–though far fewer than in, say, Holland. But there hasn’t been a lethal attack on a mosque in two decades. Indeed, for all the Palestinians’ efforts to libel Jewish visits to the Temple Mount as “attacks” on Al-Aqsa, anyone who’s been paying attention realizes that mosques elsewhere in the Muslim world have been suffering far worse fates than innocuous Jewish visitors.

Granted, both the Palestinians themselves and many Westerners are too fixated on the Palestinian cause to care; recent Jewish visits to the Mount have generated far more uproar in the West than lethal mosque attacks elsewhere ever have. But the pragmatic Arab states, as I’ve written before, are quite aware that Israel is the least of their problems, and they’d rather it stay that way.

Millions in Arab world now "know" the secret behind yesterday's massacre

...Israeli spokespeople keep referring in their reactions to the notion of incitement. How many of your neighbours, do you think, actually know what incitement means in this context? Or understand what effect it has in societies like those where a massacre brings people out into the street to dance and pass out candies to strangers?

Celebrations in the Arab street after
reports of knifed-to-death Jews
[Image Source]

Frimet/Arnold Roth..
This Ongoing War..
19 November '14..

Among the various kinds of self-serving nonsense that many of the mainstream media outlets have either swallowed whole or purposefully ignored in the wake of Tuesday morning's bloody assault on Jerusalem worshipers at prayer is this one from the very well-connected and almost uniquely well-informed Khaled Abu Toameh.

He Tweeted this morning that the organization claiming to be behind the knife men, the PFLP, is saying today

Attacked synagogue was being used as 'operation centre for planning attacks on Palestinians and their holy sites.'

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The question ‘Are you a Jew?’ should remain as a “teachable moment” for all of us

These types of attacks occurred throughout the Arab world before the establishment Israel and before a single Israeli settlement was ever built.

MK Shimon Ohayon..
Op-Ed Contributor/JPost..
06 July '14..

There are not-infrequent moments which perfectly illustrate what our long-standing conflict is all about. Many, especially around the world, accept the lazy assumption that it is mainly about land, occupation and settlements. However, for this to be true it would be a sine qua non that before Israel liberated Judea and Samaria in 1967, built a single community over the Green Line or even before the State of Israel was proclaimed, there was no conflict.

However, those with knowledge of history will be familiar with an ancient enmity expressed by radical adherents of Islam toward the Jewish People.

It is surely no coincidence that one of the most popular rallying calls at anti-Israel demonstrations around the world is “khayber khayber ya yahud, jaysh Muhammad saya’ūd!” (“remember the Khyber, oh Jews, the army of Mohammed is coming now”). This genocidal chant recalls perhaps the first massacre of Jews under Islam as the ancient Jewish community of Khayber (in present day Saudi Arabia) was almost wiped out by Muhammad and his first followers. Those that did survive had their land confiscated, were humiliated with oppressive laws and forced to pay the jizya tribute tax.

These enforcements, meant to hold the Jews collectively in an endless inferior status, set the standards for Jews who found themselves under Islam during the Arab conquest and occupation of the Middle East and North Africa over the next almost millennia and a half.

During this time, tens, if not hundreds of thousands of Jews were massacred across what became known as the “Arab world,” in places like Granada, Fez, Algiers, Damascus and Sana’a. All of this long before the rise of modern political Zionism.

In Hebron, the oldest Jewish community in the Land of Israel, during 1929, 67 Jews, many of whom were yeshiva students, were hacked to death, disemboweled and burned.

These types of attacks occurred throughout the Arab world long before the reestablishment of Jewish statehood in Israel, and decades before a single Israeli settlement was built.

Although it is hard to accept, the roots of the conflict are a negation of the rights of the Jewish People to equality and liberation from the yoke of Arab torment. The highest insult to the Islamist sensitivity was the reconstitution of Jewish sovereignty in the heart of dar al-islam, an area which was theologically assigned to Islam in perpetuity.

This is what fueled the wars against Israel and still fuels the hatred against Jews around the world. The war has never been against Israel per se, it has been against the Jewish People, and its major front is directed against the Jewish state.

A Palestinian state? A possible tactical instrument but never a priority

...However, ignoring reality, Western policy makers consider the Palestinian issue the crown jewel of Arab policy-making, the core cause of Middle Eastern developments and the crux of the Arab-Israeli conflict. An erroneous underlying, Palestinian-driven assumption has produced an erroneous policy, radicalizing Arab and Palestinian expectations, fueling terrorism and inherent Middle Eastern instability, distancing the parties from peace and bringing them closer to war, and undermining Western national security and vital economic interests.

