Hazem Abd Al-Rahman Quotes
It is time to drop the negative attitudes towards Israel, and relations with it. The basic value of the peace accord between Egypt and Israel lies in the fact that it expunges the term 'prohibition' or 'taboo,' which was created in the past by Arab policies towards Israel, and which turned relations with Israel into an abomination that could not be allowed.
Al-Ahram is the semi-official newspaper of the Egyptian Government.
Hazem Abd Al-Rahman, Egyptian Political Columnist, “Relations with Israel,” Al-Ahram (Egypt), December 8, 2004
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
At that time the Israelis had been rebuffed after offing several major peace proposals and most were convinced that the Palestinians were so fractionated that no one would dare sign a peace even giving Palestinians their own state and sharing Jerusalem as the capital. So they just organized around security needs and walling Israel off from terrorist attacks while maintaining the occupation until something radially changes amongst the Palestinians. The Palestinians and the other Arabs did not want to negotiate either as they felt so weak that they believed they could never get decent terms, and they hoped for some military or terrorist victories where the Israelis would make large concessions to a strong opponent. At the same time there were a few ultra-orthodox Jews who did not want a peace and wanted to do what conquering nations had done throughout history—annex more conquered territory. There were a number of Arab groups, in addition to some Palestinians who did not want a peace at all, as for them there was no satisfactory solution so long as there was a Jewish state in their midst. See {632822} for more on the Israeli attitude then.
At that time the Israelis had been rebuffed after offing several major peace proposals and most were convinced that the Palestinians were so fractionated that no one would dare sign a peace even giving Palestinians their own state and sharing Jerusalem as the capital. So they just organized around security needs and walling Israel off from terrorist attacks while maintaining the occupation until something radially changes amongst the Palestinians. At that time there was little point to most Israelis to debating terms of a peace treaty as the odds of ever getting one in the next couple of years were about the same as their going to Mars.
Many Arabs remained in Israel and played an important part in building the modern state. While the promise of full citizenship with representation and participation was kept, there developed a differential amount of support for social services that were administered by religious authorities whereby Arabs had less government money spent on them per capita than the Jews did. In that case they have become second class citizens, not envisioned by the Israeli founders. Nonetheless, the Arabs who are Israeli citizens, have the most freedom of Muslims in any Arab country by far. Their health care is much better, average income from work is greater and unemployment is lower, and education is much better. However, there are forces in Israel working to force the total equality with Jewish citizens that was promised in this quote and others who in reaction to the support for the Arab terrorists by some Israeli Arabs, advocate more discrimination against Arabs and even expulsion.
