The Arabs Defying the Arab World
"If I am the one who lived the truth and lived that reality, then I'm obligated to speak up. Israel is not an apartheid state. Israel is a strong, beautiful, multi-ethnic democracy."
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While massive crowds have taken to the streets in European and North American cities over the past four months, chanting pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel slogans, Iranian streets have witnessed very few such scenes.
Only a relatively small number of demonstrations have been staged in the Islamic Republic since October 7th in solidarity with Gazans, and in most cases, they were minor state-sponsored rallies.
“Even when pro-Gaza protests have been organized by the regime, turnout has been relatively low,” said Raz Zimmt, Iran scholar at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv. “The Palestinian cause is an obsession of the regime, not of the people.”1
Since October 7th, many Arabs and Muslims have also taken to social media to speak out against the “mainstream” Arab and Muslim streets, demonstrating to us all that there is at least a little hope for peace and prosperity in the Middle East, and between Jews and Muslims and Arabs.
There have even been many Palestinians who have courageously done so, including Bassem Eid, a Palestinian peace activist, who said:
“If you come to any Palestinian in Gaza and ask him which country is really imposing the blockade on the Gaza Strip, most of the people will say Egypt, not Israel, because Israel is still the only one that is providing the food, the medicine, the electricity, and the water — even after the rockets Israel receives from Hamas. No one Arab country today is trying to provide any kind of help to the Gaza Strip, including the Palestinian Authority of the West Bank.”2
Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, an American Palestinian who was born in Gaza City, decided to give folks a little history lesson:
“Why wasn’t a Palestinian State established between 1948 and 1967 in the West Bank and Gaza, which were controlled by Jordan and Egypt, respectively? There were no settlements, and East Jerusalem was under Arab control. Even if the Palestinian national movement or leadership or Arab nations thought they could supposedly liberate all of Palestine, why wasn’t a provisional Palestinian state declared in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip instead of the Egyptian and Jordanian administrations?”
“Decades later, the aspirations nowadays are to go back to something that the Palestinians could have had over 60 years ago. That this is not regularly evaluated as an epic failure and a disastrous error is truly scandalous. The point isn’t could have, would have, should have; but this trend or tendency unfortunately continues to be a foolish mistake that elements of Palestinian leadership in the Palestinian national project for statehood and self-determination keep making.”
“Take Hamas, for example, which vehemently opposed the Oslo peace process of the 1990s: 30 years later, and after thousands of Palestinian and Israeli casualties, in part due to the group’s terrorism and lack of political vision, Hamas nowadays wants a Palestinian state along parameters that the Palestinian people would have gotten if the group hadn’t interfered with the imperfect yet viable Oslo peace process.”
“The group is insisting on the full reconstruction and redevelopment of Gaza to what it was before October 7th. Why launch a destructive war that annihilates your people and destroys your territories, only to demand that Gaza be back to what it was before you dragged Gazans along with your suicidal adventures? You could have had what you want simply by not launching a war that you knew would be disastrous.”
“Since 1948, the Palestinians have been repeatedly undermined by multiple players, movements, and ideologies that claimed to care about establishing a Palestinian homeland and an independent nation-state. Former Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s Pan-Arabism, the Palestine Liberation Organization’s nationalism, and Hamas’ Islamism have all set the Palestinians back by decades.”
“Imagine if, instead of letting displaced Palestinians from the Nakba (Israel’s War of Independence) languish in refugee camps as second-class citizens in Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan, they were all resettled in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, which could have accommodated the 800,000 refugees.”
“Imagine if, instead of all the useless wars, insurgencies, and militant resistance, those efforts had been focused on building a robustly capable Palestinian state and investing in the development of an economy, state institutions, new urban centers and cities, and world-class education, tourism, health care, and art hubs and systems.”
“Instead of doing that, the PLO went on to act as thugs in Jordan, causing the Black September crisis, and in Lebanon, contributing to the Lebanese Civil War and Israel’s deadly invasion. As if that wasn’t damaging enough, meddling in Arab countries’ affairs became a PLO staple. This includes the infamous decision to back Saddam Hussein’s criminal invasion of Kuwait, which had for decades hosted a large number of Palestinians and had spent huge sums supporting the Palestinian cause.”
