Selected Press Statements by Prime Minister Ehud Barak
during his Visit to London
November 23, 1999
ISRAEL-PALESTINIANS
Q: When will you be able to agree with the Palestinian Authority
the next stage of withdrawal from the occupied territories?
PM EHUD BARAK: I believe that the present one, the one that
should be ended in 15 November, I believe will be ended in a few
days. It has been approved by the Israeli Government. It is
clearly exactly according to the Sharm agreement and we are ready
to implement it. The next redeployment has to take place to the
best of my memory in the beginning of January, maybe 10th January
or 20th January, and we will do it exactly according to the
agreements exactly on time.
Q: Even though you expressed optimism in the last few days about
the future of talks with the Palestinians, are you pessimistic
because of the comments for example made by Suha Arafat and some
of the others?
PM EHUD BARAK: I think that these comments should be condemned
and every kind of expression which is incongruent with the code
of conduct that we need should be condemned and stopped. But we
will not allow any kind of expressions to be sway us from our
objective of reaching peace in the Middle East. It will take a
little bit longer time to achieve a real change in the real basic
attitudes of our neighbours towards us.
Q: Is it at all realistic do you think to talk about having a
framework for final status by next February and actual agreement
by the end of next year? Is that realistic?
PM EHUD BARAK: It's realistic. If there is a will, there is a
way, as my partner Chairman Arafat used to say... We have a
major responsibility and we have to live up to the challenge.
It's up to us. If we fail to do it, the alternative is being
dragged into a new round of violence. It might be thrown fifteen
years backwards and we will have to dig many new graves in the
Middle East on all sides before leaders, human-beings like us
will sit down to solve exactly the same problem to the slightest
details. And in this I feel somehow on common ground when I
listen to Tony Blair describe the situation in Ireland. I found
that sometimes it sounds like we are talking about our own
conflict.
Q: But I mean let's look at some of the issues: For example, do
you accept there is now going to be a Palestinian State sort of
dotted around the territory of Israel?
PM EHUD BARAK: For obvious reasons I would not like to define on
camera the nature of the Palestinian entity to emerge from the
agreement. We are at the very entrance to a final status
agreement where we have to deal with all the problems - refugees,
settlements, borders, the future of economic relationship, the
nature of the entity, security arrangements and even Jerusalem
will be brought by the Palestinians to the table. This is such a
complicated set of issues that I don't believe that I should give
statements, which means somehow concessions in this kind of
dialogue in advance on camera.
Q: There are some things which people find very hard to
understand, for example how there can possibly be any agreement
while there are still settlements. I mean yesterday there was
another hilltop settlement which your Government's already said
it's going to remove; Yasser Arafat would like to see all the
settlements gone but that's not practical, is it?
PM EHUD BARAK: The outpost that had been established yesterday
had been removed immediately by the armed forces under a kind of
permanent directive that they have from me, not to let any
individual or group impose their will upon a freely elected
Government. It's a part of a policy that does not allow anyone to
violate the law but of course we are not going to dismantle
cities of 25,000 people or the whole Israeli people who are
living around Jerusalem. The Palestinians will understand that a
majority of the settlers should remain in settlement blocs under
our sovereignty. I'm confident that a way could be found to bring
together our vital security and national interest but in a way
that leaves latitude or room for sensitive understanding of their
needs, of their sensitivities, of the need of the Palestinians to
establish their entity in a way that will be viable, contiguous
and somehow connected to the rest of the world. All these issues
should be discussed in the permanent agreement or even most of
them in the framework agreement phase in the next one hundred
days.
Q: The other thing that's becoming clear is that you envisage
perhaps a greater separation between the Palestinian entity and
Israel than there is in practice at present. Would that be
fair?
PM EHUD BARAK: Until now we control them, so we have to take care
of them. They were a kind of constituency under our control. It
is going to be changed. For security reasons, security against
terror and even security of property we have to separate
ourselves. The American poet, Robert Frost once said 'good fences
make good neighbours'. It's a basic need.
I believe that it's a basic need for them as well. They will want
to emphasize every possible attribute of being independent, so
for them it doesn't make sense to be hugged or fully encircled by
an Israeli entity, even in an economic relationship. If we don't
control the exits and the entrances we should have a certain kind
of separation, otherwise we would be flooded by products that are
coming under a different system of tariffs.
Q: But I do have to put it to you that anyone who goes now and is
able to go to Gaza and in Israel sees that you've got on one side
of the border a first world nation, on the other side a nation
that's really poor and is struggling, and we also know that the
Palestinians depend for labor in Israel. Are you saying that as
part of this final status that economic relationship, those jobs
for Palestinians would go?
PM EHUD BARAK: Yes, I believe that as long as they are dependent
for some 30% of their GDP on income from work in Israel, of
course we will allow them to do that under certain security
arrangements. I believe that we will end up with q certain kind
of free trade agreement and with not just free trade but with
certain allowances on the basiw of permanent permissions to
workers to come. It will take a few years, maybe more than a few,
before the growth of the Palestinian economy in which we are
interested as a part of long term security of Israel.
When it grows, it will provide the conditions for Palestinian
work to flow back into the Palestinian entity. But this is just
one example of the inter-dependency and we are ready to face with
it on a fair basis in order to establish this kind of bridge that
will put an end to the conflict. This is the major issue.
WITHDRAWAL FROM LEBANON
Q: Your promise to withdraw Forces from Southern Lebanon, is that
absolute or meaning they'll be out by the end of next year or
not?
