2001 Australia-Israel Hawke Lecture
From Peace to Armistice: the turbulent road towards a new architecture in the Middle East
Delivered by Mr Ehud Ya’ari
17 July 2001
Presented in association with the Australia Israel Chamber of Commerce (SA/NT)
Ehud Ya’ari
An outstanding international journalist and much sought after commentator, Ya’ari has been head of the Middle East department of Israel Television for more than 20 years, and a regular correspondent on Mabat, the nightly newscast. He is also associate editor of The Jerusalem Report, and an associate of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. During the last 25 years Ya'ari has interviewed scores of personalities including: President Clinton, President Mubarak, the late President Sadat, Chairman Arafat, and the Syrian Foreign Minister, Farouk al-Shara. His articles have appeared in the New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and The Atlantic Monthly. He is the winnner of a number of industry awards and is the author of seven books, including The Year of the Dove and Peace by Piece.
Liz Ho:
I am Liz Ho, Director of the Hawke Centre at the University of South
Australia and I would like to warmly welcome all of you here this evening.
Before we commence, I would like to acknowledge the following special
guests. Mr Bruno Krumins, Lieutenant Governor of South Australia, Councillor
Greg Mackie representing the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor of Adelaide, Mr
Michael Ronen, Minister Councillor of the Embassy of Israel, Mr Allen
Bolaffi, Chair of the Australian Israel Chamber of Commerce, Professor
Lowitja O'Donoghue, our esteemed patron of the Hawke Centre, Professors
Michael Rowan and Eleanor Ramsay of the University of South Australia, Greg
Keeley, Executive Director of Australia Israel Chamber of Commerce and
finally the chair of our centre and a very special person, Dr Basil Hetzel.
Adelaide has been thinking very deeply in the past week, we have had the
marvellous Festival of Ideas. I would like to think of the Hawke Centre as a
centre that will allow ideas to flow year round but we were very proud to be
associated with the Festival and I pay special tribute to Greg Mackie who
does such a fine job and who is here tonight. I think while we tend to be
known as the Festival City, we can also lay claim to being a place of social
invention and experiment where public learning and debate are very high on
our agenda so it is no surprise that a combination of a festival and ideas
went down so well in Adelaide over the weekend.
I think our interest in both the external problems of the world and also the
solutions and, indeed, what we can learn out of those for our own society is
something that intensely involves all of us in one way or another and that
is one reason why we are all here this evening. So we are very delighted to
be joining with the Australia Israel Chamber of Commerce in presenting this
inaugural Australia Israel Hawke lecture.
The Hawke Centre began its life in 1997 when Bob Hawke, who just made it as
a South Australian, born in Bordertown in 1929 and our only South Australian
Prime Minister, became part of the University through the naming of this
project. We are primarily dedicated to the strengthening of democracy and
citizenship.
By contrast, the Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce has been in existence
for much longer, over 25 years and is dedicated to extending trade between
Australia and the Middle East and increasing the level of exports of South
Australian products but I point, in particular, to this happy marriage
between education, learning, public involvement and business tonight. I
think this is a very important collaboration.
I am now going to introduce the Honourable Dr Basil Hetzel who will in turn
introduce our very special guest this evening and our speaker, Mr Ehud
Ya'ari who has the good taste to be married to an Australian and who has
travelled many, many miles to be here with us tonight.
So to Dr Hetzel. Dr Hetzel is Chair of the Hawke Centre project at the
University. He is the recipient of the 1997 Anzac Peace Prize and is a
former Chancellor of the University. He has had a very distinguished medical
career. In 1971 he gave the Boyer Lectures on the ABC on Life and Health in
Australia. Dr Hetzel has been involved, at the very highest level, in the
prevention of iodine deficiency world-wide. He has put an enormous amount of
effort and time into what has been a very important medical breakthrough and
in making sure that people can live reasonable lives all over the world,
people might otherwise not have been able to.
So we are very proud that we have a South Australian who has not only been
an Executive Director of the International Council for the Control of Iodine
Disorders but also the world Chair. Dr Hetzel was made a Companion of the
Order of Australia in 1990 and upon his retirement as Lieutenant Governor of
South Australia in 2000 Her Majesty the Queen conferred the title “The
Honourable” upon Dr Hetzel. I think we are not only proud to hear about Dr
Hetzel's contribution to South Australia through that very brief
introduction, but also very proud of his humanity and his association with
the centre is something that we feel is an extra boon to the work that we
do. So without further statement, let me introduce Dr Hetzel. Thank you.
