October 23, 1995
The Taba Accord is the most important step Israel has taken toward defining its contours as a Jewish state; the Taba Accord is also the most important measure that will allow the Palestinian people to create a democratic society under self-rule.
Israel has gained moral liberation; the Palestinians have gained democratic freedom.
Were it not for this agreement, Israel would be sliding toward binational statehood without coexistence. It would remain exposed to terror, threats of war, and growing hatred. Israel's fate depends on what happens domestically no less, and at times more, than what happens around it.
A state should not be led blindfolded into a cul-de-sac situation. Eight million people live between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea today: four and a half million Jews, three and a half million non-Jews. Both the proportions and the relations between them will ultimately determine the future security and well-being of our lives.
Anyone who wishes to make this entire territory into a single political entity, known as Greater Israel, will eventually have to annex the population groups, not only the territories, to Israel. After all, it is inconceivable to maintain two nationally different populations under one sovereignty, one with full civil rights, including the right to vote for the Knesset, and the other under constant discrimination for reasons of expediency. Israel cannot, and shall not, become a land of apartheid.
The real choice we face is whether to annex all of the territories, at the price of risking the Jewish majority, or to have a Jewish and democratic state, separated from its control of another people and their property, their rights, and the land that they cultivate.
Control of all the territory will cost Israel not only its Jewish character but any prospect of future peace. Our enemies will mobilize and our friends will ostracize us, because we shall look like a state that rules by force and force only.
The Taba Accord is the result not of coercion but of free choice. Today's Israel is neither a weak nor a poor country. It is not subject today to outside pressure, and does not face a military threat. We have achieved a situation of defensive strength and economic growth of the sort we have never known. Therefore, this is also an appropriate time to take the decisions that are right for us.
The decision we have made is a two-faceted one: one of values and one of realism.
The value aspect is unequivocal. We do not want to rule over another people by force. Not only because it motivates the other people to rebel but also because it is offensive to the historical backbone of the Jewish people -- a people that has preferred to restrain its impulses rather than conquer its adversaries.
The realistic aspect is manifested in a situation where there is no alternative. There is no answer to the question of what to do with the two and a half million Palestinians who live in Gaza, Judea, and Samaria. Shall we disregard their existence? Shall we argue that the problem will go away by itself? Shall we allow the thrust of the sword to speak in lieu of the clear voice? One who wishes to rely on the sword invites swords from the opposite quarter. Forcible annexation will provoke national rage, religious fanaticism, international revulsion, economic isolation, and a never-ending search for the possibilities of violence, terror, threats of war, and yearning for nonconventional weapons.
The western land of Israel must not be allowed to become an arena of perpetual strife and a source of nourishment for extreme and fanatic forces that attempt to equip themselves with modern weaponry.
When two peoples are working out an agreement, attention should also be paid to each party's greatest point of sensitivity. For the Palestinians, it is self-respect. For us, it is personal security. The Palestinians will recover much of their self-respect when we are no longer their overseers. Israel's personal security will be assured by a strategic map on which no foreign army is positioned between the Jordan River in the east to the sea, and from the sea in the west to the border of the Gaza Strip. The only army to be deployed in this territory, and its military installations, will be the Israel Defense Force. The IDF will be responsible for the security of Israel, of Israelis, and of Israeli settlements.
Not all of their self-respect will be restored; not all of our security will be hermetic. This is an interim arrangement, that is to say, a decisive stage meant to terminate a life of strife and to organize to greet the twenty-first century.
There is no doubt that this accord brings up various questions, and it is correct to address ourselves to them.
Question number one: Why don't you present this agreement to the people to decide?
The answer is that ever since Camp David, the people have decided, repeatedly, in favor of "self-rule in the territories" with "a strong Palestinian police force."
The Camp David agreement says:
- "In order to provide the residents with full autonomy, the Israel military administration and his civil administration will retreat under these arrangements at such time as a self-rule authority will be elected by the residents of the territories in free elections, in order to replace the existing military administration... The sides will negotiate to conclude an agreement that will set forth the powers and responsibilities of the self-rule administration that will be created in the West Bank and the Gaza District. There will be a pullback of Israel armed forces and a redeployment of the remaining Israeli forces to security areas that will be spelled out. The agreement will also include arrangements to assure internal and external security and public order. A strong local police force that may include Israel citizens will be formed."
The Knesset endorsed this agreement by a majority of 95 members. We have carried out the decision of the Knesset. Moreover, when he presented the agreement to the Knesset (December 28, 1977), the prime minister at the time, the late Mr. Menachem Begin, said, "When peace is ordained, we shall offer the Arab residents of Judea, Samaria and the Gaza District administrative autonomy for on the basis of the following principles: The military administration in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza District will be abolished. Administrative autonomy will come into being in these areas, by and for the residents." Israel also proposed, in the words of the prime minister, "to leave the problem of sovereignty in these areas open." Since then, in every election campaign, both of the large parties, the Alignment and the Likud, have (and not only them) favored the autonomy plan. The people have been consulted and have given their response.
