Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon on Thursday said the Middle East region is facing 'chronic instability' and claimed that the current situation was caused by artificial imposition of democracy by western leaders in that part of the globe.
"Looking to the Middle East, all we see today is chronic instability. The only constant is a change - a changing situation everywhere: Egypt, Libya, Syria, Yemen and there are terror groups like Al-Qaeda and ISIS operating in the region. All these countries have vast internal conflicts for a very long period of time," Ya'alon said, while speaking at the RK Mishra Memorial Lecture in the national capital.
"We believe that the current situation in the Middle East is the collapse of nation state which was imposed artificially by Western leaders after World War I and World War II. The idea to create nation states in a culture in which the loyalty to the tribe, the loyalty to the king is more important than any artificial national identity is crucial," he added.
Speaking on democracy, Yaalon said that while Israel wishes its neighbours would share interests in the same ideology, he admitted that his nation believes such a situation to be 'wishful thinking'.
"We try very hard not to intervene in their problems and not to patronize. We don't believe democracy should be imposed on the Middle East. We wish to have more democracies in our region but it is not going to happen in the near future. We do not allow wishful thinking to dominate our way of thinking," he added.
Yaalon also claimed that the rise of radical Islam can be traced to the Iranian Revolution, alleging that the imposition of Islamic law on that nation encouraged hard-liners to feel 'empowered'.
More From This Section
"We believe that the situation in the Middle East is generated by Iran. We believe that the rise of radical Islam started with the Iranian Revolution in February 1979. We believe the transformation of Iran into an Islamic Republic, to be ruled by the Sharia law, was encouragement and empowerment to radical Islamists and jihadists in the region and beyond," he said.
Yaalon, who is the first Israeli Defence Minister to visit India in an official capacity, had earlier in the day called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
