Middle East Progress Event

Settlements vs. Security – Why Addressing Settlements is Critical to Next Steps in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Introduction By:
Daniel Levy, Senior Fellow, The Century Foundation, Adviser, Middle East Progress

Moderated by:
Mara Rudman, Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress; Adviser, Middle East Progress

Featured Panelists:
Brigadier General (Ret.) Ilan Paz, Former head of the Israeli Civil Administration in the West Bank (2002-2005).
Talia Sasson, Legal adviser to Prime Minister Sharon on settlements and illegal outposts, Author, "Sasson Report"

12:00 PM — 2:00 PM
Thursday, July 12, 2007

MR. DANIEL LEVY: I’d like to welcome you to this lunchtime session here at the Center for American Progress and jointly hosted by the Century Foundation, where I’m affiliated, and the Center for American Progress. Also, you probably noticed as you were walking in at the back there, the Middle East Bulletin was being handed out. That is a new e-publication, a new product being produced by "Middle East Progress" which is a project of the Center for American Progress and for those of you not already signed up for it, I’d encourage you not only to sign up for that at www.middleeastprogress.org, but also to encourage others to sign up, and I think it’s been a refreshing addition to the scene here of materials that are available on the Middle East when it has come out.

We have with us today two guests who really are probably unparalleled, unchallenged in the expertise that they bring with them in being able to address the situation from a perspective of people who’ve spent really the better part of their lives — hopefully, not the better; there’s more to come — but the majority of their lives lived to date working the issue of what happens with the Palestinian territories from inside the Israeli establishments.

Attorney Talia Sasson and General (Reserve) Ilan Paz have between them over 50 years of accumulated experience as civil servants in state attorney’s office, in the military inside Israel, and they bring with them an ability to comment whether it be from the perspectives of security check points, closures, or from the perspective of outpost settlements, a way to look at what is going on today and give their own take on that.

Of course, we meet today in a context in which, again, the idea of perhaps — perhaps — there can be progress, perhaps there can be a way forward, perhaps this is a new moment of opportunity. It’s being discussed, and the issues that have been on the agenda so many times of how does one ease Palestinian living conditions, how does one create a political horizon, how does one address the security issues are all back there front and square on the agenda today.

The secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, will be in the region again next week, the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Olmert next week, and so I think this is really an opportunity to hear from them — and they’re both going to make short introductory remarks — and then to open it up to you and grill them on these issues. I’m going to introduce our two speakers. The format is going to be that they will both give opening comments, I will then hand it over to Mara Rudman, who is at the opposite end of this panel. She will moderate and lead a discussion with our two guests.

I’d like to introduce our two guests to you. Talia Sasson worked for 25 years in the Israeli State Attorney’s Office covering many, many issues in that capacity, and from 1996 until 2004 was the head of the Special Tasks Unit in the State Attorney’s Office. Now, she did many things then which probably would be of a lot of interest and a lot of fun to talk about, including investigating issues of cases of political corruption in Israel in the late 1990s, something there’s been a proliferation of recently, unfortunately, and overseeing Israeli elections — the application and implementation of Israeli election regulations. But another thing that she was in charge of was the implementation of rule of law in the occupied territories regarding Israeli citizens, and she represented the state in many cases regarding injuries to Palestinians and other things that occurred.

When then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in 2004 — and if people remember the context, the context was we were working towards an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, and the other part of the context was that there had been a series of commitments undertaken by the government of Israel and an exchange of letters with the presidents of the United States in April of 2004 regarding settlements and outposts and the rule of law in the territories. When then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon decided that he needed to appoint a special advisor on the outpost and settlement issue, there was no one better qualified to receive that nomination than Talia Sasson, and so she was called upon to be the prime minister’s special adviser. And out of that was born something that some of you will be familiar with which is a 315-page document that also has three annexes known as the "Sasson Report," and it really is the most comprehensive look from inside the system created by the Israeli government of what was going on in the Palestinian territories regarding especially outposts, but also other questions of the application of rule of law there. Talia Sasson then headed as an adviser — she was the head adviser to the ministerial committee that was established to oversee the implementation of her report’s recommendations, and I’ll ask her to address those momentarily.

First, I’m going to turn, though, to Ilan Paz. Ilan Paz spent the vast majority of his 28 years of military service in the IDF out in the field. Sitting behind a desk with that pen in front of him is more of a new phenomenon. I’m not casting aspersions on other things you did intellectually at the time, Ilan, but it is more of a new phenomenon. Twenty-five of those 28 years, Ilan was active in combat in the field. He was the deputy commander of the Israeli Navy SEALs. He was the head of special ops for the Israeli Air Force. He, in 1996, was appointed the brigades commander of the Israeli Brigades in the West Bank, and his last position that he served in in the IDF was as the head of the civil administration in the West Bank. So for the last decade before he retired from the Army in 2005, Ilan Paz was really at the heart of everything that went on actually in the West Bank. And what I’ve learned that I didn’t know in the last couple of days, was that he led the mission to capture Marwan Barghouti amongst other things during this last Intifada.