Yoram Ettinger..
Israel Hayom..
23 May '14..

The Palestinian issue has benefited from the Arab/Muslim talk, but -- due to the Palestinian record of intra-Arab subversion -- has never been supported by the Arab/Muslim walk. Arab/Muslim policy makers have never considered the Palestinian issue a strategic interest, but rather a tactical instrument to advance intra-Arab or Muslim interests and to annihilate the Jewish state.

Irrespective of this, Palestine has been a geographic, not a national, concept, as evidenced by the lack of distinct, cohesive national character of its Arab inhabitants. This lack of cohesion has been intensified by the violent internal fragmentation along various lines: cultural (such as Bedouin vs. rural vs. urban sectors), geographic (e.g. mountain vs. coastal Arabs, southern vs. northern, Hebron vs. Bethlehem, Nablus vs. Ramallah, Nablus vs. Hebron), ethnic, ideological, political (pro- or anti-Jordan), historical and tribal identity. Such turbulent fragmentation was fueled by the multitude of Arab or Muslim migration waves from Bosnia, Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Jordan, the Arabian Peninsula, Syria and Lebanon.

The establishment of a Palestinian state was not on the agenda of the non-Arab Muslim Ottoman Empire, which ruled the area from 1517 through 1917. The Ottomans linked the area, defined by most Arabs as a region within Southern Syria or the Levant, to the Damascus and Beirut provinces.

The British Empire, which dominated the Middle East from 1917 until the end of World War II, did not contemplate a Palestinian Arab state, while establishing a series of Arab countries throughout the Middle East. Moreover, the 1917 Balfour Declaration dedicated Palestine, including Jordan, to the Jewish homeland. The 1920 San Remo Resolution, formulated by the principal Allied Powers, formalized the Balfour Declaration-based British Mandate for Palestine, which was ratified on Aug. 12, 1922, by the League of Nations, eventually transferring 77 percent of Palestine (Jordan) to the Arabs. The U.S. House and Senate approved it unanimously on June 30, 1922. In 1945, the Mandate for Palestine was integrated into the U.N. Charter via Article 80, which precludes alterations, and is still legally binding.

Jordan and Egypt occupied Judea and Samaria and Gaza from 1949 through 1967, but did not ponder the establishment of a Palestinian state; nor did the Arab League.

We Want Democracy - Like Israel

"How many Arab leaders would be left if they went on trial of similar cases of bribery and corruption?" — Zuhear al-Karim, Arabic CNN.

"If Olmert were in Kuwait, his case would have been shelved and he would have received a senior position in government." — Yasalam, Al-Aan.

"Law is above all and this is real democracy. Israel is the only real democracy in the Middle East." — Saad Sayad, Arabic CNN.

Khaled Abu Toameh..
Gatestone Institute..
16 May '14..

The Tel Aviv District Court's decision to send former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to six years in prison for corruption has prompted calls in the Arab world for endorsing Israel's standards of accountability, transparency and justice.

Reacting to the sentencing of Olmert, many Arabs expressed hope that the day would come when their countries would learn from Israel that no one is above the law, even if he or she is a president or prime minister.

Sufian Abu Zayda, a leading Fatah official and former Palestinian Authority minister, praised the court verdict; he said it shows that in Israel, no one is above the law.

"This verdict provides further evidence that the judicial system in Israel is fully independent in the wake of the separation between the legislative, executive and judicial authorities, as well as total freedom of the media," said Abu Zayda, who is considered an expert on Israeli affairs.[1]

The praise for Israel's democratic system does not mean that Abu Zayda and other Arabs have become pro-Israel and are willing to recognize Israel's right to exist.

But while they continue to hate Israel and seek its destruction, many Arabs do not hesitate to express their admiration for the independence of Israel's judicial system.

Comments posted by Arabs and Muslims on the Internet this week revealed how eager they are for their countries to endorse Israeli democracy. Similar reactions were also published when an Israeli court sentenced former Israeli President Moshe Katzav to seven years in prison for sex-related offenses.

Following are some of the comments posted on Arab media and social websites in response to the Olmert verdict:

The Disparity of Israeli Concern and Arab Apathy

...The myth may continue of Arab brotherhood and solidarity. The destitution in Yarmouk shows hollow this is. Meanwhile, Syrians seeking medical assistance continue to enter Israel and receive treatment. Only the uninformed, biased bigots of the BDS movement seem to be unaware of this.

