The Center for
Jewish-Arab Economic Development in cooperation with Konrad Adenauer Stiftung
Wednesday, January
30, 2002
How do we get out
of the current crisis? When I meet my Israeli colleagues in the army, in
intelligence or wherever, whatever chance I get, I tell them, If I were an
Israeli, there are two things I would not do. I advise them. Free of charge.
One, I will not win
this war. I don't want to win this war if winning this war means your kids will
take over the Jabalyah refugee camp again and Jericho again and Nablus again,
and gratify this victory of Israel 2002 or whatever.
And the second
thing I would not do would be to allow Palestinians to get used to their
current living conditions. It's easy for you to get angry and put up a
roadblock and prevent fuel from reaching Nablus, then in another two or three
weeks, Hebron or Gaza. When the Palestinians don't have cooking fuel, maybe
they'll use wood to cook with.
Once this changes,
the next day something will appear on the head of the woman cooking with wood.
There will be many changes. And as long as you can't change the fact that
Tel-Aviv is 50 kilometers from Ramallah and Ramallah is 50 kilometers from
Tel-Aviv, I would not do that under any circumstances.
You may get angry.
You may want to feel that you must show them and tell them and -- okay. If this
is what you're going to do, all right. If, at the end of the day, your
intention is to weaken me, you are successful. If you want to make the voice of
Palestinian moderates a voice in the wilderness, you're doing a good job.
For 34 years,
Palestinians were under Israeli occupation. I was 12 years old when the
occupation came to my home town. I was writing graffiti on the walls and
cutting wires. At that time, nobody in my neighborhood told me that there was
any alternative.
Today we are trying
to tell the Palestinians that there is an alternative called peace. It is
fragile. It sounds desperate, like wishful thinking. That's in the current
circumstances when Israelis and Palestinians are burying their dead. But there
is an alternative.
I am a father of
four. It makes my heart ache to know that Israeli parents are afraid to ride
buses or let their children ride buses. It makes my heart ache to see Israeli
people die of suicidal bombers and so on. Just as much as it makes my heart
ache to see Palestinians killed and die.
I can offer the
Palestinians a new infrastructure for electricity or communication. Business
can offer them liberal and encouraging laws. I can offer things on the ground
here. But once the site of a Palestinian harbor or radio station or school or
hospital or factory or farm is destroyed, the other alternatives are very
dreadful. I don't think anything justifies the killing of one Israeli or one
Palestinian. I say that from the depths of my heart. We have an obligation to
stop this.
This is not just a
fight about shooting or injuring people. This requires, above all, reviving
hope in the minds of people who seek the better life with Allah that they are
forbidden to have day to day. I cannot compete with that feeling. Everybody can
contest whatever I say, but nobody can test Allah's will. With that I cannot
compete.
We have a situation
which is deteriorating by the hour, and I don't think we've seen the worst yet.
There's a difference between people who claim to be tough negotiators and
people who are nonnegotiators. Those who have put preconditions on negotiations
throughout the history of conflict resolution -- you can take it for granted,
and regardless of the preconditions -- it means they don't want to negotiate.
Once Palestinians
put preconditions on any negotiation, it means they don't want to negotiate,
and once Israelis put preconditions on any negotiation, that means they don't
want to negotiate. Because what does it cost to negotiate? It's the cheapest
way. It doesn't cost anything. Negotiating in frustration for five years is
cheaper than exchanging bullets for three minutes. The truth is that we now
have an Israeli government which has suspended all forms of negotiations since
last March.
With regard to
security cooperation, we have always said we are willing to convene any
security meetings on a bilateral level for the exchange of information
immediately. But how can you –
By the way, Sharon
is the last person on earth I would like to sit with. Don't ask me why. But you
chose him. He's your democratic choice. I respect that. I will never say it's
irrelevant. You know why? Because if I say he's irrelevant, I cannot hold him
accountable. Once I begin the process of saying Arafat is irrelevant and the
Palestinian Authority is irrelevant, and once I begin the process of making
Palestinian kids do what I want them to do in terms of their security
obligations while they're looking up at the skies and seeing F-15's and
choppers coming –
We don't have a
single Palestiinian police station, intelligence station, national security
station, that is not bombarded. My Ministry of Local Government had plans for
zoning and infrastructure, and it all came crumbling down in Ramallah. I don't
know what to do with my engineers.