Both of our guests here, now donning civilian clothes, and have been for the better part of the last two years, in both respects, and I’d like to hand over to them, and we’ll start with Brigadier General Retired Ilan Paz.

Thank you.

BRIGADIER GENERAL ILAN PAZ: Thank you, Daniel. Thank you, Mara. Thank you ladies and gentlemen for inviting me here and letting me talk with you about my opinions. I want to apologize for my English. I can promise you that I can say it in Hebrew better than I will say it in English. And before I start, I want to say that I am not representative of anybody. I am a private person now and I will express my personal view. And I don’t mean by this to criticize the government of Israel or the government of the United States, but to present to you my personal opinions.

And I am worried. I am worried these days because the reality in the field, in the area in Israel and in Palestine, is bad and the situation is very difficult. And I am worried because I’m not sure that our policy, the West’s policy with Israel, even the Arab League policy toward the last events in the Palestinians’ arena, I’m not sure that we are doing the right thing and I’m not sure that we are trying to navigate the existing reality to the right direction.

History tells me that we made a lot of mistakes. And when I say we, I mean we the Israelis, we the Palestinians. And these mistakes caused the situation sometimes to become worse, including the collapse of the Palestinian Authority these days, including the Hamas victory in the elections in the Palestinian side, and including the last revolution in Gaza Strip — the revolution by Hamas.

If we won’t understand that we have a chance today to change the reality, I think we will find ourselves in the near future standing in front of a much more extremist Hamas, controlling all of the Palestinian side, not only in Gaza Strip, connecting to Iran, maybe to al Qaeda, and then I’m not sure we could find our way to go back to a period of peace negotiations, and maybe then we won’t have a choice but to say that we have to wait another generation or two in order to go back to the period of peace negotiations.

If I’m looking at the current situation, I can say that in Gaza Strip, Hamas, after it took over Gaza Strip, is there and I believe that the PLO and Abu Mazen won’t succeed by force to take back control of the Gaza Strip. In the West Bank, the PLO is still strong. Abu Mazen is controlling the Palestinian side, but you have to understand that he is controlling it leaning on the rifle of the Israeli soldiers. Without the rifles of the Israeli side, the situation would be otherwise. And the population — if the population wants — the Palestinian population, if they won’t see, if they won’t feel any change, if they won’t feel a dramatic release of daily life, I believe that we will see Hamas taking over the West Bank as well, and we will see it sooner than we saw (unintelligible). Therefore, I believe that Abu Mazen will reach the conclusion that they have to sit and talk with Hamas and find a way to put them back inside the Palestinian government, into some kind of a united government, as it was before.

Now, what is the Israeli interest? The Israeli interest, and I believe it’s not only an Israeli interest, is to strengthen Abu Mazen, is to weaken Hamas, but not by reaching any kind of a humanitarian disaster in the Gaza Strip, and we are very close to it. If we reach this point, we have to remember that Israel is responsible for it because Israel is controlling all the exits and entrances to the West Bank although there is one exit to Egypt (unintelligible). Israel is the force that controls the Gaza Strip, and if there will be a disaster there, we will be responsible and we don’t want to reach this point.

About Hamas, and I am talking now about the Israeli interest. I believe that the Israeli interest is that Hamas will be inside the government. Hamas inside the government will be Hamas much more moderate than Hamas outside the government. Hamas outside government will have its back to the wall, will return to being a terrorist organization. It will have the key to everything that we will try to do with the Palestinian side, because we can’t do anything with the half side of the Palestinian side. We want to reach any kind of ceasefire and we want to go back to a peace process, but we can’t do a peace process, and we can’t do a ceasefire with only half of the Palestinian side. And nowadays, we know that you can stop every movement with only one terror attack, a good terror attack that can cancel everything.

Now, what can we do? What do we have to do? I believe that we have to give the Palestinians in Gaza Strip full humanitarian help, maybe more than humanitarian help, full help, but I believe this help has to be from Abu Mazen. Abu Mazen is the president of the Palestinian side, is the head of the country, is the leader of the Palestinian side, and we will help him to strengthen him, if we do everything in Gaza Strip through him.

Second thing we the Israelis can do is to change our discipline in the readiness of ourselves to give the Palestinians the opportunity to act and to govern themselves. You have to understand that in order to do it, we have to have to take risks upon ourselves, and it’s not simple, because until now there wasn’t anybody on the other side that would do our job to prevent terror attacks. And for us, the Israeli security is the first thing we look after, because we had very difficult years recently with many, many Israelis that were killed by the terrorists and we can’t afford to go back to this period, but we have to take risks in order to change the reality and to try to get out of this cycle.

We have to renew the system of security coordination, and believe me, this security coordination in the past, until 2000, was not so bad as we think it was because of several reasons - but believe me, it was not so bad - and I believe we should go back to this system. We have to give the Palestinians security permission to act inside their cities and outside their cities in their land. You have to understand that from the beginning of the second Intifada between Israel and the Palestinians, they couldn’t do anything without our permission or without coordinating with us. And in order to change the reality, we have to give them this permission and, again, we have to take risks in order to give them this permission or this coordination with us.

