Mordechai Kedar

Dr. Mordechai “Moti” Kedar is an Israeli Arabist, scholar of Middle Eastern media and political discourse, retired military intelligence officer, and public commentator. Across several decades, he has combined practical intelligence experience, academic research, and fluency in Arabic to explain the workings of Arab governments, Islamic movements, regional media, and Middle Eastern social structures. He is particularly associated with his study of the Assad regime in Syria, his Arabic-language appearances on regional television, and his proposal for locally governed Palestinian entities known as the Palestinian Emirates plan.

Kedar’s public significance lies in the intersection of several distinct experiences: growing up in a Jewish family whose European relatives were murdered in the Holocaust; serving approximately 25 years in Israeli Military Intelligence; examining the language through which regimes seek authority and legitimacy; and addressing Arab audiences directly in their own language. That combination has enabled him to move between intelligence analysis, academic scholarship, and mass communication rather than remaining confined to any one field.

Jewish roots and a career in military intelligence

Kedar was born Mordechai Kuperschmidt in Tel Aviv on November 25, 1952. His Polish Jewish parents immigrated to Mandatory Palestine during the 1930s, before the Second World War. Their relatives who remained in Europe were murdered in the Holocaust. Yiddish was Kedar’s first language, and he was raised in a religious Jewish home. He attended the state-religious Miron elementary school in northern Tel Aviv and later the city’s Zeitlin high school.

He joined the Israel Defense Forces in 1970 and spent roughly 25 years in the Military Intelligence Directorate. Much of his service was in Unit 8200, where he eventually headed a branch, and he retired in 1995 with the rank of lieutenant colonel. His areas of work included Islamic organizations, the political discourse of Arab states, the Arabic press and mass media, and Syria’s domestic arena.

This background gave his later scholarship an applied dimension. When examining a political speech, newspaper editorial, or television interview, Kedar has sought to identify more than the literal meaning of the words. His method emphasizes the intended audience, religious and historical allusions, social loyalties, and the difference between a message designed for domestic consumption and one aimed at foreign listeners.

Academic study of Syria, Islamism, and political language

Kedar completed his higher education at Bar-Ilan University, studying Arabic and political science before pursuing doctoral research. His dissertation examined the public political language of the Assad regime in Syria, focusing on the messages the government sought to convey and the rhetorical means through which it expressed them. He was appointed a lecturer at Bar-Ilan in 2000 and later became a retired lecturer and a research associate connected with the university’s Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies.

His research on Syria addressed a central question in the study of authoritarian rule: how a regime manufactures and maintains legitimacy. Kedar analyzed the Syrian press under Hafez al-Assad and Bashar al-Assad, tracing the presentation of leadership, nationalism, enemies, stability, and political continuity. This work formed the basis of his 2005 English-language book, Asad in Search of Legitimacy: Message and Rhetoric in the Syrian Press under Hafiz and Bashar, published by Sussex Academic Press.

Kedar also wrote about the Islamic Movement in Israel. His Hebrew volume The Islamic Movement in Israel, published in 2002, introduced readers to aspects of a movement that combines religious belief, communal organization, and public activity within Arab society in Israel. In both this work and his research on Syria, he helped make Arabic sources and political concepts accessible to Hebrew-speaking readers who could not readily examine the original material.

An Israeli voice in Arabic-language media

One of the most distinctive elements of Kedar’s career has been his readiness to appear in Arabic on regional media networks, including Al Jazeera. These broadcasts made him a recognizable Israeli participant in direct debates with Arab and Muslim clerics, journalists, and public figures. Instead of relying on translation or an intermediary, he presents his arguments in the language of the discussion and responds in real time to the terminology and references used by other participants.

This work has mattered beyond the forcefulness of any individual exchange. Israeli positions often reach Arabic-speaking audiences through edited statements, translations, or commentary by third parties. Kedar’s appearances created a more immediate form of engagement: an Israeli speaking for himself, understanding the questions as posed, and contesting assumptions from within the linguistic framework of the broadcast.

