By IPS Correspondents
JERUSALEM, May 2 2003 (IPS)

Without a massive international presence, it will be impossible to take even the first few steps outlined by the new plan for peace in the Middle East, sponsored by the United States, the European Union, the United Nations and Russia, and known as the ”road map,” Haim Oron, a leader of Israel’s left- wing Meretz Party, told IPS.

Among the steps envisaged by the road map are an immediate ceasefire, the dismantling of some Israeli settlements and a freeze on creating new ones, effective control over radical Palestinian groups, and the creation of an independent Palestinian state by 2005.

In an exclusive interview with IPS, Oron said he had lost confidence in Palestinian National Authority (PNA) President Yasser Arafat, while he had harsh criticism for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Oron, 63, is one of the most outspoken voices of the leftist opposition to the government of Sharon, and one of the three top leaders of Meretz, whose 10 seats in the knesset, Israel’s 120- member single-chamber parliament, shrank to just six after the Jan. 28 elections.

A member of the knesset since 1988, Oron was a founder of the ”Peace Now” movement, which like Meretz is calling for a unilateral withdrawal by Israel from the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the dismantling of the Jewish settlements, and a negotiated solution that would lead to a Palestinian state.

Q: How do you regard the new situation with Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas (better known as Abu Mazen)?

A: Abu Mazen is trying to start something new. Israel can help him. I’m not saying they should embrace him and say ”here’s our quisling*.” But it can show him that certain measures are being taken to calm things on the ground, so the extremists would be increasingly isolated, or it can carry out actions that lead everyone to support the radicals, and that way, Abu Mazen would not be able to do anything. And to put it delicately, I am not at all sure how Israel will act.

Q: Will the ”road map” change things?

A: I don’t know. I have really ceased to understand just what Sharon wants. And since I cannot understand what he wants, the best thing to do is to listen to what the right says, for example in an article by Israel Harel, one of the leaders of the Jewish settler movement, titled Fighting a US Policy of a Road Map: ”Not Open to Negotiation”. Or to listen to what Transportation Minister Avigdor Liberman, of the extreme right, says. When I listen to them, am I hearing Sharon? For years I have received assurances that there is a new Sharon, that he always walks around with a mask on, but that he is about to remove it. I am still waiting. I admit that I don’t see how the government, in its current make- up, with a prime minister who takes the stances Sharon does, can establish a connection with the road map, put the issues on the table and start debating them. What they do is continually create a situation in which there is no negotiating table, in order to make it impossible to sit down and talk. That is what they have been doing for the past two and a half years.

Q: There is new talk of plans to resolve the conflict, but in fact the two sides are in the midst of a serious crisis. Is it possible to talk about distributing the blame for the failure of the peace process? And I have to ask you, as one of the leaders of Meretz, what influence did that failure have in the weakening of the position of the Israeli left?

A: These are two separate things. The failure of the peace process was due to several factors. The first was Arafat, but the Israeli government, then-prime minister Ehud Barak, United States policy and other elements also played a role. In my view, that is not the main question, but rather why the failure of the negotiations led to the eruption of the intifada (in September 2000). Arafat headed a violent process that has already lasted more than two years, and that is what led to the serious crisis of the Israeli left. I don’t want to downplay his responsibility in the least. Barak, with help largely from then-foreign minister Shlomo Ben-Ami, was able to fixate in the mind of the Israeli public the idea that ”there is no one to talk to.” And if there is no one to talk to, the best one to whack Arafat on the head a few times is Ariel Sharon.

Q: The Israeli public has moved to the right…

A: Without a doubt. On one hand there is a very strong rightward trend. And on the other, there has been a tendency to adopt stances that were previously considered leftist, and which are now held by the governing Likud party itself, like support, in principle, for the creation of a Palestinian state. In the past, we and those who were to the left of our positions were the only ones who talked in those terms. But today things have changed. Most of the population, including more than 60 percent of Likud voters, support the dismantling of the settlements. In other words, on one hand they have adopted proposals that belonged more to the left, but in their voting they have moved towards the right in terms of choosing a party.

Q: Did you share the sensation that ”there was no one to talk to” on the Palestinian side?