It is possible to change one's mind. But if people change their minds, what difference does it make if the change follows an election campaign or a plebiscite referendum?
Question number two: Does the agreement harm Israel's security or strengthen it?
The security picture is clear. All of the territory, including that to be administered by the Palestinian Authority, will be demilitarized of foreign forces. There will be no tanks in these territories, nor warplanes, nor warships, nor missiles with warheads, except for those in the possession of the Israel Defense Force.
Our strategic depth will not diminish; it will remain as it was, from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. The threat will diminish. We already have a peace treaty with Egypt, to our south. We have just signed a peace treaty with Jordan, to our east. With the Palestinians, and with their largest political organization, the PLO, we have reached an accord that commits them to forsaking and fighting terror. The war on terrorism has become a Palestinian interest, not only an Israeli one, because the agents of terror wish to destroy peace and attack those who are parties to peace. The Palestinian Authority understands the choice that it faces: either to overcome them or let them overcome it and destroy it. If they destroy the self-rule, the extremists will again bring catastrophe upon the Palestinians. Nobody caused the Palestinian people greater harm than the Mufti of Jerusalem. His rejectionism, accompanied with terror, led the Palestinians to turn down the partition plan, left them stateless, created the refugee problem, and caused indescribable suffering for hundreds of thousands of people to this very day.
We do not promise a total cessation of terror. But we believe a new constellation has come into being that will leave its imprints on terror, perhaps even in the near future.
Question number three: Do you propose that the State of Israel rely on the Palestinian side?
The answer is unequivocal. Where Israel's security is concerned, Israel has to rely on itself. The security of Israel will continue to rest in the hands of the IDF, the Israel Police, and the General Security Services. They will not be weakened and will certainly not be deactivated. As for relations with the Palestinians, we want to create the possibility of coexistence, not as an alternative to the IDF but as an alternative to a standoff that has lasted for an entire generation.
And if you ask whether there is any chance for coexistence with the Palestinians, our answer is in the affirmative. Israel has a million Arab citizens, and our relationship with them is respectful and free of violence. In the territories there is the same composition of population as Israel, though not in the same proportion, and there is no reason in the world that the relationship that prevails in Israel should not prevail in the territories.
Question number four: Why are you giving up territories? Or, in more pungent language, why are you "selling" parts of the State of Israel?
The answer is simple: We have not given up anything that we possessed. We have recognized a reality in which some parts of the western Land of Israel were not in our possession. Gaza was not in our hands. All we have given up is something that we had not possessed in real terms. The people who live in Nablus and Bethlehem are Arabs, not Jews. Why should we be their bosses or their police?
We have not forfeited our historical right to the Land of Israel. History is not a matter for concessions or changes. However, it is similarly impossible to disregard a reality that has taken shape over hundreds of years. We are not the ones who partitioned the country; it was partitioned between the Jewish population and the Palestinian population. It is not the Oslo Agreement that created the map; the map created the Oslo Agreement. What we can choose is the type of partition we want -- a partition by knives or by agreements. We can build here a place of eternal strife, or, as one of our leading authors proposed, a duplex dwelling.
Question number five: The settlers went out there in accordance with Government decisions; why do you want them to give up their homes?
The explicit answer is that nobody has been asked to give up his home. Contrary to Camp David, we conducted negotiations that do not require the evacuation of even one settlement.
The edifice we are building is based on a change in relations, not in locations. If the two sides were to develop a different relationship, the whole problem would take on a totally different form. Hatred would give way to wisdom. If relations improve, there will be no problem. If relations continue as they are, there will be no solution.
Question number six: What's the hurry? Wait. Stop. Take a break.
We've waited for twenty-eight years, ever since our glorious victory in the Six-Day War. We waited and we paid for it. Since 1967 we have experienced the War of Attrition, in which hundreds of our sons fell; the Yom Kippur War, in which thousands of our sons fell; the war in Lebanon, in which more than six hundred of our sons fell; and the intifada, in which many of our citizens have been murdered. What has come of the slow road, which is therefore no road at all?
The negotiations for the current agreement have been going on for a year and a half now, and thousands of details have been discussed. Military, legal, and administrative staff work has been done. Various types of administration have been tested. Various methods of elections have been tested. Various map arrangements have been tested.
When the end of the negotiations approached -- when the "finish" was in sight -- a supreme effort was made to reconcile the toughest problems that remained. The home stretch was hard for us and for the Palestinians. But the very fact that we were able to reach an accord, with neither pressure nor mediation from the outside, proves that there is nothing stronger than a necessity meeting its time matured.
Question number seven: Why didn't you head directly into negotiations for permanent status?