Okay. They want to
erode my ability to function and reflect my impotence to the Palestinian people
and say everything we gave you in peace we take away? Fine. Do it. And you're
doing a good job. But don't hold me accountable. If I am irrelevant I have no
accountability, because if you're irrelevant, how can you be accountable?
That's the inherent contradiction. We are not talking about a national IQ that
has dropped to 13 all of a sudden.
Palestinians and
Israelis are solely responsible for getting themselves out of this crisis. We
can do it alone and we must do it alone. It is our children we need to protect
out there. You're not doing me any favor by joining me in the negotiations, and
I promise you I'm not doing you the favor.
The world has
changed around us. General Zinni came here twice. He never failed. He did not
fail. He got acquainted with both parties. He got the trust of both parties and
he began a good process. Then, at the peak of the crisis, he's out. I can't
understand this. Usually a third party's role is, when you have a real crisis,
they come. Now they leave at the peak of crisis and come back when it's
resolved?
What does this
reflect? That the administration is sitting down and calculating its internal
politics and interests. To them it's cost-free to shrug off Arafat and the
Palestinian Authority and not take on the pro-Sharon lobbying in New York.
That's their business.
I don't think we should ask them to be more Palestinian than the Palestinians
or more Israeli than the Israelis. They said they're willing to help. Nobody
can help us if we don't help ourselves. And this insanity must be broken
somehow, somewhere.
We have seen that,
even at the peak of any siege or any closure or anything else you try to do,
you still manage to get Palestinians to come to your streets and kill
themselves. And you want to reach the point of declaring that this is a peace
process?
You want to kill
Arafat? Sharon will kill Arafat. I think he's preparing for that moment. Mark
my words. I am a person who has never held a gun in his hands. But you may hear
one day that Saeb Erekat was killed while trying to stab an Israeli. It will happen.
We have seen political blindness to worse things.
What do you do?
What do you do with us? This Authority is the only guarantee for you, for your
security, for peace and stability, like it or not. These are the facts of life.
Stop thinking of wars, of security, of this and that. Give people hope. Revive
hope in the minds of your neighbors. This is the shortest way to peace and
security.
Today, people are
asking me, Why are you doing this? Why do you continue going to lecture? Do you
get paid for speaking your mind in Gaza and Rafah and Jericho and the American
Colony and Tel-Aviv and Strasbourg and South Africa?
I do it, but not
because it's a job. Six years ago I sent my daughter to a Seeds of Peace Camp.
She was 12 then. She is 18 now, studying in her second year to be a lawyer. I
sit with her and say I made a mistake. This is the worst thing that could
happen to me as a Palestinian.
I belong to a
region where our prophets were reviled and not believed. The majority of the
people did not believe in the prophets till after their deaths. What happened
to Moses? This is relevant to the thinking about decisions.
We are right. I am
right. Yes. When I tell my colleagues that the only option for Palestinians is
the peace process, is negotiations, I mean it, not because it sounds nice, but
because it's the truth.
You want to kill the Palestinian Authority? Go ahead. You can do it. Sharon can
say, We want peace. I will make concessions, but we don't have partners. Is
that the line we want to hear? Nobody will help us if we don't begin to help
ourselves.
The Americans are
nice. They will facilitate. But they will not negotiate on our behalf. We don't
want them to. We don't want them to make the concessions that the Palestinians
and the Israelis must make. It is we. Enough being spoiled. Enough being angry
at each other. We've been in this movie before.
Peace is doable. It
will come. And if there's a partner, it's me. That's it. It's we. Palestinians
are not perfect. Palestinians are not one face, four names and that's it. Your
Palestinian neighbors have their plate overloaded with things and mistakes and
many, many, many empty fictions. Do we sit down and calculate today that we're
going to make six mistakes? We don't do that. But they happen.
This is the only
way out, and this is why I keep calling upon my Palestinian friends. Many of
them -- not all of them -- have to be honest.. Sometimes they feel sorry for
me. Sometimes they think I'm crazy. But the only way to stop this is through a
meaningful dialogue between Palestinians and Israelis.