Dr. Michael Curtis..
American Thinker..
09 March '14..

The contrast could hardly be greater. Israel has helped to alleviate the suffering of Syrians, while the rest of the world speaks about that suffering but does little to relieve it.

On February 18, 2014, Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel, even visited wounded Syrians at an Israeli field hospital in the Golan Heights. On March 5, 2014, Chris Gunness, spokesman of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), spoke of the profound suffering of civilians in the Palestinian camp in Yarmouk in Damascus and of the widespread incidence of starvation, malnutrition, and absence of medical care in the camp – but little relief has come from Arabs.

Since 1948, Syria has been at war with Israel, having refused to sign an armistice agreement to end its attack. Nevertheless, Israel has been aiding individuals fleeing the civil war in Syria that has so far cost at least 130,000 lives and perhaps two million who have fled their homes. More than 700 wounded Syrians – men, women, and children – have entered Israel to be treated for war injuries in the Golan Heights military field hospital, including wounded fighters who had been turned back when trying to enter Jordan and therefore went to Israel. Individuals needing further treatment have been airlifted to hospitals farther south in Israel with specialist facilities. Besides this medical attention, other Israelis, including the actress Natalie Portman, have donated funds and clothing to Syrian women and children.

Not surprisingly, the biased groups and individuals in the media, academia, mainstream churches, and trade unions, who, out of professed concern for the Palestinians in the West Bank, advocate boycott of the State of Israel and its personnel, have totally ignored this extraordinary Israeli aid to suffering enemies, even if only nominally enemies. What is surprising is that these same people have also said or done so little to alleviate the plight of suffering Palestinians caused by the brutal and indifferent treatment by Syrians in the camp in Yarmouk. Once again, their behavior reveals their hypocrisy and shows that the true nature of their actions is to act against Israel rather than on behalf of the Palestinians.

The Demise of the Arab Narrative by Dr. Mordechai Kedar

...The Arab world is sinking in a swamp of blood, tears and fire before our very eyes, as their Middle Eastern culture pulls three hundred million Arabs, and many more Muslims who are not Arabs, into the depths of Hell. If Israel announced today that she would open her gates wide to unlimited immigration of Arabs and Muslims, how many Arabs would rush to Israel, the Jewish, Zionist state, to find a new life?

Dr. Mordechai Kedar..
Middle East Insights..
January '14..

Arab intellectuals were exposed to the nationalist winds blowing across Europe since the middle of the nineteenth century. They studied them, embraced them and tried to apply them in the Middle Eastern countries. This is how the pan-Arab movements arose, which supported the establishment of one nation state from Morocco in the West to Iraq in the East, from Syria in the North to Yemen in the South. In parallel, British, French and Italian colonialism established local states that attempted to base their existence on the creation of a local consciousness in Syria, Iraq and Jordan, etc., at the expense of an inclusive Arab consciousness, which remained for the Arab League to implement.

The positive image that the Soviet Union had in the middle of the twentieth century gave rise to the flowering of movements that were derived from it such as Gamal Abd al-Nassar’s Arab Socialism and the Baath parties that ruled in Syria and Iraq. Others were attracted by western liberalism and tried to imitate it, and there were still others, who, in contrast, adopted a monarchist model that was based on a local tradition and combined with a pseudo-western constitution.

The common thread connecting all of these ideologies was the fact that all of them represented an attempt to find new substance and modern meaning for the Arab collective that would replace its traditional substance, which was a combination between tribalism and Islam, the two principle components of collective consciousness of the Middle East. The basis for all of the new ideologies was the fact that they now related to a single Arab nation with unique characteristics that necessitated the adaption of western ideologies to the conditions of the Arab East.

Arab nationalism expressed by the Arab League and its institutions, including at the Arab Summit, turned out to be nothing more than a fig leaf to cover the naked factionalism that encumbered every collective action of the Arab countries

But over the years the actual result was a house of cards, hollow slogans and blighted ideas that never actually succeeded in creating a shared consciousness with a solid and generally accepted conceptual substance, which was expected to have settled in the hearts of the masses to replace the strong, basic loyalty to tribal and religious tradition. We see the proof of this – in vivid red colors – over the course of the three last years, which brought about the collapse of the many empty ideas that had permeated the public sphere in recent decades.

"They chose progress and we chose underdevelopment"

...They chose progress and we chose underdevelopment, they chose creativity in chemistry equations and theories of physics, we chose creativity in the fatwas of "jihad marriage."

Elder of Ziyon..
04 November '13..