Negotiation for the permanent status means placing the Jerusalem issue in the center of the negotiations. Or more accurately, to place the impossibility of reaching an agreement on Jerusalem in the forefront of our contacts with the Palestinians, and to cause the negotiations to crash.
One of our most important achievements in the so-called Oslo 1 and Oslo 2 accords was to keep Jerusalem out of the negotiations, while it retains the explicit status of a united city and the capital of Israel.
We do not believe that negotiations are a roulette wheel on which you bet the whole kitty. Negotiations can take place step by step, and it is possible to agree on eighty percent of the issues without agreeing on one hundred percent. Eighty percent agreement is clearly preferable to one hundred percent disagreement. We will probably find it easier to live with one unresolved matter than with loose ends everywhere.
We went into the negotiations with clear-cut positions: make autonomy a reality, do not rule over another people, prevent the formation of a binational state, do not return to the 1967 frontiers, keep Jerusalem the capital of Israel, and keep it united. We have not retreated from any of these positions.
Question number eight: Is the autonomy a blueprint for a Palestinian state?
Not necessarily. For example, it can also be a framework including demilitarized zones, even an arrangement for areas without sovereignty. We have come to realize in the course of the negotiations that the known solutions do not have a long life expectancy. They attract supporters but also opponents. I believe that the final status will be based not only on the existing proposals, or on the fears expressed about them, but on a series of totally new ideas that have not yet dawned even on the informed people.
Question number nine: What has Israel gained from the Oslo 1 and Oslo 2 agreements?
Israel has managed to seize the political initiative and to return to its moral and political self. Practically speaking, Gaza in reality looks better than the Gaza described in the agreement. Our soldiers need not risk their lives, and Katyusha missiles have not been hurtling from Gaza into Ashkelon or Kiryat Gat. Israel without the Gaza Strip is more Israeli and stronger than an Israel burdened with Gaza.
Because of the peace process, Israel is experiencing an unprecedented economic boom. New markets have opened their doors to us. Foreign capital has begun to flow in. Confidence in Israel's future has reached an astonishing level. Consequently, the immigrants have been absorbed and unemployment has decreased. Israel has the fastest growing economy in the western hemisphere today. It generates more from its human capabilities than Saudi Arabia does from its oil wells.
Israel's international standing has improved irrecognizably: 154 countries have diplomatic relations with us today, as against 93 before the peace process started. Israel today is one of the most respected countries in the world. The Middle East, too, is gradually changing. Only two years ago, it was a fantasy to envisage the President of Egypt, the King of Jordan, the Prime Minister of Morocco, the Foreign Minister of Saudi Arabia, the Chairman of the PLO, and the Prime Minister of Israel, all standing on one platform, hearing a chorus of assent and encouragement from the Americans, the Russians, the Europeans, and the Japanese. The Casablanca Conference was held and others of its kind will follow in Amman and Barcelona. There will be a Middle East Development Bank. There will be economic systems that, once they coalesce or are established, will propel the Middle East from the nineteenth century into the twenty-first.
More and more, and because of the agreements, the true choice facing the Middle East is coming into focus: either a fundamentalist, antiquated, isolated, impoverished, violent, supplicant Middle East, or a modern, open, enlightened Middle East that will begin to experience economic prosperity in the same way that many countries in Asia and Latin America have begun to prosper -- a Middle East on the runway that leads into new expanses.
The agreements have not extinguished all the risks. However, they have created prospects that had not existed previously, prospects that we have never known.
Question number ten: Why don't you try to create a dialogue with those who reject your path?
The answer is: We are prepared to engage anyone in dialogue but not to take part in creating tumult. The place to conduct a dialogue is here, in this building, the Knesset -- a dialogue that should be conducted politely, with mutual attentiveness, with the understanding that national unity requires, even when the nation is riven with disagreements. We favor freedom of expression coupled with the discipline of the law -- an argument of rationales, not of epithets.
With Syria we have not made sufficient progress. But no one can blame Israel, which has already signed your peace agreements, for unwillingness to move toward overall peace. Syria cannot conduct a strategy of peace and tactical support for terrorism without complicating the entire region again.
What we are creating today is a strategic change or, I would say, a historic turnabout. I understand the anguish of parting from the past and the fear of encountering a new tomorrow. But there is no yesterday that can recur and no tomorrow that will retreat because we are not ready to come to grips with it. What we are doing requires time, patience, overcoming of obstacles and prejudices, and clear view of the true horizon.
Relations with Jordan are like a breath of fresh wind between two close neighbors intent on moving their peoples to peace and prosperity.
Peace with Egypt bears the solidity accumulated with time. And we know that we can engage in agreement between us without tearing the texture of peace.
Let me finish with the conclusion of Harav Kook, that one should be Jewish not because of what Judaism was, but also because of what it is capable of being. Or, in his own words, "Such a people, having discovered its existential power, whose entire present emanates from its future, is of necessity strongly bound to its future destiny".