Beyond tribalism

Not really, because for one thing I never knew and I don't know now what it is we offered them.

Really? Why?

Everybody says something else. I felt then, and I feel even more strongly today, that the problems are too deep. I felt that it was wrong of Barak to go to Camp David and try to solve the problem. The problem has existed for the last 100 years and it can't be solved in a week at Camp David.

The pathetic thing about some of the people who participated in those talks, like Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami and [American negotiator] Dennis Ross, is that they now write books saying, "We were that close! Almost!" It's like the gambler: "I put another dollar on the table and I will get rich!" Well, it doesn't work that way.

It's so tragic because some people told Barak that it wouldn't work. At least one of them is very worth listening to because he's more experienced than everyone else: Shimon Peres. He told him, "Don't talk about the refugees, don't talk about Jerusalem, don't talk about the settlements. These are problems which we cannot solve. Talk about things which we can do now." This is what Oslo was all about -- about time, small steps over a very long period of time. But here comes Mr. Barak with his Napoleonic megalomania and says, "I will make peace." And so it all exploded. It's not only his fault. It's the nature of the subjects which came on the table. They don't have a solution.

Is the refugee problem the biggest concern?

Yes, because as long as being a refugee for so many people is not part of diplomatic history but an everyday reality, they cannot give up the hope to return to their homes. We have not yet created a distinction between the dream and their reality as refugees. Many of them live in camps where two people can't walk next to each other on the lane because the houses are so close to each other. The conditions are very, very poor there. That's an everyday reality for a third and fourth and fifth generation of refugees. And so naturally they can't accept anything less than a suggestion to return to their homes. Since that is impossible, we must realize that we don't have a solution to that problem at this time. So we need a lot of time.

Some people say if only the Palestinians had accepted the U.N. partition resolution of 1947 none of this would have happened.

The partition plan was not something that could work. The Zionist movement accepted it only because the Arabs rejected it. It was a diplomatically smart thing to do. Indeed, ever since those days we've used that smart move of 1947. The borders which this commission drew on a map could not have worked -- it left many Jews in the Arab state and it left 50,000 Arabs under Jewish control. It was just something you draw on a map. The principle was important, yes. But the Arabs had rejected an earlier partition plan of 1937 [the British Peel Commission plan, which awarded the Arabs far more territory than the U.N. plan, and which was also rejected by the Zionists] and the plan of 1947 was even worse. There was no way that they could accept it. If they had, we would still have war because these two countries wouldn't be able to live in the borders which the U.N. designed for them.

But from a diplomatic point of view, the Arabs made a mistake. They should have accepted it, just the way we did. But we did not accept it because we thought that was what was going to be -- we accepted it because we realized that it was the smart thing to do. Israelis knew that war was inevitable. They couldn't be sure that the Arabs would be defeated, but they knew that war was inevitable.

I ended up much more pessimistic when I ended the book than when I began. I began under the spirit of Oslo; I asked myself, "When was the last time that Jews and Arabs lived together? Under the British Mandate, so let's look at that because that's what we're trying to do now." By the time I finished the book, I reached the conclusion that the war of 1948 was inevitable, which unfortunately means that the Palestinian tragedy was inevitable.

Is this because Zionism and Arab nationalism were utterly incompatible?

Yes, I think so. The Arabs needed more time to realize that Zionism would prevail. As long as they had doubts about that, they objected. Some of them still do, but some don't. Surprise, surprise, we have a peace agreement with Egypt, which many people forget, but it's almost 25 years old. Surprise, surprise, we have a peace agreement with Jordan. The Jordanians gave up the West Bank -- things which in 1967 were inconceivable.

So to go back to whether the Palestinians want to destroy Israel or do not want peace -- they might not want it, but I think that they have realized that Israel is there to stay. They are really fighting, not against the existence of Israel, but for better conditions of independence, for the best they can get. They know they will get better conditions than they have now. Israel in fact supports the establishment of a Palestinian state; at least, 60 percent of Israelis do. The Palestinians know that they are really fighting for better conditions, but at present, their situation is very, very bad. Israeli oppression is very, very harsh. They really don't have any reason to tell themselves, "Let's concede something." They're getting harder.

And were their conditions always worse than the Zionists', even before independence?

Yes. Of course, their situation was much worse because they didn't have their own institutions, and mostly because the level of education was so low. This was a rural society and the British did not encourage them to develop their own education. After 30 years of British rule, seven out of 10 Palestinian kids didn't go to school, while practically all Jewish kids went to school. We really won 1948 as a result of our cultural and educational and technological superiority, rather than our military superiority.

Why did the Arabs have such a leadership problem then as well?

Because they are a very traditional society. It took them a very long time to get out of their very primitive, rural conditions and develop, even in the practical terms of communication between one village and the other, one city and another. Newspapers were useless for a long time because very few people could read them. They were organized around families rather than political parties. Their whole political development was very far from the Zionist development, which basically came from Europe and enjoyed the support of the British.

