The wisdom of speaking Arabic vs. speaking westernism. On October 7, 2023 Hamas tasted Jewish blood. It was one of Islam’s greatest victories over Judaism.
Editor’s Note: This story is an interview (translated from Hebrew) between famous journalist Zvi Yehezkeli and Oded Harush, on the Hidabrut Channel.
Hamas must get its own medicine. They are the wolf that will come for more blood and the only way to stop it from coming for more is if they lose a limb of their own, the land once called the Gaza Strip.
In the Middle East, many believe the one who does not speak Arabic has no right to live there.
Zvi Yehezkeli is an Israeli television journalist and documentarian, and an Arab affairs correspondent, an expert on Arab and Middle East affairs. As of recently he was the head of the Arab desk at Israel TV channel 13, now with i24 channel.
In a riveting interview, in Hebrew, which I CAREFULLY watched, Mr. Yehezkeli explains the reasons and consequences of the October 7, 2023 Hamas invasion into Israel.
I often say that the Israelis speak to or among themselves and what they say, most of the time is very important, remains at home. Subsequently, what the world ends up knowing is from Hamas and anti-Israel sources which is either wrong or has damaging fallout for Israel. I therefore decided to bring what has been said in this interview to the world, in the English language.
Yehezkeli’s Initial Monologue:
There are almost no innocents or non-Hamas supporters in Gaza. Most of the Gazans support Hamas and its actions. These Gazans are taught and teach their children that the Jew is the offspring of the monkey and the pig and Jihad* must be waged against him.
*The term jihad is derived from the Arabic root jahada, an Arabic word that means “striving” or “struggling,” “to exert strength and effort, to use all means in order to accomplish a task.” In its expanded sense, it can be fighting the enemies of Islam, as well as adhering to religious teachings, enjoining good and forbidding evil.
Jihad can refer to a religiously inspired effort or struggle towards a spiritual, personal, political, or military goal. It can also be understood as “just war” or “holy war.”
If you change their curriculum, they will learn the same thing in other places. The Arabs said here [in Israel] out loud and in a clear voice: “We want to destroy you.”
One Of Islam’s Greatest Victories Over Judaism
Israel must internalize and understand that what happened to Israel on October 7, 2023 is one of the greatest victories of Islam over Judaism.
They deceived us and we fell into it; they worked on us with their eyes.” Why is there no victory in Gaza yet? Because you don’t understand the first rule in the Middle East. It doesn’t matter what weapons you have and how you operate them. Israel tolerates terrorism, contains terrorism, understands and encourages terrorism and supports terrorism by supporting Abu Mazen – the Palestinian Authority (PA) – president who supports and transfers existential funds to terrorism.
The Israelis simply do not speak or understand Arabic.
Solution To The Conflict
Solution, is a western word; remove it from the lexicon.
Interviewer: “Once and for all, is there a difference between the Arabs of Gaza and the Arabs of Judea and Samaria? You know them and not only them?”
Yehezkeli: “There is no difference. Jihad is the goal of both. There may be two types of disputes in small nuances along the way, but there is one goal.
The Palestinian-Arab National Movement, since it was established even before 1967, the year of the Six Day War, etched on its flag that the State of Israel could not exist alongside it.
Between Ramallah and Gaza, between Jabaliya and Khan Yunis they will never recognize a Jewish state. That’s what Arafat told me when I sat down to talk with him in the Mukataa, the Arabic word for headquarters or administrative center while he was busy negotiating the Oslo Accords. This is what I was told by most and the best terrorists I have interviewed, throughout my 25 years of working in the press, and certainly Hamas who says this in its charter.
The Oslo Accords were born when the world witnessed the collapse of the Soviet Union. Remember the 1992 book ‘The End of History and the Last Man, by American political scientist Francis Fukuyama which argues that with the ascendancy of Western liberal democracy – which occurred after the 1945-1991 Cold War and the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union – humanity has reached the end-point of mankind’s ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.
There will be no more wars, nothing to fight for. In a modern world and the Internet, why fight? What are borders, what are religions? Religion left the Western world but they did not understand that it continues in the Middle East.
The feeling in Oslo was that after the PLO was defeated in Lebanon, Tunisia, and wherever it rolled next, and the world moved to another place, where the economy, health, raising children and the joy of life are the most important matters, maybe the Arabs will reach a compromise. But this was a mistake and despite this the leaders of Israel and the world believed that such a compromise you can reach and achieve.
I was also sure that when the Arab-Palestinian national movement was at its lowest point, it might have been possible to offer them some kind of partition agreement that they would respect.
