Splits in the Militaristic Israeli Establishment,
Israeli ex-security chiefs urge peace Harsh criticism of Sharon's policy on Palestinians Molly Moore, Washington Post Saturday, November 15, 2003 ©2003 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback
URL: sfgate.com/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/11/15/MNG8R32V1C1.DTL
Jerusalem -- Four former chiefs of Israel's powerful domestic security service warned in an interview published Friday that the Israeli government's actions and policies during the three-year-old Palestinian uprising have gravely damaged the country and its people.
The four, who headed the Shin Bet security agency from 1980 to 2000 under governments that spanned the political spectrum, said Israel must end its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and that the government should recognize that no peace agreement can be reached without the involvement of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and must stop what one described as the immoral treatment of Palestinians.
"We must once and for all admit that there is another side, that it has feelings and that it is suffering, and that we are behaving disgracefully," said Avraham Shalom, who headed the security service from 1980 until 1986. "Yes, there is no other word for it: disgracefully. ... We have turned into a people of petty fighters using the wrong tools."
The men's statements to Israel's largest circulation Hebrew-language daily newspaper, Yediot Ahronot, added to recent public criticism of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon by political, military and civic leaders over his failure to stop terrorism or negotiate peace as Israel enters the fourth year of a Palestinian uprising.
There was no direct response from Sharon or his Cabinet, but former President Ezer Weizman accused the ex-Shin Bet leaders of undermining the government, calling them the "four musketeers."
The former security chiefs said they agreed to the two-hour interview --
the first time the four have ever sat down together -- out of "serious concern for the condition of the state of Israel," according to Carmi Gillon, who was Shin Bet chief in 1995 and '96.
Maj. Gen. Ami Ayalon, who headed the agency from 1996 until 2000 and is co- author of a peace petition that been signed by tens of thousands of Israelis and Palestinians, said: "We are taking sure and measured steps to a point where the state of Israel will no longer be a democracy and a home for the Jewish people."
Shin Bet is Israel's dominant domestic security and intelligence service, with primary responsibility for the country's anti-terrorism efforts. The current Shin Bet chief, Avi Dichter, is considered one of Sharon's most trusted and influential advisers.
The four former Shin Bet leaders said they recognized the contradictions between some of their actions as security chiefs and their opinions today.
"Why is it that everyone -- (Shin Bet) directors, chief of staff, former security personnel -- after a long service in security organizations become the advocates of reconciliation with the Palestinians?" asked Yaakov Perry, whose term as security chief from between 1988 and 1995 covered the first Palestinian uprising.
"Because they were there. We know the material, the people in the field, and surprisingly, both sides."
The security chiefs denounced virtually every major military and political tactic of the Sharon administration, adding to mounting dissent inside Israel against the prime minister's handling of a conflict that has claimed the lives of more than 2,500 Palestinians and nearly 900 Israelis and foreigners.
In recent weeks, after army chief of staff Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon has criticized Sharon's clampdown on Palestinians in the West Bank, active and reserve Air Force pilots have publicly declared the military's use of missiles and bombs to kill militants in civilian neighborhoods to be "immoral," activists have initiated independent peace proposals and opinion polls indicate that faith in Sharon is plummeting.
Perry said the country is "going in the direction of decline, nearly a catastrophe" on almost every level -- economic, political, security and social. "If something doesn't happen here, we will continue to live by the sword, we will continue to wallow in the mud, and we will continue to destroy ourselves," he said.
The four men said Israel should be prepared to initiate a peace process unilaterally rather than wait for the Palestinians to bring a halt to terrorism, which is Sharon's overriding prerequisite for negotiations.
"As of today, we are preoccupied with preventing terror," Gillon said. "Why? Because this is the condition for making political progress. And this is a mistake."
"You are wrong if you think that this is a mistake," interjected Shalom. "It is not a mistake. It is an excuse -- an excuse for doing nothing."
The group was particularly critical of Sharon's attempt to sideline Arafat and declare him "irrelevant" -- also a key tenet of President Bush's Middle East policy.
"It was the mother of all errors with regard to Arafat," said Shalom, who now works as a business consultant. "We cannot determine who will have the greatest influence over there. So let us look at the Palestinians' political map, and it is a fact that nothing can happen without Arafat."
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