Q&A Ehud Barak: The outlines of peace are clear

Former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak spoke in Toronto earlier this month. GEORGE PIMENTEL PHOTO

Ehud Barak has served the State of Israel in numerous capacities. The most highly decorated soldier in the country’s history, he was Israel’s prime minister from 1999 to 2001. More recently he held the posts of minister of defence and deputy prime minister in the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He was in Toronto recently as the keynote speaker in a fundraiser for Ezer Mizion, an Israeli charity that has compiled a bone marrow donor registry.

You’re in Toronto to support a charity whose focus is on bone marrow registry. I understand that the Israel Defence Forces is involved in a bone marrow registry. Can you tell us about that?

It’s more than 10 years now there is an organized effort initiated by Ezer Mizion but backed by our Ministry of Defence, including the time I was minister of defence, that every young soldier on the first day of his coming to his induction bases is allowed voluntarily to join in the bone marrow bank, or registry. And there are many of them ready to do it. Nowadays the technology is very simple. It’s a very easy procedure. They give a small sample of their blood, and that’s it.

Until now there are probably 325,000 soldiers already registered. Israel is like a mosaic of multiplicities and backgrounds. It is an extremely rich contribution to the bone marrow bank. They are all young people, which is better from the medical point of view. There are already several hundreds of life-saving cases where not just a match was found, but an actual bone marrow transplant took place.

In many cases it’s irreplaceable, because some people can’t find a match in their families. That leads people to die or to get the bone marrow transplant from the bank. It happens that soldiers are now 40 per cent of the bank.

In the recent Israeli election, you endorsed Isaac Herzog of the Zionist Union. Polls showed he was ahead of Netanyahu, but in the end, Netanyahu won. Why do you think Mr. Herzog lost?

I’m not going to analyze the election. It’s a decision of the people. You count the vote and then you know who was less successful this time. We have to respect the verdict of the voters. We are a democracy. You might like more or less this or that candidate. In Israel there is no shortage of candidates. It was Churchill, I believe, who said democracy is the worst governing system he can think of, except all the other known ones.

In terms of the peace negotiations with the Palestinians, what difference do you think a Herzog-led government would have made versus a Netanyahu-led government?

I will not get into speculation. We all respect the verdict of the voter. We expect the government to realize that it serves the people of Israel, not this or that party, and I think until now that was the record, difference in policies and beliefs and worldview, but that is the way democracy operates. Now we can wish and expect that the government will now do all whatever it takes first of all to ensure the security of the State of Israel, to improve its relationships with other nations and to take care of the opportunities for peace.

How much more can Israel offer the Palestinians beyond what you offered and what former prime minister Ehud Olmert offered? Is there much more room to manoeuvre?

No, there is not a lot. I’ve said more than once that whether it takes five, 15 or 50 years, when a peace agreement will be achieved, you will need a magnifying glass to see the differences between what was on the table in 1999, when I was prime minister, and what has been finally achieved. It will look basically the same. We all know the area, we know the issues and we should hope for a moment of grace where this could be done without risking the security of Israel. Even if it can’t be done, I think we should consider unilateral steps to make sure we can get these security settlement blocs, which are needed for security, the presence over the Jordan River and so on.

Basically, it takes two to tango. You cannot do it alone, and we need to wait until the Arab leaders on one hand, especially the Palestinians but the rest of the Arab moderate leaders, together with the world community, step forward with readiness to negotiate an acceptable agreement. My strong belief is that when this happens, you will find also readiness on the Israeli side.

There are some analysts who ask how can Israel make peace with the Palestinian Authority when the day after tomorrow Hamas could take over the government. You’ve made an agreement and now missiles are raining down on your heads?

We are not dismantling the IDF. Israel is the strongest country for 1,000 miles around Jerusalem and will remain the strongest country all over the region for the foreseeable future.

I believe we can act out of self-confidence, from a position of strength, trying to shape our future in order to reduce friction and reduce friction of major clashes. So I’m not afraid of anything around us. You do not control everything what happens around you. But we shouldn’t be frightened. We’re strong. The IDF remains, the secret service, Shabak, remains. We are not supposed to give up our security demands. No one should expect it from us. We will never do it even if someone will try to convince us.

Having said this, with all respect to the changes in the Middle East in recent years, where the Arab spring turned into the Islamic winter, Israel remains the strongest country, and I don’t think the future of reconciliation is incompatible with the security of Israel. The opposite is true. If we succeed in bringing reconciliation, it will strengthen even more the security of Israel.

How would you characterize the relationship between Israel and the United States now?

At the popular level, it’s great. I don’t think, except for Canada, we have a place on earth where we enjoy such popular support. Not everyone in the country, but a solid majority all over this huge continent.

On the political side, I think we enjoy a lot of support on both sides of the political aisle. Of course there are differences. Some people criticize us. It is natural among friends. It sometimes happens. I don’t expect all Americans or legislators to always agree with everything any Israeli government says. I think with the present government of Israel, it is quite clear there is slightly more support on the Republican side among legislators than the Democratic side. I don’t think it’s extremely significant.

The relationship with the Pentagon and the American intelligence community and the overall relationship with regard to the security of Israel is great – in a certain sense, deeper than ever. And I cannot deny that there is a commander-in-chief sitting in the White House, and he’s part of it. It won’t happen if he would not back it, support it and encourage it.

I was defence minister until about two years ago, and I remember under [U.S. President Barack] Obama several cases that he intervened personally to make sure Israel gets the support it needs for its missile defence system, like Iron Dome, or Arrow or David’s Sling, and he backed an extremely unprecedented and deep co-operation between our intelligence communities.

That doesn’t mean we don’t have disputes with the American administration. We had them in the past, and we probably will in the future. I think that the less disputes we have, it’s better for Israel and probably for America, too.

Do you expect the United States and the western powers to sign a nuclear deal with Iran that is dangerous for Israel?

We don’t know yet whether there will be or there won’t be an agreement. I’m not sure. If there is an agreement, according to the contours that are discussed right now, it might be far from being a good one.

There are many weaknesses, but I don’t know what will be agreed. You have to read it once it’s agreed.

It’s not just about Israel. It’s about the security of the world, because a military nuclear Iran is a major risk for the whole world. It means the end of any conceivable non-proliferation regime, because Saudi Arabia will turn very shortly afterward into a nuclear power. Turkey will immediately start to turn nuclear. And even Egypt.

It will open the door for a nightmarish kind of vision described years ago by Prof. Graham Ellison of Harvard, who said that once it’s broken, it’s only a matter of time, 10 or 15 years, until certain crude nuclear devices will find themselves in the hands of terrorist groups. So it’s a real risk for the world. We see it from a closer distance, so we are warning the world not to reach there and we still believe that all options should remain on the table and sanctions should be held until it becomes clear what direction the whole thing is taking.

There’s a lot of instability in the region all around Israel. How prepared is the IDF to deal with all these challenges?

The IDF is very strong. It depends how far you look. Israel is far from being in the situation of 1938 in Europe or 1947 in Palestine, just before the emergence of Israel. We’re much stronger physically. Part of it is the result of American support, of some $3 billion per year, and weapons and platforms.

We are much stronger than we have ever been. But the reality is that the neighbours are also stronger. They accumulate a lot of weapons and machines that can create a lot of damage.

The nature of warfare is changing, dramatically. I don’t think that a major kind of attack by a neighbouring air force or heavy armoured division is extremely relevant these days, but there are other threats, like missiles, rockets and terror.

And we have to adapt and we are doing it quite well. I’m comfortable with the position of the IDF.