Diplomacy: 'Every solution will be PAINFUL'

HERB KEINON AND DAVID HOROVITZ


Prime Minister Ehud Olmert sat comfortably behind his desk at his official residence in Jerusalem looking refreshed and seeming buoyant. He had recently met in the same room with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and was in a good mood - less sarcastic than he can be, less fidgety than is sometimes his wont. Of Abbas he spoke pleasantly: Olmert said the PA leader genuinely wanted peace and that in his heart of hearts he recognized Israel as a Jewish state. In fact, the prime minister had warm things to say about all those whom he mentioned by name during the course of the hour-plus interview: Russian President Vladimir Putin, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Jordanian King Abdullah II and US President George W. Bush.

Especially Bush. Two large photos of Olmert and Bush grace the prime minister's study: one with Olmert's hand on the president's shoulder, and the other of the two of them strolling, apparently engrossed in deep conversation. Olmert is proud of those pictures; he mentioned them twice; they reflect the relationship he has cultivated with Bush.

"President Bush is a giant friend of ours," Olmert said. "One of his most senior aides said that... he doesn't know of another relationship with similar intimacy, a bond of souls, as that between Israel and the United States."

Even though Olmert has made clear he would be willing to make deep concessions to the Palestinians - and noted in this interview that even Israel's best friends see a future in which Israel ultimately won't be much larger than the 1967 lines - few people actually believe that Olmert and Abbas will reach an agreement by the end of this year. But, while some speculate that Olmert wants to drag out negotiations until after the US elections in November to see who will be the next US president, Olmert argued the exact opposite.

He said that if an agreement is to be signed with the Palestinians, it is preferable to negotiate it with Bush in the White House, and with a supporting cast of friends in key capitals around the world - like Nicolas Sarkozy in Paris, Angela Merkel in Berlin and Gordon Brown in London. Throw the Quartet's envoy Tony Blair into the mix, and what you have, in Olmert's view, is almost "the hand of God."

That's an interesting description, all the more so since, following the Second Lebanon War in 2006, the conventional wisdom was that it would take nothing less than divine providence to keep Olmert in office at the end of 2007.

The past year was one during which he faced the damning interim report of the Winograd Committee, unparalleled low poll numbers, a number of scandals and a fragile coalition that rests on the support of two parties, Shas and Israel Beiteinu, whose ideologies run counter to what Olmert says must be done ultimately with the Palestinians: separate by making deep concessions based largely along the 1967 lines.

But survive Olmert did. And in the world according to the prime minister, his government - judging by the ease with which it passed the 2008 budget - is effective and stable; most Palestinians understand that there will be no "right of return"; a majority of Israelis will support an agreement he thinks is fitting; the Russians are not Israel's enemies; the Syrians should prove themselves as potential peace partners and may do so; and as far as the Iranians are concerned, "Israel is a strong state and it has the capacity and the will to prevent a circumstance in which it will stand in existential danger."

In this interview, on the occasion of the new calendar year, Olmert looked forward with neither boundless euphoria nor deep gloom to the challenges facing the country. But he looked forward as prime minister, preparing to host a first Bush presidential visit, and with relative confidence about retaining his post for a while. Few people a year ago would have bet on that.

You've said several times that it is vital to Israel that we reach a two-state solution. Can you elaborate? You've even been quoted saying the country is finished if that can't be achieved.
I never said exactly that, and I've also stressed publicly that I never used those words. Sometimes it happens in newspapers, not yours of course, that a half sentence is taken from the beginning, and a half sentence from the end, and everything is lost in the middle.

I said that if the solution of two states for two peoples is not realized - and Israel will have to deal with a reality of one state for two peoples - that this could bring about the end of the existence of Israel as a Jewish state. That is a danger one cannot deny; it exists, and is even realistic...

There is a picture over there (Olmert points to a black-and-white photograph at the side of his office) of my parents at a young age, taken in 1930. They were born in Russia, in the Ukraine, but went to China in 1917 when the Jews fled from the Russian Revolution. In the world of 1930, the end of the '20s, when there was no CNN, no digital world, no satellites and no communications that crossed continents, mountains and oceans in a flash, the Zionist idea [nonetheless] seeped to the end of the world, to northern China, and reached the Jewish community in Harbin and conquered the hearts of my parents. They immigrated to Israel in 1933, and they immigrated - this I know from them - to live in a Jewish democratic state.

It was inconceivable to them that in their son's generation there would be a threat to the very Jewishness of the State of Israel... [to] the nature, character and purpose of the State of Israel as a Jewish state.

We must provide an answer to that question. We cannot ignore it. Can Israel continue to hold on to the territories from the Jordan to the sea, [with] a non-Jewish population that even now is approaching the number of Jews in Israel, and taking into consideration that, with the reproduction rate, the [Arab population] can surpass [the Jewish population] in 20 or 30 years?