I want the day to
come when my security colleagues will sit with their Israeli counterparts --
I've been to their meetings. You destroyed these buildings. You had these
suicide bombers. You did this. You did that. I remember 1996, when we used to
sit down together and the first thing was to say, Okay. This needs to be done.
In order for the Palestinians to do it, we need 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. This needs to be
done by you, and we know that if you Israelis want to do it, we need to provide
the following.
We can save lives
as partners by reviving security cooperation, a genuine exchange of
information, genuine cooperation -- by the way, bilaterally -- because the
situation is really urgent. And we don't need to reinvent the wheel. We can
immediately sit down tonight and, in two hours, put down the mutual obligations
that were specified in Mitchell and Tenet and begin the process.
Thank you very
much. Sorry it took so long. I'm willing to take your questions now.
MR. BIDERMAN: Thank
you very much, Dr. Erekat. It's impossible to summarize such a rich
presentation.
DR. EREKAT: You
don't need to summarize. Everybody listened.
MR. BIDERMAN: Peace
is a state of mind. The real barriers are not between Israelis and
Palestinians, but between those who are fighters for peace and those who are
against. The circle must be broken.
Sometimes we feel
as if we're in a time machine, in a conflict between the Middle Ages and the
third millennium. We're in a time machine. We have Washington again, and
Moslems and Rumfords (sic) and Cheneys.
As an Israeli who
grew up here when Arabs would not recognize Israel's right to exist, I
personally appreciate the Palestinian recognition of Israel.
DR. EREKAT: It
stands. It will stand.
MR. BIDERMAN: For
me, that was a dream come true. Another time machine is going back 30 years
when there was nobody to speak to. No partner. It's part of our legacy, I'm
afraid. We should do something ourselves. That's why we initiated this
businessmen's forum in order to start a dialogue. Like you said, we ain't seen
nothing yet.
DR. EREKAT: We have
not. Trust me on that. We have not seen the worst yet.
MR. BIDERMAN: I am
very much afraid of the two-word idiom in English -- too late. Some Israelis
are fearful of the hidden agendas of Palestinians about the future of Israel.
That explains some of the concerns. Some Israelis may have concerns about the
real agenda of the Israeli government and the discussions in the papers about a
big plan to throw more Palestinians out.
I don't think time
is on our side. I fully agree. I don't think we can seek security and say peace
will come, if not now, in the next generation. We don't have this luxury. This
process must be started between these partners.
Three weeks ago, I
saw a photograph of Pakistanis and Indians, prime ministers and ministers of
defense, in a meeting trying to resolve differences. It was very strange,
because looking at the pictures, they all looked so similar. And I am certain
that the rest of the world looks at us the same way. We appreciate our
differences, but frankly, I think Israelis and Palestinian have far more in
common basically than we do with Americans or Europeans. We should remember
that.
Again, I thank you
for your very insightful remarks. Dr. Erekat will welcome questions from the
audience.
MR. BOCIEN: I am
involved in a joint venture in the Palestinian area with a Palestinian partner,
and we are still in operation.
DR. EREKAT: I
salute you.
MR. BOCIEN: My
personal position is that I am for peace. I would like to know the meaning of
the word Jihad for a Palestinian, and what you see as the meaning for an
Israeli.
DR. EREKAT: I was
hoping I wouldn't be asked this question. I'm asked it all the time.
MR. COHEN: I grew
up here, and I more or less agree with everything you said. But you still left
us at a point where there is no solution. We are two hours away from signing an
agreement. Why aren't we signing this agreement? One part of the equation, as
we're supposed to talk about business later on --.
DR. EREKAT: Not
with me. I don't know anything about business.
MR. COHEN: --
trying to analyze this situation from a business point of view, you do a lot of
business with people in the world. In a way, we are entering into a kind of
business agreement as well, with the kind of agreement you are trying to sign
with us. In many situations in business, just five minutes before you sign,
everything shuts down and no business is concluded, and it's not because the
person on the other side is bad or more stupid than you. You just don't succeed
in getting into the same mood. You feel that if you go into partnership with
him, you're not sure it will work out, and you simply don't want to do it.
When you look at
the personalities right now that are supposed to do the signing today, it's
very hard for me to feel like doing business with Sharon. And I have the same
feeling with respect to Mr. Arafat.
