Mordechai Kedar | |
|---|---|
| מרדכי קידר | |
 Kedar in 2015 | |
| Born | (1952-11-25)25 November 1952 (age 73) Tel Aviv, Israel |
| Academic background | |
| Education | Bar-Ilan University (BA, PhD) |
| Thesis | The Public Political Language of the Assad Regime in Syria: Messages and Ways of Expressing Them (1987) |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | Arabist |
| Institutions | Bar-Ilan University |
| Military career | |
| Service | Military Intelligence Directorate |
| Service years | 1970–1995 |
| Rank | Lieutenant colonel |
Mordechai Kedar (Hebrew:מרדכי קידר,pronounced[moʁdeˈχajkeˈdaʁ]; born 25 November 1952)[1] is an Israeli scholar of Arab culture and a lecturer atBar-Ilan University.
Mordechai Kedar was born inTel Aviv.[2] HisPolish-Jewish parents moved toMandatory Palestine in the 1930s.[2] Kedar's first language wasYiddish.[2]
Kedar is aReligious Zionist and an expert inIsraeli Arab culture. He served for 25 years (1970–1995) inIDF Military Intelligence, reaching the rank oflieutenant colonel. He specialized in Islamic groups, the political discourse of Arab countries, the Arabic press and mass media, and the Syrian domestic arena.[3][4][5]
He received his PhD fromBar-Ilan University in 1987, with a thesis entitledThe Public Political Language of the Assad Regime in Syria: Messages and Ways of Expressing Them.[4][5] He is fluent in Hebrew, Arabic, and English. He is described as "one of the few Arabic-speaking Israeli pundits seen on Arabic satellite channels defending Israel".[6]
Kedar has promoted a Palestinian-Israeli peace plan referred to as the "Palestinian Emirates" or "Eight-State Solution" since 2012.[7]
According to him, "The eight-state solution is based on the sociology of the Middle East, which has the tribe as the major cornerstone of society. We should follow this characteristic of Middle Eastern culture as the basis for the Israeli-Palestinian solution."[8] He says that the Western-style nation-state structures imposed on regions inhabited by multiple tribes such asIraq,Syria,Yemen, andLibya are failed or failing, whereas states based on homogenous tribes such as theUnited Arab Emirates can succeed.[9]
The eight Palestinian city-states would be theGaza Strip,Jenin,Nablus,Ramallah,Jericho,Tulkarm,Qalqilya, and the Arab part ofHebron, all of which he says possess traditional tribal leadership structures capable of transitioning to a self-governingemirate. Geographically, each emirate would govern its city and surrounding land. Each state could independently decide its own form of government, make its own laws, educate its own people, and print its own currency if it wishes, as well as have its own media, develop its own industry and commerce, or have its people find employment within Israel. This structure gives control and responsibility to local residents to decide their own future.[10]
TheWall Street Journal reported in July 2025 that a group ofsheikhs of the Jaabari clan inHebron, led by Wadee’ al-Jaabari, had penned a joint letter toIsraeli economy ministerNir Barkat proposing to leave the Palestinian Authority to join theAbraham Accords and set up an "Emirate of Hebron". This plan had previously been proposed by Israeli scholar Mordechai Kedar, which would have Palestinian clans rule their local territories, rather than the PA or Hamas, modeled on theUnited Arab Emirates system. Jaabari met with a WSJ writer and later aJerusalem Post writer, and said the sheikhs reject theOslo Accords, do not trust the Palestinian Authority, and want a new solution. The plan will create a special economic zone and allow thousands of Hebron residents to work in Israel, which stopped after theOctober 7 attacks.[11][12]
Kedar said in June 2008, on Al Jazeera, that, "Jerusalem belongs to the Jews, period".[13][14]
In July 2014, he said that threats to kill or imprison terrorists are an ineffective deterrent stating: "the only thing that deters them is if they know that their sister or their mother will be raped in the event that they are caught."[15][16] A further joint statement by 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:
"[Kedar] wanted to illustrate that there is no means of deterring suicide bombers, and usinghyperbole, 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."[17]
In December 2014, theFinchley United Synagogue inLondon cancelled a speech by Kedar that had been organized through the local chapter of theZionist Federation. On the same week, scheduled appearances at three Jewish schools were cancelled after protests regarding his association withPamela Geller, ananti-Islam organizer from the U.S., who wasbanned from the U.K. the previous year. The cancellation was met with mixed reactions; the federation chair defended Kedar, and said that he had been the victim of a smear campaign, while political scientist Michael Pinto-Duschinsky said that Kedar was "toxic for interfaith relations" in the U.K.[18] Kedar has been on the board of advisors of Geller's organizationStop Islamization of Nations (SION).[19]
In a rally to support Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu on the 30 October 2019, Kedar raised a conspiracy theory and suggestedYigal Amir is not the assassin of Prime MinisterYitzhak Rabin. That idea was rejected publicly by Prime Minister Netanyahu on the following day.[20]
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