An Interview with Amram Mitzna

Update from AIJAC

An Interview with Amram Mitzna

January 10, 2003
Number 01/03 #03

Today's Update features a Jerusalem Post Interview with Amram Mitzna, the Labor party candidate for Prime Minister in opposition to current PM Ariel Sharon. Sharon has been rocked by a new money scandal this week, this time linked directly to himself, and his poll numbers are falling. For the first time, it now looks like Mitzna is in with a chance, and to read what he has to say, scroll down.

Meanwhile the Israeli Supreme Court has overturned an Electoral Committee decision to bar two Arab MK's from running on grounds they support terrorist violence against Israel. To read Ze'ev Segal from Ha'aretz's analysis of the decision and the complex issues at stake, scroll down.

Finally, Max Boot of the US Council on Foreign Relations has an interesting piece on the history of exploitation of the Palestinian population, by the Arab States, by Osama Bin Laden and the Islamists, by large parts of the United Nations, and by their own leadership. His piece, from The Weekly Standard magazine, is an important reminder of what has really prevented a peace deal.

A leader in retreat? An interview with Amram Mitzna

By BRET STEPHENS

Jerusalem Post, Jan. 9, 2003

By month's end, Amram Mitzna may well be known either as the man who led the Labor Party to its most improbable victory or to its most crushing defeat. Yet in an interview this week with Jerusalem Post editor Bret Stephens from campaign headquarters in the working class Hatikva neighborhood of south Tel Aviv, the 57-year-old mayor of Haifa betrays only confidence - and certitude. He is certain Israel must disengage from the Palestinians, certain he knows how to do it, certain he won't repeat the mistakes of Ehud Barak, and certain the majority of Israelis share his views, even if, at present, this doesn't seem to translate into votes. Yet he is also certain he stands a chance of winning.

Mitzna is a hard man - he was decorated for bravery in both the Six Day and Yom Kippur wars; as head of the Central Command in the first intifada, he demolished scores of Palestinian homes. Yet he is also a hard man to dislike. In plain contrast to Ariel Sharon, he is trim, good-looking, well-spoken. He conveys an attitude both of urgency and perfect frankness. If Sharon hints vaguely at a willingness to "make painful sacrifices for peace," Mitzna spells out just what some of those sacrifices will be. Yet there is a slipperiness about him, too, an evasiveness. On negotiating with Arafat. On exactly just what the "real red lines" - his words - really are. On why he isn't gaining traction among voters.

It is too soon to tell how the bribery scandal rapidly engulfing the Prime Minister's Office will play out, much less whether, and to what extent, it will play into Mitzna's hands. What is certain is that with this election the unrealized dreams of the past decade will live, or die, carrying Mitzna along with them.

***

What are your personal feelings about Arik Sharon?

It's not a matter of personal feelings. It's a matter of a leadership. He led Israel to a catastrophe.

Likud support has come down recently, yet you don't seem to be picking any of it up.

The majority of voters back my program, but we need to translate this to the need to vote for the Labor Party.

Why hasn't that happened yet?

Many reasons. Some of them are related to the fact that the Labor Party was part of the Likud government in the last two years. Therefore they don't feel that the Labor Party is prepared to lead. But what we are trying to do in the next three weeks is persuade the people that there are only two alternatives. There is no third alternative. There is the Likud and there is Labor. Once you vote for the Likud you vote for the continuation of the Sharon government with all that comes with the Sharon government. And the Sharon government doesn't have any idea how to solve the problems that they face - economically, socially and even security-wise.

What's the difference between your platform and Yossi Sarid's?

Yossi Sarid is leading a party that does not challenge the Likud, a party that will always join with someone else to be part of the coalition or part of the opposition. Yossi Sarid's party holds the view that we must negotiate with the Palestinians from a moral standpoint, from the standpoint of trying to find justice in the Middle East, where two peoples are struggling for the same piece of land.

The only interests I care about are the vital interests of the State of Israel. Separation, separating ourselves from the Palestinians is the key to understanding my approach. Either it will be by an agreement that will lead to political borders between the two entities or by a unilateral approach.