“Once again, the goal isn’t to wallow in the mistakes of Palestinian history, but there is a seriously scandalous lack of self-evaluation and self-assessment, opting instead to deny any role, agency, or responsibility and blame everything on Israel and the occupation.”
“The Palestinian people desperately need pragmatic and realistic leaders who courageously tell their people uncomfortable and inconvenient truths: there will be no ‘right of return’ to the entirety of historic Palestine; custody over holy sites must be shared; refugees must return to developed Palestinian territories or be given options to become citizens in their current countries; armed resistance is detrimental/futile and must be abandoned; and Jews have an undeniable connection to the land, regardless of how that connection was expressed and how it negatively impacted the Palestinian people.”3
John Aziz, a British-Palestinian peace activist, agreed with Alkhatib about the Palestinians needing to take more responsibility for themselves, saying:
“I don’t like the idea that Israel has to commit to peace first before Palestinians do so, because Israel is the ‘more powerful’ side. You are denying me, a Palestinian, my agency. If I want to support and advocate for peace, then I will, and I don’t need anyone’s permission.”4
Jehad al-Saftawi, the author of “My Gaza: A City in Photographs,” was clear about who is to blame for the current political, economic, and humanitarian disaster that has unfolded in the strip, writing:
“Since Hamas’ violent takeover of Gaza in 2007, the bustling and beautiful streets I knew have been dominated by terrorist chaos. Hamas is driven by an ideological stand originating in the concept of annihilating the state of Israel and replacing it with an Islamic Palestinian one.”
“In striving to make this a reality, Hamas has continued to normalize violence and militarization in every aspect of public and private life in Gaza. They have in the process obliterated the chances of a successful Palestinian state alongside Israel, even if the prospect of one had increasingly looked dim amid successive Israeli governments that worked against that.”
“My family evacuated to the south shortly after October 7th. Months after, we received photos of our house and neighborhood, both of which are in ruins. I may never know if the house was destroyed by Israeli strikes or fighting between Hamas and Israel. But the result is the same. Our home, and far too many in our community, were flattened alongside priceless history and memories.”
“And this is the legacy of Hamas. They began destroying my family home in 2013 when they built tunnels beneath it. They continued to threaten our safety for a decade — we always knew we might have to vacate at a moment’s notice. We always feared violence.”
“Gazans deserve a true Palestinian government, which supports its citizens’ interests, not terrorists carrying out their own plans. Hamas is not fighting Israel. They’re destroying Gaza.”5
Amjad Taha, a British-Arab journalist, took a more rhetorical approach to the current situation in Gaza, writing:
“So, when Israel allows humanitarian aid and people gather to receive the aid, Hamas terrorists in Gaza run over people with vehicles and shoot them. If Israel intervenes to help, it’s considered an occupation, and if it stays away, it’s blamed for not providing security for the convoy. Seriously, is there a secret logic handbook I missed, or is this just an absurd level of ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t?’”6
Mosab Hassan Yousef, the son of a Hamas founder, was a tad more blunt, saying:
“I don’t even want to think about a Palestinian state. I don’t care for a Palestinian state. We have 22 Arab states and all of them are garbage. I don’t want another Arab state in that region. It’s enough. They have everything — human resources, natural resources — and they are behind.”7
Other Arabs have remarkably come to the Jews’ defense. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali-Dutch writer and activist, told of how she was raised to be a Jew-hater, saying:
“It was through clan life, the Muslim Brotherhood, and my Islamic schooling that I became an antisemite. The worst insult in the Somali community was to be called a Jew, not that anyone of us actually knew one. To be called a Jew was so abhorrent, some felt justified in killing anyone who so dishonored them with this slur. I vividly remember sitting with my female fellows in mosques, cursing Israel and praying Allah to destroy them.”