The next thing we should do is to open up movement inside the West Bank, and I’m talking only inside the West Bank; I’m not talking about entrances to Israel or on the fence. But nowadays, we are talking about more than 400 roadblocks and around 20 checkpoints, and we will have to remove most of them in a period, in several steps, not immediately, but the Palestinians won’t feel anything if they can’t move from one place to another. And again, it is possible only if we will take risks.

Believe me, I was the commander of the territorial brigade and I can tell you exactly, and I can show you why we have to put checkpoints and the roadblocks, and I can show you that these roadblocks and checkpoints prevented many terror attacks in the past, but I can show you, too, that these checkpoints and roadblocks and the atmosphere around them and the humiliation, et cetera, et cetera, create terror as well, so we have to take it into consideration.

I believe that we have to enter into some kind of a process of prisoner release and a fugitive agreement. It will take time. It will be in several steps, but it can maintain any kind of ceasefire, because it will create motivation in the Palestinian side to stop violence because they will know that if they won’t stop, the program of releasing prisoners will be stopped. And the problem of prisoners, and we are talking nowadays about more than 10,000 Palestinians inside jail, is the main issue between the Israeli and the Palestinian sides. We have to give the Palestinians the tax money that Israel captured from them. It’s their money, and we have to give it to them because it’s the most important part of the Palestinian budget in order to maneuver or operate the Palestinian system.

And we have to do another three things that don’t relate directly to the Palestinians, but they will have a large influence on the Palestinian side. The first is to freeze the construction of the settlements. The second is to evacuate the outposts. And the third thing is to continue to build the security fence. This fence has had very good results, and will have to be completed. I think that everywhere we can, we have to move the line of the defense toward the green line, and we can do it.

This is my plan. It’s not easy for a state like Israel to do this plan. It demands Israel take risks, and not simple risks, but I believe this is the only way to navigate the future out of the circle of violence.

Thank you.

(Applause.)

MS. TALIA SASSON: Thank you for inviting me to speak to you, and thank you, Mara and Daniel. I would like to say a few things about the outpost report that I believe most of you have heard of, and I would like to spend a little bit more time to describe the damages that have been caused, in my own opinion, by the fact that the report is still not implemented. But as a preliminary remark, I would like to say, as my colleague Ilan has said, I am not a representative of the state of Israel, nor the government of Israel. I am on my own and I represent nobody but myself.

The outpost report that I prepared at the request of Prime Minister Sharon and delivered to the government of Israel, did not refer to the international law at all, but only to the internal law in the territories. All the details I got, I got from the state of Israel, and some ministries — Ministry of Defense, IDF, Civil Administration and others. The mission that Prime Minister Sharon wanted me to do dealt with three issues. First of all, he wanted to get all the details that I could gather about the outposts in the West Bank. Then he asked me to show him the legal way to prevent the outposts from growing or to prevent the establishment of new ones. Then he asked me to give him some advice about the enforcement of the law on Israelis in the West Bank. So the report refers to all those issues.

I interviewed about 100 officials. I wrote the report on my own in three months. The whole project took six months, and as I said of the results, the report was delivered to the government of Israel. The findings, that I could just say here very shortly, are that since the ’90s, no government of Israel has accepted a decision to establish a new settlement in the West Bank. But you could say, that as a phenomenon — we could say that the outposts, as a matter of fact, are new settlements — small ones, but new settlements that were established since the middle of the ’90s and on in the West Bank — I counted 105 of them, although I didn’t get all the details I asked for, so this list isn’t final, but I believe that most of the outposts are included here.

The outposts are located, some of them, on governmental land. If you want to ask me what that is, then ask me afterwards. Some of them are located on private Palestinian land, and some of them on other kinds of land. The method of the establishment of the outposts was — well, there were a few kinds of methods, but the main one was to establish the outpost on the municipal borders of an original settlement. The municipal borders of the original settlements were extended into large areas in the West Bank since 1996 for political matters.

So, thus, the outposts were located far away from the original settlement, and there was, most of the time, no connection and linkage between the original settlement and the outpost. They were called — those outposts — new neighborhoods of the original settlements, so in the programs of the ministries of Israel you could write the money that goes to the outpost goes to new neighborhoods of a legal settlement according to the internal law, of course. So this is the way the money came to those outposts from the treasury of the State of Israel.

The recommendations that I gave to the government — well, there are a lot of recommendations — a full chapter of them — they were of five types. I can’t give details now, but the bottom line is it said to the government, if you want to build new settlements in the West Bank, it is a matter of policy, the government is responsible for its decisions. But the only one who is enabled to make that decision is the government. If the government can’t do it because of some reasons, and the reasons are the international reasons, then the government can’t do it at all. If you want to do it, do it legally. If you can’t do it legally, then don’t do it at all.

The government adopted the principles of the report and established, as much as I recall, three committees of ministers to implement the report, but to my great sorrow until now no substantial steps were taken.

