-Caveat Lector- Like it or not, there are two sides to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Here is yet another example of how the Palestinians keep shooting themselves in the head by choosing and backing the worst possible leadership at the most crucial points in their history. Some people never learn. " You don't bring a knife to a gunfight." Joshua2 ================ Special Dispatch June 13, 2001 No. 229 Peace Now Leader: 'I Feel People Think I'm an Idiot' In an interview last week with the Jerusalem weekly Iton Yerushalaym, Professor Amiram Goldblum - an associate of Peace Now's National Secretariat and the Head of the movement's Settlement-Watch Team - discussed the disillusionment of Israel's peace camp, supported unilateral separation, called for the annexation of 50% of the settlers, and opposed the Palestinian 'right of return'. Following are excerpts from the interview:(1) "In a full-page ad in the June 1, 2001 addition of Ha'aretz newspaper, the Peace Now movement called on the Israeli public to join them for a protest in Jerusalem calling for a settlement freeze and ceasefire. That protest never took place. Professor Amiram Goldblum explains, "Immediately following the suicide bombing at the Tel Aviv disco club [which killed 20 Israelis and wounded over a hundred], hundreds of people called and said they felt it would be too difficult to protest. This is bad timing [they said], no one would listen to us, everyone is mourning." Q: "But it seems that particularly now there is a need for voices calling for ceasefire." A: "One of the things we have learned throughout years of experience is [the importance of] paying attention to the street and taking its needs under consideration..." Q: "How many people were you expecting at the protest?" A: "Around a thousand people." Q: "During the Lebanon war you gathered 400 thousand protestors." A: "The truth is that there weren't really 400 thousand protestors there. But true, there were a few hundreds of thousands of us. Now we have to start from scratch..." Q: "Sic Transit Gloria Mundi? [Latin: this is how the world's glory passes?]" A: "We are trying to become capable of sweeping a large camp [behind us] when the time is right and when the camp is ready. We cannot make things just happen out of thin air." "Indeed thin air [the interviewer interjects]. The peace process is at a dead end; the largest extra-parliamentary peace movement is parked at the side of the road on its rims. Goldblum himself attests to the feelings of bewilderment when I asked him whether the name 'Peace Now' is not a little out of touch with our reality, or even with our dreams for that matter." "The name is very problematic" Goldblum says. "Today I would not choose the same name for the movement, but we can't change it now. I find this name extremely difficult and it is even a source of embarrassment for me. I can't even put the movement's sticker on my car. I even have a problem with our one add campaign which I used to think was the best we ever had: 'Peace is preferable than the whole land of Israel.' Today it is impossible to talk about peace the same way we used to in the past. This is very clear; to me it is very clear." Q: "What is the difficulty?" A: "You observe the hatred on the Arab side and you observe the hatred on our side towards them. [You can tell that] their hatred is much worse then ours. During a recent Peace Now meeting, I discussed the benefits of a unilateral separation, and one who objected to my thesis said that I nourish [an Israeli] Apartheid and intensify the hatred. An Arab member of Peace Now responded to that man: 'follow me to the West Bank and witness for yourself what is going on there, see for yourself how much you Israelis are hated there." Q: "In times past, when the movement was effective, and thus also dangerous for your political rivals, people used to throw stones and shatter your windows with the Peace Now sticker displayed on them. Does any one bother even picking up a stone today [at the sight of a Peace Now sticker]?" A: "I feel that people look [at the Peace Now sticker] and say: 'what an idiot is driving this car'..." Q: "During the peace talks with Egypt, and later during the Lebanon war and especially following Sabra and Shatila, you influenced, and at times even set, the national agenda despite the fact that the Left was in the opposition." A: "Today we are unable to set the agenda. But look at how much has happened since the time when we where established and called for negotiations with the PLO." Q: "I do see what happened: we made a full circle only to come back to the starting point, only that now the hope is shattered or dismantled at best." A: "It is very shattered; there is no doubt about it." "Unlike his friends who cheered the Oslo agreement, Goldblum thought it was an unworkable agreement, and even today he disagrees with Peace Now's official guidelines regarding a preferable agreement. [Goldblum says,] "I listened to people who were talking about peace yesterday during our meeting, these people don't understand anything. They use a different area of the brain when compared with people who witness the reality as it is. I don't believe in a peace agreement that can change the situation with a simple stroke of a pen." Q: "Your movement keeps on supporting interim agreements; what are your suggestions?" A: "I think that as long as the occupation continues it will be impossible to achieve peace. The method of conducting peace negotiations while continuing the occupation has reached its limits. I recommend pulling out of the territories unilaterally and begin peace negotiations at a point where occupation no longer exists." Q: "As a prime minister, would you take such a security risk?" A: "The starting point would be an airtight security closer, a creation of a 310 Kilometers security fence along the Green Line, an airtight closing of the border between Jordan and the Palestinian territory, between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, and of the