Welcome Steps Towards Peace In The Middle East

Welcome Steps Towards Peace In The Middle East

by Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

September 11, 2020

In a year that has been clamoring for good news, the peace agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and the just-announced news of the normalization of relations between Israel and Bahrain certainly come at an opportune time. What better answer to our thrice-daily, 24/7, prayers for peace?

When these agreements are signed, they will be a landmark in a process that has taken many years to reach. For over 100 years, Arabs have resisted the idea of a Jewish state in the Middle East. They have waged war against Israel time and time again, engaged and supported innumerable, tragic acts of terror, and pursued many other means to vilify and delegitimize Israel.

So why the change now?

Two answers come to mind immediately: Iran and common sense.

Iran is currently the world’s leading exporter of war and terror. The Iran ayatollah regime has spared no effort—monetary or otherwise—to wage and support violence against its own people, its neighbors, the United States, and all of western Europe. Iranian-funded and armed militias have been waging war against Israel (in Lebanon through Hezbollah, in Gaza through Hamas) as well as against Saudi Arabia (through the Houthi militias in Yemen), against Iraq and the Syrian people. Fear of further aggression and expansionistic wars have prompted some Arab leaders to ally with Israel, rich in technological, intelligence and military superiority.

A new Arab bloc is being formed to stand against the Iranian threat, and Israel is being recognized as an important partner in this alliance.

But Israel has much more to offer its neighbors than just military support. Israel is a major world force in medicine, education, culture, business, hi-tech, and environmental science—to name but a few areas. At a time when the Internet has made news and information accessible to almost all people around the world, people who have been suppressed for decades under benighted and totalitarian regimes are seething against their governments. If for that reason alone, some leaders, fearful of domestic violence and uprisings, find themselves leaning towards more liberal and humanitarian policies.

Cooperation with Israel will undoubtedly be a boon to progress and peace both regionally and internationally. With all other attitudes and methods failing, peace is the only sane alternative. With COVID still raging, with overpopulation and global warming becoming greater threats than ever to human survival, coexistence is the only remaining viable option.

President Trump and the State Department deserve our support, praise and thanks for the major events that these steps toward world peace represent. Hopefully other countries will follow the courageous example shown by the UAE and Bahrain.

As we look forward to the onset of a New Year, we can certainly be more grateful and optimistic than 2020 has so far allowed us to be.