A Saudi columnist grudgingly praises Israel and discusses the "Edy Cohen Phenomenon"

A columnist for a newspaper in Mecca writes about Israel's accomplishments - and ties them to Edy Cohen, the prolific Israeli Arabic tweeter whose writings are avidly followed by a huge Arab audience.

Over twenty years ago, we had a teacher of Canadian nationality who gained our trust easily and we all loved him, and because of this trust, he was able to enter my brain and bring me down from my ivory edifice in order to teach me the difference between the truth and what people want to be true.

We were in a discussion about the Arab-Israeli conflict, and he was very frank, so he told me: You are amazing! You love Saddam and he sent missiles to you, and you hate Israel and it did nothing to you!! I said yes it is a matter of principle, how dare you compare the two?

I was struck by the extent of astonishment in his eyes as he muttered, "poor thing, he thinks the universe revolves around him," and then said to me: "You are the victim of decades of strange information and flimsy justifications, no doubt you grew up knowing that everyone wanted to kill you.

"Listen to me well son!! If the Americans and the Israelis wanted to conspire against a country, a people, or a nation, then surely you wouldn't be here!"

...Then I asked him why America is helping Israel, and he said: Because Jews have been begging the world to put an end to the historical persecutions they faced from European societies, the last of which was what they were subjected to at the hands of the Germans in the Holocaust, and all they cared about was a piece of land where they could live in peace, and on this basis they addressed the world with a logical and rational speech of peace.

"As for your side, you had Gamal Abdel Nasser on the Voice of the Arabs radio station explaining to the world daily how he would throw the Jews into the sea, and promising the Arabs that he would return Palestine to the Arab countries.

"You were stuck in a strange ecstasy and submission behind that new Arab religion.

"Two years later, Abdel Nasser woke up to a sky full of Israeli planes, and instead of liberating Palestinian Jerusalem, he had to look for someone to liberate the Egyptian Sinai!"

A few years ago, there was a breakthrough in the relationship between the region and Israel that was not expected by everyone.

It's the Edy Cohen phenomenon. I really don't know if it was just one person working on his own?! Or an integrated social research center?! Perhaps an entire floor in the Israeli Mossad building under the name of Edy Cohen!! What we do know is that he is the owner of a Twitter account with more than half a million followers, speaks Arabic fluently, understands the dialects of some regions, knows the streets, neighborhoods, alleys, customs, social traditions, tribes, villages of each tribe and their food, knows the weather conditions, what falls in terms of rain.

He has become a more reliable source of information than some local media. We have to admit that it is a miracle that should receive due attention and study.

Edy Cohen was born in Lebanon and studied his early years there, then his father was killed at the beginning of the civil war, so he left Lebanon, leaving with his family for Israel and obtaining a doctorate.

He is fluent in Arabic and Hebrew. He was able to do with  the Arab youth with his microscopic culture what all the media did not do together. I am almost certain that more than 80% of his followers are from the Arab youth.

He has managed to turn the old adage “laughter is the best medicine” into a powerful tool of diplomacy and understanding.

Cohen's unique blend of humor and sarcasm allowed him to tackle sensitive topics in an engaging, non-confrontational way. His recipe for success is no secret, attracting young Arabs who might otherwise shy away from discussions about the intricacies of Arab-Israeli relations, and his ability to make people chuckle while making them ponder his logical ideas.  His jokes and witty speeches have a way of disarming even the most skeptical of audiences, paving the way for open dialogue and mutual understanding.

As if he was saying to them: "Look, I am one of you, I know more about you than you know about yourselves." It was a soft penetration in every sense of the word. He did not talk about weapons, economic struggles, or politics. He is talking about simple aspects of social life and uses humor to attract Arab youth.

It is Israel's latest innovation that we have to admit that it precedes us by hundreds of years, and we take a simple glimpse of some numbers in Israel in order to know our position under the sun: -

- Out of the top 500 universities around the world, Israel has seven universities, while the Arab countries combined do not have one.

- Israeli research centers are ranked 3 in the world.

- In 2007, Israel was the fifth country in terms of arms exports, after America, Britain, France and Russia, and in 2012 it became the second after America.

- Israel ranks 3rd in the list of countries with the most education for its citizens, according to the OECD countries index.

- Israel has more patents registered in the United States than Russia, India and China combined, and the population of these countries is 300 times that of the population of Israel.

It also made a revolution in modern medicine. Israel is a world leader in medical patents and ranks second in space sciences.

More than 90% of Israeli homes use solar energy to heat water, which is the highest percentage in any country.

Since its founding, Israel has won the second largest number of Nobel Prizes, measured by national income.

I do not say this out of praise or admiration for the Hebrew state, although it deserves it out of justice and fairness, but I was amazed that we continue with  the sixties' rhetoric and Abdel Nasser's slogans.

