Most non-Muslims have difficulty understanding why they are not allowed to enter Mecca. Israeli journalist Gil Tamari certainly appears to have lacked understanding when he secretly entered the city after covering US President Joe Biden's recent visit to Saudi Arabia, causing a scandal with potentially important ramifications for Israel-Saudi relations.

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The legal prohibition on non-Muslims visiting Mecca is based on a Quranic injunction (Surah 9, verse 28). Since Muslims believe that the Quran is the word of God, no human authority, whether religious or political, can change this ruling. Non-Muslims who enter Mecca are therefore defiling Islam's most important holy place, as Tamari did.

To complicate matters, Islam has no pope-like central figure. So, even if the Saudis decided to table the issue, for the time being, others – such as a "lone wolf" terrorist – perhaps opposed to the Saudi regime, could take up the charge to defend the honor of Islam. Indeed, throughout the history of Islam, individual Muslims and sects have interpreted the Quran as they chose, resulting in insurrections and assassinations that have often threatened Muslim regimes. This means that extremists might try to take revenge against Tamari personally.

Further complicating this picture, most of the Muslim world has a strong sense of honor and shame. Tamary, as well as the Saudi Muslim taxi driver who brought him to Mecca, shamed the Saudi government, which is responsible for protecting the sanctity of Mecca and Medina from such desecrations. Any Muslim who besmirches the honor of another person or group of people can often provoke blood feuds between two people, their families, their clans, their tribes, and their religious sects that can last for generations. Muslims often brood for centuries until these slights have been avenged.

How does this manifest itself? One example can be found in Osama bin Laden's post-9/11 speech. In that speech, he alluded to an event that had happened 80 years earlier. Since Americans tend not to have a sense of history, senior American government officials scrambled to find out what bin Laden meant. To those familiar with Muslim history, however, it was obvious what he was talking about. It was a reference to early 20th century Turkish leader Kemal Ataturk's then-newly established secular Republic of Turkey, which abolished the Caliphate – that is, the leadership of the entire Sunni Muslim world.

The title "Caliph" was one of the many titles held by the Ottoman Sultan, and from a Sunni point of view, his most important one. Thus, Muslim extremists still revile Ataturk and his comrades, whom they claim were installed as Turkey's leaders by the infidel West in order to destroy Islam. The 9/11 attack on important Western symbols of power – the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, as well as the unsuccessful targeting of the US Capitol – were an act of revenge against the center of non-Muslim power, the United States, thus avenging the abolition of the Caliphate.

Furthermore, bin Laden's choice of September 11 to carry out the attack was of symbolic importance. On that date 318 years before, a Christian army at Vienna defeated the Ottoman Muslims, who were on a march to conquer all of Europe for Islam. From then on, Islam was in retreat. Over the ensuing centuries, non-Muslims recaptured almost all of southeastern Europe. The humiliation of this defeat had to be avenged, and the attacks on American symbols of power were that vengeance.

Again, this might sound absurd to us, but Muslim cultures understand the value of patience and know how to wait until they believe the appropriate opportunity has arrived to take revenge. We often dismiss and belittle this way of thinking as primitive, but it is how Muslim cultures understand the world. We ignore it at our peril.

Analyzing how Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) handled Biden's visit to Saudi Arabia shows that the opportunity for revenge can often come more quickly. Back in October 2018, journalist Jamal Khashoggi was murdered at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Thereafter, then-candidate Biden blamed MBS for the murder, even though no "smoking gun" was found that proved MBS responsible. The Saudi government denied his involvement, but MBS remained silent. However, as a product of his culture, he must have hoped the opportunity to avenge this insult would present itself, and he knew how to wait for it. It was wrong to interpret his silence as acquiescence.

