BARAK: My feeling is that we won’t have a peace agreement with Arafat. He’s not a Palestinian Sadat or a Palestinian King Hussein. Arafat turned to violence after Camp David. Camp David was a moment of truth… It was an end to what Arafat had done for years–namely, talk in English about his readiness to make peace and in Arabic about eliminating Israel in stages. He decided that only by turning to violence could he once again create world sympathy.
It should be a last resort, an option we are willing to contemplate only if all other options have not worked. It could easily boomerang and prompt international intervention that might hurt Israel’s interest.
Sharon is doing the right thing by combining an active campaign against terrorists with restraint against wider operations that could harm the civilian population.
I am confident that we did the right thing for the future of Israel. When I took power, there was only one path I found reasonable–either to unmask Arafat or to take calculated risks if we found him a Palestinian Sadat, ready to put an end to the conflict.
It was not the details [of these proposals] that led to its failure. Formally, they were not our suggestions but ideas raised by the American president. Ninety to 91 percent [of the West Bank] would be transferred to the Palestinians in exchange for a 1 percent territorial swap.
The [Clinton] administration’s idea was that we would take the Jewish neighborhood, and Arafat would take most of the Arab neighborhoods. Certain neighborhoods would be under a special regime or a kind of joint management.
The president suggested an arrangement under which they would have a custodian sovereignty while we had overall sovereignty. The real objective of Camp David was to know if we have a serious partner.
No, it was clear [Syrian president Hafez] Assad was aging, and after he died we would enter into a long period of uncertainty.
I believe in the long term, the strategic need of Israel is disengagement from the Palestinians.
I think he’s wrong and it’s imperative.
The only answer is to establish a border for Israel in which we will have a solid Jewish majority for generations to come. It might take three or four years to delineate the lines around settlement blocks.
Once Oslo’s assumptions collapsed, it cast a disturbing shadow in retrospect on what has happened since 1996. Maybe Arafat cheated all of us. I put an end to the process of giving him more and more land just to find out in the end that we gave him everything [and got nothing in return].
It’s not on the table right now.
It was clear to me, especially in the last few months, that by pursuing this policy I was taking a big political risk. Sharon was telling people, “Rely on me. I will solve it easily.” I knew if he won, he would end up doing basically what I had done. It was clear to me that by sticking to these policies I risked a kind of personal and political defeat. But I have done it all my life.
I did the right thing for my country, and I never look backward. When the time comes for the Palestinians to have a Sadat-like leader, we will end up dealing with a favorable agreement and then with permanent peace along the same lines shaped by us at Camp David.
It will take years.
