Wednesday, January 23, 2019

'Arabs should ally with Israel, Iran is more dangerous'


Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) reports Syrian opposition activist and writer Issam Zeitoun appeared on a debate about Israel on Al-Jazeera Network (Qatar) on January 16, 2019. Zeitoun said that Israel is an existing country to which some Arabs turn a blind eye. Ra’ed Al-Masri, a Lebanese professor of political science and international relations, responded that Israel is "illegitimate and nonexistent."

Zeitoun went on to criticize the Arabs for not accepting the 1947 Partition Plan and said that the notion that Israel is a tyrannical, arrogant, expansionist, and racist state is a lie. He said that the idea that Israel wants to expand from the Euphrates River to the Nile is also a fabrication that no Israeli has ever actually said. In addition, Zeitoun said that Israel would have never fought the Arabs if they had never attacked it. He added that Pan-Arabism is a "cancer" that has brought the Arab nation to the "verge of annihilation." Saying that Iran is much more dangerous than Israel, Zeitoun stated that an alliance with Israel is absolutely better than the current situation.