Mediterranean. This closure would be so complete that is would allow us to inspect every mouse entering Israel." Q: "But if we maintain presence alongside the Jordan River, this means not bringing the occupation to its end." A: "Hold on a second. This will first of all mean that we end the occupation of Palestinian communities. You cease the control of their daily lives and of their free passage inside the Palestinian territories. Today, the IDF is controlling 190 checkpoints of passages between A areas [full PA control] and B areas [PA civil control and Israel security control]. This is the problem with Oslo - it was constructed around the existence of settlements. The Palestinians were idiots too for agreeing to defer the settlement issue to the final status agreement." Q: "You are saying 'I don't want to control their daily lives' but when you control the checkpoints between your territory and theirs you are still very much in control of their lives ." A: "Excuse me, I need to protect my safety; this is my first priority. Following the establishment of the fence, I would pull out the settlers and the soldiers. Behind the fences I would create a Judenrein or Israelenrein territory - if Jews would want to live there and if they get the Palestinian approval for it, they may go ahead and live there." Q: "Only a defeat in the battlefield will bring Israel to sign an agreement which supports a total evacuation of the settlements. In such a case, there is not going to be a need for Israel's agreement to it anyway." A: "I am not suggesting evacuating all the settlements. I have no problem what so ever with annexing 50% of the settlers..." Q: "Do you consider Gilo a settlement? [an Israeli neighborhood on the eastern outskirts of Jerusalem, which has been under constant fire in the recent few months from the Palestinian town of Beit Jallah]" A: "Of course it is a settlement, a settlement that must be annexed into Israel's territory. I'll be even more pungent: I believe that we should annex the Har Homa neighborhood, a neighborhood against which my movement fought a stupid campaign. Har Homa has a territorial contiguity with the state of Israel. To say that Har Homa disturbs the contiguity of the Palestinian territory and to turn this in to a possible cause for war is rubbish, it's stupidity." Q: "The security fence that you are proposing will not be capable of preventing shootings at some neighborhoods in Jerusalem and Bat Hefer. If this happens, what would we do then?" A: "[In my scenario,] this [the Palestinian territory] would be a sovereign state and they will not be able to use the excuse of ['independent'] 'Tanzim' activists shooting. Today, it is very hard to demand of Arafat the type of security [we could demand of him as a head of state]." Q: "It happens that sovereign states open fire on other sovereign states." A: "In that case, we would go in and take care of business." Q: "Are you basing your argument on the assumption that a sovereign Palestinian state would not condone shootings on Ha'anafa street?" A: "I don't know. As far as I am concerned, it is preferable to conduct a state-against-state type of war from the international border over an ongoing occupation and hurting of civilians..." Q: "At Camp David, Barak agreed for the 'right of return' of refugees, the media reported that it was agreed that 100 thousand refugees would return. Do you find this acceptable?" A: "I object to the 'right of return' and I struggled with members of my movement who tried to put forth all kinds of formulas regarding the subject. My objection also stems from the fact that the idea of the 'right of return' goes against the idea of a Palestinian state. My argument is based on the notion that nationalism is a necessary evil. It is true today and it will remain true for the next few centuries. Nationalism is an idea based on people living separately and not mixed with other nations. We already have a 20% Arab minority, and this is a very substantial minority, almost unprecedented in normal nation states. In our case, the situation is further complicated by the fact that this minority is tied to the struggle of enemies from the outside. Nations [with such internal complexities] usually fall apart. Every refugee that we will allow to come in here would increase the size of the minority and exacerbate this problem..." Q: "Will that hurt, in your opinion, the Jewish character of the state of Israel?" A: "...What is really important to me is that this should be the state of the Jews, not a mixed state and not a state of all its citizens." Q: "Would Peace Now have rejected any agreement brought by Barak that included the 'right of return'?" A: "That is not what I said. Peace Now would support and advance any agreement that both sides agreed to. I admit that there are conceivable peace agreements that I would feel uncomfortable with." Q: "What do you mean by 'uncomfortable'? If the Prime Minister will reach an agreement that includes the 'right of return', would you sell it to the public despite the fact that you believe it is wrong and might even be dangerous? A: "Look, a peace agreement is made of many elements. Regarding the 'right of return', it is clear to me that no agreement can include a significant right of return. At best, an agreement could include family reunification of a hundred families per year, this is nonsense..." Q: "Would you vote against such an agreement [that includes the 'right of return']?" A: "No. I would support the agreement, I would support Peace Now...In the big scheme of things, supporting an agreement is more important..." Endnotes: (1) Iton Yerushalaym. June 8, 2000. ************************ The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) is an independent, non-profit organization that translates and analyzes the media of the Middle East. Copies of articles and documents cited, as well as background information, are available on request. The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) P.O. 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