After the Camp David

Lev Roitman:

After the Camp David - our conversation is about this today. I will present the participants: from Jerusalem historian, political commentator Mikhail Haifets; In Prague, a French journalist, now our employee Virgini Kuludon; and Kamran Karadagi, deputy director of the Iraqi service of our radio. Before the general conversation, several introductory comments. The negotiation marathon in the Camp David Barak - Arafat lasted two weeks and formally did not give results. Well, in fact? The same that Israeli-Palestinian negotiations should resume in the near future, evidence that Camp David was not the end, but a catalyst for further conversations. Another undoubted result is Jerusalem's political demiication. It turns out that the earthly administrative division and the status of the Holy City can be said, and perhaps, it may agree.

The Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in the Camp David passed behind the closed door, but the Israeli, and the American press did everything so that this door would turn into glass. Upon the return of Ehud Barack to Israel, the newspaper “Jeruzalem Post” wrote, in particular: “So far, Israel makes concessions (and these concessions, I explain from myself, were known, thanks to the work of the press), while Israel is concessions, and the world has not reached, the right ones say that Israel has gone too far and the left that he went far away.” In this regard, Mikhail Haifets, Jerusalem, is there now a political majority in Israel, whose position could be understood, interpreted as a mandate of trust in Ehuda Barack in his negotiations with Yasir Arafat?

Mikhail Haifets:

There is no doubt such a majority. In all surveys, about two third Israelis on this question, that is, whether Ehud Barack has a mandate to conduct such negotiations, answered - yes. That is, the question is whether they will agree to the concessions that he does or whether they will consider them sufficient and so on, this is another question. But that the barrack has a mandate for negotiating, that the people of Israel are longing for these negotiations, that people want peace, this is beyond any doubt.

Lev Roitman:

Thank you, Mikhail Haifets. And a passing question: even before leaving for Camp David, Ehud Barak of 22 cabinet members lost 13. How to understand this, since it is about his foundation in Israeli politics today?

Mikhail Haifets:

This is a really difficult question, I will only express my personal opinion. I have the feeling that now the struggle is not for whether the world will be or will not, but rather the struggle for who will conclude it. The opposition is completely clear that if the hut brought a peace treaty from the Camp David, in the next election he would undoubtedly win and he would become the ruler of Israel for the next few years. Naturally, like any opposition, it seeks to prevent such a course of events. I am sure that this is not a fundamental objection to the opposition against the world, but an attempt to intercept the initiative, to intercept the reins from the barrack. And she is quite successful, the opposition, holds this line. Because the barrack, his governments, had three parties, which previously entered the Netanyahu government, that is, Paria, which are actually parties of the right, national camp. And now the opposition managed, using the fear of the results of negotiations, using the uncertainty that exists in these issues, to pull their former allies back to their side. That is, purely politically, in the political circles of Barak a very difficult situation now. But this does not concern the strategy, this does not concern goals, it concerns, rather, of tactics and questions, who will conduct these negotiations, who will sign the world, nothing more.

Lev Roitman:

Thank you, Mikhail Haifets. Well, of course, not the smallest, I’ll say softly, the question is - which world will be signed. Because, I repeat, those concessions, in particular, according to Jerusalem, to which the Barak was ready to go, for the religious and for the right, for the conservative segment of the Israeli population are excessive, for the left are insufficient, because the world was not signed. But for Yasir Arafat what the hut offered him is not enough. If he accepted these conditions, then perhaps, as other, very radical circles in Palestine said, he would have befell the fate of Sadat, who was simply killed for concessions. Kamran Karadagi, in the Arab world, how do they perceive the position of Yasir Arafat on the Camp David - do they support her?