Hon Dr Basil Hetzel, AC
Welcome to you all. We are very pleased to be collaborating with the
Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce in this event. Delighted to see my
successor, Mr Bruno Krumins here, as Lieutenant Governor and Councillor Greg
Mackie, I would also like to add my congratulations on the Festival of
Ideas, Mr Michael Ronen, Mr Allen Bolaffi, who is Chair of the Australian
Israeli Chamber and one of our graduates from the University of South
Australia of whom we are very proud, Professor Lowitja O'Donoghue, the
members of the Australia Israel Chamber, ladies and gentlemen.
As Chair of the Centre I am very pleased to welcome all of you and this is,
indeed, the inaugural Australia Israeli Hawke Lecture. A further word about
the Centre, it is a dynamic initiative which is a centre for public learning
and, I think, contributes very important new functions that we now need so
much. Particular themes are strengthening democracy, valuing our diversity
and building the future.
As many of you will know, we have an annual Hawke Lecture in Adelaide, the
first one delivered by Mr Bob Hawke himself, the second by Sir Zelman Cowen
and the third by Dr Ramphele from the World Bank, a very notable event in
the Town Hall last year. This year the lecture will be given by my esteemed
colleague, Sir Gustav Nossal, who will be examining the impact of science on
human welfare and the future.
Let me just say a few words about the Australia Israel Chamber of Commerce
which is co-sponsor of this event. The Chamber is to be commended for its
energy. Many of you will know well of its very energetic office-bearers and
very active program, not only concerned with business but with the wider
cultural and international agenda and this is, of course, the setting for
this lecture tonight.
There have been a series of trade and education delegations to Israel and
other countries supporting South Australian interests and the University of
South Australia has been pleased to participate in some of these
delegations.
We are very pleased that Mr Hawke has become a patron of the Chamber through
the association with the Hawke Centre. So thank you, Allen, for the support
you have given with your colleagues. We value the association very much.
Now, I come to my main purpose which is to introduce our distinguished and
honoured guest and speaker, Mr Ehud Ya'ari.
When we were aware that Ehud was a possibility to deliver this lecture we
were very pleased indeed. The University's Division of Education Arts and
Social Sciences includes undergraduate and post-graduate programs in
journalism and in this instance we have the opportunity to hear from an
international professional journalist who is very much expert in his field
with a very big international reputation and we appreciate the opportunity
to hear from Ehud on this occasion giving a personal perspective on one of
the great conflict issues of our time.
The title of his address is: From Peace to Armistice, the turbulent road
towards a new architecture in the Middle East. A few words about Ehud Ya'ari.
He has been a head of the Middle East Department of Israeli television for
more than 20 years, a regular correspondent on Mabat, the nightly newscast.
He is Associate Editor of the Jerusalem Report and an Associate of the
Washington Institute for Near East Policy. During the last 25 years he has
interviewed scores of personalities including President Clinton, President
Mubarak, the late President Sadat, Chairman Arafat and Syrian Foreign
Minister, Farouk al-Shara.
His articles have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the
Wall Street Journal and the Atlantic Monthly. He is a winner of a number of
industry awards, notably the Sokolov Prize for his coverage of the Lebanon
War and the Israel Broadcasting Award for the coverage of the Gulf War. He
is also the author of seven books including The Year of the Dove and Peace
by Piece. I need say no more, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Ehud
Ya'ari.
Ehud Ya’ari:
Good evening. It is not just an honour but also a pleasure to be here and be
invited to speak to such a distinguished audience. I will try to offer some
thoughts on the current situation in the region from which I am coming to
you and I have to emphasise right away that I do not represent any Israeli
government, agency, body, not even my own television station and very often
I myself am not in full agreement with whatever I am going to tell you, so
please take me with more than a grain of salt.
I think, coming to the crux of the matter, I would say the following. I
think it is obvious to everybody, that we have not landed on the golden
beaches of a bright new Middle East as was promised to us, amongst others,
by our present Foreign Minister, Mr Peres. There is no new Middle East 10
years after the peace process took off in the Madrid peace conference
following the Gulf War, the second Gulf War. There is no new Middle East
around us. There are no golden beaches of prosperity, reconciliation and
everlasting love between the nations of the region.
What we have is what we had all along, the old mud list with all its pains
and agonies and I am afraid that we have to reach the conclusion that it is
not going to change any time soon, not in my lifetime, at least.
