As the last of the original founding fathers of Israel, do you see yourself as a dove or as a hawk? It depends. There are occasions when you have to be a dove; there are occasions when you have to be a hawk. Basically I am a dove. Basically I believe it’s time for peace. The history of Israel is divided into two parts. For the first 35 years we didn’t have a choice but to go to war. The last 25 years we have had a choice to go for peace, so we have to go for peace. In the 1960s you refused to negotiate with the Palestinians, yet a few years later you were one of the chief architects of peace. How do you explain this evolution? I wasn’t sure if the Palestinians were ready to become a people, and I thought the real solution should involve the Jordanians. I thought that if the Palestinians and Jordanians would unite under a confederation, our government could talk to them. I worked very hard toward that until 1987, when I reached an agreement with King Hussein, the London agreement, which today everybody says is the best agreement Israel has ever had. But unfortunately the majority of our government rejected it. I think that was the greatest mistake we [ever] committed. Once Jordan was out, we had to find a partner. And then we had to make a choice either of Fatah or Hamas. It was clear to me that Hamas was an extreme religious group, and religious people don’t compromise. So Fatah looked more political. But then we had two problems. By law we shouldn’t be in touch with the PLO, and secondly Arafat had very little respect in our country. So we had to overcome that, and it wasn’t simple. I was then prime minister, Rabin was a member of the government, he had been prime minister, and so was Shamir. So the three of us were supposed to make a decision. Shamir wouldn’t listen, nothing whatsoever, and finally we settled that we should try to make contact with the PLO about the missing solders, but not negotiations. That was approved. So I sent an emissary to see what was happening with the missing soldiers. At that point Arafat was under very strong European influence, the Socialist part of it in particular. A lot of them were exiles or citizens in Scandinavia during the war. It was Willy Brandt, Bruno Kreisky, Olof Palme, and they adopted Arafat as their prot

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