Until now Israel has spoken Hebrew; it now needs to speak Arabic

The Arab Palestinian liberation movement is unique among history’s liberation movements; It doesn’t seek to liberate the oppressed, since Arabs in Israel enjoy more civil, political, and economic rights than Arabs in any neighboring country; it doesn’t seek to liberate women, the proletariat, or any underprivileged minority.

Its goal is one and only one: the liberation of "Palestine" from the Jewish people.

Progressive Israelis tie themselves in knots and bend over, imagining the imaginary concessions or Israeli goodwill gestures that could have clinched peace and coexistence. Yet regardless of how many mistakes one may attribute to Israeli leaders, each and every one of them is dwarfed by the crimes and evil designs of all Palestinian Arab leaders and the overwhelming majority of the Palestinian Arab intelligentsia.

Where are the voices of Palestinian Arab academics employed by European and American universities? They love to flaunt their progressive credentials posing as allies of women, gays, immigrants. Are any of them condemning the Hamas assault on young people dancing for peace in the desert? Is any of them calling for Hamas to be ousted from the Gaza Strip so that Palestinian Arab youths may be spared an indoctrination more ruthless than anything the Hitler Youth ever accomplished? If there is such an intellectual let me know, and I will do everything in my power for the said intellectual to be awarded the Israel Prize or the Nobel Peace Prize award.

The bitter truth is that apart from the proverbial "righteous in Sodom", the bulk of the Palestinian Arabs feel immense pride at the bloodshed wrought by Hamas on Israeli women and children. If a survey were held in the 'West Bank' and Gaza, I wouldn’t be surprised if 85% of participants would prefer 900 Israeli casualties over a Palestinian Arab Nobel laureate in medicine or literature.

Palestinian Arabs are prbably not innately or genetically antisemitic. The problem is that their collective identity is based and centered on blaming Israel and Jews for all real and imaginary ills that afflict them. In the Palestinian Arab collective imagination, life in the Holy Land before the First Aliya was akin to that of Adam and Even in the Garden of Eden. Everyone was blissful, there was no strife, no hatred, no oppression. Every day was happier than the previous one…

According to this fantasy, Zionists took over the role of the Biblical serpent, whose forbidden fruit introduced death and misery in the universe. Yet whereas Jews and Christians blame Adam and Eve, that is, their own ancestors for this fall from grace, Palestinian Arabs do not blame themselves. They do not blame the intransigence of their political and religious leaders; they do not blame their intellectuals whose intransigence was often even more pronounced; they do not blame themselves, who despite Israeli injustices, have largely failed to take advantage of all Jewish gestures of goodwill.

Why?

Because to accept Jewish gestures of goodwill would amount to accepting that Palestinian Arabs have no monopoly over historical rights in the Holy Land. They actually have no rights at all.

During over a century, the Palestinian Arab attitude was shared by the overwhelming majority of the Muslim world. Yet in recent years this wall of rejection and ostracism was being undermined: The United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Morocco were ready to recognize Israel and normalize relations with the Jewish state. Saudi Arabia’s willingness to do likewise amounted to an official Sunni Islamic sanction of Israel’s legitimacy.

There is no doubt that despite these developments, most Arabs and Muslims do not love Israel. But recognition of the fact that if you can’t beat the enemy, you should join him, pushed one Arab Muslim state after another to come to terms with Zionism. Understanding that Arab willingness to normalize relations with Israel is driven by respect and admiration for its military, economic, and technological prowess rather than by love and appreciation for its ethical values, is crucial for Israel to choose the correct course of action.

There is no love for Israel to lose in the Arab Street. Nevertheless Israel will lose the respect of Arab governments if it dithers and relents in its response to Hamas atrocities. The Yiddish of Europe's Galut Jews is not the language of the Middle East, Arabic is. Jabotinsky’s "Iron Wall" is as true today as in 1923. For this reason, it is essential for the defeat the IDF inflicts on Hamas to be complete.