by Haggai Huberman, Land of Israel specialist, translated by Hillel Fendel.
When the Arabs speak of "land for peace," they really mean "Zionism for peace." Their objective is to defeat Zionism
This past Sabbath, the 27th of Adar, marked 45 years since the signing of Israel's first peace agreement, namely, the accord with Egypt in 1979. Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat signed the treaty in a festive ceremony on the White House lawn, under the sponsorship of President Jimmy Carter.
For the past 45 years, Egypt has carefully observed Sadat's promise in the Knesset: "No more war!" But practically speaking, it has also made sure to fulfill the opposite theme: "No more peace!" These two contradictory statements have no problem guiding the Egyptian leadership at one and the same time.
The great excitement aroused by the peace treaty with Egypt was so widespread that only few noticed the trap it contained for the State of Israel. In essence, it set the stage for Arab recognition of the State of Israel – on condition that Israel give up its unique Jewish-Zionist character. The real motto that Sadat brought with him to Jerusalem was not "[Israeli-liberated] territories for peace," as was mistakenly thought, but rather, "Zionism for peace."
Though the late Shimon Peres made famous the phrase "new Middle East," and even wrote a book by that name in 1994, he was far from the first one to speak about it. Nearly 20 years before him, and two years before Sadat visited Jerusalem, a very famous Egyptian thinker named Muhammed Sayad Ahmed publicized his own book, "When the Cannons are Silenced." It discussed a possible future peace agreement with Israel, leading to fruitful economic cooperation between the two countries. But the author did not hide his true motive: diverting Israel from being the mechanism by which the Zionist dream is fulfilled for Jews the world over, to becoming a factor in Arab development in the Middle East. Israel would never be able to fulfill both these contradictory challenges, Ahmed believed, and with the arrival of "peace," would eventually be swallowed up into the Arab world around it. Israel would then become, in Ahmed's vision, nothing more than a large Jewish Heritage Center. "This would bring about the extinction of the Zionist enterprise precisely as its population would be busy celebrating the apparent fulfillment of its goal, that of making peace.
Boutros Boutros-Ghali, the former UN Secretary-General who served as Egypt's Foreign Minister when the peace agreement was signed, once wrote in an Egyptian newspaper (before he became Foreign Minister) about Egypt's goals: They are "not necessarily to liquidate the State of Israel, but rather to win over the souls of its residents – extricating Jews from Zionist rule and melting them down in the crucible of Arab nationalism." And this is precisely what Egypt tried to do by signing the peace agreement with Israel. Anwar Sadat, like most Arab leaders, understood that Zionism rests on two main pillars: Aliyah and settlement. The Egyptians therefore fought us precisely in these two areas, and their agreement with Israel was primarily intended to harm us in these two topics. He first struck a harsh blow at the settlement enterprise, successfully demanding during the Camp David talks the destruction of the blossoming settlement zone in Yamit and environs.
More than a decade later, the Oslo Accords were similarly designed to destroy the large-scale Jewish settlement enterprise in Judea, Samaria and Gaza – and if Syrian dictator Assad had simply agreed to waive his demand for 200 meters on the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee [or if Israel had agreed to his demand], he would have received the destruction of every Jewish community in the Golan Heights.
PA Chairman Abu Mazen takes the same approach when he refuses to give up his demand for the "right of return" for millions of Arabs whose great-grandparents may have lived here for a couple of years. Such an influx into Israel, of course, would totally destabilize Israel's demography - which is precisely one of the main Arab strategies to collapse the State of Israel.
When US President Biden, seemingly one of the more gullible presidents the US has ever had, speaks of the two-state solution, he doesn't seem to realize, or care, that when the PA and other Arab countries speak of two states, they envision one of them as totally Arab and the other as temporarily Jewish, with the goal of turning it soon into another Arab state.
As stated, the second target for the Arab states in their wars against Israel is Aliyah. We saw, when the Soviet Union collapsed and myriads of Jews streamed into Israel, the leading protestor was Egypt. Already back in 1977 – before Sadat's visit to Israel – then-Egyptian Foreign Minister Ismail Fahmi wrote that any peace agreement with Israel must include a condition that Israel must stop all Aliyah for 50 years (!). Later, under President Mubarak, Sadat's successor, Egypt worked closely with the first Bush Administration to prevent American loan guarantees for Israel's absorption of new Russian immigrants; the stated fear was that the new Israelis would move to the settlements in Judea and Samaria.
The above approach stands in opposition to the Islamist approach, which seeks the military defeat of Israel and does not suffice with a cultural victory. The more "moderate" elements seek to embrace Israel with a cynical bear-hug that would neutralize the Jewish-Zionist character of the State. Those Jews who support the two-state vision are playing right into the hands of this latter approach, to the great danger of a secure, Jewish and democratic State of Israel.
In Conclusion:
Allow me to add here a note on unity and the left-wing protests against Netanyahu: Zalman Shoval, a former two-time Israeli ambassador to the U.S. and ex-Likud MK, wrote a book entitled "Diplomat" regarding the period following Sadat's visit to Israel in late 1977. That visit marked the beginning of long, arduous Israeli-Egyptian negotiations that ultimately led to the peace agreement. Shoval wrote, "It became clear to us that the Egyptians were trying cleverly to use the Peace Now movement for their own purposes - though apparently the Peace Now heads were not aware that they were being used."
What exactly did the Egyptians do? They carefully tracked Peace Now's activities and used the organization's own arguments and claims to strengthen their propaganda campaign against Israel. Their well-founded assumption was that the demonstrations and declarations by Peace Now against the "stubbornness and rigidity of the Israeli government" would shake Israeli cohesiveness, and would significantly affect Israeli public opinion. It was later learned that the Egyptians attributed such great importance to this strategy that the man responsible for this approach was none other than then-Prime Minister Mustafa Halil.
In the end, most sadly, peace with Egyptian was attained, at the cost of the uprooting of the entire Yamit region, together with all the Jewish communities in the area, and our retreat from all of the Sinai Peninsula. We must be very wary of similar developments taking place today.