I would like to count a few of the damages that I see that were caused because the report hasn’t been implemented yet. First of all, the enforcement of the law in the West Bank is very weak from my point of view. I think that there are too many violations of human rights of Palestinians, and if the government would implement the report recommendations, this situation could become much better. The other thing is that this situation harms — the situation of establishing new settlements as outposts in the West Bank illegally harms Israel as a law-abiding state.

This is a very severe damage in my own opinion; I am a lawyer, as you know, and I think that if the authorities of your state systematically breach the law, it’s something that causes a lot of damage to your own citizens. When simple citizens such as myself look at the authorities and see that they are the ones who break the law, then I could say to myself, "Well, if they can, why should I not?" and so on. It’s something that brings a lot of damage — damage to the rule of the state of law causes damage to the democracy itself because those two came to the world together. You can’t have a democracy without the rule of law and the opposite and in the end it harms your own state.

The other damage that I wanted to emphasize is that the Israeli policy is — a solution of the situation and the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian people is the two-state solution. Filling the area of the West Bank with a lot of outposts — meaning a lot of new settlements — harms the opportunity in the future to enter into a peace process. And more than that, it weakens the moderate Palestinians that see that the area is filled with more and more houses, buildings, settlements, neighborhoods, and so on.

So in all those arguments, and I know there are more, it is an Israeli interest to remove the outposts and to implement the report recommendations — the reason that most of the recommendations do not refer to removal of the outposts is because this is obvious; you don’t need to write more than 300 pages to remove the outposts. Most of the recommendations are looking for how to prevent this phenomenon from happening, and those included a lot of administrative orders to ministries in Israel, the Ministry of Defense, Housing and Building, and many more ministries and this must be implemented, in my opinion, for the sake of Israel.

As a matter of fact, it’s not my own opinion — only my own opinion; the government officials adopted the principles of the report. The initiative to write the report came directly from the Prime Minister of Israel, and in that case I think that the Israeli interest is to implement the report.

Moreover, I just want to say that there are some commitments of the Israeli state –commitments that had been made by Prime Minister Sharon towards President Bush, and among those commitments appears the commitment to remove 24 — to my count, 24 outposts that were established since the beginning of the Sharon governmental term. So for all of those reasons, the best thing for Israel is to implement the outpost report.

Thank you very much for listening.

(Applause.)

MS. MARA RUDMAN: I want to thank both of you for, really, very impressive and thorough presentations that I’m sure will lead to a number of question from our audience, and I also want to impress upon the audience what an unusual opportunity this is to have two such knowledgeable speakers in front of us that really have tremendous on-the-ground experience and very detailed knowledge. So with that, I’d ask you to keep your questions short so that we can get as to as many questions as possible, give as many people as possible the opportunity to ask questions.

I’m going to take the moderator’s prerogative, of course, to ask a couple of questions myself first, and I’ll also — as I’m going to give you some time to think about your questions as I’m asking mine, I’ll also give you the warning that I’m very comfortable cutting people off if they make speeches instead of ask questions, and that I will ask you identify yourself and your organization. And we’re also going to do this so that we can fit in as many people as possible by taking two or three questions at a time, and we’re going to do that from the very beginning once we get started, just to let you know.

The question that I would like to start with, and I’m also going to give Daniel the opportunity if he has a question that he’d like to ask before we — Daniel, before we go to the crowd just in case there’s anything you want to ask, and then go ahead. But the question that I’d like to put to both of you, actually, is from the United States’ perspective on this, whether from your experience there are specific things that either the United States government or United States private entities, individuals, either should be doing that are particularly helpful or should not be doing for Israelis, Palestinians, the region in general at this point in time or looking forward? I would be curious about your reaction to that.

And I will say that part of the reason I’m asking is because there’s been some very specific commentary recently, and I would call out Fred Barnes and Mort Zuckerman in particular who have made very public statements that the United States should now not be involved at all in the region, should step aside and it’s a time for no U.S. activity at all in the region at this time, and I personally found that a very surprising — both of those statements somewhat surprising for those individuals to be making. But so my question is, what’s most helpful? What’s least helpful on the part of the United States, whether it’s government or individual or organizations, understanding that I’m asking non-U.S., non-Americans to be commenting on that.

BRIG. GEN. PAZ: Okay. Thank you. First of all, you have to understand, we’re like kids, we have to have near us the parents to ask the permission to do things or not to do things. I believe that if the United States won’t participate in the reality in the Middle East or between Israel and the Palestinians, nothing will happen. And nothing is the right thing to do if you want to reach a war situation. Therefore, I believe that the United States has to take a position — to continue to take position and to cause to the two sides, maybe three sides nowadays, to step towards a better future.

Now, I can’t say to the United States what to do. I can say that what I — as a private person living inside Israel, what I expect or what I want to see. The first thing is that I hope that the U.S. will reassess a policy to deny any kind of a partnership between PLO and Hamas or in the future between Israel and Hamas. I explained before why. I believe that Hamas inside government would be much more moderate than Hamas outside, and Hamas outside will have in its hand the right to veto everything.

