Destined to Live Together

“It is unthinkable that the adversary can be eliminated.” A broad-ranging interview with Senator Andreotti, who after a life spent in diplomacy has a profound knowledge of the Middle East. “If it is not put out in a hurry, this fire can open new and even more dramatic fronts of crisis”

EDITED BY STEFANO MARIA PACI

Senator Andreotti, authoritative majority politicians have accused the preceding governments, saying that they were tilted too far in the Palestinians’ favor, and that this lack of equidistance has damaged both Italy and the situation in the Middle East. The reference is obviously to the governments you served in. How do you answer this?
Once I was in Jerusalem, in front of the Wailing Wall, when some Israeli leaders said to me, in a critical, accusatory tone, “You Italians are friends of the Palestinians!” I replied, “You put the question in the wrong terms.” And I quoted the Gospel, which says that it is the sick person who needs a physician. “When you were sick,” I said to them, “those who did not stand by you were truly wicked, racist wretches. Today, it is the Palestinians who are the weaker and poorer ones. You and we, together, have to stand by the Palestinians’ bedside and take care of them. Today, we are the ones called to be physicians.” I have to admit that these words did not please the Israeli authorities greatly. Too many tensions blocked their understanding. And now the situation is even worse. It is held that if someone doesn’t puff out his chest and demonstrate in favor of one side, he is automatically in favor of the other. This is not the case.”

Giulio Andreotti does not smile, he does not speak with his usual irony when he talks about Palestine and the holy places. The Middle Eastern situation is one in which he was often called to take a leading role on the world stage. He is 83 years old, six times the prime minister of Italy, with a political career unequalled in the world in terms of length of time in power, and he is probably the person in Italy who best knows the aspects, often obscure, of the dramatic crisis which has torn the Middle East apart for decades, placing world peace at risk, a crisis that in these days seems practically unsolvable.
Senator, what has happened in all these years? What is the obstacle to dialogue and mutual understanding?
What is happening today is the epilogue, albeit a temporary one, of a situation that was not resolved in a way consistent with the decisions that were made. Already in 1980, the European Union had suggested the path of negotiation. At the time, our proposal seemed blasphemous, because it was said that the Palestinian “terrorists” could not come to the negotiating table, and the Israelis absolutely would not hear of direct contact with them. Besides, the statute of the OLP said that the State of Israel did not have a right to exist. In a word, the premises were lacking. But we knew that dialogue was the only road. This is why, two years later, taking our cue from the conference of the Interparliamentary Union, we invited Arafat to come and put forth his point of view. We had taken due precautions and knew that he would not launch anathemas. On the contrary, the first, fundamental opening started right there in Rome: Arafat said that in case there was a possibility for dialogue, the extreme positions of the OLP statute would have to be overcome, ie, the reference to the destruction of Israel. He added that, however, the Israelis, too, would have to overcome their extreme positions and consider him a counterpart. This was a very important step forward–just remember that in that period, Arafat did not even have a visa to enter the United States or the United Kingdom. A year later, in order for him to be able to address the United Nations assembly, the assembly had to be moved from New York to Geneva. But the road that was opened in Rome led to contacts and pre-negotiations that then resulted in the Oslo Agreement.

The Oslo protocol was accepted in 1993. We all remember the very moving ceremony in the White House garden, when before the eyes of the whole word, Arafat and Rabin shook hands. It really seemed as though they had started down the right path. Who is responsible for the failure to develop in that direction?
The responsibility lies with many. On one side, a large part of Israel was opposed to it, to the point that Rabin lost his life because of it, killed by a fanatic of the Israeli opposition. But also on Arafat’s side there was not a general accord. Some Palestinian leaders said to him, “Be careful, because if you separate the phase of creation of the Palestinian state from the preliminary phase of the establishment of the Palestinian Authority, you will enter a trap you won’t be able to get out of.” One person who had this reservation from the beginning was the current Palestinian foreign minister, Kadumi, who continues to take part in the meetings of the Islamic Conference, like the one recently held in Kuala Lumpur, but has never wanted to go to Gaza or Jericho.