There are a lot of differences between the maps drawn under an agreement or without an agreement. Without an agreement Israel is ready to withdraw to the 1967 borders, leaving some blocs of heavily populated Jewish settlements. And of course there will be discussions about agreements and solutions in Jerusalem...

Without an agreement we stay in the Jordan Valley without any changes, so in a way we are pulling out of those settlements that are without roots or connections... and it will create a situation for years that the Palestinians don't like. It is not that I'm using it as a threat, but I think in a way it is a threat to the Palestinians. I'm saying: Let's sit down and reach an agreement, because if not then we are not going to sit in all those places, but we will establish a security line that will be to our benefit, to our vital interest.

Why do you think you'll succeed where prime minister Barak failed?

Barak reached Camp David in the last days of his government. He didn't create a sense of confidence between his government and the Palestinian leadership, so in Camp David it was not a real negotiation. The results following the breakdown were to be expected... The Palestinians took to terrorism again as a way to try to get Israel to surrender and they failed again. Today, they understand that terrorism will not make Israel surrender its vital interests.

That sounds as if you're endorsing the policies of the Sharon government.

I stand behind the fight against terrorism. I am not backing every act of every campaign that the Sharon government has done but generally speaking, it was a response to terrorism. I will fight terrorism with all the might we have... But Sharon is not able to do what is necessary. Fighting terrorism is [necessary] to re-open the channels of negotiation, but also to make very deep and very painful concessions in order to bring peace and stability to the area.

Sharon is fighting. Sharon is introducing all the military power that he has and hasn't succeeded, not with security and certainly not with peace. If you only use military power, what does it mean to win the battle against three and a half million Palestinians? The slogan that was used in the last election - "let the IDF win" - what does it mean? It means unleash the IDF... Sharon in a way did that. They used airplanes, helicopters, heavy military ground units and the outcome of the last 24 months is that there is no security. People don't feel safe. If we really want to go with an approach that will finalize our struggle with the Palestinians it is to separate ourselves from them, like in the Gaza Strip. Sharon is not even able to build a fence between Israel proper and terrorism.

It sounded earlier as though you put more of the blame for the failure of Camp David on Barak than on Arafat.

Arafat is the one who should be blamed. He didn't keep his main promise. He didn't keep the most important element of his signature on the Oslo agreement, which was no more terrorism.

So can Israel ever negotiate with him again?

I don't think this is a relevant question. You deal with enemies. You don't select your enemies. You only select your friends.

But can you negotiate with someone who violates agreements?

What alternative do you have? You negotiate. You didn't succeed once, you didn't succeed twice. You have to try again and again... I think the Palestinians today do understand what their situation will be if they continue: curfews, no school, no jobs, poverty, no humanitarian services. The infrastructure is ruined. And they were so close to gaining independence, to gaining the recognition of the entire world...

You often speak of every course of action having risks and opportunities. What are the risks of following your course?

We don't have risks, only chances. What are the risks? Take Gaza. We pull out of the settlements in Gaza, we put a fence all around and the risk is that Gaza will produce terrorism into Israel. The IDF will be free and flexible to go in and out as needed. There will not be the additional burden on its soldiers to protect the settlers. It is only an advantage, not just security-wise, but economically. We spend millions of shekels on infrastructure, on tunnels, on roads between sensitive places. Each family is costing the Israeli public a fortune. We have to prioritize our needs, our efforts and our emphasis.

In the West Bank, what settlements would you pull out of? Which ones would you keep?

I am not going to give you names or numbers. I can only tell you that in a unilateral approach, you are able to leave 75-80% of the settlers [on our] side of the fence... About 27,000 people would be withdrawn from the settlements. We are talking about 56 settlements in the West Bank. Few settlements have a great number of settlers...

The Palestinians say that they will not accept anything other than return to the 1967 line. Is that unacceptable to you?

We have to negotiate. They will come with their needs, with their considerations and we will come with ours.

But is return to the 1967 lines unacceptable to Amram Mitzna, yes or no?

Amram Mitzna says that we will withdraw under agreement from less than 100% of the area. The 1967 border is a base, but there will be adjustments. The idea of returning to the negotiating table means that both sides will have to make concessions.