Within Israel, Kedar has published analysis and opinion in outlets including Makor Rishon, the website Mida, and the Haredi newspaper Yom LeYom. In 2012 he was invited to participate as a commentator and guest interviewer on the Reshet Bet radio program Seder Yom. Beginning in 2021, he also served as a vice president of NEWSRAEL, a pro-Israel media company that distributes news and commentary to international audiences.

A consistent theme of his media work is that literal translation alone cannot explain Middle Eastern political communication. Kedar stresses the importance of recognizing Quranic and historical references, the place of family and tribal solidarity, and the gap that may exist between messages delivered to local and foreign audiences. His commentary has therefore encouraged Israeli audiences to treat Arabic-language media not merely as a collection of quotations but as a field requiring linguistic and cultural analysis.

The Palestinian Emirates proposal

Kedar’s analysis of the Middle East places strong emphasis on the extended family, clan, and tribe. In his view, these structures continue to provide identity, protection, social support, and political loyalty in many parts of the region. He argues that Western-style centralized states have often failed when imposed on societies whose strongest loyalties remain local, and he contrasts their instability with political systems built around more cohesive communities.

From that interpretation he developed the Palestinian Emirates proposal, also called the “eight-state solution.” Rather than establishing one centralized and territorially continuous Palestinian state, his plan envisions separate self-governing entities in the Gaza Strip and in Jenin, Nablus, Ramallah, Jericho, Tulkarm, Qalqilya, and the Arab part of Hebron. Each entity would draw on established local leadership and social structures and could determine its own institutions, laws, education, media, and economic arrangements.

Kedar points to the United Arab Emirates and other regional examples when arguing that locally rooted political units can prove more durable than centralized states containing deeply competing communities. Under his proposal, Israel would retain control of rural areas and connecting territory in the West Bank for security reasons. The idea remains an advocacy proposal rather than an officially adopted or implemented peace plan. Its place in Israeli public discussion comes from its attempt to derive a political arrangement from Kedar’s sociological reading of Palestinian and wider Middle Eastern society, rather than from the conventional model of two territorially continuous nation-states.

Zionism, security, and public activity

Kedar’s political outlook developed over a career that brought him into contact with different currents in Israeli society. After leaving regular military service, he belonged to the peace movement Netivot Shalom and took part in a group meeting with PLO chairman Yasser Arafat after the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. He later became associated with the Israeli right and with an approach centered on sovereignty, deterrence, and national strength.

Kedar argues that Israel’s long-term survival in a frequently hostile environment depends on maintaining military, economic, and technological superiority. In his analysis, strength is not only a battlefield asset; it is the basis of deterrence, stability, and pragmatic relations with regional states and movements. In 2010 he was among the founders of the Sovereignty Movement, which advocates applying Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria. He also chaired the Professors for a Strong Israel organization, participated in the Israel Defense and Security Forum, and lectured in public-leadership programs.

His life has also included a sustained connection to music. From 1974 to 1982, Kedar sang as a lyric tenor in the Tel Aviv Philharmonic Choir. There he met Rena, who became his wife. They have three sons and two daughters and live in Ra’anana.

Why this legacy belongs in Moreshet

Mordechai Kedar merits inclusion in Moreshet because his career brings together several important strands of Jewish and Israeli experience: a family history shaped by immigration and the Holocaust, long service in the defense of Israel, sustained study of the societies surrounding the Jewish state, and active participation in debates over Israel’s security and political future. He turned knowledge of Arabic language and political culture into a public resource, opening sources and arguments to readers, students, and viewers who otherwise could not engage with them directly.

His particular contribution is the movement of ideas among three arenas that often remain separate: the intelligence service, the university, and the television studio. His work on Assad-era rhetoric clarified how authoritarian governments seek legitimacy; his Arabic broadcasts created a rare channel for direct Israeli engagement with regional audiences; and his Palestinian Emirates proposal added a distinct, sociologically framed option to Israeli strategic debate.

Moreshet.com records Kedar’s story not because every one of his interpretations or proposals has commanded agreement, but because his decades of military service, research, teaching, writing, and public advocacy form part of Israel’s continuing effort to understand the region in which it lives and to address that region in its own language. His professional legacy demonstrates why linguistic knowledge, cultural literacy, and close attention to primary discourse matter to Israeli security, policymaking, and the Jewish state’s ability to represent itself in the wider world.