There have also been gestures that certainly did not calm people down, like Sharon’s walk on the Temple Mount, which started up the Intifada again.
That was a rash and mistaken episode. But this same Sharon several years ago took up residence in one of the Arab quarters of Jerusalem. A certain amount of provocation is part of his character. And he has never denied a statement that has circulated in recent days: it seems he complained that he made a mistake in not having Arafat killed at Shabra and Chatila. This is an absurd declaration. And too, there is the strange reality of new settlements of Israeli colonizers. As governments have succeeded each other in Israel, even the moderate ones, the settlements have increased. Anybody knows that if you increase the settlements, you add problems to those that already exist. Before assigning the label of moderate or not moderate to the individual Israeli government figures, it is necessary in reality to look at how many settlements were made in the period when they were at the head of the government. Certainly, if today we stop to think that Arafat and Peres were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for having finally solved the problem of the Middle East, the hair stands up on our heads.

At a certain point, however, as Clinton’s administration was winding down, enormous concessions were made to Arafat, who refused them. This might have been the moment when the conflict would be resolved. What happened? Why did the Palestinian leader draw back?
Right, why did Arafat not accept the chances that were given him first at Camp David and then Taba to have a much broader platform than the ones provided up to that moment? Many point their finger at him, saying that he made a mistake. Probably, he thought that what was foreseen for the Golan Heights would happen: that if the government signed an agreement, this would then have to be ratified by popular referendum. He thought that this was understood, and that if he had accepted he would have gone out on a limb, but then the referendum would not have ratified the agreement. But these are only hypotheses. Certainly, that moment was particularly propitious also in terms of the problem of Jerusalem. To conceive of the coexistence of two capitals, Israeli and Palestinian, in Jerusalem, was undoubtedly a bold plan. It was a new sign that would have represented a turning point. Subsequently, things turned back on themselves. And it was seen that neither the United States nor the European Union by themselves are in a condition to impose a solution to the problem. Nor can they do it even with the help of third parties, like the Russian Federation. Thus, some convergence is necessary.

Currently, the tension risks spreading also to countries that are traditionally allied with the United States, such as Egypt. Is this not true?
Certainly. The journey of the US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, aroused great hopes. He is an extremely capable man. I remember that during the NATO councils, we called him “the diplomat,” because of his ability to find solutions that before were unthinkable. The fact that he had to return home empty-handed, and especially what happened in Cairo, where he was not received by Mubarak, is very grave. And Mubarak can certainly not be accused of anti-Americanism. But the situation is becoming incandescent in Egypt too. Let’s not forget that right in Egypt were the first fundamentalist uprisings of our Muslim brothers, and in Egypt President Sadat was killed because he was considered responsible for what was instead one of the most important gestures in the history of the last fifty years: the restoration of relations with Israel, the only thing that was brought to a conclusion and is still in effect. This lack of a meeting with Mubarak worries me: let’s hope that he was really ill! I say this not because I am interested in his health, but because if this were to be true, my concern would diminish.

Senator, is it possible to identify a sort of “original sin” in this very complicated affair?
I believe that the “original sin,” as you put it, the grave error of the Palestinians and the Israelis, but also of all international public opinion, is that it is not understood that Israelis and Palestinians are destined to live together. Destined to live together: this is a reality. We cannot pretend that one or the other can be gotten rid of; it is unthinkable that the adversary can be eliminated. This is why those who put themselves in the position of judge and take a stand on one side against the other do a great wrong. This does not help anyone. First of all, because it develops in some countries a certain amount of hatred toward the Islamic world. Then because it generates or reawakens feelings of anti-Jewish racism, as we have seen happening in France or Belgium. These are extremely worrying manifestations which must not be underestimated.

And in the Holy Land there are not just Jews and Palestinians. There are also Christians. The siege of the Basilica of the Nativity in Bethlehem has brought the problem of the Christian communities in the Holy Land before the eyes of everyone. They are risking extinction.
A thousand things intersected in Bethlehem, not only the right of asylum, or the indiscriminate accusation of all the Palestinians who sought refuge from being labeled terrorists. There are elements that strike each of us to the heart. This is the Basilica of the Nativity, and this wounds an entire tradition, not only Catholic but also civilian. We are in the year 2002 only because there, where today that basilica stands, the Christian era began: it is the calendar used every day the world over.
But we have to be careful not to give the impression of defending the cause of one side. There, in the Holy Land, the Christians are an obvious reality, an integral and essential part of the area. But no privileges are asked for them. And if on this occasion Christians agreed with each other a little more, they would give a different testimony of their faith. When you visit the holy places, at times it makes your heart contract to see this sort of competition, sometimes even unruly, among Armenians, Orthodox, and Catholics. If we managed to resolve this enmity, Christians would make a contribution to the solution of the problem. They would show the way for a relaxation of the tension.

