A rare pro-Israel article in UK-based pan-Arab news site Elaph ~ Elder Of Ziyon

Friday, May 30, 2025

A rare pro-Israel article in UK-based pan-Arab news site Elaph

This article, part 1 of what is intended to be a three part article, is quite remarkable in how pro-Israel and philosemitic it is.

It was published in Elaph which is an independent, reformist UK-based news site but it is said to be backed by Saudi money. The author, Mohammed Saad Khiralla, is an Egyptian writer and political analyst in self-imposed exile in Sweden.

Here's part 1 of the article:

One of the entrenched pillars in the Arab collective consciousness, which some seek to establish as an eternal truth, is the notion: "Israel is a state that does not want peace with Arab countries." Authoritarian Arab military regimes have contributed to fueling this notion by politically exploiting hatred toward Israel and inciting against it. This narrative has been employed through various discourses—Nasserist, nationalist, Ba'athist, leftist, or Islamist—until it became akin to a "sacred text," difficult to approach or question, despite doubts surrounding it.
I was fortunate, as a "mischievous boy," to pose my thorny questions to my grandmother, my mother’s mother, who was the closest person to my heart. One evening, I surprised her with my question: "Nana, is it true that the Jews don’t want peace? That they hate us and can’t stand us?"
Her response was shocking and transformative to my way of thinking:
"Mohammed, the Jews were our neighbors when I was young. They were wonderful neighbors. We saw nothing but kindness from them until they were deported from Egypt. Don’t believe everything said on this matter."
She then began recounting personal stories about her, her mother, and her siblings with their Jewish neighbors in Alexandria. Her words struck me like lightning. From that day, I began approaching the official narrative at all levels with a critical mind, not taking things for granted but examining, analyzing, and questioning.
In later stages of my life, specifically in late 2011, I met the great Egyptian thinker and late friend Amin al-Mahdi, who profoundly influenced my understanding of the Arab-Israeli conflict. He opened doors to deeper comprehension, revealed much that had been obscured from my awareness, and reorganized the maps of this conflict with a methodical and rational approach.
Many readers might be surprised when I say that, contrary to the prevailing narrative, Israel has never refused peace. On the contrary, it has put forward dozens of initiatives and proposals to end this conflict justly, fulfilling the aspirations of both sides: Israelis and Palestinians. However, all these proposals have consistently met with the solid wall of Arab rejection.
In the following, I will review some of these Israeli initiatives and projects proposed over decades, to serve as a documented reference against the reductive narrative promoted by regimes that do not want peace.
Let’s go back in time, starting with July 8, 1937, when the Peel Commission report, officially known as the British Royal Commission, was published. This was a high-level investigative committee chaired by Lord William Robert Peel, a member of the Queen’s Privy Council and former Minister of State for Indian Affairs.
The commission was formed in 1936 following the outbreak of the Arab Revolt, with the aim of proposing a final solution to the "Arab-Jewish" conflict. It suggested dividing the region into three parts: an area under British mandate including Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and a corridor to the port of Jaffa; a Jewish state encompassing the Galilee and parts of the coast; and an Arab state covering the remaining land, to be united with Transjordan (noting that the proposed Arab state’s area was about 25,000 km², while the Jewish state’s area did not exceed 2,500 km²). The Jews accepted this plan, affirming their desire to end the conflict and live in peace.
Golda Meir wrote in her memoirs that she was with David Ben-Gurion when they learned of the proposal. They consulted Chaim Weizmann, who told them: "A state is better than no state, and acceptance is better than rejection, and we hope the Arab side will reject it." And that’s exactly what happened.
In later years, Hajj Amin al-Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem and head of the Supreme Muslim Council, became entangled in what was known as the Nazi "Final Solution" for the extermination of European Jews. Al-Husseini arrived in Berlin in November 1941 after visiting Mussolini in Italy. On November 28, Hitler received him at the Reich Chancellery, describing him as "the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and one of the most prominent symbols of Arab liberation."
Before meeting Hitler, al-Husseini met with Nazi Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop and visited the Auschwitz camp with Adolf Eichmann, where he saw the gas chambers. Al-Husseini commented that there was "complete alignment in vision," and that Hitler told him: "The Jewish problem must be solved step by step." Hitler promised that, should Germany gain control of the Middle East, "its sole goal would be the extermination of the Jewish element in the region." The Lebanese secretary Osman Kamal Haddad arranged his visit to Berlin.
It’s also worth noting photographic evidence documenting al-Husseini’s visit to the Treblinka training camp in 1942, a facility near Berlin operated by the SS. Photos that surfaced at an auction in Jerusalem show al-Husseini with Nazi officials inspecting the camp.
The idea of two states—one Arab and one Jewish—was repeatedly proposed, indicating that no state called Palestine ever existed. The UN General Assembly’s Partition Plan, Resolution 181, issued on November 29, 1947, explicitly called for the establishment of two states, Arab and Jewish, without mentioning an existing Palestinian state. Had one existed, it would have been named.

This is more pro-Israel than most of his fellow Europeans.

Once in a great while I had seen articles like this in Arab media, challenging long held assumptions. But I cannot recall seeing anything like this since October 7.

I want to read the other parts!