What role did terrorism play in pre-independence Palestine? How did that affect how long the British remained and how they regarded both Jews and Arabs?

Arab terrorism was more effective than Jewish terrorism. The Arabs fought against the British mostly and again, by 1939, the British realized that Palestine means trouble. They could have left in 1939 if it were not for World War II. The Jewish terrorist organizations, which acted mostly against the British, had some effect on the British. The British would have left without Jewish terrorism, but they had some effect. All these big headlines in the newspapers caused many people in England to write to their prime minister, letters which really sounded like things Israelis said in the '80s, namely: "Why is my son still in Gaza? Why is my son in Hebron? Why is my son in Jericho?"

Interestingly enough, David Ben-Gurion traveled to London and had long talks with Foreign Minister [Ernest] Bevin, pleading that the British stay on in Palestine. "Don't leave us now, because we are not ready for the real enemy which is not you, but the Arabs." This is a strange situation, where on the one hand some Jewish extremist organizations are acting against the British and the Zionist leadership is actually pleading with the British to stay.

It is, again, somewhat similar to the situation today. We are telling Arafat to stop terrorism. The British told David Ben-Gurion to stop terrorism. And David Ben-Gurion said, well, I wish I could. And Arafat is saying, well, I wish I could. In fact, if terrorism could be stopped, the British would have stopped it. If today's terrorism could be stopped, we would stop it. If these people could be arrested, as we require Arafat to arrest them, we would arrest them ourselves. If we could prevent terrorism as we've demanded Arafat prevent it, we would prevent it ourselves. Obviously, we can't. And he can't.

Was there a moment during British control when an opportunity arose for the two sides to come together?

I don't really think so. One of the things especially leftist people in Israel do is constantly ask themselves, Where did we go wrong? What mistakes did we make? They come up with all kinds of answers: We could have been nicer to the Arabs, maybe we should have all learned Arabic, maybe we could have been more open to Arab culture. But these are all minor things. Yes, here and there we made mistakes. But basically this is an inevitable conflict. The Arabs didn't want us there. And they have a very, very hard time realizing that we are there to stay. At least in that, the Zionist leadership was right when they said we need to be strong and convince the Arabs that we are here forever.

That was the right Zionist position to take, that is the Israeli position today. The question is, of course, what makes us strong? Some people believe that we will be stronger if we pull back from the occupied territories and I definitely think so. I don't regard them as a source of strength, I regard them as a source of trouble.

What do Israelis think about the occupied territories?

After 35 years of occupation, most Israelis don't regard most of the territories as part of Israel. This is really interesting. Many of the settlers don't regard their own settlement as part of Israel. To ask settlers where they bury their dead -- if they bury their dead there, where they live, then that's a sign that they feel at home there and are there to stay. But many of them bring their dead to Israel. Because they know that eventually they will not be able to stay there forever.

Also, tragically, many Israelis feel stronger about people who get killed by terrorist actions inside Israel than for people who get killed on the settlements. It's a very clear distinction they make. They don't even regard Arab East Jerusalem as part of Israel. Israelis don't go there.

What should the U.S. role be? You must not have agreed with Clinton's role at Camp David.

Obviously, the U.S. was part of that mistake, of Camp David. Just as Barak was at the end of his term in office, also Clinton was at the very end of the term in office. It was really like a gambler whose wife is standing at the door of the casino and says, "OK, you have five minutes more. And then we go home."

Basically, without the U.S. we cannot ever get talks rolling again. We really need the U.S. intervention in the process. These are two sides who don't talk to each other right now, so you need a marriage counselor. The first Bush months were really very harmful to the situation, when he pretended that he could just ignore the Middle East. Now he has sent us somebody who is new to the conflict, but I understand that he is learning fast because wherever he stays, something blows up outside his hotel. I hope that the U.S. will play an active role in getting us and the Palestinians to talk.

What's the first thing that needs to happen?

The first thing is to reduce terrorism. I don't go for these ultimatums of seven days or six days or five days of complete lack of violence. You can talk to your enemy even if your enemy shoots at you, because otherwise he wouldn't be your enemy. The very fact that we have terrorism is not something that should prevent us from talking. It's a question of the level of terrorism -- that has to be reduced. Also, for political reasons, it's just impossible for an Israeli government to go and sit and talk to the Palestinians when 25 teenagers get blown up in Jerusalem and Haifa. The same is true for the Palestinians. If we kill some Palestinian boys and girls, then the Palestinian leadership can't sit down and talk to us as if nothing has happened. There's a very strong level of emotion here. That would be the first step.

The second step would be to ease the closure on Palestinian towns and villages and let more Palestinians work in Israel and ease the freedom of movement. Make life a little bit less miserable for the Palestinians. And it would be a very easy thing to dismantle the settlements. That would at least give the Palestinians some kind of hope. Then, we'll see what happens next. Nothing should be done fast, except reduction of terrorism and making life easier for Palestinians. These are the two acute problems.

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