Biden's visit to Saudi Arabia provided MBS with the perfect opportunity. Accordingly, the Saudis humiliated Biden in every possible way. Right from the beginning, the way Biden was greeted at Jeddah airport was a snub. The Saudis sent the provincial governor to meet him, instead of Biden's protocol counterpart – King Salman. But since the king is infirm, MBS should have been the one to greet the president. To the Muslim world, that he didn't could not have sent a clearer signal that he was getting back at Biden for having blamed MBS personally for Khashoggi's murder.

Moreover, Biden's primary goal was to convince the Saudis to increase oil production. The answer was a polite but emphatic no.

Finally, Biden wanted to take credit for the Saudi decision to open its airspace to Israeli planes. But the Saudis announced their decision before Biden reached Saudi Arabia, denying the president the opportunity.

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In the case of Gil Tamari's visit to Mecca, we can see this same phenomenon at work. The Saudis have found and arrested the taxi driver who took Tamari to the holy city, even though the journalist did his best to blur the driver's image in a video he filmed. Only God knows what will be the driver's fate. Not only will he pay for his transgression, but he has brought enormous shame on his family. Moreover, if Tamari's visit was such an unimportant incident, the Saudis would not have invested so many resources in order to find the driver. Thus far, the Saudis and MBS have been almost totally silent on this matter. But again, we should not misinterpret this as acquiescence.

What about Tamari himself? As mentioned above, Muslims often brood over humiliation and wait for a time when the object of their anger either is or looks weak. Then they strike.

As a result, Tamari and others who defame the honor of Islam should be worried. Those who offend Islam are vulnerable to revenge attacks that could occur at any time. Tamari now has a target on his back. Whenever a Muslim seeking to avenge the honor of Islam believes he has the opportunity to do so, violence could ensue.

Tamari is probably safe in Israel. But should he travel to Europe, he might not be so lucky. As it says in the Talmud, a moment of pleasure can ruin an entire life. Tamari clearly enjoyed himself in Mecca, but he might pay for that pleasure by having to look over his shoulder for the rest of his life.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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In 1971, outgoing British Ambassador to Iran Sir Denis Wright said of the Iranians that they are "people who say the opposite of what they think and do the opposite of what they say [which] does not necessarily mean that what they do does not conform to what they think."

At first glance, this comment seems contradictory. But it really is a brilliant insight into the Iranian mindset. It also helps explain why US President Donald Trump is right to say that in the event that he is reelected, he wouldn't be surprised if the rulers in Tehran were among the first to call and congratulate him, and say they are prepared to make a deal.

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Iran is in shambles in every respect, largely due to Trump's effective sanctions on the regime. Corruption there reportedly has never been worse. The economy is in such dire straits that even the thieves are complaining that there is nothing to steal, because many members of the middle and upper classes have sold possessions to buy food.

Meat, for example – a basic staple of the Iranian diet – is now unaffordable. When times were tough in the past, Iranians often quipped about the situation and subtly blamed the government for their misery. Lately, however, the jokes have become more blatant, indicating that the people are so desperate that they no longer feel they have something to lose by voicing criticism of the powers-that-be.

The Iranian people fear that if Trump is reelected, US sanctions will only increase. At the same time, they seem to grasp that Washington's punitive measures are aimed at the regime.

Historically, Iranians have been masters at determining which way the wind is blowing – much better than Americans in this respect. As Wright astutely observed, they know how to look you straight in the face and say the complete opposite of what they said the day before in order to protect themselves.

During the Islamic Revolution in 1979, senior officials who had been totally committed to the Shah change sides when they concluded that the revolutionaries would win.

Last week, US National Intelligence Director John Ratcliffe accused Iran of being behind recent e-mails threatening American voters. There are also unsubstantiated rumors among Iranian Americans that Iran is funding the Lincoln Project.

The Iranian government is disseminating large numbers of stories "proving" that Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden will win on Nov. 3. Biden has made it clear that if he wins, the US will rejoin the J0int Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – the nuclear deal between Iran and world powers from which Trump withdrew in 2018 – and basically give in to Iranian demands. Contrary to the claims and fantasies of the Democratic Party, this would enable Iran to develop a nuclear weapon.