Isn't unilateral withdrawal provocative, an indication of weakness?

I do not agree... Maybe the Yom Kippur War would not have been necessary if Israel had accepted the withdrawal to the last inch from Sinai before then. The idea is that we have to draw Israel's real red lines, not false red lines. And Israel should define for itself the really vital interests of the state. If our presence in Gaza is not of vital interest, we shouldn't stay there just because they will say that it won't look nice.

So what are your red lines - the real red lines?

I don't think it is right that the red lines be known before you negotiate. But the idea is to ask such questions once you negotiate... When you ask such questions, you can draw the line. The red line with Lebanon is the border... once Hizbullah or any other forces in Lebanon will try to break the status quo, they will meet with a very strong Israeli response, because this is a red line and it is recognized by the UN and by the world.

But when you speak about Gaza, it is not a red line. When you speak about our presence in the West Bank, it is not a red line. I lived here as a young officer pre 1967... Things changed from 1967 and not for good.

Those who are dreaming about a greater Israel, those who are telling me that we have to stay in this place because God gave it to us and we are not allowed to give it back again - I don't have a common language to discuss it with them. But the vast majority of Israelis ask one question: What is the reason for being in Itamar, in Gaza, in many other settlements.

Hebron?

Hebron, yes. Again, when you put aside those ideas of greater Israel, Israel from the river to the sea, those who are speaking religiously - what is the benefit, the security benefit? Do you see any way that you can go 10, 20, 30 years from now that Jews will be able to live there? That Jews will be able to live in the center of Hebron is against nature. Today you have 70 to 80 families living in Hebron and 135,000 Palestinians. You need two battalions to protect them. Close your eyes and tell me when it will change? When will they socialize with each other?

What do you think of the reservists who refuse to serve in the territories?

I'm against it with all my guts. Even in a democracy that an individual will take a decision to obey or not obey the decisions of legal government...

What about the roadmap? Do you want to see greater international involvement in the process?

The roadmap is an idea of the US, the Quartet, of how to bring a program that will fit to the current leadership knowing that it is very difficult to proceed. I think we have to speed up the process; to negotiate without pre-conditions. Waiting until the elimination of all violence is unrealistic. It is not a matter of whether we want to satisfy someone else. We must satisfy ourselves. We have to do all that is necessary in order to change the course of the State of Israel, in order to divert our resources to deal with our problems.

We have so many problems inside the country that are much more important. The threat to Israel is not Iraq, not even the Palestinians. The threat to Israel is the economy and the social situation. And in order to put our energies and resources and minds into these domestic issues, we have to separate ourselves from the dreams, from the Palestinians and from the way that we thought during the last decade.

Analysis / Democracy on the defensive

By Ze'ev Segal

Ha'aretz, January 10, 2002

Yesterday's Supreme Court decision is an indication that the legal establishment holds sacred the right to stand for election to the Knesset as a constitutional right.

In light of the ruling, right to seek election outweighs protecting the Jewish and democratic nature of the State of Israel, which repudiates incitement and racism, and protects itself from those engaged in an armed struggle against it. Instead of giving us a "democracy on the defensive," which seeks to protect itself from those candidates or parties whose words or deeds threaten the essence of that democracy, yesterday's ruling presents us with a democracy that faces its challenges, leaving almost no breathing room for limiting the freedom to fight for each vote.

Yesterday's verdicts remove all content from Clause 7a of the Basic Law: The Knesset, which state s that parties or candidates whose goals or deeds negate the existence of the State of Israel as a Jewish, democratic country, who incite to racism, who are engaged in an armed struggle against the state or who support an enemy or a terror group, will be barred from seeking election.

The fact that the decisions on the issues of Marzel, Bishara and Balad were reached via split decisions, with seven justices voting for and four opposing, shows that a sizeable minority believed that of the two, one was guilty of negating the existence of Israel and supporting terror (Bishara), and the other was guilty of negating the democratic nature of the state and inciting to racism (Marzel).