What will be if we don't want to separate? Will we live eternally in a confused reality where 50 percent of the population or more are residents but not equal citizens who have the right to vote like us? The moment that happens, the threat [to Israel's Jewish democratic character] is likely to be realized. My job as prime minister, more than anything else, is to ensure that doesn't happen.


But do the Palestinians - who also understand the demographic process - truly want a viable two-state solution? The impression is that this idea is losing ground with them.
The vast majority of the Palestinians want to live in their own state... But the question of whether or not they want this is not the measure by which I need to judge things. The question is whether we understand, and we do understand, that we need to draw the necessary conclusions, and also pay the price. And the price is very high, and there are risks.

I don't live in a bubble... I know what I am dealing with, who the Palestinians are. There are many people who in my opinion want to live in peace with us. But there are terrorist groups, fundamentalists, fanatics, those without any tolerance, who live according to a value system completely different than the value system of the Western world, which we are a part of. And that is a threat. There are no simple solutions... Every solution will be painful, but we have to deal with it. We cannot close our eyes... In the end we will find a way to a solution. First, we have to seriously try the path of negotiations. And that is what we are doing now.

And how is it going? Has anything moved since Annapolis?
We are talking about a conflict of 100 years, or if you want 60 years, and you are asking about what has happened in three or four weeks since Annapolis, about why the world has not turned upside down. This is a process that takes time...

Look, Abu Mazen [Abbas] and Abu Ala [Ahmed Qurei] sat in this room [last Thursday]. I imagine that if you would have asked me 30 years ago what I thought about Abu Mazen - and 30 years ago I was a Knesset member - I almost certainly would have said that he was a terrorist. He was a member of Fatah, which had on its banner the end of the existence of the State of Israel, and was not even ready to think about the recognition of Israel or peace with Israel. You sit with Abu Mazen today and he unequivocally speaks about recognizing Israel, and about peace with Israel. He has signed agreements with us. He said he wants to fulfill those agreements and believes in them. There has been a change, and it is not only with him. You hear [the same from] Salaam Fayad, his prime minister.

I'm not saying that there are no differences [between us]. There are. They want more territory; I want to give less territory. They want parts of Jerusalem that I will never separate from.

But they want peace with me, and that is to say there has been a certain change...

Has there been a change in the Palestinian stance on the refugee issue?
I think it is possible to solve the refugee problem, in a way that will not threaten the Jewish identity of Israel. I do not accept the principle of a "right of return." I don't accept it and I never have...

The idea of a right of return was born at the end of the 1940s, at the beginning of the '50s, when there was a refugee problem. It is not important now what the size was, or the cause, but there was a problem. I don't think we intentionally created it. The creation of Israel created a reality of which one result was refugees.

When they thought of a solution, since they did not think of establishing a Palestinian state, the only solution that seemed [possible] was a return to the places from which they had left.

The whole idea of the establishment of a Palestinian state is to enable those same people to live in a Palestinian state, and not in the State of Israel. So to speak today about a solution to the refugee problem in the terms that were right in the '50s or '49 is to be cut off from reality.

We believe in our hearts that they are the ones who prevented a solution so many years earlier. They think that we are to blame for it. One thing is certain: The reality of today is different from what it was then. So that solution [of a refugee return] is not relevant to today's reality. It will not come to pass.

The entire world agrees to the establishment of a Palestinian state that will be vital, contiguous, free and democratic, that will live alongside Israel and that will be established so the Palestinians live in it. It can't be that a Palestinian state will be established so that the Palestinians will come to live in Israel...

As long as Hamas is so strong, can Abu Mazen be flexible on the refugee issue or anything else?
Abu Mazen is not in control of Gaza, so a strong Hamas in Gaza does not add or detract from his ability to reach understandings... That is their test. In the final analysis the Palestinians will need to choose between the myth of the "right of return‚" and their possibility to establish a Palestinian state, where the Palestinians will live. This is their choice. Our choice is between our very natural desire to live in the whole Land of Israel, which in all our hearts we believe is ours, and the need to compromise on parts of Eretz Yisrael to ensure the existence of the State of Israel as a Jewish state.

We need to decide, and they also need to decide. And I am not sure that everyone on our side is ready for the decision. There are many parties in the Knesset who are talking in a way that is detached from this reality.

Then allow me to ask a political question. Maybe this is premature, but if Israel Beiteinu and Shas leave the coalition [over the Annapolis process], do you have the numbers in the Knesset to continue?
I have to do what is good for Israel and its future. I can't put the political considerations of the government before every other consideration - that is not right. With that, I am a political person, and I understand that without a parliamentary majority, and governmental stability, it is impossible to carry out the right things that I want to do. It is necessary to find the right balance.

