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A film about Rabin without Oslo
is like a film about Albert Einstein without the theory of relativity or
about Ben Gurion without the foundation of the State of Israel. It’s
like murdering Rabin all over again.
There is no Rabin
without Oslo, as there is no Oslo without Rabin. For 25 years he walked,
step by step, towards this destination, which became his destiny. I can
contribute a personal testimony to this.
Apart from some
incidental encounters, I've had no contacts with Rabin until the June
1967 war. Then I sent several secret letters to the Chief-of-Staff
Rabin, drawing his attention to a war crime committed by his soldiers:
the wholesale killing of poor Palestinian refugees trying to cross the
Jordan at night in order to get home. He acknowledged receipt of the
letters, and, as far as I know, the practice stopped.
In the spring of
1969, after Prime Minister Levy Eshkol died in office, and in my role as
the head of a Knesset fraction, I officially proposed to the President
of the State that Rabin be entrusted with the job of forming a new
government. This would have necessitated a change of the law. Shortly
thereafter, in June, I visited ambassador Rabin at his embassy in
Washington, and that was the beginning of a dialogue about the
Israeli-Palestinian problem which continued until his death.
Rak Gwul patuach - Gwul batuach
I had come to the
United States in order to propagate the idea of a Palestinian State in
the occupied territories – an idea that I had already proposed to Eshkol
in the middle of the 1967 war. After I had talked to several
high-ranking American officials (i.a. Sisco, Saunders, Yost), Rabin
invited me to the embassy. During our conversation he uttered a
memorable sentence: "I don’t care at all where the borders will be, as
long as they are open. Only an open border is a safe border." (In
Hebrew, open is patuah, safe is batuah.)
He adhered,
however, to the so-called "Jordanian option". During the conversation,
and later in a summing-up letter I wrote him, I tried to convince him
that only a border between the State of Israel and a State of Palestine
would be unavoidably open. It would be open by necessity, by the
economic, political and geographical reality, such as the connection
between the West Bank and Gaza.
After Rabin’s
return home the dialogue continued off and on – in the Prime Minister’s
office, the Knesset, his residence, his private home and at social
events where we would bump into each other and drink whiskey together.
During 1975 and 1976 I came to his office several times in order to
report, at the request of the Palestinians, about my secret contacts
with PLO leaders. I brought him several proposals by Yasser Arafat
(transmitted via Sa’id Hamami and myself) for a progression of certain
political steps. Rabin repeated his belief in the Jordanian option and
uttered another sentence that stuck in my memory: "I shall not take any
step towards the Palestinians, because the first step will put us on a
road that will inevitably lead to the establishment of a Palestinian
state." To this he objected.
So how did he get
to Oslo? He himself explained this to me in 1994, in a Shabbat
conversation in his home. I had come to talk with him in preparation of
the writing of an article in which I was going to name him Man of the
Year. I had never seen him in such a relaxed mood. Lea was sitting with
some guests in the living room, Rabin received me in his study. Eytan
Haber joined us.
Rabin told me that
he had adhered to the Jordanian option until the Intifada, when King
Hussein announced that he was leaving the game and was giving up any
claim to the West Bank. Even earlier, Ariel Sharon had tried to set up a
group of Palestinian Quislings (the "Village Leagues"), which aroused
only ridicule among the Palestinians. When Rabin was appointed Minister
of Defense, he invited local Palestinian leaders to meet him,
individually and in groups. All told him: "As long as we are under
occupation, we cannot conduct negotiations. Our political address is the
PLO in Tunis."
Afterwards the
Prime Minister, Yitzhaq Shamir, was compelled to attend a peace
conference in Madrid. He refused, of course, to sit down with a
Palestinian delegation. Therefore a joint "Jordanian-Palestinian"
delegation was formed - but it soon split into two. Thus the Israeli
delegation found itself opposite a Palestinian delegation. Faisal
Husseini, its leader, was a resident of Jerusalem, and therefore was not
allowed into the room. He gave his orders to the delegation in the next
one.
The situation
became ridiculous. Every time the Israelis proposed something, the
Palestinians said: "Let’s take a break. We must place a call to Tunis
and get Arafat’s answer." Rabin drew the logical conclusion: If it is
Arafat who makes all the decisions in any case, it would be better to
talk with him directly."(In order to foreclose any doubt, I should
mention that I have published all these facts in my book "My Friend, the
Enemy" while Rabin was still alive. and that he never denied any of it.)
When he agreed to
the Oslo principles, Rabin was not ready to make the big leap to reach
peace directly. He was slow and cautious by nature and, in
contradistinction to Begin, he was averse to dramatic moves. Instead of
immediately paying the whole price for the whole peace, which would be a
Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, and the pre-1967
border the settlers turned back, he preferred to move forward slowly. He
wanted to progress step by step, although he understood that this would
lead eventually to the Palestinian state (as described).
Already in the 70s
I had proposed that he meet Arafat secretly. At the time he adamantly
refused. Even when he shook the hand of Arafat in Washington, it was
obvious that he had to overcome misgivings. But during the two years
left to him, the relations became much closer. The real Arafat, whom one
sees in a face to face encounter, is very different from the one
Israelis see in their imagination. Rabin, who was rather suspicious of
personal relationships and not prone to bond easily, came to respect and
trust the Palestinian leader, as Lea has testified.
We did not come to an empty country
Rabin underwent an
even deeper change: he began to see the Palestinian side of the historic
narrative and to absorb the fact that not all the justice is on one
side. It was a slow and profound process. In his last Knesset speech he
said: "We did not come to an empty country." This is quite a heretical
sentence coming from a convinced Zionist. Rabin’s assassin, and those
who stood behind him, realized that they had no time to lose.
Those who pretend
now to be his heirs are very far from being so. Ehud Barak has
succeeded, within days, in destroying all that Rabin had built,
patiently and thoroughly over the period of years. Barak did not
continue where Rabin had left off, but returned us all to square one.
The similarity
between Barak and Rabin is very superficial – both were born in this
country, both were professional soldiers and both became
Chiefs-of-Staff. But Rabin was much more than a general. He was an
honest and wise person with a moral backbone. He was not arrogant. He
did not believe that one can compel the Palestinians by force to accept
things that threaten their national existence.
He understood that
if one wants to reach the "end of the conflict" with one stroke, one has
to pay the whole price; and that, if one is not yet ready for this, it
is better to proceed with interim agreements. He did not look down on
the Palestinians and their leader.
In order to make peace with the Arabs,
one does not have to speak Arabic.
On has to be a human being.
Ezer Weizman once
said to me: "In order to make peace with the Arabs, one does not have to
speak Arabic. On has to be a human being." Rabin was no saint and no
genius. But he was a human being.
Ein früherer
Artikel zum Thema (in german):
Wie kam Jizhak Rabin nach Oslo?
Get this article in
Hebrew
ua / hagalil.com /
05-11-2000 |