Which means that we have reached a point where our politicians are called
upon to adopt much more realistic, if you want, cynical approach to what is
possible and what is impossible in the region in our pursuit for some sort
of regional stability, mainly foremost between Israel and its Arab
neighbours and, of course, the Palestinians come first on the list.
The window of opportunity, as Jim Baker called it immediately after the Gulf
War, the window of opportunity for peace in the Middle East maybe still open
but the curtains are down. What seemed very possible or very likely just a
year or so ago is by now absolutely impossible. There are two contradictions
at the basis of the process which have derailed it from the prescribed
course. One of them is the following. We offer, both us and the Arabs, we
offer each other an embrace. An embrace of friendship, reconciliation,
agreement, down the road, possibly also very close collaboration and
co-operation, but the truth of the matter is that we are offering to embrace
each other only in order to turn our backs on each other at the same moment,
each going his own way.
There is enormous tension generated in this contradictory movement, the
embrace on the one hand and the turning of the back, going your way at the
same time, on the other hand. Anyone who is trying to stand in front of the
mirror in the morning, trying to hug his image, his reflection in the mirror
and turn his back on it at the same time will find that even if he is
physically very fit, it is quite impossible.
Politically, in geo-strategic terms, we would like to believe that this
contradictory movement is possible. That is that we can make peace, and
part, at the same time because the process is not about - it is not a
marriage of Israel into the region. Nobody wants us there. Nobody wants us
there. The process is about a divorce.
How to reach a point of civilised divorce between Israel and its adversaries
so that each can go his own way, and it is the worst type of divorce because
in our case, divorce means that once you are, as we have a song in Hebrew,
dancing on the steps of the rabinate with your divorce papers all signed and
ready, you are doomed to spend the rest of your life with your ex-spouse
forever in the same bedroom. This is, in my opinion, the best description of
the difficulty and the complexity of peacemaking in the Middle East.
We and the Palestinians are not living next to each other. We are not next
door neighbours. Most parts of the land we are living in mixed with each
other and separation is impossible even if a political deal is possible, I
believe. Therefore, to use a very simple example, when we reach divorce, we
will stop fighting in the double bed and we will be able to switch into two
separate beds but still in the same room. A degree of conflict, some degree
of tension, is going to stay with us even post this.
The other source of tension in the process emanates from the fact that
basically what we are saying to the Palestinians, we Israelis, is the
following - I am putting it bluntly, intentionally, in my language. We are
saying to Chairman Arafat, yes, you will have an independent Palestinian
state but - or as Barak offered to him in Camp David, which will be almost
100 per cent of the territory that you have demanded - but we say to him,
when the Palestinian movement, with you as its leader, will be, will develop
maximum speed, at the moment when your great ambition will be fulfilled and
the orchestra with 80 drums and 600 trombones, whatever, will play the
Palestinian national anthem on Temple Mount and you will all feel that the
winds of history, you Palestinians will feel that the winds of history are
blowing in your sails, that will be the moment that you will commit yourself
to stop and ask for no more. That's the deal.
Who can do that? This, in political terms, is what is being asked from Mr
Arafat because from an Israeli point of view there is no sense in a deal if
it does not amount to the termination of the conflict, end of conflict. From
Mr Arafat's point of view and many of his people, not all of them, this
amounts to an admission that they will have to settle, after over a century
of conflict with the Jewish Community and then with the State of Israel, for
a territory which will spread over about a fifth, 20 per cent, of the
territory initially in contest west of the River Jordan between the river
and the sea. A territory which will be able to accommodate, at best,
two-fifths, 40 per cent of all those who consider themselves members of the
Palestinian people.
This is the deal that everybody is talking about. There is no other deal. I
am just trying to illustrate how difficult it is. The architecture of
peacemaking in the region ever since Madrid, or if you want to go back ever
since the old days of President Sadat's peace initiative back in the late
70s, was based on the assumption that Israel can strike different types of
deals with its neighbours which will all go under the marketing name ‘peace’
but effectively will be something different and will be eventually crowned
with the historic deal with the Palestinians.
The major feature of all those agreements is, of course, mutual recognition,
a commitment not to resort to violence and most importantly an element of
demilitarisation all around Israel. So take, for example, the deal with
Egypt, our peace treaty with Egypt was signed back in 1979. With Egypt we
have the whole Sinai Peninsula effectively demilitarised with two battalions
of American Marines there, sometimes there were also Australian pilots
monitoring traffic across the Suez Canal.
