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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Voice of Arab Radio antisemitism, 1961

Before MEMRI, there was The Middle East Record. 

Starting in 1960 (I'm not sure how long it lasted for), a group of Israelis issued detailed analysis of the situation in the Middle East and North Africa, and also translated articles and radio broadcasts from the Arab world and the general region. It's annual report was over 700 pages.

People who claim that Arabs aren't antisemitic and only anti-Zionist clearly don't read MEMRI or Palestinian Media Watch or this blog. But it would be hard for them not to admit that the examples brought here, from the Egyptian (UAR) "Voice of the Arabs" broadcast in 1961, are not pure antisemitism:

ARAB VIEWS OF JUDAISM, ZIONISM, ISRAEL 

In March-April, Ahmad Sa'id, the director of the Cairo "Voice of the Arabs" broadcasts, devoted a series of talks to the "Jewish story throughout the world." Following are the major points in these talks as recorded by the BBC Monitoring Service: 

The "Depravity of the Jews." Sa'id rejected the claim that Zionism was established to end the persecution of the Jews (V of A, March 4-5 [7]). The Jews, he said, had a traditional solidarity and a hostility to all that was non-Jewish; this went back to rabbinical precepts, which had urged them to disregard all moral considerations in their pursuit of riches (V of A, March 6 [8]). Jews had always been skilled in imposing conditions on the countries and peoples among whom they lived; dur-ing wars they welcomed invaders and had themselves caused many wars. (V of A, March 7 [9]) The ancient high priests of Israel (Arabic: ahbdr) introduced into Judaism things to arouse the feelings of the Jewish people and prompt them to seek means of dominating the Christians and all other peoples, particularly when the tide of belief in Judaism was halted with the birth of Christ. (V of A, March 9 [11]) 

The "Immoral Teachings of the Talmud." The Talmud said this to the Children of Israel, Sa'id continued: 

Every Israelite should endeavour to prevent other nations from becoming sovereigns on earth; the Children of Israel must have absolute authority wherever they may be. Without this they are considered exiles and captives. When the real Messiah comes, the awaited victory will be realized. The Messiah will then accept gifts from all peoples, and reject those of the Christians. The nation of Israel will then be extremely rich, because it will have acquired all the wealth of the world. 

The Talmud states, Sa'id continued, that in God's eyes an Israelite is respected more than angels, and that the difference between Israel and other nations is as that between men and animals. According to the Talmud and the high priests of Israel, theft from the foreigner is no theft, but simply a restoration of Israel's property. An Israelite may not make a loan to a foreigner except with interest. Jewish religious authorities said: An Israelite may cheat a customs inspector outside the pale of Israel's laws, and may take a false oath provided he can succeed in his lies. God commanded the Jews to take interest from the Gentile, and not to lend him anything except on this condition; "otherwise, we would be helping him, while it is our duty to harm him." The Israelites meet every week and boast among themselves about the acts of cheating and trickery they have committed. 

Finally, the Talmud says: The oath taken by an Israelite in his dealings with other peoples is no oath, because he would be making an oath to an animal; and an oath to an animal is no oath. Sa'id concluded: These are a few of the main points which the high priests introduced into Judaism, revealed in the true Torah. They sought thereby to create a people devoid of moral values, who would rob other peoples of their riches and dominate their fortunes and destinies. (V of A, March 9 [11]) 

A prominent Shaykh of Al-Azhar attributed similar sayings to the Talmud (Akhir Sdah, Jan 11, in an article on alleged forgeries of the Qur'an). It was reported in Cairo that parts of the Talmud were being translated for dissemination in Africa; according to this report the Talmud assured of Paradise whoever killed a non-Jew. (Ahram, Jan 20) 

The "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" —"The Basic Zionist Document." ...At the Basle conference in 1897, Jews adopted both public and secret resolutions. The secret ones, however, had leaked out; they were "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion." The Zionists decided to fight virtue and honesty, to present religion and morality as old-fashioned, to encourage the use of alcohol, to destroy moral sense, to dominate the press, to raise prices to meet wage increases, and to encourage foreign countries to fear their neighbours, so as to make them devote their resources to arms.

Zionism and the Power of World Jewry. Ahmad Sa'id said that Herzl, the founder of the Zionist movement, had planned that the Zionists should hold the economic and political reins of the big Powers: statistics showed that the Zionists controlled a great many newspapers and news agencies in Britain, the USA, France and South Africa. (V of A, March 15 [17]) The Jews in France had been able to gain control of the French economy, and consequently of the media of information, including three radio stations, as a result of having pretended to embrace Christianity when threatened with anti-Jewish measures by Louis XII. (V of A, March 16 [18]) In America the Jews became so powerful that as early as 1789 Benjamin Franklin, in one of his speeches, re-ferred to "the Jewish danger." (V of A, March 17 [20]) In Britain there were 450,000 Jews, who despite their small numbers dominated many commercial houses and most of the organizations in direct contact with the public. British Jews, Sa'id said, were more intelligent than Jews elsewhere; they were aware of the British people's dislike of any interference in their affairs, and therefore adopted British nationality. (V of A, March 19 [21]) Said said that Britain had acted as a guardian of world Zionism when it was administering Palestine (V of A, March 26 [28]). He said that Zionist propaganda used to allege that the Arabs had sold their land willingly, because of the high prices offered; in truth the British had collaborated with the Zionists to compel the Arabs to sell the land. (V of A, April 3, 4 [6]) 

"Zionist Plot For World's Nuclear Annihilation." An article in the [semi-official] Al-Gumhuriyah attributed to Zionism a plot to annihilate the world with nuclear weapons. The writer cited four "facts" in support of his theory. (1) The aim of world Zionism, the writer alleged, was to sow destruction in the world in order to dominate it. In support of this "fact" the writer purported to quote Winston Churchill from an alleged article on world Jewry in the "Sunday Herald of Feb 8, 1920" saying that this "brutal movement" intended to establish "a new world society on the basis of tyranny, hate and sucking the blood of the peoples." Also, a Rabbi had allegedly written in the "American monthly Century of Jan 1928" that the Jews were behind all the wars and great revolutions in history, had sown among the gentiles the seeds of anarchy and despair, and were still ruling them. (2-3) The Jews had originated the atomic bomb— the article mentioned Albert Einstein and Robert Oppenheimer—and in order to make sure of the destruction of the world, the Jewish Rosenberg family had handed the atomic secrets to Russia. (4) President Harry Truman had given the order to drop the atomic bombs on Japan in "his capacity as a Zionist agent." 

The more you study, the more you see that there is no distinction between anti-Zionism and antisemitism - the stated foci of the hate are supposedly different but both of them are genocidal philosophies centered on Jews.

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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