.... On the Wests Inability to understand Arab communications
As a citizen of both the United States and Israel, the dual perspective I have allows me to form a perspective that can view the actions of both countries from a distance and sometimes see and accept realities that an Israeli or an American might not see, or might have hard living with. Being outside events may allow me to see things that others don't. I am writing this based on my experiences and thoughts alone. Many Jews speak as if they represent Israel, Jews. I don't. This is my personal view, different than what you will usually read, a little long but worth a read
The west is convinced Israel is an apartheid state. We build walls, refusing to believe that Palestinians would live in peace with us if we gave them a fair deal, stopped killing their babies and stealing their land, got rid of our creepy blockade On campuses students learn that we deserve BDS, that Natanyahu is a crazy fanatic ,persistent about Iran when Israel has nuclear weapons and Iran just wants peaceful nuclear energy. Our fixation on recognition Jewish state is racist. The way we harp on it. The Palestinians don’t. Yassir Arafat might have been a terrorist once, but he denounced violence. How do we know? He said so. More than once.
As a Israeli American, the naiveté of Americans about Arab communication astounds me. Israelis seem like Europeans in many ways. We speak English. We start businesses. We seem at home in the west. Actually, are equally at home and not at home almost anywhere in the world. Our country is a diverse middle eastern nation, Over half of us hail from Arab countries speak Arabic; the culture, it’s rich layered nonverbal nuances, indirect manner of responses, seemingly evasive and contradictory responses that are so very different from direct western approach. We understand ‘ arabic thought and communications’ just as we understand ‘western’.
When we hear a speech by a Muslim leader in English, we admire his PR skills knowing that what he is saying to his own people in Arabic is not what he is telling you. He knows that and we can detect the pride in his stance at your gullibility. Since you seem to be oblivious to these contradictions, there is almost no attempt to hide it in the Arab world- other than by using different languages. One needs only to read Arabic newspapers to see vast differences.
How do you manage, with all of your intelligence to miss this; to hear Palestinians on the west bank say“ we want peace” in english but not hear them chant “ we love death” at the same time in Arabic. How is it that Nasa’s satellites manage to not hear Iran’s former Atomic Energy director Abbasi’s say on public TV that Iran had concealed information on its nuclear program for years in public television because Western intelligence had used information provided to the UN in 2006 to sabotage nuclear development.
American strategists views on Israel-Palestine and the interests of U.S. betray a surprising misunderstanding of how Arabs communicate. Experts who inform U.S. strategy actually base the policies they recommend on the public statements of Arab terrorists in English.
As a clear enemy of the U.s. the case of El Quaida is especially relevant leaders say in public in English. Ossama bin Laden son of an Egyptian billionaire says that his identity was shaped by the Palestine Israel conflict, Zawahiri , directs followers to support Palestinians in their struggle against Israel describe and these statements are taken at face value t Why and I quote “because they said so-- straight from the horses mouth -- both of them so it must be true.Right? Anybody living in the middle East would find this shocking.
If you accept what you are told, it is not surprising that you conclude peace- between Palestine and Israel would would not replace fury completely but would considerably diffuse anger. Are you really that naive?
Don’t your political strategists know how to play poker? When you buy oil do you just pay the first price quoted, not realizing that price is lie, that there are many layers of lies and somewhere between one of those lies and another you settle on some agreement. Never ever do you take a statement at face value.
Despite evidence to the contrary, westerners refuse to believe the a bible, that the Koran sanctions lying? Why? Because they are constantly told by people who proclaim themselves to be Moderate Muslims ( and therefore must be) that Islam is a peaceful religion and that they speak the truth. They are able to not only get away with this, but convince westerners that they are the true victims, that they are violent because they have no other option, that they and only they have a right of return generations after a war ended. Success makes such a lie all the more delicious, masterful, a gem to be proud of. The Westerner who believes this nonsense earns no respect. He is an easily manipulable absurd idiots, to be laughed at and all the more despised for this weakness. They know you belief what they tell you, that a suit, a tie and good English will convince you they are moderates leaving the, freedom to say what they wish in Arabic. They find this more absurd then we do.
When Abbas publicly lied to Kerry and told him that the organizations he had joined were not UN related and then went on Palestinian TV and announced that they were the next day, he gained honor from his people because he humiliated America by humiliating Kerry. This insult was directly aimed not at us but at the US. How very odd that it passed you by. That when Abbas continued to rub it in by ignoring you other than to make demands , you stepped into his shoes, played his role and offered something of your own - a deal you knew we would not refuse. Pollard. And however infuriating, however much we knew we shouldn’t we put one even just one of our own first before Arab terrorists. The Ayatolla of Iran was amused at what he perceived as our weakness. Iranian students were not. They marched against the Ayatolla and told him in no uncertain times acting to help his own people the way Israel did was the type of admirable action they wanted to see from him.
Kerry told us time and time again that recognition of Israel was not important. As citizens in the South were again being hit by rockets from Gaza due to the failure of the U.S. and Morsi to fulfill their obligations, and because we made ‘peace’ with Abbas who was promptly replaced by Hamas Kerry pressured ranted on about our unhelpful actions and said, besides Arafat made said he recognized Israel years ago. Yassir Arafat lie?
The U.S, must have missed the Television interview interview with Arafat’s bodyguard of many years, also on public TV and translated on-line ion Memri-TV. Arafats bodyguard was asked whether Ariel Sharon was right when he used to say that Arafat was a pathological liar. Did he lie in your presence? asked the interviewer. Oh yes, said The bodyguard. noting that it was Mubarak the most moderate of Muslims, first Nobel Peace Prize winner for mid-east peace, who would call Arafat after a bombing in Tel Aviv and tell him to “denounce it or they will screw you.” The bodyguard then goes on to say what many have said before and somehow Westerners cannot manage to grasp. Lying in politics is permissible by the Koran, Lying to nonbelievers is not only permitted but at times required to advance the cause of Islam to gain the trust of non-believers in order to draw out their vulnerability and defeat them.