We have a desert of 250 kilometres separating the Israeli Army from the
Egyptian Army. We don't have real peace with Egypt, it is rather a cold war
or at best a cold peace but who cares, in both cases the armies don't fight
each other and we have, basically, stability and quiet along the Israei-Egyptian
border ever since Sadat.
Jordan, in its peace treaty with Israel in 1994, has turned itself,
willingly, under the late King Hussein, effectively into a demilitarised
entity as a buffer down the road, hopefully also as a bridge, between Israel
and the forces, the strong powers to the east, Iraq and Iran. According to
the peace treaty between Israel and Jordan, Jordan does not allow any
foreign troops into its territory. Namely, no expeditionary Iraqi force can
enter Jordan, or Syria or Saudi. Jordan, with its small army, four divisions
only, does not constitute a military threat to Israel so Jordan is the other
element of demilitarisation.
With Syria, the deal that was being discussed also contained an important
segment of demilitarisation between the Israeli border after we ceded the
Golan Heights back to Syria all the way up to the outskirts of Damascus and
Lebanon. Lebanon is a country without an army and a peace treaty with
Lebanon, whenever it comes, I am sure will also provide for preventing entry
of foreign troops there.
That was the scheme since Madrid, basically. A scheme which was designed to
allow Israel go its own way protected by peace treaties and strips of
demilitarisation and the Arabs to go their own way. The element missing was
Arafat, was the Palestinians and I am coming to that. Initially,
strategically the logic was that Israel has to nail Syria, to get a peace
treaty with Syria before you move to the final crucial ground, a round of
negotiations with the Palestinians. To put it very bluntly, to isolate
Arafat for the last round and have all the Arabs around Israel already
locked in peace with us.
Every single Israeli Prime Minister tried to get a deal with Syria at the
price of giving back the Golan Heights. Every single Israeli Prime Minister.
All of them failed. Each in his own way because, at the end of the day, the
Syrian answer was ‘no’. Today, young Mr Asad, the new President, is going
beyond what his late father use to say and he is saying I'm not concluding
anything ahead of the Palestinians. This was the first important set back of
that turbulent road from the Gulf War towards some sort of regional peaceful
arrangement.
Syria said ‘no’, although Israel was offering to pay the full territorial
price. Why did Syria choose, and still does, to reject the offer? It is a
matter for interpretation. Everybody has his own reading. President
Clinton's impression, out of his last meeting with President Asad, the
father, in Geneva, was that he chose to concentrate on consolidating the
regime at home rather than embark upon an experiment of opening up and
following peace with Israel but there are other interpretations as well.
Once we were unable, it is we, Israel, the Egyptians, who are partners in
this throughout, the Americans and some of the Europeans, not the French, of
course, once we failed in bringing Syria to the table and signing the peace
treaty with Syria, the game on the Palestinian front has changed
dramatically. Now, from the outset, Arafat's strategy - maybe I have to say
something here within brackets - I was the first biographer of Arafat over
30 years ago. I've invested, if you want, a lifetime in him and he is making
jokes that he did whatever he did and I was trying to make some money
writing about it, which is basically correct but I'm saying that in order to
ask you to take seriously what I have to say about Arafat, not that
necessarily that I am right but I made the effort, over many years. I met
him just before I came here. We had a lot chat and then an early lunch at 2
am in the morning, that's the way it works. Arafat's strategy, ever since
the Oslo Accord was contrary to the strategy of the Israeli architects of
the agreement. What was the Israeli logic and the philosophy behind Oslo? If
you ask Mr Peres, the philosophy was we go into a phase out process of
gradual Israeli withdrawal from the territories, we will build an impressive
degree of goodwill and co-operation and mutual trust so that after 5 year or
7 years - it was stipulated 5 years, after 5 years we will be able to tackle
together the major outstanding issues, Jerusalem, refugees, borders,
independence, etcetera, etcetera.
The idea was we put the PLO, headed by Mr Arafat, through the experiment and
at the end of the day the PLO and Mr Arafat are going to be transformed into
something else and they will be converted into a compromise situation. It
did not happen, as everybody can see and it did not happen, amongst other
things, because Mr Arafat's strategy from day one was not to allow it to
happen. His strategy from day one was to maintain a policy in which you keep
offering, on the one hand, negotiations, ‘peace of the brave’, different
degrees of co-operation and security and combating terrorism, with a limit,
and at the same time maintain fluctuating degrees of violence throughout.