The second thing I believe that the U.S. can do is to reassess with Israel the Dayton plan — the General Dayton plan. I can’t agree with the part of this plan that says that everything leans on Dahlan’s shoulders and the part that pushes Abu Mazen to fight Hamas, but the other part of the Dayton plan is a part that fits very well to my plan to ease the daily life of the Palestinians and to give the Palestinian security forces [the ability] to act. So this plan should be reassessed between the United States and Israel. The United States can help the Palestinians and Israel to reestablish the security coordination, and maybe even to participate in the system of coordination; maybe only in the beginning, but to participate.

And the last thing, and it concerns the issue that Talia spoke about, is to sit again with Israel and find a way to implement the Israeli obligation towards the United States concerning the settlements and the outposts.

MS. SASSON: I would like to add, first of all, Ilan described the two sides as children, then I would add, tough kids. (Laughter.) They really need somebody to help them. The United States has a very important role in the world to promote peace processes. This is a world interest, especially in our region, a very peaceful region as you know. So the United States interfered in the past in the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians. I don’t see why it shouldn’t do it now, although it’s frustrating, that I believe, and not only the United States of course.

To this I would like to add a lawyer’s answer. The West Bank is not an area under anyone’s sovereignty, not Israel and not Jordan and not the Palestinians. And this area, which everybody is talking about, as much as I understand the American policy, and the Israeli policy is going to be area where the two-state solution might take place. So this is not only an Israeli internal issue, this is not only a Palestinian internal issue; this is an international issue that many states in the world are involved in because this area produces terror. And therefore, I believe that both sides need America.

MS. RUDMAN: Daniel, do you have a question you’d like to put forward?

MR. LEVY: Maybe just to you, Ilan. You make your point on Hamas and there was an article by Haniyeh’s advisor Ahmed Yusuf in Hebrew in Ha’aretz a couple of days ago saying, "We’re the Turkish model," and by the number two in Damascus, Abu Marzuq, saying "We’re not al Qaeda" and there are those kinds of messages coming from Hamas. From your experience, is there any history in Israel of dealing with Hamas at any level on ceasefires or anything like that, and do you see any appetite in Israel whatsoever to go in that direction?

BRIG. GEN. PAZ: First of all, I would like to express that I’m not a diligent [sic] of Hamas. For me, Hamas is a terror organization and is my enemy, but I am trying to be realistic. And if I am looking at the future, I’m trying to guess what will be in two or three or four years, and I’m sure we will talk with Hamas. So I’m trying to find a way: maybe let’s do it before and maybe we will save some people that won’t die in a terror attack or will die in a mission inside the Palestinian territories. And I’m sure we will talk with Hamas in a few years.

Let’s remember that 20 years ago Israel treated the PLO the same. And after several years, we talked with them and they are our partner these days and Abu Mazen is one of the greatest friends of Israel. And he was one of them even 20 years ago when they were enemies. And unfortunately, peace we can do only with enemies. Now, on the ground, let’s say after the victory of the Hamas in the elections and the establishment of the Hamas government without the PLO in the beginning, the situation on the field was that we have to coordinate things with them.

For example, when the bird flu was discovered in Gaza Strip, the Israeli health minister met the Palestinian health minister from Hamas in order to talk about the way to deal with this flu. And two weeks ago, it was published that the Israeli envoy to release the Israeli soldier, Shalit, who was kidnapped by Hamas in Gaza Strip met the Hamas leadership inside an Israeli jail. So when we have to do it, we do it. And I say, maybe we have to do it on larger angle.

MS. RUDMAN: Now to questions and, Paige, if we go to — actually, I think we have three hands up. So if we can go to those three questions in sequence. Sorry, sir. If you could just identify yourself and your position.

Q: My name is Levine Canal (ph). I’m professor emeritus from the University of Maryland.

MS. RUDMAN: Thank you.

Q: I have a question about the long-term vision of the Israelis and their relationships with the Palestinians inside and outside because I see that you’re speaking of illegal settlements. But according to international law, all the settlements are illegal, and in fact, it seems that for much of the world, except the United States, they’re not legal. So I wonder if in the long run, no matter what is done in between to do a little bit of tactical arrangements, that the Palestinians will accept having the settlements that remain in the West Bank as part of their land.

Q: Hi, I’m Steve McInerney from the Project on Middle East Democracy and all of you seem — tend to agree on the need for settlement freezes and evacuation of outposts and I think a lot of people in this room would agree, but it hasn’t happened. And you’re all stating the case that it would be in Israel’s interest. I’d like you to just kind of comment on the political realities of that — and why you think that the Israeli government doesn’t implement your report. And talk about the effects of the recent Hamas takeover of Gaza on sort of opinion within Israel and how you see public opinion within Israel impacting the political realities that can make this sort of move if possible.

Q: Hi, my name is Matthew Dust (ph). I’m a freelance writer. General Paz, I was not aware that you participated in the capture of Marwan Barghouti, so you are uniquely positioned to answer this question. There’ve been reports that he may be released as part of a prisoner release. Do you think that’s likely, and if so, do you think it will make a difference at this point?

