“The Arabs Have a Different Concept of Compromise,” he warned…
The politician I’m quoting warned that the Arabs:
“make no distinction between Ariel, Efrat, Ma’ale Adummim and Jerusalem. This is a very interesting Jewish debate but is irrelevant when dealing with the Arabs. They want all the land…. All the Jewish towns and villages that have Jewish inhabitants should be uprooted and the Jews expelled…. First they want us out of Judea, Samaria, the Golan Heights and Jerusalem. Perhaps after that they have other things in mind….
The problem really has a lot to do with the difference in perceptions between the Arab and Western concepts of conflict resolution. According to the Western concept, if you and I have a conflict over a house, a car, money or any type of transaction and we cannot work out an arrangement where we are both completely happy we sit down and compromise. I will not get everything I want and neither will you. We keep bargaining until we reach an arrangement that is mutually satisfactory.
The Arabs have a different concept of compromise. Let us say that we have a dispute about something. My solution [if I were an Arab] is not to compromise but to wait a year, a decade, or a century. Perhaps not my time or my son’s time or his son’s time. I will not compromise but simply wait you out. [He gave as an example President Assad’s remark that “I am not worried about the Golan Heights. I will not get it now but in 25 years I will get it.”]
If we ever reach the stage where the Arabs believe they need to compromise we will make some progress.”