The mistake was that the leaders didn’t not hear the advisors, or they heard but they said ‘leave it,’ which is exactly the type of exercise Yahya Sinwar did two weeks before Hamas’ invasion on October 7, 2023 when he said, “this is for their audience.'”
Arafat in 1993, in a mosque in Johannesburg immediately after he signed the Oslo Accords, was asked “How did you agree to sign an agreement with the Jews? After all, it’s forbidden.” And his answer was this, “It’s the Treaty of al-Hudaybiya*.”
*The Treaty of al-Hudaybiya was an event that took place during the lifetime of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. It was a pivotal treaty between Muhammad, representing the state of Medina, and the tribe of the Quraysh in Mecca in March 628.
We, the Orientalists, asked what is this al-Hudaybiya treaty? And the pundits replied, “Leave, you see darkness.” And this al-Hudaybiya treaty that Muhammad signed with his family in the city of Mecca broke it after two years. Then Arafat also told me, “You made an agreement to divide the land and I’m making an agreement so that you won’t be here.”
And this is the lack of understanding that the leaders did not see, and why? Because they do not know Arabic and their thinking is Western.
Lack of Understanding
Interviewer: It is possible that Zvi Yehezkeli is wrong in his assessment, but is the head of the security agency (Shin Bet) also wrong? Is it, according to the Israeli opinion, that everyone is wrong?
Yehezkeli: Not everyone is wrong, everyone doesn’t understand. All these military generals are fed from the western world system. Their respect is intact because they are contributing to the security of the State of Israel but they miss, make mistakes and do not understand. They don’t understand Arabic. Period.
And the Shin Bet (the Israel Intelligence Services) Arabist top echelon finally also gets the flip, and why? Because they are part of the Western mindset according to which the West wants to force the East to live by its code. It won’t work.
It is known that terror attacks on Jews during Ramadan were carried out by Arab-Palestinian policemen. The head of the Shin-Bet knows exactly what is written in every textbook of the Palestinian Authority (PA). They are full of incitement against Israel and Jews.
And his answer to that, “It is the least of evil. Let’s strengthen the lesser evil rather than the evil itself.” That’s the mistake. And that’s how Hamas started and that’s how the Palestinian Authority started.
The PA is educating its people to hate Israel and Jews. Its people are fueled to slaughter Jews with knives and axes. Children who were taught by the PA to kill go out to carry out terrorist attacks.
The head of the Shin Bet must not bury his head in the sand and not know what is taught in the PA’s schools or what is learned in their mosques, but more, from what it is learned.
And his answer, “They don’t like us, they are not Zionism’s fans, but we must find some kind of an arrangement.”
And I, Zvi, say no, because these arrangements are exactly according to the Arabs’ plan. Just a little more, a little more and in the end when the blow comes you will be in the hands of the enemy.
The logo of the Shin Bet is “protects and will not be seen.” But they have another logo that says “keeping the quiet.” And quiet is the problem, even for the head of the Shin Bet.
The Story in the Middle East Is About Time and Who Is Stronger
It is known that Israel is stronger than Hamas, so why is there no victory in Gaza yet?
Because they don’t understand the first rule of the Middle East, and it doesn’t matter what weapon you have or how you operate it. For example, I would have solved the hostages issue from the get go, at the very beginning of the war. Check if there is an address and if the answer is not, goodbye.
I would have immediately tried to offer Hamas a deal as a manipulative and deceiving exercise: take all your security risk prisoners who are in prison in Israel to Gaza; all the abductees in exchange for all the prisoners. Simply empty all the prisons in Israel where they are held.
Then, a week later, I would have started a brutal war like no other that would leave behind indescribable killing. Because in Gaza there is almost no such a thing as innocents or people who do not support Hamas and their terror acts. The majority of Gazans unequivocally support Hamas. Education and support is Hamas. Additionally, I would have started a campaign that would have ended in the emigration of the Gazans from the Gaza Strip. I would put an end to the Gaza Strip as we know it.
I am not a person of the political right or left. I see the world through the eyes of the Arabs.
Interviewer: How was October 7, 2023, covered to begin with, and after half a year of the IDF fighting in the Strip, how does it look there today?
Yehezkeli: There is disconnect between October 7, 2023 and what has happened afterwards. I repeat so you will understand, what happened is one of the greatest victories of Islam over Judaism! This is how it is described. A few more years will pass and we will sit here and open textbooks and read how they teach the events of October 7th.
It’s like what Yasser Arafat once said to me in one of our meetings, “Let me give you an exercise in logic that will show that you don’t understand anything.”
“Someone is knocking on the door, what do you do?,” Arafat asked me. I said, “I’m getting up to open the door”; and Arafat said, “I’m jumping out of the window, so how are you going to hurt me now?” And I answered, “Next time I’ll wait for you under the window.”
