In an interview with Arutz Sheva on Friday, Israeli scholar of Arabic literature and Islamic culture and prominent academic expert on the Arab world Dr. Mordechai Kedar warned that Iran sees diplomacy with the United States as a weakness and is exploiting talks to buy time.

Despite the flexing of U.S. muscle represented by the great massing of American military assets in the region, Kedar says the ayatollahs aren’t disconcerted by President Donald Trump’s warnings. Iran’s willingness to negotiate is not an effort to make peace but to deceive the U.S. and other Western powers to buy more time to bolster its own defenses. The vice president of Newsrael also said that is why Iran fears Israel more than the U.S.: Iran respects strength. The U.S. talks, but Israel acts — and that’s what scares them.

“The Iranians do not feel any threat,” Kedar said. “Whenever they sense a willingness to negotiate, or maybe let’s come to terms, they start postponing, they start dragging time, buying time, con you, cheat you, lie to you.” But “Israel doesn’t negotiate with them. Israel just hits.”

Because the U.S. is trying to solve the nuclear issue via diplomacy, Iran doesn’t view it as a threat. Just the very fact that the U.S. tried to bring the Iranians to the table to hold discussions makes it unserious in Iran’s eyes. What’s more, when the U.S. issues dire threats followed by inaction, that makes it seem even weaker to Iran, despite the U.S. possessing the largest and most powerful military in the world.

While Trump’s advisers reportedly prefer that Israel strike first, with the U.S. joining later, after Israel has done all the heavy lifting — similarly to what happened in the June strikes — Kedar said that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will ultimately decide. However, a strike on Iran can pull in larger, more powerful countries like Russia and China, and Netanyahu might balk at the idea of being recorded in history as the man who started World War III.

“I am not sure that Netanyahu wants to be remembered in the world’s history as the one who ignited World War III,” he said.

Kedar also said that peace negotiations with Hamas are destined to fail, because for peace talks to succeed, each side has to accept as a starting point that the other side has the right to exist. In this case, Hamas doesn’t believe Israel has the right to exist, and Israel doesn’t believe Hamas has the right to exist.

“Neither Israel nor Hamas recognizes the other’s right to exist, so what kind of peace can be built on this?” he asked.

The only way forward, he believes, is the system of emirates, in which clans establish local governance. This system works well in the Arab world, he explained, citing Dubai and Kuwait as examples. The clan system is far more preferable to nationalism or religious rule, he said; better would be for Israel to maintain control over rural areas while clans transform cities like Nablus and Jenin into small emirates.

“Nationalism is an ideology. Islamism is theology. Clan system is biology,” he said.