This is what we had ever since he and the seven brigades of the PLO were
allowed into the country, into Palestinian territories in '94 following the
Oslo Accords. The Oslo Accords, therefore, were basically dead for a few
years now and I am saying that the corpse of the Oslo Accord was lying in
the streets of the West Bank and Gaza and the cities of Israel for many
years and the stench was there and the only reason it was not buried was
because the two parties could not agree what should be written on the
tombstone of the Oslo Accords.
Then came Prime Minister Barak. Failed again in his attempt to drag Syria
into the honey-trap of peace and made the move. The move was intended to
make - to force Arafat to choose and give an answer. An answer to a very
simple question. The question being: What do you want in return for peace?
Barak said to Arafat, very simply, he said to him: If you are willing to
give us a political statement on the end of the conflict. A legal statement,
document, on the end of all claims by the Palestinians against Israel and
you agree to go together with me, Barak, to the Security Council to announce
together all existing UN Security Council and General Assembly Resolutions
in the Middle East asking the Security Council to adopt our new agreement on
the end of the conflict as its only binding resolution. If you agree to all
that, said Barak to Arafat in my language, then I, Barak, am prepared to
give you more than the extreme Israeli left wingers ever contemplated. I
will give you the territories, I will give you the Jordan Valley, which was
historically intended to serve as the buffer between Jordan and the
Palestinian State so that Jordan will not be overtaken by the Palestinians
and Jordan is strategically a key to Israel's posture in the region and I
will give you, said Barak, not just an entry visa but a resident visa in
Jerusalem and on top of it, Temple Mount. The most sacred place to the
Jewish people.
I will give you, he said to him, sovereign custodianship over Temple Mount.
96 per cent of the territory, and it was still open for negotiation, and
about 2 per cent of the territorial compensation somewhere else for those
settlements around Jerusalem that will be annexed to Israel, very close to
100 per cent. If not, said Barak to Arafat, you get nothing. It is end of
conflict or nothing. Arafat said ‘no’. He said ‘no’ in Camp David, he said
‘no’ in the negotiations which were conducted after Camp David, all the way
up to the Israeli elections in which Barak, of course, lost.
I remember saying to Barak all along, if Arafat has to choose between a
grand peace and a Likud right-wing government in Israel, Arafat has already
chosen, it's me and my wife and my friends who will have to go to the ballot
box for him because from Arafat’s point of view, one has to understand, he
sees himself as a man who is about the Palestinian cause, not that much
about the Palestinian people, what happens today, tomorrow, yesterday is
much less important to him than the dedication to the long-term objective.
Second, yes, Arafat would very much like to get a deal with Israel. A deal
with Israel means a lot more territory, territorial continuity,
international recognition, etcetera, etcetera, but not at the price of
becoming, as he sees it, the undertaker of basic Palestinian rights. Now,
what is that? Now, we know that he is speaking about an effort to flood
Israel with, you chose the number, of Palestinian refugees and basically
take over the country demographically. In Camp David - I could go into the
anecdote but I don't think it is interesting now - in Camp David, for
example, one of his lieutenants said: Give me a six digit number for
refugees to be relocated into Israel proper after withdrawal. Small Israel,
with a waistline of only 13 kilometres and one of the Israelis with Barak
said to him: Okay, 100,000 refugees over 3 years. And the answer came
immediately: no, no, sorry, a seven digit number.
This is unacceptable to any Israeli Government. I don't know any faction,
under the political map of Israel, which is willing to contemplate such a
deal. It basically means the destruction of the State. Therefore the move
came and into the cycle, a new round of violence. I would say a few quick
words about the present intifada, it is called - it's not an intifada,
intifada is what we had in the late 80s, it was a spontaneous eruption,
popular eruption of people and Arafat was far away in Tunis. What we have
now is a move by the leader to ignite violence through his own means with
full control over what is happening, full control.
Arafat has basically done the following. He has taken his own structure of
power, which is the Palestinian Authority, established by the Oslo Accord,
funded through the mechanism of the Oslo Accord and got its security organs,
14 of them, got their weapons through the mechanism of Oslo. The Israeli
Army, by the way, took the number of every rifle that they got. So the
Palestinian Authority, with its security and military organs, represented
Oslo and was a product of Oslo, and was suppose to serve as his main
structure of power, of Government.