“Next time is next time,” replied Arafat.
You can’t predict him because in your imagination you have patterns like, “as long as Israel exists between the 1967 borders, the Arabs will engage in terrorism.” But, it’s just an excuse by Israel because the Arabs will use terrorism against it even if Israel were on the moon.
The PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization), which is, as its name, an organization for the liberation of “Palestine,” was established before 1967. Their first terrorist attack in Israel was in 1965. Where were Israel’s 1967 borders in 1965? In 1948, the year the State of Israel was established.
According to the understanding of the Arab world by the late Professor Yehoshua Porat (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yehoshua_Porath), one of the greatest professors of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, who taught Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies and who wrote a famous article about the birth of the Palestinian National Movement and who was a leftist, he told Israel not to talk with Arafat.
And why? Because Arafat will never accept the existence of the State of Israel. The Palestinian National Movement does not accept the existence of the State of Israel, wherever it is located.
Could Israel Coexist With Any Arabs?
Interviewer: Is there another Arab movement that would accept the existence of the State of Israel and Israel will be able to live side by side with her? That Israel will be able to exist as a sovereign state when they are bordering it?
Yehezkeli: As long as this movement is Islamic, simply forget it. An Islamist class committee for Gaza, for sewage and growth and boulevards with trees? Forget it.
Wait, what exactly do they learn in school? What is their history? What will they learn in the future?
They will not learn that the Jew is loved and cute and wants to return to Gush Katif, the Israel communities bloc from where the residents were expelled by their own government with the hope for coexistence. Rather, they will learn one thing, that the Jews are the descendants of the monkey and the pig and that jihad must be waged against them.
Even if you change their curriculum they will study the very same thing in other places.
Interviewer: Is there anything that the IDF and the State of Israel can do today, the year 2024 that will make Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’s head, regret what he did on October 7, 2023?
Yehezkeli: The Middle East is an eastern tribe. A tribe can always be deterred, hurt, withdrawn or lose, by these two elements: economy and land.
If every Arab kid who threw a rock at a Jew traveling on the roads of Judea and Samaria his father knew that at this moment his house became the property of the State of Israel there would be no rock or stone throwing. And it is not being cruel as some claim. It’s cruel to cry and then receive the 7th of October massacre.
Interviewer: You are applying correctly. And after giving a solution to Gaza, what is the solution to Judea and Samaria?
Yehezkeli: There is no solution because solution is a western word. Israel’s Military Intelligence Directorate and the term “Konseptziya“ what do they say? “There are intentions and there are abilities.” They work according to abilities.
Hamas has an RPG, a lathe of Qassams or any kind of weapon, I will confiscate or destroy them. The one who works according to abilities is the Konseptziya.
I work according to my intentions. Education intentions and whatever is taught through it. Working along intentions is much more difficult, it is more difficult to prove its usefulness, but it is work.
A General’s Warning Was Ignored
Interviewer: Three month prior to October 7, 2023 we interviewed General (Ret.) Itzhak Brik. He warned, almost one-to-one, about what three months later took place on October 7, 2023. I hope that we won’t have to use this interview with Zvi Yehezkelia in a few more months and then say publicly, “Here, he told you so.”
Yehezkeli: But if you use it, and you may use this interview, then use something else, which is what is happening with our nation. And that’s a whole other thing. In fact, what happened in ’48, and the exceptional dedication of our parents, grandparents, simply continues. That the whole western dream of us sitting at our pleasure and leisure, in hammocks, each man under his vine and fig tree (Biblical: Micah 4, verses 3-4), is over!
The Arabs say in a clear voice: “We want to destroy you.”
Israel is tolerant of terrorism; Israel contains, understands and encourages terrorism. Moreover, Israel supports terrorism against it by supporting Abu Mazen (The Palestinian Authority president) who pays and transfers funds to terrorists and terrorism.
And most importantly, earlier on you asked me what the solutions were and I avoided directly answering the question.
Above all, the solution is for Israel to stop itself and it must understand that the story is that the war is not over. If Israel is ready to fight, it will win. If Israel continues to sell itself that there is no battle here, it is only a tactical matter, there will be no victory.
Everything starts and ends with Israel. Even in a war, one should not worry about the IDF. With the fighting spirit of the Israelis and the Jews, whether in tanks or the infantry, it is a fighting spirit that has no equal in the world.
I have no complaints against the Arabs, even the Israeli Arabs who rose up in violent riots in 2000 and 2021, Operation Guardian of the Walls. Because if all the foreign armies really invaded the land in order to destroy the State of Israel, what would these Arabs do? Will they join their Arab brethren or will they protect the Jews?
We all know the answer to this question. Time to wake up.
