Dr. Mordechai Kedar is a senior lecturer in
the Department of Arabic at Bar-Ilan University. He served in IDF Military
Intelligence for 25 years, specializing in Arab political discourse, Arab mass
media, Islamic groups and the Syrian domestic arena. Thoroughly familiar with
Arab media in real time, he is frequently interviewed on the various news programs
in Israel.
Honest disclosure I: I have been acquainted with the Herzog family for decades, ever
since I was a child, and at various points in my life I crossed paths with all
three Herzog brothers, Joel, Brigadier General (Res.) Michael
and MK Yitzchak. I have always held this aristocratic family in great
esteem for their generosity, deportment, intelligence and erudition, as sons of Israel's
late sixth president Chaim Herzog and grandchildren of the late Chief Rabbi
Yitzchak Isaac Halevi Herzog. Ambassador Abba Eban, a significant
political and cultural figure on his own, was their uncle. An aristocratic
family in the deepest sense of the word.
Honest disclosure II: During the second half of
the nineties, once I had finished my army service, I was active in the
"Paths to Peace" organization, the younger and religious brother
of "Peace Now". I gave peace a chance the European way, but our
Arab neighbors disappointed us.
Honest disclosure III: At various times, I
have suggested a Middle East peace plan for us and our neighbors, "The Eight Palestinian Emirates Plan". I
am openly against the establishment of a Palestinian state in Judea and
Samaria, one that will without doubt turn into another Hamastan and lead
inevitably to the next war.
Honest disclosure IV: I openly support the Jewish
Home party's list.
Let us start with the head of the Labor party, Yitzchak
Herzog:
Years of research spent studying Arab discourse,
media and culture - in the original Arabic - have led me to the
incontrovertible conclusion that most of the Arab population hopes the day will
come when Herzog is prime minister of Israel, for that day - at least
according to the viewpoint of most Arabs - is the
beginning of the end of the state of Israel .The reason is simple: Herzog is
seen as a person of weak character, unimpressive and spineless. He did not
serve as a combat officer and was, instead, an officer in my unit, 8200, which
is made up of brilliant nerds with the obligatory round-framed eyeglasses.
Herzog's gentle way of speaking and the
unconfrontational terminology he uses, those that make him attractive to
Israelis who want to think like Europeans and Americans,
have convinced the Arab world that Herzog is the only way to soften
Israel enough to step all over it and turn it into a dishrag that can be
wrung into oblivion.
The Middle East's agenda is set by stereotypes and images,
and the image Herzog projects is so weak that any threats Israel might
pronounce would be met with derision. The distance from that derision to
all-out war is a short one.
In the Middle East, anyone who proclaims non-stop that he wants
peace, projects the image of someone who is afraid of war because he is weak,
thereby awakening the militaristic adrenaline glands of his
neighbors, who then resemble nothing so much as eagles and vultures hovering
over a dying cow.
And the opposite is just as true: anyone who radiates power,
strength, threat and danger enjoys comparative tranquillity because
the bullies leave him alone. This is the reason the Arabs hated and respected
Ariel Sharon and Moshe Dayan – they were afraid of them. Sadat made peace with
Israel because he could not defeat the Jewish state despite the surprise
factor he had in opening the Yom Kippur War and his early success in crossing
the Suez Canal. Hussein also made peace with Israel, hoping it would
use its power to help him face the Baath party of Syria and Iraq. Arafat agreed
to a hudabiyya peace -
that is, a temporary "peace" for as long as the enemy is too strong
to defeat – after the failure of the first intifada.
Yitzchak Herzog at the helm of the government is the sweetest
dream the Arab world can imagine, because it is proof that Israeli society is
tired, exhausted, lacking the motivation to protect the country and ready to
pay any price for a paper that has the word "peace" written on
it. Herzog at the helm of the government will be subject to pressures
from the Arab world – and from Obama's White House - because he creates the
impression that "this time it will work", or shall I
say, "Yes, we can".
The pressures he will undergo will be much greater than those
exerted on Netanyahu, because the White House and the Arab world will
sense that his days as Prime Minister are numbered and therefore, they must
make every effort to squeeze as much out of him as they can for the
short period that Israelis will let him function before waking up to realize
the imminent catastrophe and removing him from his seat as they did to
Ehud Barak when he gave in to Arafat.
Yitzchak Herzog may bring about harmonious relations with the
White House and perhaps even with the angst-consumed leaders of Europe, but he
will bring a war of blood, fire and tears to the area called the Middle East
where only those who are truly powerful, threatening and determined to deter their
enemies survive.