I have been able to find this balance up to now, perhaps beyond the expectations of some people who thought for a long time that this government would not make it. The fact is that we completed the approval of the budget. Remind me of one time when a government of Israel approved a budget before the end of December. This was done smoothly and seriously, finding the right mechanisms and not going beyond any of the vital economic parameters...

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But do the Palestinians - who also understand the demographic process - truly want a viable two-state solution? The impression is that this idea is losing ground with them.
The vast majority of the Palestinians want to live in their own state... But the question of whether or not they want this is not the measure by which I need to judge things. The question is whether we understand, and we do understand, that we need to draw the necessary conclusions, and also pay the price. And the price is very high, and there are risks.

I don't live in a bubble... I know what I am dealing with, who the Palestinians are. There are many people who in my opinion want to live in peace with us. But there are terrorist groups, fundamentalists, fanatics, those without any tolerance, who live according to a value system completely different than the value system of the Western world, which we are a part of. And that is a threat. There are no simple solutions... Every solution will be painful, but we have to deal with it. We cannot close our eyes... In the end we will find a way to a solution. First, we have to seriously try the path of negotiations. And that is what we are doing now.

And how is it going? Has anything moved since Annapolis?
We are talking about a conflict of 100 years, or if you want 60 years, and you are asking about what has happened in three or four weeks since Annapolis, about why the world has not turned upside down. This is a process that takes time...

Look, Abu Mazen [Abbas] and Abu Ala [Ahmed Qurei] sat in this room [last Thursday]. I imagine that if you would have asked me 30 years ago what I thought about Abu Mazen - and 30 years ago I was a Knesset member - I almost certainly would have said that he was a terrorist. He was a member of Fatah, which had on its banner the end of the existence of the State of Israel, and was not even ready to think about the recognition of Israel or peace with Israel. You sit with Abu Mazen today and he unequivocally speaks about recognizing Israel, and about peace with Israel. He has signed agreements with us. He said he wants to fulfill those agreements and believes in them. There has been a change, and it is not only with him. You hear [the same from] Salaam Fayad, his prime minister.

I'm not saying that there are no differences [between us]. There are. They want more territory; I want to give less territory. They want parts of Jerusalem that I will never separate from.

But they want peace with me, and that is to say there has been a certain change...

Has there been a change in the Palestinian stance on the refugee issue?
I think it is possible to solve the refugee problem, in a way that will not threaten the Jewish identity of Israel. I do not accept the principle of a "right of return." I don't accept it and I never have...

The idea of a right of return was born at the end of the 1940s, at the beginning of the '50s, when there was a refugee problem. It is not important now what the size was, or the cause, but there was a problem. I don't think we intentionally created it. The creation of Israel created a reality of which one result was refugees.

When they thought of a solution, since they did not think of establishing a Palestinian state, the only solution that seemed [possible] was a return to the places from which they had left.

The whole idea of the establishment of a Palestinian state is to enable those same people to live in a Palestinian state, and not in the State of Israel. So to speak today about a solution to the refugee problem in the terms that were right in the '50s or '49 is to be cut off from reality.

We believe in our hearts that they are the ones who prevented a solution so many years earlier. They think that we are to blame for it. One thing is certain: The reality of today is different from what it was then. So that solution [of a refugee return] is not relevant to today's reality. It will not come to pass.

The entire world agrees to the establishment of a Palestinian state that will be vital, contiguous, free and democratic, that will live alongside Israel and that will be established so the Palestinians live in it. It can't be that a Palestinian state will be established so that the Palestinians will come to live in Israel...

As long as Hamas is so strong, can Abu Mazen be flexible on the refugee issue or anything else?
Abu Mazen is not in control of Gaza, so a strong Hamas in Gaza does not add or detract from his ability to reach understandings... That is their test. In the final analysis the Palestinians will need to choose between the myth of the "right of return‚" and their possibility to establish a Palestinian state, where the Palestinians will live. This is their choice. Our choice is between our very natural desire to live in the whole Land of Israel, which in all our hearts we believe is ours, and the need to compromise on parts of Eretz Yisrael to ensure the existence of the State of Israel as a Jewish state.

We need to decide, and they also need to decide. And I am not sure that everyone on our side is ready for the decision. There are many parties in the Knesset who are talking in a way that is detached from this reality.

Then allow me to ask a political question. Maybe this is premature, but if Israel Beiteinu and Shas leave the coalition [over the Annapolis process], do you have the numbers in the Knesset to continue?
I have to do what is good for Israel and its future. I can't put the political considerations of the government before every other consideration - that is not right. With that, I am a political person, and I understand that without a parliamentary majority, and governmental stability, it is impossible to carry out the right things that I want to do. It is necessary to find the right balance.

I have been able to find this balance up to now, perhaps beyond the expectations of some people who thought for a long time that this government would not make it. The fact is that we completed the approval of the budget. Remind me of one time when a government of Israel approved a budget before the end of December. This was done smoothly and seriously, finding the right mechanisms and not going beyond any of the vital economic parameters...


