A Storm in the Arab World - Dr. Mordechai Kedar

by Dr. Mordechai Kedar

“O al Jazeera, are we the worst nation?”

The flagship program of the Al Jazeera channel is the weekly program entitled “The Opposite Direction”. This program, which is broadcast on Tuesday at 9:00 in the evening, presents two people who represent opposing positions on a current political issue. The moderator is Dr. Faisal al-Qasim, a Syrian Druze who heats things up by getting the participants into as strident an argument as possible. In the past, there have even been cases when the participants in the studio physically attacked each other. There are also cases when one or both of the participants are in another country and their words are transferred live by satellite.

This program is not produced by the channel, but by an external producer owned by the moderator, Faisal al-Qasim, who then sells the program as a finished product to the channel. Faisal al-Qasim decides who the participants will be and he edits the program as he sees fit. Sometimes he or one of the participants says things that do not suit al Jazeera’s agenda, but the station includes the matter as a “point and counterpoint” segment, which is one of the channel’s guiding principles.

I was recently invited to participate in the program broadcast on Tuesday, December 12, which dealt with President Donald Trump’s declaration that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, which received strong condemnation in the entire Arab and Islamic world, since such a declaration bestows international recognition on Israel while most of the Arabs and Muslims want it to be destroyed.

In the course of the program, I declared that we, the Jews, were in Jerusalem 3000 years ago and that we worshiped the one and only G-d, while the ancestors of the Muslims were still drinking wine and liquor, burying their daughters alive and worshiping idols. Later on, when the moderator asked if I do not fear for the chances of a peace process to succeed, I answered that the Arab world does not know what peace is, since it is stuck in a quagmire of fire, blood and tears because of the murderous wars between the Shi’a and the Sunni, between nations (the Arabs and the Kurds, for example) and between the tribes in Libya and Yemen. Therefore – I said – after you make peace among yourselves, we will join in that peace.

But the thing that angered the viewers most was when I took a verse from the Qur’an “You (the Muslims) are the best nation that mankind has produced” and I changed one word to: “You are the worst nation that mankind has produced”, who wants to come close to you? Who wants to talk with you? The Arab world has failed; the Islamic nation is a failure! It is a quagmire of fire, blood and tears”. The other participant, Sheikh Abd al-Rahman Kukie, a Syrian Islamist whose ideology is somewhere between Hamas and al-Qaeda, demonstrated total ignorance of the history of the People of Israel and the Land of Israel.

Since Wednesday, December 13^th, one day after the program was broadcast, the Arab media has been roiled and agitated over my participation in the program and the things that I said. There have been dozens of articles in newspapers and on Internet sites, dozens  of references in the broadcast media and thousands of reactions on Facebook and Twitter. The lesser portion of these reactions supports what I said, but the majority expressed great indignation toward me because of what I said, toward al Jazeera, who broadcast my words and toward Faisal al-Qasim, who invited me.

The newspaper al-Halij*, which is published in the Gulf, issued an article by Dr. Abdullah al-Suihi, entitled “O al Jazeera, are we the worst nation?” In this article, he attacks the moderator, Faisal al-Qasim, for his favorable bias toward the Israeli guest at the expense of the Muslim guest. He may be right, since one of the questions that Faisal al-Qasim asked Sheikh Kukie was “What are you doing to liberate Jerusalem? Throwing Twitter missiles? Hurling Facebook bombs?”

During the program, excerpts from the speeches by Hassan Nasrallah, the champion of Arab resistance to Israel, were cited, comparing his enthusiasm as he spoke about Hizb’Allah’s involvement in Syria with the complacency he expressed when speaking about Israel. He called for using any weapon against the rebels in Syria, while only calling for the use of social media against Israel.

One of those who supported what I said, tweeted: This Zionist lowlife is right, we really are the most problematic nation”. Another person write, “The violence that has spread among us and the corruption in the name of Islam (=ISIS) are our main problem, not Israel”.

But on the other hand the Arab media is also full of the opposite sort of message. Someone, a Palestinian, apparently, sent me the following message on Facebook: “Are you really an expert in knowledge of the Arab and Islamic world? I think that this is an exaggeration, and that you are just a despicable spy who makes his living from the painful realities of the peoples of the region. The stereotype of the Jew among the nations of the world has not changed. The Jew is still an opportunistic, lying coward masquerading as a virtuous person to fool everyone. Jews worship money and surrender themselves, their honor and everything they have to get it. You can be sure, Mordechai, that your presence today on Palestinian land is temporary and the international laws of physics assure your departure. Your  are here in Palestine temporarily only to serve the interests of the European Crusaders camp. You are only the slaves of time and the reasons that led to your presence in our country will quickly disappear… Know, Mordechai, that Allah’s curse will pursue you along with the curse of all mankind. All the nations of the world hate you, are disgusted by you and hope that you will be exterminated as quickly as possible, because they know you well, but today they go along with you and agree with you for the time being. Your political heresy and your false claim on the rights to Palestine is an extension of your religious heresy (since you did not believe in Muhammad). You have no past existence and therefore you will have no future existence. And if you gamble on the Arab regimes to keep you in Palestine, you are grasping at straws and you will fail totally. You know well that your real enemy is not all of the Arabs, but the Palestinians, since they are your eternal curse, which will haunt you for hundreds of years, until Judgment Day. Shame and disgrace on you, Mordechai, because you are a Jew”.

Others accuse Faisal al-Qasim of betrayal against the Arab nation and giving Zionists the opportunity to say their venomous words against the Arab and Islamic nation, and others are sure that the al Jazeera channel is operated and funded by the Israeli Mossad.

But it is even more complicated. I was informed by sources at al Jazeera that there would be a powerful objection to the broadcast of the program with me; the objection came mainly from the direction of Jamal Rian, the head anchor and moderator of the channel’s content. He is a 64-year-old Palestinian, a native of Tulkarem, who grew up in Jordan and there are rumors that he was an activist of the Muslim Brotherhood, and that this is why King Hussein expelled him from Jordan. Rian turned to Qatar and was on al Jazeera’s founding team and the first anchor to go on air at the channel in November 1996.

Jamal Rian interviewed me for the news edition that he anchored on June 1, 2008, just before Jerusalem Day, on Israeli construction in Jerusalem, and even then, I clashed with him on the matter of Jewish rights to build in the city that has been our capital for 3000 years, while the ancestors of the Muslims were drinking wine, burying their daughters alive and worshiping idols. Since that time he had not invited me to appear on his program and apparently objects to my appearance on al Jazeera in general. This was the reason for his objection to my participation in Faisal al-Qasim’s program, but as mentioned above, the program is produced by the external production company owned by al-Qasim, who insisted on broadcasting the program as is.

The media storm has not yet subsided, and my conclusion is that Israel must present the Arab world with people who are totally fluent in literary Arabic, are extremely well informed in Arabic history and culture, have broad and deep knowledge of Islam, and who can take a confident stand against anti-Semites and put them in their place in the Arabic media. If Israel wants to be accepted in the Middle East, it must radiate strength, resolution and knowledge, because these are the qualities that the Middle East admires and appreciates.

In the Middle East, a person who is willing to give up his home, his land and his rights is perceived as contemptible and despicable, who can be kicked out and sent to Hell. If Israel wants to live with her neighbors in peace, she must radiate strength, resolution and the belief that her ways are just, because only thus will they respect her and leave her be.

[Editor: Here is a short clip from the program mentioned above]

*Translator’s note: “The Gulf”

 Translated from Hebrew by Sally Zahav

Dr. Mordechai Kedar

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