“We were certainly not interested in a peaceful two-state solution. We were taught to want to see Israel wiped off the map. The elimination of Israel was not a matter of if, it was a matter of when. For us as Muslims, Israel did not represent a territorial dispute. To want Israel’s destruction was an act of worship. To entertain notions of a two-state solution was an act of sin, a transgression.”8
Hussain Abdul-Hussain, an Iraqi journalist, wrote:
“The only place where Jews feel safe is not in the West, but in Israel. The only place where Muslims feel safe is in the West, not in their home countries. Antisemitism is real. Islamophobia is not. Muslims: Stop peddling the same hate of the West that made you flee to the West.”9
Arab Israelis have also been incredibly outspoken. One of them is Tamer Masudin, who talked about how much hate has been directed his way since October 7th, writing:
“In five months, I received more Islamophobic, racist, and violent threats from Muslims, Arabs, and pro-Palestinians than I ever received in 26 years of living with Jews and Israelis under the so-called ‘brutal Zionist occupation.’ I was guilty of loving my country, and believing Jews have a right to exist in their ancestral homeland. I am not planning on stopping any time soon.”10
Jonathan Elkhoury, an Lebanese-Israeli Christian who was allowed to immigrate from Lebanon to the Jewish state as part of a deal that Israel made with the South Lebanon Army in the 1980s, had this to say:
“I am proud of my identity, an identity that accomplished something that no one could do, but I am attacked because of my identity. People accuse me of being a real traitor.”
“Why do I defend Israel? Because Israel is the home that sheltered me after my real home, Lebanon, rejected me. Because my identity was the path for the truth and justice. I am with Israel because I am with the truth.”
“You want to say that Israel took the Palestinians’ land. What land? The Palestinians wanted to take my land in Lebanon and committed the worst massacres against my people to build their alternative state. I defend Israel because I live here as a human being.”11
Loay Alshareef, an Arab peace activist, recently met two Arab Israelis in Dubai who “expressed pride in being Israeli.” Alshareef added that:
“They shared that they would not prefer living under Hamas or even the Palestinian Authority, highlighting their satisfactory employment, home ownership, and the decent living standards provided by Israel.”
“To those who support Hamas, hear this: Radical Islamic movements fail to deliver social justice. (Face it.) Feel free to criticize me now, but perhaps you’ll thank me later for prompting a reconsideration of these issues, much like I underwent a significant change in perspective over a decade ago.”12
“Take it from someone who’s been on this journey, changing from someone who hated Jews and Christians and others, to someone who really found the beauty of God when you love your fellow human being, even when they are different from you. The moment when you expunge hate, you don’t become bitter, and you see that you are doing good to humanity. Let’s do good to humanity and end hate.”13
Sophia Salma Khalifa was born in northern Israel and became the first Muslim Arab Israeli to enroll in the Israel Defense Forces’ “Atuda” program for electrical engineering. She is now a tech entrepreneur with a master’s degree from Stanford University.
On a recent podcast, Khalifa said:
“The people who are calling themselves ‘pro-Palestine’ but are actually spreading the propaganda of the terror organization that is oppressing the people of Palestine, they are not doing it for Palestine. As an Arab Muslim woman from the same land, this is something that is truly painful for me.”
“And I have to speak the truth. If I am the one who lived the truth and lived that reality, then I’m obligated to speak up. Israel is not an apartheid state. Israel is a strong, beautiful, multi-ethnic democracy.”
“Israel gave me everything. I am the product of peace between Jews and Arabs.”14
“Why Iranians are not demonstrating en masse for Gaza, despite official rhetoric.” The Times of Israel.
Israel’s Heart on Instagram
Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib on X
John Aziz on X
“Hamas Built Tunnels Beneath My Family’s Home in Gaza. Now It Lies in Ruin.” TIME.
Amjad Taha on X
Keren Tzadok on Instagram
Debra Messing on Instagram
Hussain Abdul-Hussain on X
Tamer Masudin on X
Jonathan Elkhoury on Instagram
Loay Alshareef on X
Jewish Breaking News on Instagram
“Sophia Salma Khalifa: My Life in Israel as an Arab Muslim.” PragerU.
Palestine is the real apartheid, not Israel!
This piece is truly incredible. I have learnt so much from it!