Moshe Arad served as Israel’s ambassador to the United States (1987-90) during the administration of the right-wing Likud Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir.
Yet he told The Chronicle last week that he believes it was valuable that a group of left-wing Israelis met with a group of Palestinians unofficially in Geneva, Switzerland, for the past two-and-a-half years and created a draft “Geneva Accord” for the end of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
This agreement, unveiled earlier this month, could have “an important educational impact on Israeli public opinion” by showing “what is realistic and what is not realistic” in a potential future peace accord, Arad said at Congregation Sinai on Oct. 22.
Above all, this proposal — which, according to the Web site of the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz, includes Palestinian concessions on the “right of return” of Palestinian refugees to Israel — constitutes “the first time Palestinian leaders have made a statement recognizing Israel as a Jewish state,” said Arad.
It thereby bolsters Arad’s conviction that there “are moderate elements in Palestinian society [and] a civil society among Palestinians” who want to end the conflict, he said.
Arad told an audience of about 40 that he “was puzzled by the harsh criticisms” that the Israel delegates to Geneva, led by Yossi Beilin of the left-wing Meretz Party, received in Israel, which have included reported attempts to charge them with treason
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“Everybody knew they did not speak on behalf of the Israeli government,” said Arad. Besides, members of a sitting government “are not always the best equipped for negotiations” affecting long-term conditions because they have the “day-to-day responsibility for running the government,” he added.
“If you leave [such matters] to people who have the luxury to look into the future,” Arad said, they have “more freedom to look at what is desirable” in the long term, rather than the short.
Arad spoke at an event sponsored by the Midwest region of the American Friends of The Hebrew University. He is on a national speaking tour that marks his retirement from his position as HU’s vice president for external affairs, which he has held for the past ten years. In honor of his service, AFHU will establish a Moshe Arad Scholarship Fund for HU students.
Arad’s topic was announced as “Israel After the Iraq War” — a title he said was inaccurate because “‘after’ means the war is at an end, and I’m not sure the war is at an end.”
Nevertheless, he said the U.S. war against Iraq has destroyed Iraq’s military machine, which means that at least for now, Israel is more secure on its “eastern front.”
Moreover, Arad said Israel would be in a better position if it negotiated with the Palestinians while the U.S. troops are in Iraq. Indeed, if the U.S. government decided to pull out, that could “put on Israel major pressures,” he said.
However, the U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan will divert the U.S. administration from active brokering of an Israeli-Palestinian deal, Arad said. That is not good because the only peace agreements Israel has with Arab countries — those with Egypt and Jordan — were reached with active U.S. participation.
Yet Israel has to negotiate with the Palestinians “sooner rather than later,” Arad said.
Israel is paying a high price in lives lost to terror and in a weakening economy.
Moreover, Arad said that owing to demographics, by the year 2010, there will likely be more Arabs than Israelis living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
Even though Arad acknowledged that Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat has no credibility as a negotiating partner, still Israel “does not have the luxury to wait for new leaders and a new attitude from the Palestinians,” nor to “wait until the last terrorist incident has taken place.”
And he said he has to maintain hope that successful negotiations are possible. “I do not want to live in a country in which we have no hope but to live by the sword.”
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