This sect that thinks the universe revolves around us throws their failure, laziness, and disappointment on Israel, as Israel conspires against them and incites the world against them wherever they go. Instead of working and spending money on research centers and institutes of technology, they still adhere to the jealous brother syndrome, as all his brothers are doctors, philosophers, and leaders except him, because he is afflicted with the evil eye. .

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An Arab account of June 1967 describes their confidence and crushing humiliation. And bigotry.

Nablus in the 1960s

Excerpts from a story in Rai al Youm from a girl who witnessed the Six Day War in Nablus:

Sirens are blaring and my father is screaming and ordering us to go to the shelter.

The shelter is a garage at the bottom of the house, and we put some necessities in it like first aid and some food and water..

President Gamal Abdel Nasser told us that we will be victorious and we love him. Yes, we love him in all his speeches. We sit and listen to every word of his speech emanating from the radio that is in our salon.

From the morning, patriotic songs resound in the sky.

The Egyptian radio announces that we have weapons. Land, sea and air..and we have the conquering and victorious missiles..and the promising…!! that will reach the depths of the Zionist entity in the homeland..

Ahmed Saeed - who does not know him!! He shouts on the Voice of the Arabs radio station, we will be victorious!! Yes, I am sure that we will be victorious over them. The Arab armies of Jordan, Syria, Egypt and Iraq are ready on land and in the air.

Composers, artists, and poets are also gathered, so the radio building has become like a beehive in the morning, and patriotic songs are ringing loudly. Here it is, Umm Kulthum and Abdel Wahhab, singing a song. I now have a gun.. and what gun..!

 

And Ahmed Saeed is famous for phrases such as “a total war, our goal is to destroy the Israeli myth that says that Israel will remain forever .. and any survival and every one of the millions of Arabs has lived in one and only hope  which is: to die to live and to live to die on the day that Israel is destroyed.”

 Today, victory will be achieved, and this enthusiastic atmosphere was weeks before the date of the fateful fifth of June. Even our poet, Fadwa Touqan, had a symposium in the municipal library, answering the questions of the women of Nablus society after Certain victory How will they celebrate??

The statements that Ahmed Saeed was broadcasting, and even the broken Hebrew that the Egyptian radio was broadcasting from Cairo directed towards Israel, convinced many Israeli civilians that they would confront the powerful Arabs, and they had no choice but to fight, and to fight with all their might.

Out of their fear, they began to appeal to their Arab neighbors to protect them in the event of revenge and the entry of the Arabs into Palestine.

The problem was that the Arabs also believed Ahmed Said and his ilk and convinced themselves that an easy victory was on the horizon. It would eliminate the Israelis...!

What happened??? Ahmed Saeed, where are you?? Foreign radio stations are saying something, and they are saying: The Israeli Air Force has been destroyed. The Egyptian Air Force was destroyed while it was still on the ground on the morning of June 5, 1967, in a lightning attack.

What do you say?? It is not possible that this is the beauty of Eid al-Nasser. He said we will destroy them while we believe him. We named our newborn children after him. Do not believe it??!! Here we are still in the shelter and the news continues from the radio around us.

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On the third and fourth day, the war ended..! So it is defeat.. it is calamity.. it is humiliation... it is brokenness..!!

On the fifth day, enemy planes dropped leaflets calling on us to surrender, so are we ready to surrender!!?? In the eastern neighborhoods, white sheets began to be unfurled.. and the West followed suit.. Nablus is sandwiched between two mountains from the east and the west.. Oh my God, this is how...

Enter the Jews!! They occupied us...!! My father screamed with tears in his eyes.. We wonder in fear what they look like. Do they look like the monsters we see in the pictures? Do they have horns?? Or what would happen in our house with four girls ..!? We were young girls..we didn't know the truth..

Our father ordered us to cover ourselves...because they might kidnap girls or...or...

Our dear neighbor had binoculars that clearly saw distant objects, and of course, on his high balcony, he began to give the neighbors, through the holes in the windows and windows, signs and explanations of what he saw.

Suddenly, we heard the roar of a tank on our street. How did they arrive so quickly? They saw our neighbor and thought he was sending war signals. They do not know the people of Nablus and their love for gossip. News spread faster than wildfire.

With caution and terror, and from the holes in the shutters on the windows, we saw what we saw.. The soldiers in the neighbor's house were searching and they led them outside and armed them. The father ordered us to lie down on the ground, they will kill them!!! And then our turn will come. We did not yet know that they were cowards.. As soon as they heard a gun shot from another neighbor, they had gathered the soldiers and fled. That was the first time we saw these monsters in human forms..!

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Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.  Read all about it here!

 

Read More