Zvi Yehezkeli, Arab affairs expert, author and i24NEWS senior commentator spoke to Arutz Sheva – Israel National News on the current war in Gaza, Israel’s approach to the Middle East conflict over the past thirty years, and his suggestion for ending the current war and solving the hostage problem.
Yehezkeli has authored two interesting books, for adults and children, sending the message, “I told you so,” in which he and others warned that October 7th was going to happen, but, “We all fell asleep. It's like in one day the Holocaust happened to us. But, but to understand the Middle East and to understand what happened that led us to October 7th, I took all my 30 years in covering this conflict, as well as the eight years prior in the security services, and I saw that it existed throughout this period. There were many points that led to that day. My obligation to the audience was to tell them, ‘It was written on the wall.’ Read it again, because it's going to happen again.”
Yehezkeli explains that it happened at all, because “We live in the West and we want solutions. When there is a conflict with the Palestinians, we try. We tried in Oslo and we tried afterwards, but like Arafat told me in 2002, ‘It's not about numbers, even if you give me my 100%, it's not about numbers. It's about justice.’ They are not recognizing our right to be here in Israel and it doesn't matter if it's in the West Bank or in Gaza, because we are Western and we think that we can solve the conflict anyhow, but it's not, because Arafat, Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas), and Yahye Sinwar, they all the same. They want to fight Israel and, when the West comes to live in a peaceful society, they don't understand that during that time, the East is fighting using democratic tools. That's the problem of democracies; they can't see on their screen that the East is fighting them.”
One of the most complex challenges, of course, is the hostages issue. He says that, “At the beginning of the war I suggested not to fight Gaza in the first days, because I believe, like the late Professor Bernard Lewis said to us, ‘see the Middle East in the same way that they see themselves, and not the way we see them.’ So, think Hamas and think Sinwar, what can you do during the very first moments after the war. Don't go to war automatically. Do the business before. Give them whatever they want. Sinwar, what do you want? You want all the hostages, then give me all my hostages. Take all your prisoners. Let him take them to Gaza and then I will begin the war against Gaza. The first to be killed will be those 6,000 prisoners that killed thousands of Israelis. So, it's a war. That's the difference, if you are in a war or in some kind of military operation.”
Yehezkeli concludes by explaining that in Israel’s current situation, “Recognizing the problem is halfway to the solution. If you can recognize the problem, then we can talk about a solution. There is no absolute solution, because it's a war, it's a Jihad. It's very complicated, but I do believe that if the Israeli government, and even the army leadership, recognizes exactly what's the problem, like what happened now in the West Bank, that there is a war and you're in a war, exactly like what's happening on the northern border, then you will see such a wake up to the new challenges, after you recognize what exactly the problem is.” WATCH
