To His Excellency, United Arab Emirates Ambassador to the United States Yousef al-Otaiba:
I wanted to thank you for a moving, nostalgic weekend. You were three years old then then-President of Egypt Anwar Sadat visited Jerusalem. I was 12. Obviously, you don't remember anything about that historic event. Sadat got us so fired up that we were willing to listen politely to the harsh things he said about us from the Knesset podium, some of which were utterly unacceptable to most of the Israeli public. By that time, Israel had experienced five wars with Egypt. And Sadat, who had caused us more pain than his predecessor did, knew how to touch our hearts.
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There has never been any direct conflict between the UAE and Israel. Allow me to quote what a former Kuwait official told me when I met with him in his country: "We grew up without hatred for Jews or Israel, until Palestinian and Egyptian teachers arrived and started teaching us to hate."
I know, Your Excellency, that things were no different in your country. You were forced into becoming part of a conflict that had nothing to do with you, and adopt a false narrative that was designed to create eternal enmity between Arabs and Jews. If Sadat was brave enough to come and speak in the Knesset, it will take more than an article in an Israeli newspaper to convince the Israeli public that the UAE wants to reconcile with and recognize Israel.
An end to the era of ignorance
Because I am aware of how powerful and effective the education to hate us has been in the Emirates and kingdoms of the Arabian Peninsula, I was very impressed three years ago when I saw that the new branch of the Louvre Museum that opened in Abu Dhabi includes permanent Jewish exhibits. I saw great excitement among the groups of visitors who arrived from all over the Arab world and were fascinated by those exhibits, which were their first encounter with Judaism. It was a welcome and revolutionary initiative. But allow me to correct you: even the opening of a synagogue in Abu Dhabi, Dubai, or Bahrain is not a "carrot" or incentive for the Jewish world or Israel. Those belated openings were, first and foremost, your contribution to bringing the Arab world out of an era of ignorance and hatred of Jews that played a major role in Arab culture.
This is the righting of a historical wrong that the Arabs perpetrated on themselves when they decided to expel their Jewish communities and declare war to annihilate their country. Today, you understand how you can benefit from cooperating with Israel. Think what the Middle East would look like now if the Arab states had accepted the establishment of tiny Israel 72 years ago, if your country had recognized Israel as soon as it became independent 50 years ago, rather than adopting the contrarianism that led only to disaster, destruction, and grief.
If you truly want to contribute to peace in the Middle East, while remaining "fervent supporters of the Palestinian people," you should put out an appeal to the Palestinian people, in Arabic. For over 100 years, the Arab population that lived in or moved into the area under the British Mandate has been dragging the entire Middle East into losses. Time after time, they have rejected compromises, peace initiatives, and diplomatic plans, and held us all hostage to their whim of destroying us. And you in the Arab states have encouraged them, providing political and diplomatic backing, while sending them money that only strengthened their stubborn adherence to the idea that "Palestine will be liberated from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea."
Where would the Middle East be today if you had pressured the Palestinians to behave differently? What could the Palestinians' situation be like today if you had made those of them who reached your countries into full citizens rather than refugees with no rights, and if you had invested your money into turning the refugee camps in the Palestinian Authority into ordinary communities, rather than nests of violence and terrorism?
The law is on Israel's side
You are right, Your Excellency, when you talk about an "Arab and international consensus" about the Palestinians' right to self-determination rather than talking, like the Europeans do, about "international law." Indeed, international law is on Israel's side when it comes to declaring sovereignty in the Jordan Valley and in Judea and Samaria. The opposition to that is based on a consensus that created through violence and extortion. The "oil weapon" played a major role in building that consensus, and who knows better than you that that weapon is becoming passé. You in the UAE have also realized, albeit late, the enormous danger inherent in violence. Radicalization, to which you contributed for decades, is coming back at you like a boomerang: Al-Qaeda, the Islamic State, and the rest of the monsters kill mainly Arabs and Muslims.
Therefore, it is in the Arab states' interest to keep Jordan stable. For decades, we've been heard that the Hashemite Kingdom, our neighbor, is teetering on the brink of collapse, and we've done much more than you have to prevent that from happening, even though many of us in Israel see the existence of Jordan as a symbol of historical injustice. The threat of collapse is keeping Jordan and Israel from normalizing relations, just like there is no normalization between Egypt and Israel -- and Israel has long-standing peace treaties with both those nations. This, Your Excellency, explains why we are naturally put off by the term "normalization," which for us carries only disappointment.
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Your Excellency, we never saw them as enemies. We never missed an opportunity to extend our hand to the Arab world. But, Your Excellency, Israel -- unlike the Palestinians -- learns from its mistakes. We see the dangers to both ourselves and you, and understand the enormous potential of bilateral cooperation. Help the Palestinians learn the lessons of their own past mistakes. For their own sake.
With the greatest respect, and hope of meeting soon at the synagogue planned for Abu Dhabi or at any other location for a deeper conversation,
Eldad Beck.