That said, the ruling of seven Supreme Court justices creates a solid legal majority which attributes great importance to freedom of speech in the elected parliament. The minority that would have banned Bishara is not exactly the same as the minority that would have banned Marzel. Only Justices Shlomo Levin and Tova Strasberg-Cohen were included in both the minority opinions. This shows that each case was discussed on its unique merits, and not decided on according some search for a balance between the right to stand for election and the protection of the "democracy on the defensive." Justice Yaacov Turkel, for example, who approved the candidacy of Balad in 1999, was one of those seeking to ban the party yesterday, apparently on account of the accumulation of evidence of Balad's negation of Israel as Jewish state, in addition to the new pretext for banning a party - support of a terror group.

It would be reasonable to assume that the justices' decisions, for which the legal reasoning will be published at a later date, was based on the test of the strength of evidence provided to prove the original reason for the ban. A previous Supreme Court ruling stated that the right to stand for election will not be taken away unless the court is convinced that the reason it is being banned is "the overriding aim" of the party or candidates which is trying to execute that goal.

It is natural that justices are divided over the legal question of whether the weight of evidence is sufficient in any specific case, to justify the disqualification. Had the Supreme Court decision been reached unanimously, allowing the candidacy of Bishara and Tibi on the one hand, and Marzel on the other, it would have been safe to assume that the ruling was based on "judicial politics," in an attempt to balance between left and right and spare the Supreme Court criticism for being biased toward one political sector. By handing out two if their rulings by 7-4 majorities, they prevent any such criticism of balance stemming from judicial concordance. In recent years, several important judicial rulings with constitution ramifications have been handed down unanimously. The decision regarding the rejection of a constitution for the Knesset, for example. This time, the justices' disagreements stand out, especially when considering the significance of the questions they were being asked.

The ruling on Marzel was against the opinion of Attorney General Elyakim Rubinstein and the chairman of the Central Elections Committee, Justice Mishael Cheshin. The ruling on Bishara and Balad was made against the advice of Rubinstein, which was submitted to the CEC. This opposition is not especially significant and is part of the style of judiciary in which complex problems do not have a "correct" answer.

There have been many Supreme Court rulings that have gone against attorneys-general in the past. The very nature of the majority decision opens the door in the next Knesset for extreme clashes and for even more vitriolic conflicts between lawmakers. In this context, one should note that the Knesset passed an amendment to the law regulating an MKs immunity last year. The amendment states that any MK who whose goals or deeds negate the existence of the State of Israel as a Jewish, democratic country, who incite to racism, who are engaged in an armed struggle against the state or who support an enemy or a terror group, will be considered to have breached his duties as a member of the elected body. They will then no longer be protected by the immunity laws and can be prosecuted under the relevant criminal law.

Exploiting the Palestinians Everyone's doing it.

by Max Boot

The Weekly Standard, 13/01/2003, Volume 008, Issue 17

IN AN INTERVIEW LAST MONTH with Britain's Sunday Times, Yasser Arafat rebuked Osama bin Laden for seeking to exploit the Palestinians' cause for his own ends. "Why is bin Laden talking about Palestine now? . . . He never helped us. He was working in another, completely different area and against our interests," Arafat was quoted as saying. "I'm telling him directly not to hide behind the Palestinian cause."

Good advice, but it's doubtful bin Laden will take it. Just about everyone else exploits the Palestinian cause--Arafat first and foremost, but also, according to the latest reports, some of his Israeli "peace partners"--so why shouldn't old fur face?

Whenever the serious issues of the Middle East are raised, from oppression in Saudi Arabia to nuclear weapons development in Iran, the answer one hears from Europeans, Arabs, United Nations functionaries, all sorts of supposedly serious people, is invariably the same: The real issue is the Palestinians. Until we resolve their horrible plight, peace will never come to the Middle East. This is an absurd argument since even if Israel ceased to exist tomorrow, this would not affect in the slightest the tensions between Islamic fundamentalists and secularists, between rich Gulf kingdoms and their poor cousins, between Shiites and Sunnis, between democrats and dictators, or the countless other San Andreas-sized fault lines that run through the Dar al-Islam (House of Islam). It is helpful to remember that all of the dead in the Arab-Israeli wars of the past half century amount to only a tiny fraction of the million killed during the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s, the 100,000 killed in Algeria's civil war since 1992, or the 100,000 killed in Lebanon's civil war from 1975 to 1990.

