An interconnected worldview

ARTHUR WOLAK

Dr. Mordechai Kedar was in Vancouver last week to address Vancouver-area Chabad Houses and give a public lecture providing an assessment of Syria, Egypt, Turkey and Iran, while offering his views on the potential implications for Israel. The Feb. 12 public lecture was held at the main branch of the Vancouver Public Library and featured questions posed by Dov Altman, executive vice-president and chief executive officer of Canadian Friends of Bar-Ilan University.

Offering an overview of the present status of the Middle East, Kedar drew on his expertise in Islam, Islamic movements and popular Arab culture. An Israel Defence Forces intelligence corps lieutenant-colonel in the reserves, who spent 25 years analyzing Syria, Arab political discourse, Arab mass media, Islamic groups and Israeli Arabs, Kedar’s doctorate from Bar-Ilan focused on Syria, and his fluency in Arabic has seen him appear on Al-Jazeera to represent Israel to the Muslim world. Kedar is a faculty member of Bar-Ilan’s department of Arabic studies, a research associate of the Begin-Sadat Centre for Strategic Studies, and the founder and head of a new centre for the study of Islam in the Middle East currently under development at Bar-Ilan.

In Kedar’s opinion, two of the major exports of Muslim nations have been, in recent years, oil and terrorism, both of which have had profound impacts on the world. The international community needs to find appropriate policies to enable Islamic nations in the Middle East to continue to export oil but to not continue to export terrorism, he said. However, the contemporary climate of the Middle East presents serious challenges.

For example, the promise of the Arab Spring has not materialized, with Syria’s regime killing those inside the country who oppose it, and Egypt’s promising path towards democracy, human rights and political freedoms turning into a vicious military regime on the one hand and a legislative council dominated by Islamists on the other. The rise of Islamism in what had been perceived as a secular Turkey was also a surprise for many, Kedar added, and Iran has emerged as a major destabilizing force in the region and around the world.

It would, however, be a good outcome for Israel if the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad collapsed, he said. The current leadership will never make peace with Israel, since Assad, like his late father, needs Israel as an external enemy to unify Syrians and hold together his regime. The Assads are members of the Alawi sect, which is regarded as an “infidel sect” in the Muslim world, making the focus on Israel as an external enemy an important stabilizing force in Syria. According to Kedar, this is why the elder Assad never joined Sadat’s peace process in 1977 to try to get the Golan Heights returned, just as Egypt got the Sinai in the deal. If Assad had made peace with Israel for the return of the Golan, maintained Kedar, “he would have had to give political freedoms and human rights and minority rights in Syria [to groups like the Kurds, which] he needed to deny” in order to remain in power.

Egypt, however, is not a major threat to Israel, Kedar said, noting that the Muslim Brotherhood would like to end Egypt’s peace agreement with Israel, but they rely on aid from the United States and on European investments and must take care not to damage those relationships.

Kedar does not believe that Egypt is willing to fight another war with Israel, he explained, because “a war is very expensive…. And money is the last thing they have today.” As well, the Suez Canal remains a significant source of income for Egypt. “If there are hostilities between Israel and Egypt,” Kedar observed, “the price of insurance will be so high that no ship will come to the Suez Canal and the Egyptians will lose the very high fees they take from ships.” Though the Egyptian army has a hard time patrolling the

Sinai, where a number of jihadists from Egypt, Yemen, Iraq and Afghanistan have settled, Kedar said that, as long as Egypt can maintain a military stronghold there, this should mitigate any Egyptian conflict with Israel.

When it comes to Turkey and Iran, there is a contradiction that is often misunderstood, Kedar noted. Iran is a more secular society, for instance, while Turkey is generally a more religious society overall. Kedar explained that the secularist movement in Turkey was primarily successful in the cities, but never made it to the villages, where a greater percentage of the population lives. In contrast, Iranians are largely secular, yet are governed by a strongly religious group of ayatollahs who seized power during the 1979 Iranian Revolution. In Kedar’s opinion, Turkey’s prime minister reflects the mindset of the majority of Turks – specifically the religiosity of the villages – more than Mahmoud Ahmadinejad reflects the mindset of most Iranians.

Although Iran’s nuclear program remains a serious issue, Iran’s leadership has learned an important lesson from Libya’s late leader, Muammar Qaddafi, who voluntarily gave up his nuclear program in 2003, Kedar suggested. The Iranian government believes that, had Qaddafi had not done so, his regime would never have been attacked by Western powers last year and he would not have lost power. Kedar said he does not believe that Israel will carry out an overt military attack on Iran, though it might engage in covert actions.

Israel, however, will have peace only when it is viewed by its neighbors as invincible. “Peace in the Middle East is given only to the invincible,” said Kedar. Tribal identity, culture and its specific history make the Middle East a unique place. In this region, he said, the perception of “invincibility” is key.

The discussion was sponsored by the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs and the Canadian Friends of Bar-Ilan University, in partnership with the International Christian Embassy, Jerusalem.

Arthur Wolak is a freelance writer based in Vancouver.

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