Speaking to the students of the National Defense College, Mr. Peres discussed in detail the peace process in the era of modern technology, an era which is also rife with fanatic fundamentalism feeding on hunger and poverty. Israel's security depends partly on its own strength and qualitative edge and partly on regional security based on a regional economy. While calling the Palestinian issue an ethnic one, Mr. Peres felt that Israels "active defense capability means that Israel's defense begins at the Jordan River, even if in the areas up to that river there will be an autonomous regime. " The foreign minister thought that the five multilateral committees: economic cooperation and development, regional security and arms control, water, refugees and environment, have a key role to play in shaping the new Middle East. Israel must maintain its qualitative edge, deterrent capability based on its scientific and technological superiority.
Israel has just gone through a national election. It also finds itself face-to-face with great changes that have taken place in the world.
With regard to the elections, it may be said that, while Israel has had more than its share of wars and threats, it has remained a truly democratic country. Wars or no wars - democracy has not ceased for a moment. Indeed, from the historical point of view, our democratic institutions preceded our political sovereignty. Even when internal arguments raged, our political differences never undermined the unity of our people as it rallied around the Israel Defense Forces. The Israeli people know that the IDF has never taken part, nor will it take part, in partisan arguments; just as the IDF knows, and has always known, that it is answerable only to the elected Government of the people.
Israel is predicated on the fundamental agreed proposition that arguments are decided by the ballot, and borders are defended with bullets. Every citizen is entitled to cast his or her ballot, while every bearer of arms is attuned to the outcome of the national vote. The IDF thus is beyond partisan argumentation, but it is not beyond the substantial changes that have occurred in our world. These changes have created new dangers and, at the same time, opened up new opportunities.
The changes that have taken place around the globe clearly have implications for our region. In the past, the states of the region were able to exploit inter-power rivalries that, for generations, played themselves out in the Middle East. These rivalries have now ceased, and the countries of the region must look for regional solutions, within the region itself.
In the Middle East, millions of people live in dire poverty. Yet the states of this region have, in the past decade, spent some $600 billion on arms procurement. The water resources of the region are dwindling in inverse proportion to the growth of its population - and yet 85 percent of the total number of ground-to-air missiles that have been sold to the Third World are to be found in the Middle East. In this region, too, which is rife with fanatic fundamentalism, we find 70 percent of the total number of fighter-jets that have been purchased, in the past decade, throughout the world.
In the past, the principal danger facing Israel's security lay in the enemy's wish to cross Israel's borders, by land, air or sea, and to smash its military frontlines. Now, a new peril has been added, and that is the danger of an attempt being made to attack Israel through spheres you will not find on a topographical map, and to hit hard at the core of our civilian population, without the need to deal with borders or fight on frontlines.
Many leaders in the region are already aware that it is poverty that feeds the fundamentalism which threatens their regimes and not Israel, which aspires to peace, stability and prosperity. And, in truth, it is impossible to fight poverty, or to cope with its social repercussions, without a regional effort and regional cooperation. The correct management of water resources, the development of a lucrative tourist trade, the building of an industrial and transport infrastructure, the establishment of a broad market, the rescue of nature from ecological disaster - all these can bring about economic growth; but they are inconceivable without adopting the rules of the global marketplace, which is predicated on free trade and a market economy.
In other words: In order to ensure national security for every state, we must ensure regional security for all the states. In order to eliminate economic distress in ea ch country, it is necessary to organize a regional economy embracing all of these countries, along the lines of the European Common Market.
In the past, our confrontation was mainly with states; today, we must also confront new processes.
These changes have also dictated the approach to the Middle East peace talks. On the one hand, a bilateral track was laid, its purpose being to reduce the past conflicts between the peoples of the region; and, on the other hand, a multilateral track aims at producing a new situation, in the defence and economic realms, in the Middle East.
The bilateral negotiations are being carried out in committees composed of the parties to the conflict. The multilateral negotiations are being carried out in committees constituted by the subjects, or issues, that will determine the future fate of the region.
The bilateral talks are being held with us in three committees:
The principal objective of the Jordanian-Palestinian Committee is to solve an ethnic issue - that of the Palestinians in the territories. In proposing self-rule for the Palestinians, Israel undertook a greater risk than the Palestinians will have to undertake if they accept self-rule. The Palestinians should judge this proposal not by its distance from their own maximum aspirations but, rather, by its distance from the prevailing situation. The Government of Israel intends to promote the autonomy arrangement in all earnestness and with determination. Moreover, we believe that this committee will be able to resolve the points at issue between Israel and Jordan and to arrive at a permanent peace settlement with the Hashemite Kingdom.
The Lebanese Committee was established not because Israel harbors territorial designs of any kind with regard to Lebanon, but because there is no effective government in Lebanon capable of ensuring security for the northern part of our country. In large measure, this is a negotiation between Lebanon and itself, and between Lebanon and Syria, which dictates its moves. A Lebanon that will return to being itself, and that will retrieve its own sovereignty, will find negotiations with Israel both open and promising.
The Syrian Committee is an important negotiating group. This marks the first time that Syria has consented to negotiate openly with Israel. However, if Syria continues to insist that, as a condition for starting the negotiations, Israel will first have to accept Syria's conditions, the negotiation will not get off the ground. The negotiation must be held between two equal partners, without preconditions.