Surely anyone with a modicum of knowledge about the Middle East knows that the plight of the Palestinians isn't "the" issue. So why do so many people insist that it is? Let us count the reasons.

For the Europeans, championing the Palestinian cause allows them to assuage lingering colonial guilt by championing the aspirations of a Third World people who claim to be oppressed by Western imperialists--in this case, Israelis. It also allows Europeans to trumpet their moral superiority over pro-Israel Americans. And, last but not least, it allows them to curry favor with both oil-rich Arab states and their own growing Muslim minorities. Europeans hope that Arabs will show their gratitude by doing business with them and not targeting them for terrorism. All of this comes at a price, though: The E.U. is one of the Palestinian Authority's main non-Arab bankrollers, to the tune of $10 million a month.

For Middle Eastern states, championing the Palestinian cause is even more vital because doing so provides an important pillar of legitimacy for their manifestly illegitimate governments. Naturally the Arab states' interest is in preserving "the struggle," not in succoring the Palestinian people who (along with the Israelis) are its chief victims. There are almost 4 million Palestinians and most live in conditions of unrelieved squalor; large swaths of the West Bank and Gaza Strip make the South Bronx look like Club Med by comparison. The only Arab state that has granted citizenship to Palestinians is Jordan; the others prefer to keep them as an unassimilated, militant minority.

More than 1.1 million Palestinians are jammed into 59 refugee camps whose support comes mainly from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency and other international bodies. As former U.S. ambassador to Morocco Marc Ginsberg points out, all the Arab states combined donate less than $7 million to UNRWA, just 2.4 percent of its $290 million budget. (Kuwait, Egypt, Libya, Oman, Qatar, Iraq, and the United Arab Emirates collectively contribute a grand total of zero.) By contrast, the Great Satan forks over $110 million, or 38 percent of UNRWA's budget. The Arabs prefer to spend their money to support Palestinian suicide bombers. Saddam Hussein alone has paid an estimated $20 million over the past two years to "martyrs'" families. The Saudis held a telethon to raise millions more. The Arab League as a whole contributes $55 million a month to Arafat's tyrannical Palestinian Authority, which keeps the suicide bombings coming.

Many Palestinians are privately appalled at these "martyrdom operations," which are killing their youth, destroying their economy, and empowering their religious fanatics. But Arab states are delighted. What are a few dead Palestinian teenagers in return for hurting Israel and its backers in America?

Much the same calculus seems to govern Yasser Arafat's thinking. He is, you might say, the chief exploiter of the Palestinians, followed closely by his senior goons. They reap the adulation of useful idiots abroad who celebrate them as "freedom fighters," but senior PA officials aren't the ones strapping dynamite to their chests and blowing up Israeli buses. Arafat's wife Suha has generously said that there would be "no greater honor" than to sacrifice her son as a martyr. But she doesn't have a son. She has a daughter and they live in Paris. Even though some suicide bombings have been conducted by teenage girls, it's doubtful that seven-year-old Zahawa Arafat will be blowing up an El Al office on the way to her école. Her life, and her mother's, are far removed, literally and figuratively, from those of ordinary Palestinians.

Anyone who visits the West Bank and Gaza Strip is struck by the contrast between the general conditions of abysmal poverty and a few glittering villas that wouldn't be out of place on the French Riviera. Who owns these palazzos? Arafat's men, of course. Since the Palestinian Authority keeps a ruthless grip not only on politics but also on the economy, anyone who gets rich within PA jurisdiction, by definition, must be one of Arafat's apparatchiks.

The pervasive corruption of the PA has long been known and resented by ordinary Palestinians, but it seldom comes out into the open, since Arafat doesn't allow freedom of the press. Revelations in the Israeli press during the past month have lifted the veil of secrecy a bit, revealing a circle of exploitation that includes not only Arafat but also some of his Israeli negotiating partners.

