DISUNITY IS HARMONY TO THE ARABS

Homogenous units based along tribal lines may be the prescription for Middle East stability, says Mordechai Kedar, whose experience in IDF Intelligence, fluent Arabic, and outspoken views have made him an official Israeli spokesperson to the Arabic media.

“We know this because the most stable Arab countries are the Gulf Emirates and every Emirate is made up of one single tribe,” said Dr. Kedar at a briefing at the Canadian Institute for Jewish Research (CIJR) in Montreal.

Such unity is unattainable in other Middle Eastern countries whose borders were artificially determined by foreigners and whose rulers emerged from minorities among the conglomerations of competing tribes, religions, sects, and ethnic groups.  “For these reasons the majority of citizens see the state and its leader as illegitimate,” said Dr. Kedar.

Dr. Kedar, currently a research associate at Bar-Ilan University’s Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, envisions an Emirates-style solution to the Israeli-Palestinian problem.  “I believe in an eight-state solution—dividing the West Bank and Gaza into eight autonomous units.”

Aside from the Emirates, Dr. Kedar says the model for fragmentation in the Arab world began in Iraq, which is now divided between a central government, the Kurds, and other independent Iraqi tribes in the north. Similar fragmentation is under way in Libya.  North and South Sudan, and in Yemen and this same fragmentation awaits Syria. “The signs are already there,” says Dr. Kedar. “President Assad’s [minority] Alawite regime is already storing large quantities of weaponry in the Ansariyya Mountains where the Alawites have been living for centuries.

One of the few analysts who see rays of sunshine for Israel in the Arab Spring uprisings, Dr. Kedar says Egypt’s severe economic difficulties will force the new government to maintain Egypt’s peace agreement with Israel.  A newly fragmented Syria will no longer need an external enemy—Israel—to unite its ethnic, religious, and tribal groups.

Dr. Kedar also takes a contrarian view on Iran, “Israel doesn’t see itself in the frontline of the problems with Iran,” Kedar declares, “Iran is focusing on dominating the Gulf States, which is far more attractive for them [with its oil wealth] than taking on Israel.”

Consequently, Dr. Kedar says, although all stances regarding a nuclear Iran should be set in sand, not concrete, “I don’t think Israel will sacrifice itself to rescue the world from the Iranian problem.”

(Machla Abramovitz is managing editor of CIJR's Israzine Online Magazine.
This article originally appeared in Mishpacha Magazine, February 22, 2012. Issue 398.)