It is not true that Israel wants to remove Syria from the negotiating cycle. Israel is interested in a comprehensive, overall solution, of all the problems and with all the countries concerned. When Israel proposes interim arrangements, the main purpose of this is to build a time-bridge to permanent arrangements.
The multilateral negotiations - to which we attach great importance - focus on five issues that will determine the future of the region. This region, extending from Mauritania in the west to the Persian Gulf in the cast, has a population of 224 million. Some 156 million live on its African side, and some 68 million on the Asian side. The standard of living, in those countries that do not produce oil, is extremely low; the birth-rate is high, life expectancy low. And a low standard of living is an open invitation to hostility, fanaticism and backwardness.
That is why great importance should be attached to the work of the Committee for Economic Cooperation and Development. This committee could begin by creating a fund for the development of the Middle East - and end up with the establishment of a common market in the region.
The Committee for Regional Security and Arms Control could begin by slowing down the arms race - and end up with the establishment of a region that is free of the danger of the use of missiles, of chemical and biological weaponry and of nuclear arms. This committee could also begin by instituting confidence-building measures, designed to defuse tensions and reduce the danger of an outbreak of hostilities. The committee should undertake to mobilize the responsible elements in the region and to isolate every manifestation, in it, of mad totalitarianism, representing a threat to the rest of the states of the region.
The Water Committee can plan the production and distribution of water in accordance with economic logic instead of the constraints of political hostility. Not one country in the Middle East could hope to solve the problems of aridity and salination that threaten its survival, without regional cooperation. If we are to overcome the desert, we must first overcome hostility.
The Ecological Committee can and must act to prevent the destruction of the landscape, the air and the water resources that menaces this ancient region. The ecological problem will constitute a central problem in the next century - in our own region as throughout the world.
The Refugee Committee can try to end the suffering of the refugees - by their permanent resettlement (by national logic, too) as well as by the payment of compensation for losses they incurred through no fault of their own.
What is abundantly clear with regard to both of these aspects of the negotiating process, the bilateral and the multilateral, is that it is impossible to build up the Middle East while the existing conflict continues. But it is equally clear that the resolution of the conflict will have little chance of achieving permanence unless it is made to be an integral part of a new Middle East - a Middle East devoid of the shocks generated by poverty and of the temptations generated by the acquisition of weaponry having the capacity for mass-destruction.
All of these processes operate within different time-frames. One cannot walk through such time-spans without wearing a watch. It is our intention to move forward energetically, but we must remember that the time-span required to move from the present situation to the desired one will be influenced by the skill applied to the resolution of old conflicts as well as by the wisdom utilized in persuading others with regard to the prospects of the future. In the interim, the danger of war may diminish, but there is no guarantee that there will be a reduction of the efforts by terrorist elements to strike at all the parties to the peacemaking process.
Within this time-frame, our political forces must chart Israel's course with regard to the building of a new Middle East, while our defense forces must eliminate all doubt concerning Israel's ability to defend itself in the absence of peace, in the course of the peace process, and ultimately - with the advent of peace and in its preservation.
Our defense establishment, with the IDF at its heart and core, will thus have to maintain both Israel's active defense capability and its deterrent capability.
Active defense capability means that Israel's defense begins at the Jordan River, even if in the areas up to that river there will be an autonomous regime. It means maintaining our land forces - and their qualitative edge. It means maintaining the qualitative edge of our air force as well, and the unique character of the Israeli navy. It is unlikely, moreover, that we will be able to reduce our defense budget at this time; all we can do is to reduce the percentage of the defense outlay as a result of an increase in the GNP.
Israel's deterrent capability is conditional upon its readiness to continue to develop its scientific and technological superiority in domestic terms. The Arab states, too, can purchase technology abroad, but acquired technology - in contrast to domestically produced technology - does not provide the purchaser with the advantage of speedy application and use, or of innovations that cannot be bought and are difficult to imitate. A home-developed technology, moreover, opens up the possibility of the sophisticated utilization of the technological advantage.
Israel must increase its investments in science and technology. A society's advantage in these domains is an ongoing process, beginning in kindergarten and not coming to an end at the university level. It is an advantage that needs to be nurtured along the length and breadth of all walks of life and throughout the lifetime of contemporary man. It is an advantage that can be turned to military as well as civilian uses.
In this new era upon which we are embarking, Israel's central objective is to achieve a secure peace - secure for us as well as for our neighbors. Possibly, this objective is more within reach today than ever before, because today the world at-large, rather than siding with the Arabs or with Israel, is signalling a negation of warfare and a determination to put out local fires that are liable to spread into a worldwide conflagration.
Perhaps, too, the goal of a secure peace is more attainable today because Arab leaders - not all of them - have reached the conclusion that the option of a decisive war against Israel no longer exists, and any deferment or rejection, on their part, of moves designed to bring peace would be tantamount to deepening the condition of economic backwardness and stagnation - a condition that threatens the stability of their regimes and the security of their countries. Saddam Hussein represents a catastrophe for peace as well as for the Arabs and for Israel.
Finally, a secure peace is possible because the citizens of Israel have granted their Government an explicit mandate to move the peace process forward. We are not entitled - nor is there a need - to let go of the opportunity that has been created. On the contrary, it is our duty to transform this opportunity into a permanent reality.
You, the students of this college, are moving, therefore, not only from the study phase to the phase of action. For you, this is not merely the end of a period of learning; it is also the beginning of the study of a new era. Many pairs of eyes will be raised to see how well you cope with this challenge, and many will be rooting for your success.