"With all due respect to the visit of the US President, those who may have brought the new Middle East vision a little closer this week were not Biden and Lapid, with the battered and bloody vision of the Palestinian state yesterday, but MBS - Saudi Crown Prince, who appointed Muhammad al-Issa, known as" The "Zionist Sheikh", as the keynote speaker on the eve of the Feast of Sacrifice, in the holiest city of Islam.
The election of Sheikh al-Issa - who, among other things, visited Auschwitz, fought Holocaust denial and met with rabbis - failed and clerics, especially the older generation, who opposed it, were fired by the Saudi authorities as preachers in mosques.
Why is this perhaps a significant line?
Conflicts in the Middle East are conflicts between religions (including various factions in Islam) and committees, not nationalities, so they are intensifying even within the Arab nation-states.
The sad examples around us in Syria, Lebanon and Gaza only illustrate the futility and danger of upgrading the Palestinian Authority to another state of this kind, and this time in the heart of the country.
No round of phone calls saturated with goodwill for the leaders of the region, on the part of the Israeli prime minister, will dislodge the call "with blood and fire redeem al-Aqsa" from the hearts of believers, but a conciliatory speech by a Saudi sheikh on the eve of Mecca is a step in the right direction.
So, when my friends on the left ask me "So what's your solution?", I am reminded of this story:
On the first day of Operation Cast Lead, I went out to perform with my friend the bard and wise musician David Menachem.
For the benefit of readers who do not master the taps of the difference between "sage" and "rabbi", here is the explanation of sage David himself: "Right now. That's why he's a rabbi and I'm smart."
Indeed, apart from being a musician by grace, Hacham David is a great rabbi and himself active in making connections with Muslim clerics in Israel and around the world, just like Sheikh al-Issa.
The atmosphere between Jews and Arabs on the opening day of the operation was very charged, and at the University of Haifa, where we performed, we were greeted by a stormy demonstration by students with Palestinian flags (which Tamar Zandberg sees as a symbol of peace, even below them.
But inside the taxi?
There we will be revealed to the new Middle East in all its glory: when I was pushed with my piano to the back seat I saw two domes: in the passenger seat, the black and Shasnik dome of the sage David (who was a follower of the late Rabbi Ovadia); East Jerusalem. A sketch of the tracker was projected on the screen between them.
The dialogue between the kippah wearers continues all the way, as if there is no war outside.
Then we came to the secular university, which, as is customary in our places, is fertile ground for Palestinian nationalism fueled by an extreme interpretation of Islam, which the younger generation in Saudi Arabia is also disgusted with.
If we did receive a signal from the Saudis this week for a new Middle East - Shas will cultivate it much better than Meretz.
Were we wrong?
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