MS. RUDMAN: The question of settlements overall and the political reality impact of that, the Hamas takeover and public opinion in Israel and the overall political reality issue, and Marwan Barghouti and its impact. So who wants to go first?

BRIG. GEN. PAZ: About the public opinion toward talks or any kind of connection with Hamas, I don’t think it will be a problem in Israel. I don’t think so. The question will be whether these talks or this connection will bring something. If Israeli public opinion will see that we can reach any kind of ceasefire or reduce the level of terror or carry out a prisoner exchange, it will be supportive.

About Marwan Barghouti: personally, I don’t have anything to say and I don’t have any motivation to oblige to his release. I think that Israel should enter into a process of prisoner release, including Marwan Barghouti, and it is not simple and the other side will pay for these prisoners released. When I say will pay, it will pay in reducing the level of terror by entering into a complete long-term ceasefire and maybe some kind of a peace process. And every several weeks or every several months will be the next release of prisoners, and it will give the Palestinian side the motivation to keep on going with this ceasefire and the process. But Marwan Barghouti himself, I’m not sure he is the issue. I think when we don’t have anything to do, we try to search for magic and Marwan Barghouti is not magic. I’m not sure that when he will be outside he will be as strong as he is as a prisoner or the leader of the prisoners inside jail. When he will be outside, the internal politics will reduce his level of support from the Palestinians. And let’s remember that when he will be released, if nothing will happen in addition, what can he do? What can he bring? What new can he bring beyond his personal release? So it’s not magic. He has to be — he can be released, but only within a process and not by himself.

MS. SASSON: Now, as I recall three questions were related to me, so I’ll try to answer quickly. First of all, for your question about the difference between outposts and settlements and the international law: well, of course, as you imagine, I suppose you understand that I know what the Geneva Convention number four, section 49 — what’s written there, what it means. I know about the International Court, about defense, what it wrote about the section 49 and et cetera. I didn’t relate to the international law, I could have, but I decided not to relate to the international law in my report because the Israeli Supreme Court of Justice never decided that the Geneva Convention number four applies in the West Bank. It just decided that the humanitarian orders of this Geneva Convention number four applies in the West Bank. I didn’t want to go further than the Supreme Court of Justice, but I think I found enough illegality with what I wrote.

Now, about the implementation of the report in Israel and to try to guess because nobody told me why the government does not implement the report. Then, well, it’s very difficult to give you an answer because the simple answer is, I don’t know. I don’t know. The government appointed three committees and there is a committee today whose role is to implement the report, but they don’t do that. So it’s very difficult to say why not.

If you want some excuses, then I think that the government of Israel has a lot of things to deal with, as far as I have heard. They have some (unintelligible) committee to wait for. They have the former (unintelligible) committee report to deal with. Some of them are talking about the next war. Some of them are talking about the Hamas in Gaza Strip. And you always have issues in Israel, every day when you open the radio, you hear about a new one. So I don’t know what is the real excuse. I can’t have it as an excuse.

I think they have to implement the report although it’s not so simple for them, of course. We all have to admit that it is not simple to remove the outposts. And if you think that it’s simple, then I just would like to remind the (unintelligible), and there was a lot of violence. And to remove the outposts from the West Bank, it means a lot of violence. And this is very difficult; it tears apart the society in Israel. This is something very difficult to do. And we all have to admit that although I demand the government to do so, it is difficult.

Third question was about Hamas: how people relate to Hamas in Israel. Of course, I am just one citizen. In Israel, there are a few more. So I can’t talk in the name of those, but I just could say that I’ve heard from my colleague there was a poll in Israel just a day before, could you tell about that?

MR. LEVY: There was a poll Gal Hachadash New Wave Research firm commissioned by something that I was involved with — the Geneva Initiative — that asked Israelis, "Would you support talks with Hamas over a ceasefire, the release of Gilad Shalit, and on humanitarian issues?" And 57 percent were in favor of those talks and 36 percent were against.

MS. SASSON: Thank you for the answer. Thank you.

MS. RUDMAN: Questions, other questions? Paige, over here, start with Uri and then –

Q: Hi, and thank you for coming. My name is Uri. I’m Israeli and I’m a student here in the States and this summer I’m working for the Center for American Progress. General Paz, I have a question for you. I was in the military for five years. You were for more than that. And it’s very refreshing to hear someone, a retired general, speak about the checkpoints in the way you speak about them; and I always also go to my American friends and I explain to them why a checkpoint between two Palestinian villages sometimes makes sense. But you always — but you also say that it also creates a problem.

So my question is about the relation between the army and the political authority in Israel. And always when you hear about plans to remove checkpoints or to do any kind of humanitarian gesture to Palestinians, you will see the next day a headline in the newspaper, "IDF officials, we cannot guarantee security in Tel Aviv if we move checkpoints," or "IDF officials, these gestures are dangerous." So I want to ask you about the IDF’s role in helping support a plan like yours or being an obstacle to such things.

MS. RUDMAN: Whoever has questions, can you raise your hands again because I just want to make sure — okay, this gentleman right here.