A: There are no situations in which there is no one to talk to. If you ask whether it was possible to reach an agreement with the Palestinian National Authority with Arafat at the head, in my opinion that is not possible. But the policy followed by the then- army chief Shaul Mofaz, who is today minister of defence, was to break the Palestinians, although Sharon expresses it in more delicate terms. The army chief said it clearly: we are in the phase of total repression of the Palestinian violence, and only when this is over will we be able to talk about negotiations.

Q: And what you are saying is things aren’t black or white.

A: They can’t be. We won’t reach the point where all Palestinians or all their leaders climb up on a rooftop together and shout in unison: ”We give in and we have all come together to hold talks.” That won’t happen. Now that there will be an attempt at talking to Abu Mazen, has Hamas founder Sheik Yassin changed his views even slightly? Has Gaza Hamas leader (Abdel Aziz) Rantisi modified his? What about other radical Palestinian sectors? Even more so: when Sharon sent his son to talk to Arafat, didn’t he know exactly who he was talking to and what Arafat thought? This is the true discussion about negotiations with the Palestinians.

Q: You believe that with Arafat no solution can be reached?

A: The truth is that we have suffered too many disappointments. On more than a few occasions, various Palestinian interlocutors told us to go ahead, and that Arafat would approve, but that did not happen. It is hard to say that something is totally impossible, from now on, because in principle things can change. But I can state categorically that we have to try, all the time.

Q: Returning to Sharon, one of the basic principles underlying his policies was the demand for ”zero violence”. Do you believe that this is a posture based on principles or is it aimed at gaining time? Or perhaps Sharon simply does not know how to act?

A: I don’t know. We have said many times that Arafat did not want to get things done. There were those who said later that he wanted to, but couldn’t. And at some point we understood that the problem existed, regardless of whether he could not or did not want to. Why not say the same thing about Sharon? Israel has fought terrorism, that is necessary, but it has also destroyed the Palestinian Authority. And it is very difficult to totally defeat terrorism. Now they want Abu Mazen to demonstrate that he will take practical measures against terrorism, that he is making an effort.

Q: Do you think that the collapse of the Palestinian Authority and the emergence of another leadership in its place is bad for peace?

A: The crumbling of the Palestinian Authority is a very negative thing, because there are only two possible replacements: an Israeli military government or the fundamentalists of Hamas. There is no third alternative.

Q: And what is the solution to this situation?

A: We have reached the conclusion that foreign intervention, a massive international presence, is necessary in the midst of this chaos. I don’t think that it is possible to achieve the first step of reducing violence to very low proportions or to dismantle settlements without an international presence here.

Q: Do you believe the creation of an independent Palestinian state by 2005, as the road map projects, is possible?

A: The use of the expression ”Palestinian state” is somewhat problematic. Sharon, in order to free himself of the pressure, said he could accept an interim Palestinian state, within borders that were not made clear, in the first stage. But for him things should remain in a temporary situation for 10 more years. I will put it another way: support for a Palestinian state has long ceased to be a card with which Israel can play. A while back, I said in a conversation with a Palestinian: ”You know I want there to be a Palestinian state. I just have one thing to ask.” ”What’s that?” he asked. ”Let us know two days ahead of time, so we can be the first country to recognise the Palestinian state.” But if what we are going to offer is a Palestinian state on 42 percent of the territory, as Sharon said, that will mean just four or five districts connected by highways, tunnels and bridges. Who would be willing to negotiate that?

Q: You really believe that today you could find a common Israeli citizen, not a leader of Meretz, who would say ”it would be a pleasure for me if we were the first to recognise a Palestinian state”?

A: The public will not applaud a Palestinian state today. The public will not applaud anything Palestinian today. I admit that the phrase ”give me the pleasure to be the first to recognise you” sounds like it comes from another dimension, belongs to another era. That is not the climate today. However, the main problem is not the public, but the political system.

Q: Can the process be inverted?

A: It will not be easy. A high price has already been paid. But I believe that in Palestinian society there are broad sectors that understand that the price of things continuing as they are is truly catastrophic for them. And I hope, for the good of both sides, that there are drastic changes, because we really cannot go on this way.

* The word quisling, a traitor who collaborates with the invaders of his country, came from Vidkun Quisling, a Norwegian politician who actively assisted the German invasion of his country in 1940.

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