Atta Farhat is mayor of a town in northern Israel. He belongs to the country’s Druze minority and is an ardent Zionist. In recent remarks to Hebrew news outlets, Farhat encouraged the Israeli government to stand up unapologetically to the Muslim world. He noted the mismatch in understanding between worldviews, and stressed that the Middle Eastern Muslim mentality understands exercising power on behalf of one’s own tribe or religion, whereas Israeli/Western mentality tries to juggle too many competing values.

Said Farhat: “The more you ‘grovel’ before them [in negotiations, etc], the more they see you as weak. For us, we see it as being humane, enlightened. For them, they see it as weakness on the part of the Jews, clear and simple. The more they see you standing up for your existence, for your eternal-historic right in this land, they start to see, ‘We are dealing with Jews like Joshua Son of Nun, and not the Jews of 1948 and onward.’”

Several months ago, in a similar vein Farhat stated: “The IDF has still not comprehended the rules of the game here in the Middle East.”

Druze Israelis speak Arabic as their mother tongue, serve in the IDF, and are not Muslim. As such, Israeli Druze citizens sit on a key intersectionality. Their observations of Israeli society vs. the massive bloc of over a billion Muslims arrayed against Israel, are illuminating.

Farhat says the Israeli concession of removing nine thousand Jews from the “Gush Katif” Gaza settlement bloc back in 2005, sent the diametrically wrong message to Hamas and the Muslim world. They did not view it as a kind-hearted gesture on behalf of fair and considerate neighbors. Instead they perceived it as retreat, as a small victory whetting their appetite to take control of all Israel:

“… Arik Sharon expelled the Jews from the Gaza Strip. There is no doubt that the Strip is part of the Land of Israel. According to Jewish Torah, the Land of Israel is a gift from the Holy One, blessed be He, to the people of Israel. How does the enemy view this? They say to themselves, ‘If the Jews have given up their sense of historical right and denied the Torah that they should believe in – we will defeat them.’”

Want more news from Israel?
Click Here to sign up for our FREE daily email updates