Iranians are ingenious and long ago developed ways of gleaning information beyond what they are fed by the government-controlled media. Some of these who are able to convey messages via social media and other channels report that the government's pro-Biden barrage is so strong that it's causing a sense that the regime is actually afraid that Trump is going to win the election. In other words, the campaign is backfiring, because Iranians perceive such barrages as a sign of impotence and fear.

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It is likely, then, that many regime functionaries have escape plans. It can be assumed that these senior officials have already contacted friends in the West who might help them make a soft landing in Europe, Canada or even the US, should they need to abscond after a Trump victory.

Whatever the results of the US election, there is likely to be a shift in the Iranian regime's policy towards America and its allies. A Biden victory might bring about last-ditch efforts on the part of the Trump administration to end Iran's nuclear program once and for all, and even destroy the regime's nerve centers.

If Trump wins, the Iranian people might even rise up against their oppressors, many of whom will be activating their golden parachutes out of the country.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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Independent Azerbaijan (IA), the former Soviet Republic of Azerbaijan located along Iran's northwestern border, has always been a problem for Iran. Three-quarters of the total Azeri population in the world live in northwest Iran, just across the border from IA, and in the area stretching eastward all the way to and including Tehran.

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About 80 percent of Tehran's population either speaks Azeri or is of Azeri origin, even if many no longer speak the language. And though there are no reliable figures on Iran's religious and ethnic make-up, the high number of Iranians who personally identify as Azeris suggests that the largest ethnic group in Iran could very well be Azeri.

That is why Iran always feared that if an independent Azeri state were created, it might attract Iran's Azeris to join them, and thereby dismember Iran.

But Azeris in Iran have historically done everything they could to prove that they were really Iranians. Thus, for example, in the early 20th century, they created modern Persian (later called Iranian) nationalism.

They claimed that they were originally Persian-speaking and descended from the ancient Iranian Medes and Parthians. To "prove" their claim, they concocted a theory that they were forced to abandon Persian and switch to Azeri Turkish by a Central Asian Turkish tyrant who conquered Iran in 1401.

Why did these Azeris make such an argument that had no historical basis? Because, as true Persians, they were among the most important Iranian peoples who stopped speaking Persian against their will.

During the last years of the Soviet Union, most Soviet Azeri intellectuals believed they would eventually create their own country and that the Azeris living in Iran would clamor to join them.

But that was not the case. Iranian Azeris bluntly told the Soviet Azeris, "Yes, we are Azeri, but we are Iranian and wanted to remain part of Iran."

That shocked the Soviet Azeris, who had hoped to create a large Azeri state encompassing both Soviet Azerbaijan and large parts of northwestern and central Iran.

These Iranian Azeris told the Soviet Azeris that all Azeris were originally Persians, and that these former Soviet Azeris should therefore also join Iran. From an Iranian Azeri point of view, why would they as "pure Persians" want to separate from Iran, which was their ancient homeland?

Moreover, if the former Soviet Azeris joined Iran, Iranian Azeris – already most likely the largest ethnic group in Iran – could possibly gain more political leverage in that country.

In this context, if an independent Azerbaijan did not join Iran, it would always constitute a threat to the territorial integrity of Iran. This is why Iran established relations with Azerbaijan's arch enemy, (Christian) Armenia, and has supplied it with whatever aid it could. It is also why Iran's enemies – in this case, mainly Israel, Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabis, and Turkey (for different reasons described below) – are (Shi'ite) Azerbaijan's natural allies.

Many international actors have a stake in the outcome of the Armenian-Azeri conflict. But the situation is so complicated, because what we in the West would think were natural alliances (i.e. Shi'ites on one side, Sunnis on another and non-Muslims supporting the non-Muslim Armenians) are non-existent.