PM EHUD BARAK: I intend to redeploy the IDF until July 2000 along
the international border under agreement. For obvious reasons I
will not detail now, what will happen if July comes closer -
namely we will be in April or March and there is no agreement;
what should be done? I suggest that I will be interviewed once
again if it comes.
Q: So that doesn't sound like a firm commitment?
PM EHUD BARAK: It's clear to our people and to our neighbours
that I mean what I say and that the IDF will be deployed along
the international border until July 2000.
NEGOTIATIONS WITH SYRIA
Q: What about Syria? Again it's been claimed that there was a
promise by your predecessor, Mr Rabin to hand back the Golan
Heights.
PM EHUD BARAK: They know exactly what is the deposit that was
left by Rabin at the hands of President Clinton. We know exactly
and the Americans know exactly. It is not an issue to be detailed
or it doesn't help the chances of achieving a peace to air this
kind of a dispute on international networks but it's clear to me
that it takes two to tango. If the Syrians are ready, we will be
there. We see no way to impose it upon them. The differences I
believe are microscopic and it needs courage to make the peace of
the brave and to solve the whole spectrum of issues - Lebanon,
water, terror headquarters still working in Damascus, early
warning, security arrangements, opening of border[s],
establishing of embassies and even beginning the way toward [a]
certain kind of economic relationship.
MOSQUE IN NAZARETH
Q: The Vatican has accused the Israeli Government of trying to
foment religious tension by building a mosque in Nazareth at the
site of a Church.
PM EHUD BARAK: We are doing our best that all three Western
religions - Judaism, Islam and Christianity of course - will be
able to live together, to have a free access to their Holy places
and hopefully respecting each other. We will do our best to have
the Millennium ceremonies all around Israel taking place in the
most successful way.
Q: While we're on the Christian theme, talk about Nazareth for
example. The Pope wants to go to Israel next year and now he's
saying he might not go because you've allowed a mosque to be
built at the site of the Annunciation.
PM EHUD BARAK: You know we are trying to deal with it in honesty
and fairness and trying to be as sensitive as we can to the need
of the Christians, especially in this unique year to work in the
basilica and have the Holy services they need. It's a very
sensitive issue. Of course there are Moslems and Christians
living together. We will not allow any kind of manipulation of
the Moslem side against the Christian and we'll back to the
extent we can legally the opportunity for the basilica to grow
and to the Moslems to have their kind of opportunity to serve
...
Q: And if the Pope says that's not good enough and he's not
coming?
PM EHUD BARAK: I think that it's very important for the region,
even for the peace process and for making human life better and
somewhat more open and tolerant that the Holy Father will come to
visit Israel in the year 2000.
UNITED NATIONS - WEOG
Q: Did the British express any support for joining Israel to the
Western group in the UN?
PM EHUD BARAK: I believe that the British understand it as well
as the French and the Germans and others. There are still certain
reservations from two or three countries in Europe. We are
working behind the scenes to bring all of them together. I
believe that this phenomena of member of the UN that for 51 years
cannot be part of any grouping is somewhat disturbing even from
the point of view of the international community.
ISRAEL-EUROPE
Q: There has been a sort of conventional wisdom that the United
States sides with Israel and that the Europeans tend to side with
the Palestinians or at least be sympathetic towards them. Is that
fair? Is that still in force?
PM EHUD BARAK: I'm not sure. We are trying our best to explain
our positions to the ordinary European citizen in the streets of
London, Paris, Berlin or any other capital as well as in
Washington, New York and the United States. I believe that the
very fact that President Clinton is a very good - a true friend
of Israel - but at the same time respected as an honest and
empathic kind of partner or observer of this peace process helps
the peace process to move together forward; in the same way the
position of Tony Blair and many other European leaders that come
to a more balanced situation, where they do not suggest bridging
ideas to solve the problem but just providing the wheels in the
back of both sides to push them to come together to make the
painful decisions that are needed in order to put an end to the
one hundred years conflict.
IRAN/MIDDLE EAST
Q: Did you discuss Iran with Tony Blair and what were the
conclusions you reached?
PM EHUD BARAK: Our position is very clear. We are for a kind of a
very cautious and careful approach to the Iranians which are
still a source of terrorism in the Middle East and the kind of
initiators of a very or highly intensive attempt to acquire
nuclear power and missile technologies. We believe that
everything in regard to Iran should be done in a very cautious
way and that a way should be found even to resume inspection of
the international community in neighbouring Iraq in regard to
their activity on the same areas.
Q: You've been a military man for most of your career. For fifty
years Israel's been seen as a nation under threat. What do you
see now as the main threats to the future existence of Israel?
PM EHUD BARAK: We are still living in a very tough neighborhood.
It's a neighborhood where you can face new Islamic fundamentalist
wave taking over a full society, a whole society, or where terror
is spread in a wide way without even fingerprints or where
conventional forces are deployed deliberately in order to erase a
member of the UN from map and history as well. It's happened not
just to Israel but even to Kuwait in the last decade.
So it's a tough place to live in - nothing to compare with
Western Europe or North America - and we have to be aware of it.
The Palestinians for example are not a threat to the security of
Israel but the whole Arab world as such, with only a single
Jewish State, is something that we should bear in mind. So even
now making peace is the most urgent issue but then we will have
to renew the growth of our economy, to kind of healing the inner
fractures within our social fabric and to move forward.