He said, "This year, Holocaust Remembrance Day occurs while the State of Israel is at war with an enemy challenging its existence. The goals of the Nazis and the October 7 terrorists are the same, to exterminate the Jewish people."
Adraee went on to say that the difference between the two events is now Jews have an army to defend themselves.
Then he spoke in ways that Arabs speak about Jews all the time, saying, this is “a holy war, and that the Jews will remain in Israel.” He added, "We swear by the souls of the martyrs that we will remain and be rooted in this land, because truth and justice are supreme and unsurpassed.”
There is nothing inaccurate about these statements. This war to defend the Jewish people is indeed considered a mitzvah in Jewish law, and the Jews will remain in their land no matter what.
But one usually only hears such language among religious Zionists, not IDF spokespeople.
Adraee is speaking in a way that Arabs can relate to and are comfortable with when used against others, and the message resonates - even if the responses are predictably angry.
Al Jazeera published an op-ed about this video, and of course misinterprets it as a threat against the entire Muslim and Arab worlds. It isn't at all: it is only a threat to Hamas and anyone else who tries to destroy the Jewish state and Jewish people.
The author, Mahmoud Abdel Hadi, pretends to give the Zionist he hates friendly advice: "Adraee made a mistake, whether intentionally or not, in directing such provocative content, which harms peace and normalization efforts, and feeds the roots of hostility and revenge. Such a speech is not in the interest of the Jewish people in the future, as circles turn, and time does not remain the same, and history is the best witness to that."
But Hadi is against any normalization with Israel! He should be happy if Adraee is hurting Israel's relationship with its Arab peace partners, shouldn't he?
That is the best indication that Adraee knows what he is doing. Hadi is upset not because the short video hurts peace, but because it restates what the Abraham Accords said, that Jews are an indigenous people in the Middle East and are not going anywhere - a message to the Arab world signed by the UAE and Bahrain. He is upset because he knows that Arabs respect a message that is clear and straightforward: the Jews are rooted in the land and are not going anywhere, and will go to any lengths to protect themselves.
When Arabs threaten Jews with this exact kind of language, it rolls off our backs - we've been hearing it for a hundred years. But when Jews use that same language back to the Arabs, they are aghast: how can this be? But they understand the language and the message, and they respond with exactly the anger and despair that they try to force the Jews to feel.
It is the only language many Arabs understand.
Adraee's message is important for another reason. Palestinians and other anti-Israel Arabs harbor a fantasy that Jews are fearful foreigners who will run away as soon as things are a little difficult for them. Adraee is forcefully saying that not only are Jews not going anywhere, but they are also not afraid of war. Wars are sometimes necessary.
Hadi of course supports slaughtering Jews, making him exactly like the Nazis that Adraee compares Hamas to. Right after October 7, Hadi wrote, "Throughout the Islamic world in the four corners of the globe, you will not find anyone among the two billion Muslims who was not happy with what the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades accomplished in their flood on Saturday, unless they are a hypocrite or a dissenter. "