Russia supports Armenia. Russia and Turkey are enemies in Syria. Was the recent Azeri-Armenian eruption an attempt to draw an even larger wedge between Russia and (Sunni) Turkey, which, as explained below, strongly supports (Shi'ite) Azerbaijan?

(Hindu) India also supports Armenia, in part because Turkey is training radical Indian Muslim clerics in Turkey, and sending them back to India to fan the flames of Hindi-Muslim latent tensions. India's implacable enemy – Muslim Pakistan – also has serious problems with Iran, because Iran foments unrest among Pakistan's Shi'ites, who make up 20 percent of Pakistan's population.

(Sunni) Pakistan supports (Shi'ite) Azerbaijan, in part because of its historically close emotional ties with Turkey – since Pakistan's upper class is largely of Central Asian Turkic origin. So, given Pakistan's problems with Iran and India, it naturally supports Azerbaijan.

The Armenian-Azeri conflict spells trouble for Israel. Israel wants no part of a conflict with Christian Armenia. But Azerbaijan is a close ally of Israel's, because of the Iranian threat to both. Israel also supplies Azerbaijan with weapons that it hopes won't be used against Armenia.

(Shi'ite) Iran supports (Christian) Armenia, largely – as explained above – because Iran sees Azerbaijan as an existential threat to Iran's territorial integrity.

Turkey and Israel oddly find themselves on the same side in this conflict, with both supporting Azerbaijan. But in the long term, the militant fundamentalist Sunni Turkey that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is creating is much more dangerous to Israel even than Iran.

Turkey also has an emotional bond with Azerbaijan, while hating Armenia and Armenians. Israel, of course, does not share that hatred.

Some observers have asked whether Iran might have provoked the Armenians to attack the Azeris. If so, did Iran do so to distract/preoccupy America and its allies from turning up the heat against Iran even more severely? On the other hand, will Iranian Azeris – so passionately Iranian, yet still Azeri – remain silent as Armenians kill their fellow Azeris across the border?

Iran is looking for every opportunity to distract its population from the catastrophic situation it faces. Foreign conflicts between Iranians and others, in the past, have succeeded in doing so.

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But is this a foreign conflict, or will it provoke in Iranian Azeris a feeling of solidarity with their Azeri co-ethnics across the border in IA? And if so, does it make Iranian Azeris even more angry with their government for supporting Azerbaijan's enemy, Armenia? Will there be demonstrations in Tabriz, the largest, almost totally Azeri city in northwestern Iran?

Could these demonstrations turn into riots? Could these riots get out of hand? Could we hear chants against the government for supporting Armenia, which is killing their Azeri co-ethnics across the border? Iran has been very good at suppressing demonstrations. Given the nature of how easily demonstrations turn into riots, however, it is impossible to predict what might happen.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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For countries with strong institutions, agreements are not made between leaders. Meaning that such agreements continue to be valid even if the countries' governments change.
This is not the case in the Middle East, where with the possible exception of Turkey, agreements are made between leaders, and last as long as those leaders are still in power.

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Middle Eastern states are by their very nature authoritarian, even if they appear to have the trappings of democracy – like parliaments, government ministers, etc. If a leader dies or is overthrown, all bets are off. The new leader decides which agreements he will honor.

In essence, in these authoritarian states institutions are by their nature weak, because they are loyal and respond to the leader – not to the people. Regarding Middle Eastern leaders, the late professor Bernard Lewis used to say "the state is their estate." Meaning that they understand their countries to be their fiefdoms, where they can do pretty much what they want.

In summary, in democratic societies, a "government official" means a person who represents the people vis-à-vis the government. The people empower their governments.

In the Middle East, the Arabic/Turkish/Persian word for government official/bureaucrat is "maamur" or "mu'azif" – which mean "one who is commanded." But commanded by whom? Answer: Middle Eastern government officials don't work for the people, they work for and represent the rulers – i.e. a top-down structure.

