By Ted Belman Ted Belman——Bio and Archives--December 11, 2007
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“We don’t need Israel for influence in the Arab world. On the contrary, Israel does us more harm than good in the Arab world “We can’t negotiate about the existence of Israel but we can reduce its size to historical proportions.“I don’t agree Israel is a permanent threat. How can a nation of three million be a permanent threat? They have a technical advantage now. But it is inconceivable that peoples with wealth and skill and the tradition of the Arabs won’t develop the capacity that is needed. So I think in ten to fifteen years Israel will be like Lebanon–struggling for existence, with no influence in the Arab world.” Essentially Kissinger was assuring him that Israel’s dominance would be short lived and the US would help to bring this about. The Arabs couldn’t stand the idea of being dominated by Israel or Jews. Thus the nature of the negotiations heretofore is that Israel must submit to Arab demands. Thus no negotiations at all at least not on the basics. Master and supplicant do not negotiate, The master dictates. One of these basics is the Temple Mount. It is inconceivable that Islam, as represented by the Al Aqsa Mosque, be subject to Jewish sovereignty. It must be the other way around. Israel must be so weakened that Arab dominance and Israel inferiority in security matters must be palpable. Israel must appear to exist under Islamic sufferance. Dhimmis are also inferior to Muslims and thus are accorded no rights or respect. This was demonstrated at Annapolis by requiring Israeli delegates to enter through the “servant’s door” and by the refusal by the Arab delegates to shake Livni’s hand. This is more than petty; it is a demonstration of dominance and the US enabled such treatment thereby showing its own dhimmi status. Bat Yeor observed, that jihad remained,
…the main cause of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Since Israelis are to be regarded, perforce, only as a religious community, their national characteristics – a geographical territory related to a past history, a system of legislation, a specific language and culture – are consequently denied. The “Arab” character of the Palestinian territory is inherent in the logic of jihad. Having become fay territory by conquest (i.e. “taken from an infidel people”), it must remain within the dar al-Islam. The State of Israel, established on this fay territory, is consequently illegal.And she concluded,
…Israel represents the successful national liberation of a dhimmi civilization. On a territory formerly Arabized by the jihad and the dhimma, a pre-Islamic language, culture, topographical geography, and national institutions have been restored to life. This reversed the process of centuries in which the cultural, social and political structures of the indigenous population of Palestine were destroyed. In 1974, Abu Iyad, second-in-command to Arafat in the Fatah hierarchy, announced: “We intend to struggle so that our Palestinian homeland does not become a new Andalusia.” The comparison of Andalusia to Palestine was not fortuitous since both countries were Arabized, and then de-Arabized by a pre-Arabic culture.The Arabs realize that they cannot at this point wipe Israel off the map and so they are prepared to live with a greatly truncated and humiliated Israel, temporarily. But we must understand that Islamic “peace” and Israel are mutually exclusive. Israel is only postponing the day it will have to fight for its existence. Since the West is accepting Dhimmi status even before it is conquered why shouldn’t it demand Israel do likewise.
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Ted Belman is a retired lawyer and Editor of Israpundit.org. He made aliyah from Canada in 2009 and now lives in Jerusalem.