Al Wafd (Egypt) has an op-ed that compares Jewish accomplishments against Arab backwardness. Excerpts:

Jews have revolutions in science, while Arabs have revolutions in tragedy - this is a painful truth...

The Israeli Foreign Ministry on its front page on Facebook reveals three alarming news items.

First, students at a secondary school in Netanya have succeeded in the development of unmanned aircraft, which uses a mathematical equation to determine how much fuel is left in the plane....

Not only this but this Israeli school has 31 scientific projects in the implementation phase, and this is just the tip of the iceberg.

(Continue)

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Lessons in Survival Skills for Israel 101 by Mordechai Kedar

...Israel cannot expect the world to be concerned if Israel does not regard itself, its existence and its rights with urgency and determination. This is the true and profound reason that the Israeli message about Iran did not touch the hearts of the world's leaders, and the guilty party is we ourselves, the collective Israeli, we, the Right and the Left together, each one because of its acts of commission and its acts of omission as well.

Dr. Mordechai Kedar..
Mordechai Kedar in English..
04 October '13..

As one would expect, the Israeli media took great interest in Netanyahu's speech at the United Nations Security Council. In the Arabic media, the situation is more complex: the morning after Netanyahu's speech, lines from the speech were cited, even in banner headlines, but Netanyahu's words - despite their importance to the listeners in Israel, Teheran and the White House - were seen in a wider context in the Arab media, because of the complexity of the way the global picture appears to the Arab world, which is naturally centered around itself.

The newspaper "al-Quds al-Arabi", which is published in London, devoted its main headline of the morning following the speech to Israel's options: "Netanyahu: We are ready to act to prevent Iran from having nuclear arms". The newspaper also added later in the article: "The Iranian-American rapprochement worries the Gulf countries". The connection that the newspaper makes between Netanyahu's pronouncements about Israel's willingness to act and the fears of the Gulf countries creates the impression that the last hope of the Gulf countries - since they have given up on the Americans - is that Netanyahu will deal with the Iranian nuclear program.

But Netanyahu's words are put into the wider context of Israeli relations with the United States: indeed, the White House is leading a policy of appeasement and negotiations with Iran, but on the other hand, Obama's statement that "all options are on the table and the United States will demand actions, not only words" is also emphasized. This statement is intended to calm the Israelis and tone down Netanyahu's explicit threats toward Iran. Therefore, it is not at all clear if the United States will indeed support Israeli military action if such action is carried out without the prior agreement of the White House.

In the background, it is also possible that the American Congress with a Republican majority will take a stand against the White House's position. "Al-Quds al-Arabi" tells its readers that the day before Netanyahu's speech in the UN, he visited the American Congress and met with a "small group" of members of Congress. From this, the newspaper assumes that Israel will try to influence White House and State Department policy by using American pressure groups, in Congress and in pro-Israeli organizations, to change the conversation with Iran from an approach of appeasement to that of making specific requirements, from an easing of sanctions to stricter supervision of the nuclear program through crippling sanctions.

"Al-Quds al-Arabi", a newspaper that usually takes clear and radical anti-Israeli positions, lists the four Israeli requirements that Netanyahu raised regarding the Iranian nuclear project - to stop uranium enrichment; to remove all of the enriched uranium from Iran; to close the Fordo enrichment plant and to dismantle the advanced centrifuges in Natanz; and to stop the plutonium reactor in Arak that uses heavy water. The newspaper emphasizes that although there are explicit and well defined Israeli requirements, it is still not clear what Obama and Kerry will demand from Iran.

(Video) Dr Qanta Ahmed interview - Israel, Human Rights and the Situation in the Arab World

Daphne Anson..
01 October '13..

Here is an unmissable interview (in English despite the Hebrew prologue) with the American-based British-born Muslim physician Dr Qanta Ahmed (as easy on the ear as on the eye), in which she warmly praises Israeli democracy and regard for human rights and contrasts those realities with the "severe lack of human rights" for women and minorities (including Muslim minorities at the hands of fellow Muslims) elsewhere in the region. ("The one stabilising hope for the region is the functioning democracy you have in Israel.")

(English interview begins at 00:43)


She predicts that the prejudice against Israel ("accomplished ... talented ... rich in intellectual energy") will not disappear with a two-state solution, and explains why ("Do not underestimate the power of envy") ...

Link: http://daphneanson.blogspot.co.il/2013/10/a-muslim-intellectual-praises-israels.html

More from Daphne Anson can be found by clicking on http://daphneanson.blogspot.co.il/

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Check-it out!
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