Beyond tribalism

And as some Israelis have gotten more open, the Palestinians have gotten more radical.

Yes, on both sides, it seems that the extremists are taking over. That is very tragic.

How much power do you think that Arafat has to stop the extremists on his side?

I can't answer that question. That is something that the CIA doesn't know, the Mossad doesn't know and Arafat himself probably doesn't know. I can only tell that it is not in the interest of Israel to encourage the downfall of Arafat. It is in the interest of Israel to strengthen Arafat and to make him regain whatever power he lost. And in order to do that, he needs something which he can show to his own people as representing some gains. The Palestinians have received no sign of hope from us.

There are several things which we can do. I don't believe that we can solve the conflict at this time. There's no solution to the conflict. But we can manage the conflict. By that I mean we can take a number of steps that will give the Palestinians some hope. It would be advisable to present these steps as something that Arafat has gained from his contact with Israel. Because so far, he's gained nothing.

What kind of steps?

We can unilaterally dismantle isolated settlements in Gaza. The Zionist dream will not suffer at all if these settlements are not there. They are increasing animosity, bitterness and violence. There's no reason for them to be there. We lose nothing if we agree to dismantle them. There are also small, isolated settlements on the West Bank, which we could dismantle without even beginning to try to solve the larger problem of the settlements.

One of the mistakes Barak made was that he tried to solve the conflict, rather than to manage it. Why was that a mistake? Because we don't have solutions to the big problems. We don't have a solution to the refugee problem right now, we don't have a solution to the settlement problem right now, we don't have a solution to the Jerusalem problem right now. These are the big problems that are hanging in the air between us and the Palestinians right now, but we can manage the conflict in a better way in order to reduce tension and in order to include more Palestinians in the peace process. The major mistake made during the Oslo process was that most Palestinians gained nothing from the whole process.

But many Israelis and American Jews believe that the Palestinians don't want peace with Israel -- and maybe that Arafat doesn't want peace with Israel -- and that they just want to see Israel destroyed. Do you think this might be true?

No, I don't see that this is the case. The Palestinians have made some very, very slow progress over many, many years. Eventually they have brought themselves to the point where they have made an agreement with Israel. We always praise the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin for shaking hands with Arafat and we say, "Wow, how difficult that was for him." Well, it was difficult for Arafat as well. Both sides have given up some of their basic positions, which is good. But we are still very, very far apart from each other.

How should Israel talk about Palestinian statehood?

It is in the interest of Israel to encourage Palestinian statehood. The Palestinians probably need a whole generation of statehood before they can reach the point which we have reached, where we were able to say to ourselves, "Our state is secure, our future is secure and we don't care to fight Palestinian kids anymore." But this is a realization you can make only after you have experienced a long period of statehood, having developed your own institutions and your own culture and made your own mistakes. Then at one point, you can say, well, there are other things that are worth more. Just as many Israelis realized that there are other things which are worth more than fighting Palestinians or holding on to the territories.

Is peace possible with Sharon as prime minister?

I don't see a possibility of peace either with Sharon or Arafat in power. For the simple reason that these are people whose whole lives have been spent fighting each other. People at 72 or 75 don't change all of a sudden. Sharon may be prevented from making war, but I don't think that he can be pushed into making peace.

Is there a desire in Sharon's administration to end the Palestinian Authority?

I don't know. He may be pragmatic enough to realize that it's better for Israel to maintain the Palestinian Authority. He may find himself in an automatic process that can't be stopped anymore. Things may get out of control. But if he really wanted to get rid of the Palestinian Authority and Arafat, he would have done so a long time ago without hesitation.

Why do you think Sharon decided to attack Arafat's compound? Was it just a political statement?

Because he has nothing else to do. That's what he does best. If he had suicide terrorists at his disposal, then your question would be justified. He doesn't have suicide terrorists to send to Arab towns. The only thing he has is the air force. That's what we know how to do. Destroying Arafat's helicopters is really an indication of helplessness, because what difference does it make? He will buy himself new helicopters or get them for free from some country. So what's the big deal? Also, this is the only thing we can bomb without killing civilians. We don't want to kill Arafat. The options are very limited, so that's what we do.

So do you blame Arafat for what has happened in recent weeks?

Of course I blame him for many things. Compare him to David Ben-Gurion under the British. David Ben-Gurion, for 30 years, worked on building a state. When the state was ready, he declared independence. Arafat is doing it the other way around. He's declaring independence but he has done nothing for his own people. There is nothing, no infrastructure, nothing. He is really only a war leader, and that is very tragic for the Palestinians. They have no leadership that really does something for the Palestinians. Arafat has built up an utterly corrupt and inefficient system with very frequent violations of human rights of his own people. A Palestinian prison is worse than an Israeli prison -- and an Israeli prison is bad enough for a Palestinian. There is no infrastructure of anything. And he had so many years to prepare it.

Did he have the money and support?

Since Oslo, he had all the money in the world. But instead of buying 50,000 computers, he bought 50,000 guns. Now he has a small oligarchy of people wearing uniforms and running around with weapons and he has no educational system and no medical system and no economic infrastructure. He blames all of it on Israel, and indeed Israel did not encourage him. The whole world did not lead him toward a positive direction and that is something which everybody shares the blame for. The world -- meaning the U.S. and Japan and Europe -- gave him enormous sums of money and they never told him what to do with it, probably part of the politically correct position that you do not tell someone what to do with his money. You don't want to be paternalistic. And so he wasted his money. The enthusiasm in the world immediately after Oslo was so enormous, as was the willingness of rich countries to pay for a Palestinian infrastructure. He wasted it all.

That's where I blame him. Not where he missed this or that opportunity, because I don't really know that he did. It's too easy to say, "Israel offered so much. You should have taken that."

Were you surprised when he rejected Barak's proposal?

Next Page: "The Palestinian tragedy was inevitable"

• View blog reactions