Mordechai Kedar

Mordechai Kedar (מרדכי קידר, مردخاي كيدار; born 1952 in Tel Aviv) is an Israeli scholar of Arabic literature and a lecturer at Bar-Ilan University. He holds a Ph.D. from Bar-Ilan University.

Kedar is an academic on the Israeli Arab population. He served for twenty-five years in IDF Military Intelligence, where he specialized in Islamic groups, the political discourse of Arab countries, the Arabic press and mass media, and the Syrian domestic arena. The Los Angeles Times' Edmund Sanders described him as "one of the few Arabic-speaking Israeli pundits seen on Arabic satellite channels defending Israel".

Palestinian Emirates
Since 2012 Dr Kedar has promoted a Palestinian-Israeli peace plan referred to as the "Palestinian Emirates" or "Eight State Solution".

According to Dr Kedar, "The eight-state solution is based on the sociology of the Middle East, which has the tribe as the major corner stone of society. We should follow this characteristic of Middle Eastern culture as the basis for the Israeli-Palestinian solution." He notes that the Western-style nation-state structures imposed on regions inhabited by multiple tribes such as Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Libya are failed or failing, whereas states based on homogenous tribes such as the United Arab Emirates can succeed.

The eight Palestinian city-states would be Gaza, Jenin, Nablus, Ramallah, Jericho, Tulkarm, Kalkilya and the Arab part of Hebron, all of which possess traditional tribal leadership structures capable of transitioning to a self-governing Emirate. Geographically, each Emirate would govern its city and surrounding land. Each state could independently decide their own form of government, make their own laws, educate their own people, and print their own currency if they wish, have their own media, develop their own industry and commerce, or have their people find employment within Israel. This structure gives control and responsibility to local residents to decide their own future.

This proposal would result in self-governance and self-determination for the vast majority of Palestinian Arabs, with the remaining (sparsely populated) area of the West Bank to be annexed by Israel and its residents offered Israeli citizenship. As part of the arrangement, Israel would provide free passage of people and goods between each city-state and internationally. This proposal also satisfies Israeli security concerns, retaining strategic depth and minimizing the threat of rockets or terror tunnels.

The end-goal of this solution is a patchwork quilt of Arab and Jewish cities and towns throughout the region, trading and interacting peacefully to promote regional stability and wealth creation, and protected from the Islamic State and other external threats by Israel.

Statements
Mordechai Kedar said in June 2008, on Al-Jazeera, that "Jerusalem belongs to the Jews, period" and also said that Jerusalem was not mentioned in the Qur'an.

In July 2014 he discussed the difference between the West and Israel's "Guilt Culture" with the Arab world's "Honor-Shame Culture" on an Israeli radio show. He explained that threats to kill or imprison terrorists are an ineffective deterrent as these do not impact the terrorists' "honor", but a threat which would "shame" the terrorist would be effective, stating: "The only way to force terrorists to think twice about their actions is the threat of the rape of their sisters and mothers." A further joint statement by Dr Kedar and Bar-Ilan University further clarified his point, stating "...he did not call and is not calling to fight terror except by legal and moral means." and that Dr Kedar "wanted to illustrate that there is no means of deterring suicide bombers, and using hyperbole, he gave the rape of women as an example. In order to remove all doubt: Dr. Kedar’s words do not, God forbid, contain a recommendation to commit such despicable acts. The intention was to describe the culture of death of the terror organizations. Dr. Kedar was describing the bitter reality of the Middle East and the inability of a modern and liberal law-abiding country to fight against the terror of suicide bombers."