Confession of an
Israeli analyst of Islam and Arab statecraft:
I
believe Arafat
By Dr. Mordechai
Kedar
On
May 15, 2002, Yasir Arafat addressed the Palestinian Legislative
Council in Ramalla. The occasion was the 54th anniversary
of the Nakba (“the disaster” of Palestine,
i.e. the establishment of the State of Israel on May 15, 1948).
In his speech Arafat referred to the suicide attacks against Israeli
citizens, stating that these attacks "do not serve our cause,
but rather subject us to angry criticism on the part of the international
community". Arafat called upon the Council to deal with this
problem (which has aroused serious discussions among Palestinians
and Arabs in general) from the vantage point of the “Hudaybiyya
Conciliation
Accord, out of our concern for the patriotic and national interest
of our [Palestinian] people and [Arab] nation, in order to strengthen
worldwide solidarity with the Palestinian people and its cause".
What
is behind this reference to Hudaybiyya? It conveys the following twin messages.
1.
"The Hudaybiyya Conciliation Accord" was an agreement
which the Prophet Muhammad signed in the year 628 A.D. with the
infidels of his tribe, the Kuraysh. He did so upon their refusal
to join the community of Islam, when he realized that he could
not defeat them militarily. Two years later, having consolidated
his power, he attacked Holy Mecca, slaughtered the men of his
own tribe and torched all the symbols of their heathen culture.
- Islam regards
the actions of the prophet as religiously sanctioned models
for the behavior of the faithful. In fact, the authorized collections
(Hadith) of Muhammad's
acts and pronouncements are among the important sources for
the Islamic authorities of every generation in deciding questions
of religious law. Thus, the prophet’s way of treating
his agreement with the Kuraysh is perceived as the ideal procedure
for Muslims when dealing with non-believers: When Muslims cannot
impose their will for expanding the rule of Islam by force,
they are permitted to sign temporary agreements with the non-believers.
Such agreements are to be kept until Allah grants a sufficient
increase in Muslim power. At that point the faithful are allowed
(or obliged) to break the agreements and to impose Islamic terms
on the infidels. Why else would Allah have granted them
the power to prevail?
In referring to Hudaybiyya, Arafat meant exactly this: Any agreement
with Israel is –- in his eyes –- no more than a Hudaybiyya
Conciliation Accord. This is eminently clear to anyone who reads
the Islamic sources, preferably in Arabic. (Internet sites in
English tend to portray a rather conciliatory picture of Islam,
for Western consumption, by rephrasing Islamic messages.)
The proof for this is inherent in the second
message of the quotation from Arafat's speech. Suicide attacks
at this juncture are not condemned as vile inhuman acts but are
held in abeyance because they are presently
incapable of advancing Palestinian goals. At present, the Palestinian
cause can best be served by avoiding international condemnation
and by promoting the encouragement and sympathy of the world community.
What does Arafat mean? That suicide attacks
are evil and should be removed from now on from the arsenal of
legitimate weapons in the struggle against Israel? Not at all.
If anything, recruitment and training of shahids
is accelerating. What he advocates for the near term is a
change in the modus operandi. Does he promise not to use suicide
attacks again? By no means. Does his most recent call to desist
from attacks upon civilians remind us of his record of broken
promises made to Rabin (1993), Netanyahu (1996) and in many public
declarations between 1993 and 2000? They do indeed.
As a student of Arab politics and as a Zionist
with personal past involvement with efforts to promote peace and
understanding between Israelis and Arabs, I do indeed believe
Arafat’s message: he does wish to come to an agreement with
the Israelis, but, as he points out to his followers,
any agreement with non-Muslims, such as a commitment to stop suicide
attacks, is simply a modern version of Hudaybiyya.
As such, in accordance with Islamic principles which form the
basis of the political culture in the Arab sphere, such a commitment
may (or must) be broken at the right time. Clearly, before long,
when in Arafat’s judgment suicide attacks will again be
helpful to the Palestinian cause, he will once again call upon
his followers to go out and sacrifice their lives in Israel's
streets ('millions of shahids marching to Jerusalem').
Great tragedies have occurred in international
affairs when governments try to understand potential enemies in
terms of their own political culture. The events of September
11 can serve as one recent example. Israeli ignorance of Islamic
traditions and Arab culture have brought about many serious political
and military setbacks, from the surprise attack which started
the Yom Kippur War (October 6, 1973) to our lack of realism all
through the Oslo process, 1993-2000. We shall continue to disregard
the Islamic tradition only on pain of more naive dreams, by Israeli
and Western leaders, dreams which are totally detached from the
Middle Eastern reality, a reality which is becoming increasingly
colored by the Islamic brush.