Here is a leader who is undermining his own Government, clipping its wings,
ordering his police, his military, ordering his soldiers to stay out of it.
Basically telling them to allow the emergence of a chaotic order in the
territories, maintaining only two services, by the way, the education system
and medical services. Other than that, the Palestinian Authority has ceased
to exist long ago. If you want to go visit one of the Ministries in Ramallah
or Gaza, the door is open and you can come in but you won't find anybody
there.
It was very strange for many Israelis and certainly observers from the
outside, to understand a leader who is basically undermining his own
structure of power but he did it, much in the same way on a different scale,
that Mao did it during the Cultural Revolution in China and at the same
time, allowed the emergence of a parallel, not alternative structure.
A parallel structure that he has been preparing ever since day one that he
came back to Gaza. This is the combination of the party militia - the Fatah
or what is called sometimes in the press Tanzim - Tanzim means organisation
in Arabic - his own party militia in alliance with Hamas, Islamic Jihad and
the rest of the organisations, which have rejected Oslo from the outset,
representing, in its very existence, this alliance, a violation of Oslo.
According to Oslo they should not be there with arms at all. They are
representing something which I would call revolutionary legitimacy.
As opposed and rival and competitive to the legal authority inherited from
the Oslo Accords. By allowing this to rival branches of power, his power.
Sometimes to fight it out in the street, a degree - a volume of violence was
introduced which is still with us now 10 months later. Why did he have to do
that? It was very important for Arafat from very early on not to allow an
impression to be formed that here is the Palestinian Authority, lead by
himself, declaring war on the State of Israel or challenging the State of
Israel. He does not want, cannot afford, a direct all out open confrontation
with the State of Israel. There are different rules to this kind of game. He
had to make sure that he, willingly, consciously gives up a degree of
control so that some of the other armed groups can take the lead and trigger
the violence that we have seen so far.
What is the objective? The objective being forcing Israel to accept a deal
which will allow the establishment of a Palestinian State which is, from the
outset, hostile or at the very least unfriendly to the State of Israel. It
is basically the Palestinians are asking us today to give up the territory,
the same territories that were offered to them by Barak for peace, to give
up those territories for no political, for no diplomatic gain whatsoever.
That is the formula. I don't know of any other formula that has been offered
by Arafat.
Israel will not accept it, whether it is a right-wing Government, National
Unity Government or left-wing Government. After 10 months it seems that this
type of special war is not going very well for Mr Arafat, I would say. By
the way, this is his own impression. They feel that the intifada is in the
red. They are right. Why? Because they were unable to drag the rest of the
Arab world to do war with Israel. President Mubarak of Egypt, that is the
country that counts, went one day on television, the morning show, Good
Morning Egypt, and he said the following said: Egypt will allow no one”,
(read Arafat), Egypt will allow no one to fight to the last Egyptian
soldier.
When asked later on, in the Gulf, how come you are interfering in
Palestinian decision making, he said: I am speaking on behalf of 50,000
graves of Egyptian soldiers who gave their lives for Palestine ever since
1948. Egypt said ‘no’ and basically said to Arafat: we are not going to
allow you to drag us in. Jordan said the same. Syria, in spite of its very
hostile posture towards Israel and toward Arafat, also said the same and the
instruction to Hezbollah in Lebanon is: you can operate - you can mount
operations against the Israelis here and there, not too much, not too
provocative, don't get us into an all out war.
So the Arabs didn't come but my argument is the Palestinians didn't come
either and this intifada is lacking, throughout, is lacking in popular
dimension. What we have is squads of people belonging to such organs as the
presidential guard of Arafat, 417, doing ambushes, planting bombs, sending
suicide bombers, other groups like this but it is restricted to squads. It
is not a popular mass phenomena as we have seen in the late 80s. The
Palestinian countryside is quiet, 400 villages in the West Bank which were
the backbone of the first intifada, they are not there.
Palestinian upper middle class are sending money and children out. Jordan
had to take measures to kerb the flow of Palestinians from the West Bank
back into the East Bank. They have a Palestinian majority, as it is.
Jerusalem, 200,000 Arabs, Palestinians, no intifada in Jerusalem, not for
one day. Arafat's own adviser wrote an article, some time ago under the
title: Where are the students? Because this is supposedly a popular
revolution in which the student body is absent. They are in the classrooms,
sometimes in the laboratories making - trying to make bombs too, but by and
large they are out of it.