In the end the west will suffer because of their refusal or inability to grasp this. We will stop warning you since your response is to blame us. It is not in our interests to keep pointing out again and again and again that the long range missiles Muslim countries are collecting are not for us. Their hate for you will not change if Israel and the Palestinians reach some agreement. In fact, if we were no longer there as a distraction the utter hatred solely directed towards you will surprise you.
We expect you to deny this, to believe that your problems in the middle east are our fault and that if only we retreated to suicidal borders , everything would be fine for you. LIke many before you suffer from “Appeasementitis” - a contagious disease American leftist Jews and some leftist Israelis have acquired, borne our of a guilt that gives absurd levels of power to people who in reality have none.
Before I close I will address a common reaction from people who read what I’ve written. Westerners are not naive; they choose to blame Israel for their problems. The fact that westerners make the same errors when dealing with Arabs when Israel is not involved argues against this. Motives are, however, irrelevant. Whatever the socio-psychological causes, the west acts as if Arabs and westerners communicate in the same way, take their public statements at face value and look no further.
This policy is as dangerous and perhaps more dangerous to west than Israel. International theatre substitutes for action as Iran develops nuclear arms, as Egypt plans on doing the same with Russia’s help. Other countries with follow. Despite their vast oil reserves they will say they are doIng all of this for energy.
The United States has opened its border to terrorists who pass as hispanics and cross the Mexican border. The Muslim countries bury their hatchets annually to review their plans to Islamize the west. Stage one is to use and leverage democracy
as a tool to spread Islam, respect for and fear of Islam, and
irradiate criticism or acts against Islam in western countries, while verbally diminishing the power of competitive religions. In the west, they are on track. If you have any doubts, go to a college campus, search youtube for anti-Catholic, anti-Jewish and anti-Muslim, and you will get your answer.
I challenge you to compare the level of your democracy to ours. Israeli Muslims have the same rights as other citizens, are members of the Knesset, and have freedom of speech even at the expense of security. As Pollard languished in your prisons, we released hundreds of terrorists to demonstrate our “good faith” to Palestinians” We regularly treat people from Gaza in our hospitals. We have no free speech zones and break of demonstrations [Jewish and Aran equally] when they become violent.
Since our survival is at stake we come to our senses when pushed to far. We are opening our eyes. We do not appreciate the recent anti-semitism spreading across Europe nor the violence, nor the fact that traditionally Jewish French Jews are in danger going to the synagogue; they are forced to come to Israel because France, an alleged democracy, allows this to happen, We do not appreciate an English MP daring to call Gaza a warsaw Ghetto and Hamas Freedom fighters. What about the British genocide against the Irish people. What about the refugee camps of Holocaust survivors the British created to stop surviver of Nazi death camps from entering IsraelWe do not appreciate U.S news, the Pravda of the U.S, singling out AIPAC as if it were the only lobby when your entire form of government is based not on representative democracy as much as payoffs from big business. What happened to your first amendment freedom if the press or equal right to pursue happiness. Neither to we appreciate discrimination that would never be tolerated against other groups. ‘hate crimes’ are more than 7x more common against Jews than any other group in the country but hate crimes against Jews receive no attention. Jewish groups conducted the white house. When a response was finally received said that calling Jewish students Nazis, substituting a swastika for the star of David in the Israeli flag, allowing Arab students to build mock walls, mock machine guns, and even physically harm Jewish students are acceptable activities that a college student should be expected to put up with. This could never happen In Israel.
At this juncture Israeli politicians are still largely European. They hang onto a delusional beliefs that the west and the United States in particular are their best friends, as if international politics were a high school dance where special relationships develop. They have convinced themselves that Israel cannot survive without the United States-- and endlessly speak about common interest and special relationships. But this is changing.
We will not be sacrificial lambs to your inability to perceive reality nor will we forever shoulder the blame for all of your problems. Israelis are seeing through motives of the U.S, Your president Obama and his band of Muslim Brotherhood white house advisers have helped us to see reality The next generation of leaders will not take alliances with the west as a given. Having scant memories of diaspora, they do not share a desperate need for a ‘sponsor’. If it were up to me, we would forgo your financial and other “help” today. Politicians , in any country, do not act quickly. It will take longer but we will go our own way.
Abbas and the Arab world are suspicious about your motives. So are we. Not only because you seem to not care whether our country’s borders are suicidal, not only because you push aside our need to be recognized as a Jewish state as petty when Palestine, hoping to be an Arab state demanded that no Jews be left there, not only because it was Your president who publicly announced that our settlements are illegal without so much as a word to us. when a country funds all sides in a conflict, the last thing they are interested in is peace.
If you continue managing your country the way you are now, if you continue to censor news, lie to your people about China’s success, cripple innovation in the name of a clean planet, allow the Sierra Club lobby to cripple your coal industry, and your oil, force businesses into insolvency because you have proclaimed carbon dioxide to be an evil planet destroying gas based on bad science, agriculture lobbies, fortune. If you continue reward those businesses that are the worst performers under the guise of some twisted version of economic stimulus, and too big to fail absurdity, sell your gold mines to China, you will go down.
We will not come along for the ride and we will not be sacrificial lambs to your ability or unwillingness to understand and/or address Arab communications.
