Is Andre Azoulay, a self-styled 'Arab Jew' and adviser to the king of Morocco, right to support the Saudi peace plan when Israeli officials have rejected it? Or is he just a pathetic example of abject dhimmitude? Haaretz reports:
"A Jewish adviser to Moroccan King Mohammed VI called on Israel on Tuesday to adopt the 2002 Saudi peace initiative, which offers Israel normalized relations with the Arab world in exchange for its withdrawal to the 1967 borders, and to advance the peace process with the Palestinians.
"I am a Jew with a commitment," said Andre Azoulay. "I'm an Arab Jew. I advise the king of Morocco... The Arab mainstream sees Israel as the party responsible for preventing peace, not the Arabs," he added, speaking at a conference marking ten years since the founding of President Shimon Peres' peace center, held in Tel Aviv this week.
"Azoulay was recently appointed president of the Anna Lindh Euro-Mediterranean Foundation for the Dialogue between Cultures in Alexandria, Egypt, and he is soon scheduled to meet with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
"Azoulay has been active in promoting dialogue between Arabs and Jews and between East and West for many years. He has visited Israel many times and met with countless senior Israeli officials over the years. He argues that his work to advance peace between Arabs and Jews is part of his duty and belief as a Jew.
"In his address at the Peres Peace Center Tuesday, he spoke about his trips to Saudi Arabia, who drafted the peace initiative, and about Saudi King Abdullah's call for dialogue between Islam and Judaism. "This is a revolution," he said. "In the past, I visited Saudi Arabia but I was asked to hide the fact that I was Jewish. Today, that is over. The climate has changed completely."
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Well, Monsieur Azoulay notes that most Arabs consider Israel responsible for continued war. Obviously, the Muslim notion of jihad has nothing to do with it.
ReplyDeleteby the way, when Monsieur A meets Mubarak it might be helpful if he reminded him that the viciously anti-Jewish cartoons in the Egptian press, permitted by the govt, might lead people to think Egyptian cartoons are as bad as the Danish Muhammad cartoons that everyone in the Arab lands was so enraged about. But everybody in the Arab world knows that Arabs have the human right to draw cartoons dehumanizing Jews. On the other hand, it might be helpful to moderate the Arab and Egyptian cartoons in order to disarm the harbis.