The Saudi Arabian Arab News of May 25 carried an editorial dedicated to analyzing Israel entitled “Fear of Peace”. The theme of the editorial is that Israel cannot continue existing without war and bloodshed. This is laid out in one central paragraph: “Israel was born in a cataclysmic explosion of violence. For the last 56 years, though its intensity has risen and fallen, that violence has never ceased. Confrontation has sustained the Zionist dream, which itself was refined and tempered by the ferocity and savagery of World War II.”
The Saudi editorial makes the claim that Israel’s appeal and survival is dependent on its “appealing persona of a ‘plucky little democratic nation struggling to survive in a sea of implacable Arab enmity’.... Successive Israeli governments have also capitalized brilliantly upon both their country's alleged vulnerability and the guilt felt in Europe at the obscenities of the Holocaust.”
The newspaper goes on to claim that such appeal is the reason for investment in Israel, and hence its economic success. “Peace would bring an end to all this,” Arab News continues, “Israel would become just another state, having to make its way in competition with other countries in the Middle East and around the Mediterranean littoral.... The peace dividend for Israel could therefore be economic, if not political, bankruptcy. Who among the starry-eyed Zionist idealists who have flocked to ‘defend’ the country would be prepared to stay on in a corrupt, overcrowded state devoid of natural resources?”
Furthermore, the Saudi editorial says, the religious divide would come to the fore in Israel, should peace ‘break out’. “[P]eace would unleash the fissiparous nature of Israeli politics, currently more often than not suppressed in the cause of national unity. Religious fundamentalists would start to take on the Zionists who, though themselves often irreligious, have used religion to justify their aggressive politics.... Israel could not survive an end to the struggle from which it has drawn life for almost 60 years.”
The editors of Arab News write dismissively about non-Israeli Zionists, as well: “Zionists around the world, who themselves do not fancy the difficulties of living in the ‘Promised Land’, assuage their consciences by writing fat checks on a regular basis. Their massive political clout also causes billions of US taxpayers' dollars to be channeled to the Middle East, to sustain the Israeli war machine....”
The editors of Arab News conclude, therefore, “That is why, as the country's leaders work on their scripts for the coming road map negotiations and practice their crocodile tears for when it all goes wrong, they must be blessing the extremists of Hamas and Abu Jihad and glorying in the anger they have generated among the mass of once-moderate Palestinians. As long as fires of fury burn in Palestinian breasts, there will be no danger of peace and Israel's survival will be assured.”
The Saudi editorial makes the claim that Israel’s appeal and survival is dependent on its “appealing persona of a ‘plucky little democratic nation struggling to survive in a sea of implacable Arab enmity’.... Successive Israeli governments have also capitalized brilliantly upon both their country's alleged vulnerability and the guilt felt in Europe at the obscenities of the Holocaust.”
The newspaper goes on to claim that such appeal is the reason for investment in Israel, and hence its economic success. “Peace would bring an end to all this,” Arab News continues, “Israel would become just another state, having to make its way in competition with other countries in the Middle East and around the Mediterranean littoral.... The peace dividend for Israel could therefore be economic, if not political, bankruptcy. Who among the starry-eyed Zionist idealists who have flocked to ‘defend’ the country would be prepared to stay on in a corrupt, overcrowded state devoid of natural resources?”
Furthermore, the Saudi editorial says, the religious divide would come to the fore in Israel, should peace ‘break out’. “[P]eace would unleash the fissiparous nature of Israeli politics, currently more often than not suppressed in the cause of national unity. Religious fundamentalists would start to take on the Zionists who, though themselves often irreligious, have used religion to justify their aggressive politics.... Israel could not survive an end to the struggle from which it has drawn life for almost 60 years.”
The editors of Arab News write dismissively about non-Israeli Zionists, as well: “Zionists around the world, who themselves do not fancy the difficulties of living in the ‘Promised Land’, assuage their consciences by writing fat checks on a regular basis. Their massive political clout also causes billions of US taxpayers' dollars to be channeled to the Middle East, to sustain the Israeli war machine....”
The editors of Arab News conclude, therefore, “That is why, as the country's leaders work on their scripts for the coming road map negotiations and practice their crocodile tears for when it all goes wrong, they must be blessing the extremists of Hamas and Abu Jihad and glorying in the anger they have generated among the mass of once-moderate Palestinians. As long as fires of fury burn in Palestinian breasts, there will be no danger of peace and Israel's survival will be assured.”