Kamran Karadagi:

In general, yes. Yasir Arafat returned as a hero. The Arab public, if you look at the Arab press, everyone admired his position and wrote that he was as a hero, he insisted on his position and did not recede. This, of course, is, of course, the position satisfies the Arabic public, but my personal opinion is that there is a problem too. Because in the Arab world of heroes, of course, it is enough, easy to be a hero. But it is not so easy to be a political leader with a vision of the future. It is necessary here to be a leader pragmatic and real and make decisions with a vision as a future. I have a fear that exactly that Arafat has now returned, and that the Arabic public supports him, that this side will make his position even more difficult in the future. Because, as he can further, and we know that both parties said that they would continue negotiations, and that the Camp David was a very positive process, but how further it will go. If now the Arab public supports him precisely for the fact that he refused, then, in my opinion, this will be even more difficult for continuing negotiations and to achieve a compromise.

Lev Roitman:

Thank you, Kamran Karadagi. The American side in the Camp David made actually everything conceivable so that these negotiations come to a positive result, including the formal result, which was achieved, however, was not. But what else but Americans, and who can do in order to ensure that the peaceful process - Israel -Palestinians - push. Perhaps Europe: what are its interests, what can she offer or could offer if there was political will for that?

Virgini Kuludon:

The first thing that catches the eye after this summit is the tone of the official declarations of the European Union. At the moment, you know that the European Union and France are one and the same. France is just the chairman of the European Union for 6 months. The tone is very optimistic and, perhaps, even too optimistic. When most declarations insisted on the failure of negotiations, the European Union, on the contrary, said that for the first time we could talk about real taboos and that there was some kind of advance forward. I think that this optimism of the European Union will help very much in the USA and in the Middle East. This is very important and priority for France, and therefore for the European Union now. I must say that the French Minister of Foreign Affairs recently said that within 20 years France worked a lot in the Middle East diplomatically and that, of course, what happened in the Camp David is to some extent the result of these long negotiations and long efforts. What will happen in the future, I think that this will all depend on what will happen on Sunday and next week. If there are problems again and there will be some failure again, then, of course, the European Union and France will also enter the arena, I think.

Lev Roitman:

Thank you, Virgini. Mikhail Haifets, after the parties left Camp David, Yasir Arafat and Ehud Barak, accompanied by his delegations, an article appeared in the Washington Post newspaper, the entitled “nothing has been achieved, but everything changed”. From your point of view, this title reflects reality in Israel?

Mikhail Haifets:

Yes, of course. I repeat once again that in fact I read carefully what the local opposition writes, what he said in his first political speech after the resignation of Benjamin Netanyahu, everyone supports the idea of the world, some say that they would have reached better conditions and so on, and the like. But the level of demagogy is sharply weakened, on the one hand, on the other hand, some really taboo are broken, people got the opportunity to seriously discuss and say those problems that they had not talked about before, but pronounced some spells. That is, I think that in general, in the political situation of Israel, there is a very strong desire to achieve agreements with the arafat. The difficulty lies in another. I completely agree with your Iraqi participant in the discussion that the problem of Arafat is that he himself sees and knows the benefits of what the hut offers him. But he is not free in his actions, so he was always for him. I just read the beautiful book of Grinevsky, the head of the Department of the Middle East of the Soviet Foreign Ministry “Secrets of Soviet Diplomacy”, which states that even during the time of Camp-David-1 Gromyko convinced Arafat to recognize Israel and enter into direct negotiations. As Brezhnev spoke to him. And Arafat, according to Grinevsky, already understood that it was profitable, and then he understood that he would receive much more, but he could not do it, he behaved just the same in the Camp David, as it is now. He left the conversation, he did not compile any documents, he did not give answers. And according to Grinevsky, this was explained by the fact that he was supposed to reckon with his temperamental leadership, with his environment, with those who later killed Sadat. That is, his situation is much worse than the position of the hut, whose policy, in fact, will be supported regardless of whether he will be able to stay in power or not.

Lev Roitman:

Thank you, Mikhail Haifets. Kamran Karadagi, in the event that there are no results in this peaceful process, is not excluded, in any case, they are such political promises that on September 13, an independent Palestinian state will be unilaterally proclaimed. From your point of view, what can this be given and what consequences to lead?