The question is, in
order to get to these two hours you speak about, what should we do? Should we
have other people instead of them in order to get to some kind of better trust
and understanding or a different point of view? Because I find it very
difficult -- and I speak only on the Israeli side -- to see Mr. Sharon signing
those arrangements that look extremely logical from my point of view.
MR. DIMITRI: Two
questions, if you'll allow me. First, the Israeli reaction after the latest
suicide bomb in Jerusalem wasn't as loud as we have been used to after other
such bombings, such as the Dolphinarium and others. Is that a change of
strategy, or is there a way of rethinking how to deal with this issue in the
Israel government? What's the PNA's position on this? Second, is there a
strategic plan for the Palestinian National Authority to pressure Sharon to
come up with a political proposal through the people in Israel -- because we
know this is probably the main factor that would affect such a thing -- and
push him to do such a thing?
MR. ZIV: Many
people on the left wing and some people on the right wing have many hopes and
plans for separation. Each party does this for its own political objectives.
For example, the left thinks it's a way to put the settlers behind the fence.
Some of the right wing thinks they can acquire some security this way, or just
start things that would create a dynamic that would improve things.
I am actually
encouraged by the fact that the Palestinian Authority opposes this plan, but
this brings more votes for the right wing. Can you elaborate more on the
political reasons why you oppose separation?
We understand that
the Israelis here are generally not the ones who support the Israeli
government. They are not against, but not part of the solution, or we would not
be here. All the people here, as far as I know, have been very vigilant peace
warriers for years. I myself, since 1967.
But the position we
find ourselves in now, you and us, is one in which nobody trusts each other,
unfortunately. What do you suggest to do? I understand you say, okay, let's go
sit and negotiate. But on the Israeli side, they're asking not for seven days
of peace, but for one day of peace. Let's have one day of peace and give the
leaders who trust each other a chance.
I am not one who
says Arafat is irrelevant. But I read all the books by the people you mentioned
-- Gilead Sher and Ben-Ami -- who said thatt, unfortunately, all the people who
negotiated, you and all the others, can do nothing without Arafat's okay. He's
the one who with the last word.
And as much as we
are pro-peace and anti-settlement and opposed to everything that stands in the
way of the possibility of peace, unfortunately we cannot trust Mr. Arafat when
we see him on TV calling for Jihad, Jihad, Jihad, and let me go be a Shahid in
Jerusalem. How can you expect Israelis to believe in him?
MS. KREIMER: Going
back to the statement about the ANC and the National Party, what would it mean
now for us to strengthen the Palestinian side -- a group of business people
especially -- and what would it mean to look for Palestinians to strengthen the
Israeli side?
UNIDENTIFIED
SPEAKER: I was happy to hear you mentioning negotiations and communication.
There has been a lack of communication or miscommunications or the absence of
opportunity to challenge communications between the Palestinians and the
Israelis for a long time. How can we work out this problem?
DR. EREKAT: I
didn't understand the question.
UNIDENTIFIED
SPEAKER: There is a lack of proper communication between the Palestinians and
Israelis. The media on both sides channel only the local message. Israeli media
and Israeli politics channel their messages to the Israeli community. The
Palestinian media channels only the Palestinian Authority's message to the
Palestinian people. Nobody from either side has been channeling the other's
perspectives, how the others see the message. How can we overcome this problem
of miscommunication or absence of mutual communication?
UNIDENTIFIED
SPEAKER: (In Hebrew, translated by Ms. Kreimer): The speaker spoke of the past
and the present, but no one has spoken of the future. We have to define what
the damage is to both sides of the present situation. At a time when Europe is
uniting and the Middle East is splitting apart, we will get to Jahaliya. In
Bangladesh, they're developing modern industries. How do we get back to negotiations
that can allow development in this part of the world?
MR. BIDERMAN:
Assuming there's a real risk of catastrophe, and Palestinians being the weaker
side, without putting the blame on either side but accepting the principle of
each one being responsible for himself, should the Palestinians consider
adjusting their strategy, not because it's right or wrong, but because there is
a risk that a continuation of this dangerous path may lead to unimaginable
catastrophe which will be more painful, in the short run, for the Palestinian
people?
Second, do you see
any need to address Israeli public opinion more effectively than has been done
so far?