In Islam, peace as we know it in the West, meaning letting bygones be bygones, cannot exist between Muslims and non-Muslims. According to both the Koran and the Shari'a, there can however be a temporary agreement – a truce or armistice. Such a truce is called a "sulha" or "hudna." These agreements are modeled after the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah, a 628 CE treaty between the Islamic prophet Mohammad and the Quraysh tribe of Mecca, who Mohammad was unable to defeat.

The agreement was to last 10 years, but after only two – when Mohammad had managed to rearm himself sufficiently – he reneged on the agreement, attacked his enemies, and defeated them.

This sulha/hudna agreement is the type of non-aggression pact the Saudis and other Arab Muslim nations seem to be willing to sign with Israel. It is now in their interest to do so because their existential enemy is Iran, an enemy which they share with Israel.

Any agreement they sign with the Israelis must be understood in these terms. These are not peace agreements; they remain in force only as long as the leaders of these Arab countries believe it in their interest.

What would happen, for example, if the Iranian regime collapsed and the new government in Iran no longer threatened the Sunni Arab regimes? Would Israel and these Arab countries still share common interests? Would these agreements still hold? Can Muslim leaders recognize Israel as a Jewish state with the right to live within borders on land once conquered by Muslims?

What does history teach us here?

1.

At the 1949 Rhodes conference after Israel's 1948 War of Independence, the Arabs insisted on calling their treaties with Israel "armistice agreements" – not peace agreements. They further insisted that the lines drawn on the map which divided Israeli-controlled territory from territory controlled by the Arabs be defined as "armistice lines" – not borders. Borders and peace agreements imply permanence and an end to war; the Arabs could not agree to either. From a Muslim-Arab perspective, all of pre-1948 Palestine was Muslim land. Thus, they could not agree to permanent borders or peace.

PLO leader Yasser Arafat, two weeks after he signed the Oslo agreements with Israel, was in South Africa speaking to Muslims. He was recorded telling them that the agreement he signed with Israel was like the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah their prophet had signed with his enemies the Quraysh. Everyone understood the reference and the meaning – Arafat would break the agreement as soon as it became possible to do so.

2.

Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, upon returning to Egypt after signing an agreement with the Israelis on the White House lawn, told his people he had done what he did for the good of Egypt. Egypt needed its resources to build itself up, and must not waste them on battles Egypt was certain to lose, he said. Sadat ended his speech by saying: what will happen in the future will happen in the future – meaning, this was a temporary agreement until Egypt could regroup – which could last as long as needed. Even so, some in Egypt saw this as treachery, which is why they assassinated him.

3.

In 2000, President Bill Clinton hosted then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Arafat at a Camp David. The stated goal going into the summit was to come to an agreement which would end the Arab-Israeli conflict. Barak offered Arafat almost every square inch of eastern Jerusalem and the West Bank if Arafat would sign a peace agreement with Israel. Arafat instantly rejected Barak's offer, saying "that he [Arafat] would not have tea with Sadat." Arafat knew that if he signed such an agreement, he too would be labeled a "traitor" and likely assassinated.

There are no permanent agreements between Muslims and non-Muslims, and certainly not over land that Muslims believe is theirs.

So, what does the above tell us about any possible nonaggression pacts between Israel and Arab countries? The Arab countries in question are all ruled by Sunni Muslims. All are authoritarian. All are in the same boat as the Arab leaders in the examples mentioned above. They cannot agree to permanent peace with Israel. Almost all Muslim scholars agree that once a territory is conquered by Muslims, it must remain under Muslim rule forever. Non-Muslims – i.e., Christians, Jews and others who received a revelation from God prior to Islam can live under Islamic rule, but do not have the right to rule any territory that has ever been conquered by Muslims.