On December 2, the Tel Aviv daily newspaper Ma'ariv printed a fascinating interview with a businessman and former military intelligence officer named Ozrad Lev. He claimed that he and his former business partner, Yossi Ginossar, had undertaken extensive and lucrative dealings with Muhammad Rashid, Arafat's chief financial adviser. In return for fat management fees, they set up Swiss bank accounts into which Rashid transferred more than $300 million of PA money, with Arafat's apparent authorization. Lev said he decided to go public after $65 million mysteriously disappeared. "This money could have been used for personal needs, to form a shelter [to hide the money] for Arafat and senior Palestinian officials, to pay salaries, or even, and I really hope not, for illegal activities," said Lev.

Who is Yossi Ginossar? A former agent of Shin Bet, Israel's internal security service, who in the 1990s acted as an informal envoy to the Palestinians on behalf of prime ministers Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres, and Ehud Barak. Ginossar is a leading "dove" who sits on the executive board of the Peres Center for Peace, the think tank that is to the Israeli left approximately what the Heritage Foundation is to the American right. He also hobnobs with the American think tanker Stephen P. Cohen, another incorrigible peace advocate (the website of his employer, the Israel Policy Forum, recently featured a report claiming "Oslo didn't fail"), who, Ma'ariv reports, profited from the Ginossar-Rashid business deals. (Cohen told me he was involved in some deals with Ginossar, but doesn't know anything about Swiss bank accounts.)

Ginossar's position as envoy to the Palestinians allowed him privileged access to the highest councils of power. He participated in the 2000 Camp David talks, where he pushed Barak to make greater concessions. And, according to the Jerusalem Post, when the Gaza Strip was declared a military zone and closed to Israeli travelers, Ginossar was chauffeured to Arafat's office in Shin Bet armored cars.

Israel's attorney general, Elyakim Rubinstein, is now investigating this case, which has become a huge scandal in Israel, though it's gone largely unnoticed in the United States. Both Rashid and Ginossar deny any wrongdoing. Ginossar told Ma'ariv, "I was guided exclusively by boundless loyalty to the [Israeli] state," a claim that has been met with snorts of derision in Israel's rambunctious press. But there is perhaps an element of truth in what he says.

The Israeli governments of the 1990s wanted to encourage closer economic cooperation with the Palestinians in the hope that this would give their enemies a stake in peace. Unfortunately, instead of creating small businesses that could be the building blocks of Palestinian civil society, what developed was the kind of crony capitalism that is endemic to places like Russia. Arafat's confidants--not only Rashid but Muhammad Dahlan, Jibril Rajoub, Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), and others--were the big beneficiaries. Along, it now seems, with some select Israeli friends.

The Palestinian people and the cause of long-term peace were of course not helped by any of it. Instead these "business" dealings helped foster a gangster state more interested in war-making than economic development. It is striking that at the same time that news of Rashid's $300 million slush fund leaked out, the PA claimed it had no money to pay 100,000 civil servants. But the PA's transgressions, no matter how glaring, have long been overlooked by professional doves like Ginossar. Indeed, Lev says that he and Ginossar continued managing the $300 million fund for the Palestinians until at least August 2001--almost a year after the Al Aksa Intifada had begun.

So to the list of those exploiting the Palestinian cause add leading "peace" advocates. The good news is that the people of the Middle East are increasingly hip to this tiresome con game.

The Iranian government has recently tried to deflect the student demonstrations over the death sentence handed down to a history professor who dared to suggest that Muslims not "blindly follow religious leaders." Instead of protesting Seyyed Hashem Aghajari's fate, President Mohammad Khatami urged students to demonstrate for International Qods Day, a holiday invented by the late Ayatollah Khomeini to protest Israel's supposedly unlawful occupation of Qods (Jerusalem). The Student Movement Coordination Committee for Democracy in Iran threw this demand back into Khatami's face. In a statement translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), the students said, "Observing the 'Day of Qods' in support of violence is a lunacy that is neither advantageous to the Palestinian nation nor does it coincide with the national interests of the people of Iran."

Pretty smart, those Iranian students. They aren't fooled by pro-Palestinian rhetoric. But there is at least one group left that takes seriously the protestations that no progress can be made in the Middle East until the Palestinian issue is settled. You can find them in Foggy Bottom.

Max Boot is the Olin Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a contributing editor to The Weekly Standard.