But do the Palestinians - who also understand the demographic process - truly want a viable two-state solution? The impression is that this idea is losing ground with them.
The vast majority of the Palestinians want to live in their own state... But the question of whether or not they want this is not the measure by which I need to judge things. The question is whether we understand, and we do understand, that we need to draw the necessary conclusions, and also pay the price. And the price is very high, and there are risks.

I don't live in a bubble... I know what I am dealing with, who the Palestinians are. There are many people who in my opinion want to live in peace with us. But there are terrorist groups, fundamentalists, fanatics, those without any tolerance, who live according to a value system completely different than the value system of the Western world, which we are a part of. And that is a threat. There are no simple solutions... Every solution will be painful, but we have to deal with it. We cannot close our eyes... In the end we will find a way to a solution. First, we have to seriously try the path of negotiations. And that is what we are doing now.

And how is it going? Has anything moved since Annapolis?
We are talking about a conflict of 100 years, or if you want 60 years, and you are asking about what has happened in three or four weeks since Annapolis, about why the world has not turned upside down. This is a process that takes time...

Look, Abu Mazen [Abbas] and Abu Ala [Ahmed Qurei] sat in this room [last Thursday]. I imagine that if you would have asked me 30 years ago what I thought about Abu Mazen - and 30 years ago I was a Knesset member - I almost certainly would have said that he was a terrorist. He was a member of Fatah, which had on its banner the end of the existence of the State of Israel, and was not even ready to think about the recognition of Israel or peace with Israel. You sit with Abu Mazen today and he unequivocally speaks about recognizing Israel, and about peace with Israel. He has signed agreements with us. He said he wants to fulfill those agreements and believes in them. There has been a change, and it is not only with him. You hear [the same from] Salaam Fayad, his prime minister.

I'm not saying that there are no differences [between us]. There are. They want more territory; I want to give less territory. They want parts of Jerusalem that I will never separate from.

But they want peace with me, and that is to say there has been a certain change...

Has there been a change in the Palestinian stance on the refugee issue?
I think it is possible to solve the refugee problem, in a way that will not threaten the Jewish identity of Israel. I do not accept the principle of a "right of return." I don't accept it and I never have...

The idea of a right of return was born at the end of the 1940s, at the beginning of the '50s, when there was a refugee problem. It is not important now what the size was, or the cause, but there was a problem. I don't think we intentionally created it. The creation of Israel created a reality of which one result was refugees.

When they thought of a solution, since they did not think of establishing a Palestinian state, the only solution that seemed [possible] was a return to the places from which they had left.

The whole idea of the establishment of a Palestinian state is to enable those same people to live in a Palestinian state, and not in the State of Israel. So to speak today about a solution to the refugee problem in the terms that were right in the '50s or '49 is to be cut off from reality.

We believe in our hearts that they are the ones who prevented a solution so many years earlier. They think that we are to blame for it. One thing is certain: The reality of today is different from what it was then. So that solution [of a refugee return] is not relevant to today's reality. It will not come to pass.

The entire world agrees to the establishment of a Palestinian state that will be vital, contiguous, free and democratic, that will live alongside Israel and that will be established so the Palestinians live in it. It can't be that a Palestinian state will be established so that the Palestinians will come to live in Israel...

As long as Hamas is so strong, can Abu Mazen be flexible on the refugee issue or anything else?
Abu Mazen is not in control of Gaza, so a strong Hamas in Gaza does not add or detract from his ability to reach understandings... That is their test. In the final analysis the Palestinians will need to choose between the myth of the "right of return‚" and their possibility to establish a Palestinian state, where the Palestinians will live. This is their choice. Our choice is between our very natural desire to live in the whole Land of Israel, which in all our hearts we believe is ours, and the need to compromise on parts of Eretz Yisrael to ensure the existence of the State of Israel as a Jewish state.

We need to decide, and they also need to decide. And I am not sure that everyone on our side is ready for the decision. There are many parties in the Knesset who are talking in a way that is detached from this reality.

Then allow me to ask a political question. Maybe this is premature, but if Israel Beiteinu and Shas leave the coalition [over the Annapolis process], do you have the numbers in the Knesset to continue?
I have to do what is good for Israel and its future. I can't put the political considerations of the government before every other consideration - that is not right. With that, I am a political person, and I understand that without a parliamentary majority, and governmental stability, it is impossible to carry out the right things that I want to do. It is necessary to find the right balance.

I have been able to find this balance up to now, perhaps beyond the expectations of some people who thought for a long time that this government would not make it. The fact is that we completed the approval of the budget. Remind me of one time when a government of Israel approved a budget before the end of December. This was done smoothly and seriously, finding the right mechanisms and not going beyond any of the vital economic parameters...

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