In the Middle East, Not All Dreams Are Created Equal

Being in Israel brings out the dreaming in you. The country, after all, represents the culmination of a 1900-year-old dream. As Israel’s first Prime Minister, David Ben Gurion, once said, “In Israel, in order to be a realist, you must believe in miracles.”

So I wasn’t too surprised the other day when Yair Lapid, Israel’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, exhibited some dream-like tendencies when he spoke about addressing the stubborn Gaza violence at the World Summit on Counter Terrorism.

“Since Israel left the Gaza Strip in 2005,” he said, “we have been dragged into round after round of violence causing suffering for our people and harming our economy. The policy Israel has pursued up until now hasn’t substantially changed the situation.”

To create “stability on both sides of the border,” Lapid expressed a vision to start “a large, multi-year process of economy for security,” the idea being: the more Gaza’s economy will improve, the greater the security for Israel. But that equation, however reasonable and seductive it sounds, still hinges on a terror entity like Hamas renouncing its Covenant.

How realistic is that? Here’s how Lapid’s own Foreign Ministry website describes the Hamas Covenant: “A comprehensive manifesto comprised of 36 separate articles, all of which promote the basic HAMAS goal of destroying the State of Israel through Jihad (Islamic Holy War).”

Is that a reason for Lapid to stop dreaming? Not necessarily. As far back as 2009, I myself wrote a column titled, “The Gaza Riviera,” where I imagined “a fabulous strip of hotels and casinos right by a sparkling ocean … proud Palestinians working with smiles on their faces to serve the thousands of tourists from around the world who were coming to their little strip of ocean paradise.”

I dreamed of a Gaza with “a bustling economy, where the highest quality produce was grown and exported; where entrepreneurs built software companies, banks and advertising agencies; where a university attracted students from around the world; where local culture and the arts thrived; and where you could take the Orient Express train to Beirut, Cairo and, yes, even Tel Aviv.”

Not all dreams, evidently, become reality; sometimes the reality is simply too harsh. Instead of investing in schools, hotels, hospitals and businesses, Hamas invested in its own dream of destroying Israel, spending its capital on terror rockets and tunnels.

I’ve learned over the years, however, that in the Middle East, not all dreams are created equal.

For example, I’ve had a longtime dream of seeing my native Morocco develop diplomatic relations with Israel. Under the Abraham Accords, that dream has remarkably come true. When I saw Lapid in August inaugurate the Israeli mission in the Moroccan capital of Rabat, and put a mezuzah on the door, it gave me goosebumps.

When I saw Lapid in August inaugurate the Israeli mission in the Moroccan capital of Rabat, and put a mezuzah on the door, it gave me goosebumps.

This brought home the brutal reality of Middle East dreams: Dreaming that a terror group like Hamas will renounce its intent to destroy Israel is a pipe dream; dreaming that a Muslim monarch with a long history of being favorable to Jews will establish relations with the world’s only Jewish state is, well, realistic.

Relationships grow best when they bring out shared human interests. A desire to destroy another people will never be a shared interest. The Arab nations under the Abraham Accords decided that a productive relationship with Israel will benefit their economy, improve their health care and bring crucial innovations to their societies.

These countries may have had, in the past, feelings of animosity toward Israel—a general feature of the Arab world since Israel’s birth—but that animosity was not consecrated in a religious covenant calling for Israel’s destruction. Comparing countries like Morocco and the United Arab Emirates to terror groups like Hamas is like imagining Lapid a few years from now inaugurating with Hamas leaders a diplomatic office in Gaza City. That photo-op is eons from reality.

The hard-nosed Israeli view of fighting terrorism was best expressed by Shin Bet chief Nadav Argaman this past May during Israel’s war with Hamas:

“A terror group that threatens Israeli citizens is intolerable,” he said. “A terror group that shoots rockets at our capital city on its holiday is intolerable. We are in the middle of an operation and now is not the time to talk. We will continue to do what is right to ensure the security of all our citizens.”

Replacing terrorist leaders with visionaries who would build a Gaza Riviera may not be realistic at the moment, but it’s definitely a miracle worth dreaming about.

Who gets hurt most by this stark reality and these shattered dreams? The people living in misery under these terror entities. Replacing terrorist leaders with visionaries who would build a Gaza Riviera may not be realistic at the moment, but it’s definitely a miracle worth dreaming about.