Q: Thank you very much, Faramorz Fatemi (ph) with the Oxfordshire Group. I want to thank both of you for being here. It’s a message that’s very badly needed to be heard in the United States, and for your courage to do this — I know you’re speaking as individuals. My problem is what the poet once said, "The words are sweet, but the deeds are lacking." And so, General, you with your vast experience and knowledge, what can you do and what can you do to change that — to at least do something about the reality that’s there now? Thank you.

MS. RUDMAN: Okay, should we take those two questions at this point then? I just want to make sure I didn’t miss any other hands that are up right now. Okay, thanks.

General, I think they’re — are they both for you then?

BRIG. GEN. PAZ: Yes. First of all, to the second question: well, we are not in charge now for everything — for nothing. Me and Talia are private citizens. We ended our service two years ago, and because it is our — I can speak for myself — it comes from my heart and it is not because I want to criticize someone. I love my country. I think I am a Zionist and I think I have other opinions that should be heard. I am a volunteer. I am not getting money for it and I am here to say what I’ve got to say trying to influence. That’s all I can do for now. I believe that if my opinion will be heard, maybe somebody that is in a position to change things will do it.

About the relationship between the army and the government decision — and it’s not the army, it’s the security organizations because the security organizations are not only the army. It’s the GIS, the Shabak. It’s the Mossad. It’s the police. Well, it is not unacceptable to understand that after seven years of a huge amount of terror — we have to remember that, for example in March, 2002, Israel had 141, if I’m not mistaken, Israelis that were killed by terrorists and several hundreds of injuries. So it is not unacceptable that Israel, first of all, nowadays concerning the political situation between Israel and the Palestinians, between Israel and Syria and between Israel and Hezbollah, checking things, first of all, through the eyes of security.

And if you ask me if it is acceptable, it is not. It is wrong because we can’t see everything through the eyes of the soldier who’s pulling the trigger every time, and we have to see the situation from higher. And we have to understand that to solve a problem, you can’t look only at security. And that’s what I am trying to do. I’m trying to look a little bit higher and to see how through indirect action and not security — not only security action, we can solve the same problems.

MS. SASSON: (Off mike) Well, to admit the facts, every morning I ask myself the same question, "What can I do to change things?" I’m not a politician. I am not running for the Knesset. I don’t want anything, just to change the situation that is getting worse and worse in my opinion. It’s not going in the right direction. It’s going in — I don’t know. To speak for myself, I spoke a lot in the government of Israel, in the ministries committee for whom I was a special consultant. I spoke with a lot of politicians, spoke a lot to the media, to Israeli television and papers. I write, myself, some articles in the Ha’aretz paper from time to time. I’m going to conferences, to universities, to public occasions, speaking about the same thing and tiring of speaking about the same thing. And I don’t know how to bring the change. If you have some suggestion, I’m ready to hear.

MS. RUDMAN: Let’s see, do we have any more questions or I think — okay, we have a couple of more here, so I think we’ll make this our last round.

Q: I’m Carol Wasser (ph), just an interested citizen. I believe I heard the general say that the barriers and the checkpoints were a difficulty for the Palestinians and he wanted to see those reduced. I think I also heard him say that he thought the completion of the security wall was a good idea — was a good thing. And I would like to know how the completion of that wall would be a positive thing. I recently saw a film about the wall and I saw a diagram of how that wall was very long and circuitous and cut off Palestinian villages, one from the other. And it seemed to me that that could be a provocation. So I would like to know why you think the wall is a positive thing and what the result might be. Thank you.

MS. RUDMAN: Question here from the gentleman in front.

Q: Thank you for coming and for the interesting presentation. My name is Charlie Martel. I’m a professor of law at the American University, and I wrote a dissertation on the barrier, which I hope I’ve used an inoffensive term to describe. So I’m interested in the region and share what I feel to be your aspirations for it.

My question may be more appropriate for General Paz, but I’ll pose it to both of you because it seems like — to me at least as an outside observer — the question of the moderation of Hamas might be accelerated the more power it has. If Hamas completely took over and were to maintain a policy of conflict and certainly to actualize a policy of conflict, wouldn’t it be dooming itself to a formal military confrontation that it couldn’t possibly survive? So I guess my question is, maybe isn’t it better in a way the more power Hamas may have because the more power they achieve, the more they have to be moderate in order to survive politically?

MS. RUDMAN: I just want to make sure since that’s the last round. That’s it for questions. Okay, great.

BRIG. GEN. PAZ: I’m not sure I understood your question, so can you repeat it?

Q: Doesn’t Hamas have to moderate the more power it obtains? Because if it achieves total power and engages in conflict and terrorism, isn’t it necessary for Israel to respond with a formal military response that Hamas couldn’t possibly survive?

BRIG. GEN. PAZ: First, about the fence. And I call it a fence because it is a fence. Less than 8 percent of the fence is a wall. So if you want to call it a wall, you can call it, but it’s a fence. It’s a security fence. In Jerusalem, in urban areas, it is a wall. But most of the fence is a fence, and we are talking about more than 600 kilometers. Only 8 percent of it is a wall. Now, I’m not — I can’t say that the fence is the best idea in order to prevent terror or to keep our security, but this is the least bad choice. And as we said, high fences create good neighbors.