So what I am saying is the Arabs didn't come and the majority of the
Palestinian population, unlike what we have seen in the previous round over
10 years ago, is willing to express solidarity with the intifada, support
the moves of Arafat, whatever you want, but not to take and participate.
This distinction is very important. Through this process what is emerging
is, I believe, a situation in which the dream which was also our dream,
Israelis, it is our interest to have a strong solid, friendly Palestinian
State.
What is happening is that the notion, the concept that there can be a
Palestinian State under strong central management is becoming obsolete.
Through the violent events of the past year what is emerging is a system
that I call, half jokingly, the United Palestinian Emirates. A system of
fiefdoms of regions each controlled by a different combination of warlords
under the general direction of Chairman Arafat but what happens the morning
after Arafat? This is the new reality that we are faced with in the near
future.
I would conclude by saying that it may be that Chairman Arafat who has
forced other leaders before to expel him from their territory will force
Israel, whoever is the Prime Minister, to take the same move. I remind you
that Arafat got himself expelled from Jordan in late September 1970
challenging the late King Hussein. He got himself expelled from Beirut after
he got the Lebanese Christians so desperate that they came to seek Israel's
support to go all the way to Beirut. He got himself expelled from Northern
Lebanon, from Tripoli, and by the Syrian Army. He got the Palestinian
community, the single and most important and affluent Palestinian community
in the world, the one in Kuwait, he got them all expelled because he
supported Sadam in the Gulf War. No one can exclude the possibility that he
will force our hand to take the action that Israel basically does not have
an interest to take, to expel him and the armed forces of the PLO out of the
territories into which they were allowed according to the Oslo Accords.
If he does that, I think we will find that Israel was facing a situation in
which it really didn't have a choice, but hoping that he does not create
such circumstances, I do believe that we are approaching a situation in
which it will be possible to obtain a sort of an armistice, an armistice
that is a deal which is more than a simple basic cease fire, less than a
peace treaty but has very strong political and territorial dimensions. The
kind of agreement which would be, I believe, very similar to the armistice
agreement concluded between Israel and its Arab neighbours following the War
of Independence - our War of Independence in 1948-49.
The only leader on the other side of the fence who can probably still
conclude such an armistice with us would be Mr Arafat. Then the formula
would be less for less, less than Barak has offered him in Camp David, for
less than Arafat was required to give in Camp David. If you go through the
region’s newspapers you will see that there are earlier ideas popping up and
the exact nature of such formula of less for less. It is my prediction,
although I once had a very clever art professor, who always used to say to
me: Ehud, never make predictions about the Middle East, especially when it
has to do with the future.
So in spite of this good advice, I would say that I think that the present
conflict is running out of steam and there is no case in the history of the
conflict between us and the Palestinians over the past 100 years or so in
which the conflict could sustain itself for more than a year or so. We are
already at the tenth month. I believe a little more time and we will be
there. Thank you very much.
Allen Bolaffi:
Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, I am Allen Bolaffi and I chair
the Australia Israel Chamber of Commerce in South Australia. When you see
the 6 o'clock news we often see a 13 or 14 second snapshot which is designed
to give us a view on world events, be those world events in Bosnia
Herzegovina, the United States or Israel. Very often it is a view that is
tainted with the views of the reporter, the photographer, the journalist or
the news editor. Tonight we have been treated to a most interesting and
honest personal perspective of the current crisis in the Middle East.
Israel is a very dynamic country, the Middle East is very dynamic. Making
predictions about tomorrow you can only do with the benefit of hindsight. We
have heard tonight about Israel's position in the Middle East vis-a-vis its
neighbours and Ehud's brutally personal view on where he thinks things can
go. I believe we all have a better understanding of what was on the 6
o'clock news last night. Ehud, you have given us a clear insight into the
psyche of the Israeli people, what drives them and the great lengths that
they believe they have gone in undertaking the path towards reconciliation.
For this, we thank you.
The friendship between the Australia Israel Chamber of Commerce and the
Hawke Centre shares three common attributes, most of which we have heard
tonight. They are passion, commitment to a cause, and innovation and
entrepreneurship. The Chamber and the Hawke Centre have both grown together
from very humble beginnings and we will continue to go from strength to
strength together with the leadership of Elizabeth Ho and Dr Basil Hetzel,
we will both continue to grow. Ehud, on behalf of all of us, I say thank you
very much, may your work grow from strength to strength and we look forward
to hearing of your success in the future.