The Mideast Standoff Can’t Last. This Is Israel’s Chance for Peace.
Ami Ayalon, a former head of Israel’s security agency and a Navy veteran, explains why a two-state solution better happen fast.
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- I’ve long suspected that a vast number of our culture’s most cherished aphorisms are either falsely attributed or totally made up. (And that goes double for anything involving Vince Lombardi.) But there is an old saw usually credited to David Ben-Gurion that’s apt even if spurious: “A Jew who doesn’t believe in miracles is not a realist.”
With Israel holding elections Tuesday -- in the midst of a huge corruption scandal, rockets falling willy-nilly from Gaza, the bloody mess in Syria, Iran back in the nuclear game, and the nation’s legitimacy being challenged with new vehemence by Western leaders -- you can’t blame even the most die-hard Israeli realists for hoping for a miracle.
Right now, I don’t want to get caught up in an argument about Zionism or the Palestinian peace process or apartheid states or whether Scarlett Johansson should be telling us what carbonated beverages to drink. (If you do want to have those debates, please take it up with my colleague Eli Lake, who truly loves your passion.) But given all that’s going on in the only democratic corner of the Middle East, I wanted to get the perspective of a realist who appreciates miracles.
So I had a long conversation with Ami Ayalon, a former head of Shin Bet, Israel’s legendary security agency, as well as a former member of the Knesset and commander in chief of the Navy. (Yes, Israel has a navy.) Most recently, he helped found the organization Blue White Future, which advocates for a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict. (Note: The leading opposition alliance to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the upcoming election, headed by the former general Benny Gantz, is also known as Blue and White, but is unaffiliated with Ayalon’s group.)
At 75, Ayalon is a striking physical presence: shaved head, taut muscles, every bit the former Navy commando who in the late 1960s won Israel’s highest military honor for actions on the raid of an Egyptian radar station. It was nearly comical when our waiter brought him a dainty panna cotta covered in berries. Here is a lightly edited transcript of our conversation:
Tobin Harshaw: What happens if Netanyahu loses on Tuesday?
Ami Ayalon: No one knows. Let’s assume that Benny Gantz and his people put together a coalition; the question is where they go. First of all because they don’t say anything. They are not dealing with content. No one in Israel is. Everybody is only dealing with personalities and corruption, which is a huge problem. They said that before they will start to negotiate, they will call the Likud to create a coalition. So, with the Likud, the question is whether they will be able to change the policy. We might get Netanyahu’s policy without corruption, which is better. But this is not what we expected.
TH: Because you will still be moving away from two states?
AA: Exactly. On the other hand, we have to remember that none of us, or even the greatest political leaders, control reality, or shape the future alone. The assumption that the status quo is stable is not acceptable to me. Several events can change the reality dramatically. First of all, what happens the day after Abu Mazen? He is not young. We shall not get anything better.
TH: You don’t think you’ll get a better Palestinian leader?
AA: No, I’m pretty sure. You cannot expect something better if the status quo and the absence of any political horizon create a reality in which 75 percent of Palestinians believe that only by using violent power by intifada will they end the occupation. You don’t have to be a prophet to predict that the one who will replace Abu Mazen will choose violence. Not because this is what he wants, but because this is what he has to do in order to stay in power. It’s a mirror image to what we see on the Israeli side.
TH: Trump recently said he wants the U.S. to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. First, did he do Netanyahu a favor in terms of the election? Secondly, how would this change Israel’s security in terms of the Syrian war?
AA: Of course he tried to help Bibi. It’s a great present. But it didn’t work. The scenario was not perfect. As for security, most Israelis believe that Syria does not exist as a state, as a national entity, in the way we used to think about Syria 10 years ago. So, most Israelis believe that the Golan Heights is our buffer zone from any violence that will come from the east, whether it will be radical terror or Iranian troops or something else.
TH: Israel has much better relations with Russia than the U.S. and its allies do. Is there a possibility of forging a Syrian solution that keeps Israel’s security in a way that you’re comfortable?
AA: I don’t think so. The situation in Syria is so complicated. First of all, I have to be very careful about it, because all of our predictions about Syria failed. There are so many contradicting intentions and powers in Syria. I think that the Iranian interest contradicts the Russian interest and even the Syrian interest from time to time.
When we try to understand the Middle East today, we have to try to understand the history of the region. There were three major powers that tried to achieve supremacy or dominance: Persia, Turkey and Egypt. Many of Iran’s actions today are explained by that aspiration to dominate the region -- from the possession of nuclear capabilities to achieving open access to the Mediterranean to control of Shiite minorities everywhere.
TH: Ayatollah Khamenei, the supreme leader, is also old. What do you look for or hope for in the next supreme leader?
AA: Iran is not my expertise. I studied Muslim fundamentalist terror. But as I look at the states around us, I think that Iran is the most advanced in the region. Iranians are very highly educated. They study in foreign universities. They are open to the world, no matter how much the regime is trying to close off the internet. The street in Iran is not stable. It is not exactly democracy, but the legitimacy of the street is heard. I will not be surprised if the administration in Iran will change. But I don’t see it happening without internal violence -- the Revolutionary Guard Corps and others will use violence.
TH: If Trump is beaten in 2020, do you think there is a chance a Democratic president could revive the nuclear deal?
AA: I don’t think so. I supported Obama’s Iranian nuclear deal, because I believed that it empowered the pragmatic groups in Iran. Whether I was right or wrong I have no idea, because unfortunately the deal does not exist. There is no perfect deal. A deal is a negotiated result where you give something, you get something. It did not solve many problems: terror or local violence or missiles. But we got a 10- or 15-year hold on the nuclear weapons program; it was an exceptional diplomatic achievement of the 21st century.
You in America invented a great term: smart power. The concept is a balance between hard and soft power. The problem is how to use it. I believe that Obama was a master of understanding the power of soft power. But I don’t think that he understood the power of hard power in order to balance it.
TH: Has there been any evidence of Russian manipulation in the Israeli election, as we feel they did with ours?
TH: If so, is it clearly to aid Netanyahu, or is it just to destabilize democracy?
AA: It’s much easier to show that the idea is to destabilize democracy.
TH: Today we see Jeremy Corbyn potentially becoming prime minister of the U.K. We see these young progressive Democrats in Congress who would describe themselves as anti-Zionists, but others would see them as anti-Israel or even anti-Semitic. Is that a worry for you in Israel -- that there’s a political tide in the West turning against your interests?
AA: I was waiting for this question since the moment that we met. Thank you. This is a major question that in Israel we do not ask -- because we have the answer before we understand the question. Major mistake. I believe that the question represents our Israeli tragedy: We do not see reality the way people around us, especially from abroad, see us or see reality.
TH: What keeps you up at night, security-wise? And is it different than what kept you up at night when you were still at the Shin Bet?
AA: In both questions you assume that something is keeping me up at night. I used to sleep even before a major operation, because not to sleep is not a working plan. Sleep is a good approach. In the Middle East, when you sleep it is not because you are not afraid. It’s because you decided that now you have to rest, otherwise you will not be ready.
I have been a member of the Israeli security community for over 40 years, starting in our Navy SEALs. I learned something very simple: That if the sun is rising every morning, it is not natural. It means that somebody worked very hard in order to make sure that it will rise.
Abu Mazen is what Israelis call the Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.
After this conversation, the Times of Israel reported that up to 20 percent of Israelis had been exposed to fake news smearing Gantz.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Philip Gray at philipgray@bloomberg.net
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
Tobin Harshaw writes editorials on national security and the military for Bloomberg Opinion. He was an editor with the op-ed page of the New York Times and the paper’s letters editor.
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