Kamran Karadagi:

The consequences, it seems to me, can be very serious consequences in the sense that no one knows what the reaction of the Israelis will be, what will be the reaction of the world public, the United States. It’s just that this is easy to say, but the problem is why I say that the position of the Arafat is even more difficult, because if he does not reach an agreement with Israel in the Camp David or outside the Camp David, then he will announce the state, but what can it give? This can even complicate the problem. Because without agreements with Israel, I doubt how this state can exist. Whether the United States and Europe are ready to take the recognition of this state. Even in the Arab world there will be problems, Arab countries will also think more than once - to recognize this state or not or advise the Arafat to take such a step or not. Because the Arab countries are not a monolithic world, they have their own positions, their interests with the United States. Therefore, it seems to me that there is no reason to assume that Arafat will certainly announce the state on September 13th.

Lev Roitman:

Which, of course, the announcement of the Palestinian state would be the crown of his political activity, and, perhaps, his whole life. But, at the same time, you, Kamran, mentioned the United States. There are no doubts today that the United States does not recognize this state. Well, what about the situation in Europe - in this case, will the European Union allegedly act as a single organism or some countries of Europe and the European Union will act independently on the issue of recognizing the potential Palestinian state?

Virgini Kuludon:

As you know, at this stage of the formation of the European Union, as for international politics, all countries act and react independently. So presumably we will have several reactions at the national level and plus the reaction, perhaps, of the European Union. But this cannot be expected, the European Union at this stage does not yet act completely collectively.

Lev Roitman:

Thank you, Virgini. Mikhail Haifets, Jerusalem, according to your estimates, based on the analysis of moods in Israel, political moods, what could be the reaction of Israel to the proclamation of the Palestinian state before the peaceful formal agreement of Palestine-Israel is reached?

Mikhail Haifets:

There are official ratings. While the barrack was in the Camp David, the opposition frolic a little, they carried out the law in preliminary reading, which, as I understand it, would not, in the event of a unilateral proclamation of Palestine's independence, meet objections by the government. Namely, even the two laws are the first that in this case Israel, considering this a gross violation of the agreements in Oslo, will cancel the agreement in Oslo, and the second, that in this case, Israel unilaterally annexes all Jewish settlements in the territories in Judea and Samaria. That is, in short, in this case, the Arafata, even if he succeeds in reaching an agreement with Israel, will have to eventually get much less than he could receive in the Camp David. That is, come to the result with the worst results. Once in his Camp David-1 it happened if he then jumped up on the train, he would have received much more than now. This same danger threatens him today.

Lev Roitman:

And more narrowly, Mikhail Haifets, what are the moods in connection with the Camp David, in connection with these negotiations, with the prospects of settlement or with the prospects that everything will remain as it is, in the Russian-speaking community of Israel, is this about a million people?

Mikhail Haifets:

She has a very difficult situation. On the one hand, everyone wants peace. You know the Russian public, the Russian public in general wants peace, of course. On the other hand, like any audience, accustomed to the fact that the government deceives her, that she is inflated all the time, she is panicky afraid of this world, fearing that they, as they say here, become frarases, that they will be deceived, that as a result they will decide, and so on and so on and so forth and the like. That is, this is a complete confusion of normal Russian people, well familiar to your radio listeners.

Lev Roitman:

Thank you, Mikhail. And, probably, it is worth noting that at the formal political level, Nathan Scharansky, who heads the “Russian” party, has left the coalition government, because he considers it necessary to create a government of national unity, which would also include right -wing forces, in particular “Likud”. Kamran Karadagi, in the event that the Palestinian state is proclaimed unilaterally, will this strengthen or weaken the forces of the radical sense itself in the Palestinian order?

Kamran Karadagi:

I think this will strengthen their policy.

Lev Roitman:

That is, it will not give anything good for a peaceful process?

Kamran Karadagi:

No.