And I am — when I look at the fence, I can see a border; and between nations, there is a border. And if I’m looking at the last four years, from the beginning of the creation of the fence, wherever the fence was ended and operated, not even one — no terror attack succeeded to go through the fence and into Israel, and I’m not talking about the checkpoints on the fence. I am talking about the fence itself. So this is the fact.

And if we compare this period to the period before the fence was operating, we’re talking about hundreds of terror attacks before and almost nothing inside Israel after. So — and no one can argue with these effects. And the only question and my obligation over the fence is the way — the route of the fence. And as I said before, I think that Israel should move or remove the way — the route of the fence toward the green line — maybe exactly on the green line. And I can agree with you that wherever the route of the fence is inside the West Bank and separates families from their land or children from their school, it is wrong and we should change it. But we should not change, in this reality, the fact that we need a fence nowadays. Maybe someday when we will have peace and quiet with the Palestinians, we can remove the fence, but nowadays no. Nowadays we need it.

About Hamas: as I said before, I believe that if Hamas will be in charge — not the only one in charge, but if it will be in charge inside government, it will have to change. We have to understand that Hamas is a social movement, and it has its responsibilities to society. And if it’s outside the government, then it’s a resisting organization that doesn’t receive anything if it doesn’t take it by force. So it will continue to be a terror organization. But I believe that if it will be inside the government, first of all, it will be much more moderate, and we saw it right after the election when it was the only force in the government and it continued to uphold the ceasefire — the ceasefire with Israel — although it could have changed it. It didn’t because it understood that for the sake of the Palestinians, it had to keep on with this ceasefire.

And the last thing is that I believe that if you will be — if Hamas will be inside the government and it will be a part of the political system in the Palestinian arena, I believe the power it has nowadays will be reduced because of the influence of the close relationship between the Palestinians and the Israelis. And I can see the slow diffusion of democratic life, of western life into Palestinian society and Palestinian society is not Iran. Palestinian society is very close to Western — or maybe not very, but closer to Western than the rest of the Arab world. And they are not willing to be led by extremist religious organizations. So this is another way to deal with Hamas. Their force will be reduced if they would be inside the government and Israel and the Palestinians will continue to go through the way of peace negotiations, and then their force will be reduced.

MS. SASSON: I would like to relate to your question about the fence. I have to say that I was in charge of the legal aspect of the fence in the Ministry of Justice a few years ago till 2004. And I would like to tell you those things. The idea of the fence began in the Rabin government. There were eight kilometers of fence that were built on the green line between Israel and West Bank. The initiative to continue and build a very long fence afterwards came especially after the suicide bombers of 2000.

Well, I lived in Jerusalem at that time and I can tell you that twice a day there were suicide bombers. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen such a thing, but it’s something that if somebody has seen it, he could never — even if he wasn’t hurt, could never, never in life forget. To see something that brought Israel to a situation — I remember the streets in Jerusalem empty — empty of civilians. You could see — and it was long-term, month after month after month. And all those funerals that you have seen in the television every day, every day little children. You have seen it. And women and men and whatever.

So Israel had to find some solution for those suicide bombers. So the building of a fence was just. And now the question is when and where to build it. This is entirely another question if to build it on a line in the West Bank or on the green line. And of course we know what happened. We know everyone has his own opinion, but the justification of building the fence — I must tell you that.

But of course, to look at the fence as a solution, it’s ridiculous to my own eyes. The fence is not a solution. The fence is a solution for these bombers, but if you think that you could build a fence — if you, Israel, could think that you could build a fence and then go home and rest, you’ve done nothing. Because in few years to come, [they] could send Qassams over the fence and there is a lot of opportunities. The real issue is to get to a peace agreement. This is the only thing that could save both sides. And to my own opinion, Israel and the Palestinian people shouldn’t let this issue off the table.

Thank you.

(Applause.)

MS. RUDMAN: And with that, I’m also going to take the moderator’s prerogative to close here and both in thanking — certainly thanking you as our audience and thanking our panelists, General Ilan Paz and Talia Sasson, not only for being here today, but honestly thanking you for all of your years of public service and thanking you for your time as private citizens.

And I would actually turn around the question from the gentleman from the audience in terms of what you can do and I think the question’s more for all of us, of what we can do. If we care about this issue and care in general, what can we do to make a difference? Because I actually think these individuals are doing it every single day of their lives. I think they have been doing it. I think they’re continuing to do it. And I think the question is for us and upon us of what we can do.

I would also say if you like hearing voices like this and their practical approaches, again, sign up for Middle East Progress. You can see it and read it in the Middle East Bulletin that comes out three times a week, and we’re looking to bring many more voices like this. I can’t promise that they are always going to be as clear and compelling and articulate as the two individuals we had the privilege of hearing here today, but we’re doing our best. So thank you all for coming and appreciate particularly having these two here today.

(Applause.)

(END)

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