Let us continue with MK Tzipi Livni, Herzog's rotation
partner in what the two self-titled "The Zionist Camp":
Tzipi is the other aspect of the sweet dreams of the Arab world, a
woman born and raised in a courageous Revisionist family, a home filled
with healthy and strong Zionist principles. She began her political career in
the Likud, but became more and more spineless, deteriorating from party to
party, until she joined up with the other leading invertebrate, Yitzchak
Herzog.
To the Arab world, Livni symbolizes and represents the dispirited
and weary Israeli, those who have had enough of the struggle for survival and
are willing to offer their necks to the slaughterer hoping that he will butcher
them gently if they speak politely.
The internet tells us that in the eighties, Livni was actually a
Mossad agent in Europe, and several
Arab websites tell of
the "special services" she did for the state of Israel.These services
are understood in the West as undercover and secret, but in the Middle East the
expression is interpreted in a totally different fashion. We
can imagine how they will react on the web in the Arab world and what
our image will be if she becomes prime minister
.
However, the problem with Tzipi Livni is not just about
her image, because in her case, our neighbors have proof that Livni hasn't the
foggiest idea of how to navigate the complex, thorny paths of the Middle East:
she was Foreign Minister during the Second Lebanon War, and was the Israeli
architect of Security Council Resolution 1701 that allowed the Hezbollah –
already clear in the phrasing she espoused – to renew and enlarge its
rocket arsenal. I would expect someone with a law degree to comprehend the built-in
failure in the way the resolution was phrased, but Tzipi Livni did
not even reach this minimal legal test. Is there anyone in his right mind who
would hire her to prepare a contract for renting out his apartment?
What is strange is that instead of being ashamed and keeping her
mouth shut, Livni even defended Resolution 1701 in public, strangely calling ita
resolution that "created change in southern Lebanon".
She is right about one thing. It surely didcreate change in southern Lebanon, but one that is bad for Israel. Instead of demilitarizing Hezbollah – which many countries agreed was necessary after the Second Lebanon War – this resolution allowed Hezbollah to rearm. Livni's failure in phrasing the resolution and its implementation should have left her far away from any Israeli decision making positions, and certainly from those that have anything to do with our geopolitical reality.
In sum: Only in Israel do the spineless have the
nerve to ask the public for another chance to sit for the Middle East exam which
they are sure to fail once again. Only in Israel does the public's
collective memory go only as far back as the last television debate, the slogan
heard yesterday and the latest spin a candidate spread this morning at the
advice of his media consultants because it is popular and easy to recall.
Not one of the soul weary people – those who talk non-stop about
"peace" – can deal in a suitable manner with the cruel and
difficult cultural environment in our neighborhood, one which, in the
best case, will kick him in the rear as a warning before plunging a dagger
into his neck.
The Herzog-Livni duo is the last thing I would recommend to lead
the state of Israel, as long as we want to survive in the "New Middle
East" – not the Shimon Peres fantasy world of that name, but the one
where what is new is "Islamic State". Perhaps, in the far-off future,
when and if the surrounding cultural atmosphere turns into something like
America or what it was once in Europe, we will be able to consider these
two soul weary people as leaders of Israel.
However, while the Middle East looks the way it does and functions
the way it does at present, there is no choice except to leave them nailed to
their seats in the opposition consisting of other spineless "round
eyeglasses" so they can raise shrill voices to criticize the nation's
leaders, while those leaders radiate power, strength and credible threats.
This is the bitter reality in which we attempt to survive. I am
not the one who created it, and I bear no guilt for the situation we are in. I
am just the messenger who is charged with explaining to my readers what not
everyone understands about the culture in our neighborhood. It is a culture
that only provides quiet and tranquility to the leader who succeeds in
persuading his neighbors that he is invincible and that they had better leave
him in peace for their own good.
This is an ongoing mission, especially since every once in a
while some "brilliant" figures appear, claiming to have just patented
their invention of the wheel and found the way to be accepted by our
neighbors as a legitimate and welcome entity.
My advice? Learn Arabic.
Dr. Mordechai Kedar is a senior lecturer in the Department of
Arabic at Bar-Ilan University. He served in IDF Military Intelligence for 25
years, specializing in Arab political discourse, Arab mass media, Islamic
groups and the Syrian domestic arena. Thoroughly familiar with Arab media in
real time, he is frequently interviewed on the various news programs in Israel.
Written in Hebrew for Arutz Sheva, translated by Rochel Sylvetsky.
