Mister Minister, the Israel Palestinian peace process is in total deadlock. On the one hand your government refuses to stop colonization, to withdraw from the lines of the 1967
frontiers asked by US president BarackObama, and on the other Hamas
refuses Israel the right to exist. How long can this last?

What you’ve said about Hamas is true. What you’ve said about Israel is not true. We are ready to have a two state [country] for two [kinds of] people; we are open to negotiation. We are aware the Middle East is heading towards a problematic period. We are ready to play our part to honestly and genuinely find a solution dealing, of course, with boarder
security, refugees and end-of-conflict.

But not the 1967 frontiers…

I don’t think the difference is that much. We strongly believe the major settlement blocks and the Jewish neighborhood in Jerusalem should be part of Israel and borders should be delimited within which we’ll have a solid majority for generations to come. On the other hand there will be a place for a demilitarized independent Palestinian state viable on
any aspect.

How has Israel reacted to Mubarak’s fall in Egypt and recent events from the Arab Spring?

The political aspect from the streets of Tunisia to Bahrain is extremely important historically because nothing like this has happened in the past 100 years since the collapse of the Ottoman empire. Nothing will be the same. It’s clear to us that we could find ourselves alone as the only stable island of democracy and Western values in the region. And we might have to protect ourselves alone. But we do not pretend that we can influence. We hope for them [Egypt’s citizen] that it will develop in the right direction. Probably in the long term it is an extremely inspiring movement, but in the short term it could easily end up with some of these countries being taken over by extremists and some others by dictators that we cannot predict. Time will tell, we are clearly living in
interesting times.

Do you fear possible reactions from Hezbollah or Iran should Bashar
Al-Assad be overthrown?

First of all we feel that if he’s overthrown by his own people it means he has lost his legitimacy and effectiveness. And I believe that he is doomed. Bashar
Al-Assad is doomed because he used so much brutal force that he lost legitimacy in the eyes of his own people. He will probably survive for several months in a weakened [position] but he is basically doomed. This will weaken dramatically both Iran and Hezbollah, I believe that some of their responses have to do with the fact they genuinely feel that without Assad they will be much weaker and that’s a good reason for Hezbollah to be worried, and we should not regret it.

Does Israel wish for the fall of Bashar Al-Assad?

We do not pretend to control events in the neighborhood. We do not even influence, we do not make vain kind of hollow prayers. We tried for a long time to find a way to make peace with the Assad family. I tried as a prime minister with his father, but we could not accomplish it because he wanted all of his demands to be accepted before the opening of negotiations and as a condition to open it. That was unacceptable. We tried with his son Bashar in the past to see if there was an opportunity. It’s now too late. Even if he survives, he will not have the legitimacy or power to go into negotiations or make the decisions needed in order to achieve peace. In this regard we are out of the game. But my observation as former intelligence head is that he’s over. It might take another few months, but something new is going to happen. And because he lost his capacity to bring peace, I don’t see a great threat in having someone else, probably to end up in a
better regime.

Do you feel that the vacuum left by Hosni Mubarak in Egypt could benefit
fundamentalist movements?

It could but I hope it won’t. I hope that inner balance in Egypt will be strong enough, mainly that the armed forces play the role of caretaker and stabilizer. That’s the only wide scale meritocracy in Egypt.

It’s a place where upward social mobility holds a lot of influence, a lot of respect from the public. So probably they could be a sort of balance to the extremists. Probably they could reach equilibrium with them at a price. Syria, I believe, is more secular than people think. So probably after the fall of Bashar there will be some coalition, but I don’t think that the Muslim brothers will be especially effective. No one can predict what will happen because there are a lot of tribes, some quite extreme. And Yemen, of course, is a big riddle. But basically all is overshadowed by Iran.

We should never lose sight of Iran. This is the motto, the engine behind many events, the one who wants to harvest the fruits of this. And sanctions will get much looser because of the fall of these autocrats. The attention is, for the falling autocrats around the Arab world, on the price of oil, so they feel quite happy for the time being. But, as I mentioned, they keep trying to reach nuclear military capability. They keep sponsoring terror everywhere.

Do you think Iran could ignite a war between Shias and Sunnis?

Probably. We can’t make prophecies in the Middle East, especially about the future. They probably might try. They have their own things to worry about and if the world will stand united against them, accelerating the sanctions and making them more deadly, making clear that all options are on the table, they probably will behave more benignly.

   Email This Post      Print This Post