IS PEACE POSSIBLE BETWEEN ISRAEL AND THE ARAB WORLD???
The answer is YES — But only after mind boggling changes in the Arab world. True peace can only be made after the Arab world undergoes democratization. Simply put, democracies rarely go to war with one another. All our major wars of the last two hundred years have been between dictators or between democracies defending themselves from dictators. When a ruler is elected by the people, he has a natural restraint preventing him from sending their sons and daughters into combat in an aggressive war. No such restraint exists anywhere in the Arab world. The second major change required of the Arab/Moslem world is to create secular states not subservient to the rule of Islam. The problem for Israel with the rise of Islamic fundamentalism is the very hostile attitude that Islam has toward Jews and any non-Islamic person. Islam is all encompassing and guides behavior, law, religion and attitudes and relations with non-Moslems. Islam perceives the world as two separate parts: 1.The first is Dar
• “We can only arrive at peace with the Arabs through an evolution on their part that includes democracy. But wherever I turn my eyes to look, I don’t see a shadow of democracy. I see only dictatorial regimes.” – Golda Meir, in an interview with Oriana Fallaci in Jerusalem in November 1972 • For the vast majority of Arabs, Israel is “taboo” — the acceptance and legitimization of which simply inconceivable irrespective of diplomatic treaties. The current “peace process” is no different. – from ISLAMIC ANTI-SEMITISM AS A POLITICAL INSTRUMENT, by Yossef Bodansky, in The Maccabean Online, January, 1998 • “It is only natural for Jews and Muslims to clash in the wake of the clarification that Islam aspires for higher values that contradict what the Jews call for.” – Abd-Allah al-Thal, a former Jordanian General during the War of Independence, in The Danger of International Judaism to Islam and Christianity, cited by Y. Harkabi in Emdat haAravim beSikhsukh Yisrael-Arav [The Arabs’ Position i