Today's Israel was conquered by Muslims in 637-38 CE, and thus according to Islam must be ruled by Muslims forever. The Saudis, Morocco and any other Arab Muslim countries therefore cannot sign permanent peace agreements with Israel. Neither, for that matter, can Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas. Hamas's charter explicitly calls all of pre-1948 Mandatory Palestine a Muslim waqf – which means it belongs to Allah forever.

No Muslim can recognize Israel's permanent right to exist because it is a Jewish state, ruled by Jews, which contradicts Islam. Any Muslim that recognized Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state on Muslim land would be labeled a "traitor" and suffer the same fate as Sadat. So the best we could hope for is a temporary non-aggression pact between Israel and its Muslim neighbors.

Does it matter that the Muslim Arabs cannot sign a true peace agreement with Israel? As long as Israel recognizes that it must remain militarily strong and resolute in defending its culture and borders, it should be fine.

Nonaggression pacts or peace treaties notwithstanding, as long as the Muslims realize that Israel is here to stay and will defend itself at whatever cost, non-aggression pacts or truces will be fine. But no one should delude himself into believing that any agreement between the Arabs and Israel will ever be like the peaceful relationship between, say, the United States and Canada. That could only happen if there is a thought revolution in Islam, something that seems unlikely for the foreseeable future.

 Reprinted with permission from JNS.org

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The ultimate source of Palestinian rejectionism comes from the deeply rooted belief that according to Islamic law, any territory that ever comes under Muslim rule must remain Muslim forever. All of Israel and the West Bank were captured by the Muslims in 637-638 CE. That means that from a Muslim perspective, it is Muslim territory, forever. (According to this view, Spain, too, which Muslims ruled from 712-1492 CE, still belongs to the Muslims.)

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Tel Aviv, therefore, is, from the Muslim perspective, as much a "settlement" as any of the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria. Jews cannot be legitimate sovereigns over either. Only a "thought revolution" in Islam, whereby Muslims re-examine their sources and discover ways to live with non-Muslims in peace, will ever change this reality. Sadly, there seems to be no such revolution on the horizon.

PLO leader Yasser Arafat – at Camp David with then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and US President Bill Clinton – explained it best. In exchange for peace, Barak offered Arafat the entire West Bank, in addition to eastern Jerusalem – except what was under the Temple Mount, which Barak said were the remains of the Jewish Temple. Arafat, as recounted by Clinton, jumped up and visibly shaken said there never was a Jewish Temple, and then said what was really on his mind: "I will not have tea with Sadat."

Egyptian President Anwar Sadat signed an agreement with Israel and was assassinated for it, even though when he returned to Egypt, he gave a speech ending with, "I did what I did now for the good of Egypt. What will happen in the future will happen in the future," meaning that in the future, "the time may come when we will be able to take back this Muslim land."

If the internationally feted Arafat couldn't agree to any type of peace agreement with Israel, certainly a relatively unimportant figure such as current P.A. leader Mahmoud Abbas can never hope to do so.

A fatal flaw of the Oslo process was thus that it gave the Palestinians veto power. In practical terms, that gave the Palestinians control over the process. Any time they disagreed with something, the United States and some Israeli leaders then started to look for ways to improve the offer, not understanding that there would be no way they could ever placate Palestinian negotiators. The "deal of the century" removes that veto power. It is built upon actions that each side is required to take.

In order for Palestinians to get any form of a state, they first need to meet a series of extremely difficult requirements. Similarly, the deal penalizes the Palestinians for failing to agree to previous generous offers while rewarding Israel for gaining military and economic strength since the first negotiations got underway. As such, Palestinians no longer have the luxury of being able to reject an Israeli offer, and expect that the previous offer would be the starting point in any future round of negotiations.

By removing the flaws that led to the failures of previous negotiation attempts, the "deal of the century" is much more likely to bring peace – even if the Palestinians reject its terms, which is a highly likely scenario.

Bravo to President Trump and his team, and to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and his team, who clearly understand how Abbas and other Palestinian leaders think. They clearly used the Muslim perspective as a basis for crafting this deal.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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