The Vatican insistently proposes an international statute for Jerusalem. This proposal does not seem to be accepted either by the Israelis or by the Palestinians.
This is a project that has been going forward for a long time. I remember that thirty or thirty-five years ago, an initiative of this sort was perfected from the formal point of view. Personally, I do not think it is an acceptable proposal. It seems more proper to me that, perfecting the scheme worked out in Taba, the city be given broad political representation. And in this framework, then, also the protection of the holy places, both the Catholic ones and those of other religions, will be able to find a solution. But the Vatican is playing an important role in the Middle Eastern situation: it took important steps by opening diplomatic relations both with Israel and with the Organization for the Liberation of Palestine. This progress has been made silently, but it has been enormously important. However, now the diplomatic work risks not being sufficient, because minimal conditions of living and coexistence must be restored.

I have had occasion to quote to the Chief Rabbi of Rome, Riccardi Di Segni, the statement made by the American Rabbi Singer at the ecumenical encounter in Assisi: “Land is not worth more than men’s lives.” And I asked him if, perhaps, in this situation, the State of Israel shouldn’t take a step backwards. He answered, “Our children are dying on the bus and in restaurants. Sharon is a general, and generals are those who, besides knowing how to make war, know also how to make peace.”
It is not true that all generals know how to make both war and peace, even if there have been people who demonstrated that they know how to do it, maybe even at a high personal cost. I have the former general Rabin in mind. He had great political acumen. I remember that when Rabin was minister, and we were going though a very tense moment between Jews and Palestinians, I asked him one day, “How can you resolve such a complicated situation if you don’t talk to your adversaries?” He answered, “My men go to Tunis every week and have very close contact with the Palestinians–don’t pay attention to the news reports or statements of principle. They have to be made to keep up the façade; the reality is different.”
To be sure, his murder by a fellow countryman might discourage others from being conciliatory. But coming out of a state of such drastic tension is the only path. We have to act in such a way that those who trust in violence will know they cannot succeed; they may slow down negotiations, but they will never really solve the problem. Both sides have to be convinced of this.

Is a peace without Arafat possible, as the Israelis are asking for?
I believe that it is a very dangerous position. None of them is in a condition to say, “There is a Palestinian with whom we are open to dialogue; we want to negotiate with him.” There is no one of this kind at this time. If there were, probably, in a spirit of sacrifice, Arafat himself would step aside. He doesn’t want the death of Samson with all the Philistines. Unfortunately, a figure like this does not exist.

A Christian bishop demonstrating in Rome called the Palestinian kamikaze martyrs for whom we should have respect and admiration. Oriana Fallaci in the Corriere della Sera attacked the Church because of this statement and because the Church did not condemn it. What do you think?
Oriana is wrong to use these tones, thinking she is defending the Israelis. On the contrary, she does not do service either to the Israelis or to Jews in general. To be sure, it is cause for reflection that there are those who choose to sacrifice their lives for an ideal or thinking that in this way they solve a problem for the sake of other people; however, this path is a dramatically mistaken one. Increasing the number of the dead increases also the reasons for resentment, and ends up making the situation worse. The problem is that she [the kamikaze], her father, and her grandfather were all born in refugee camps, and they have no prospects; no one prepares programs for attempting to solve problems, for maybe the past twenty years.
I certainly do not justify the kamikazes, anything but, however we have to reflect on their acts so as not to waste time and to try to find all the solutions possible. To be sure, whoever kills innocent civilians does a very grave act, but so does whoever kills soldiers: those serving in the military are also ordinary people, they are someone’s sons and daughters. And the idea that in order to win you can even bomb or shoot at private homes, humanly speaking is a step backward several centuries. The problem lies with both sides: those who know that their children and grandchildren can be blown up on a bus or by a kamikaze bomb, and those who know they can be machine-gunned down by police who end up shooting in order to disperse a mob.
But there are other problems, which are often forgotten, like that of the occupied areas of the Golan, which is Syrian territory. And there is the big problem of the refugees, for instance the Lebanese ones, who were kept out of the Oslo Agreement, and have no right to return home. This is an error. The latest initiative, the one put forward by the Saudis, seems valid to me and offers a platform on which we can begin to discuss. If we started to solve these problems, the tension would let up and those who truly believe in negotiation, in the possibility of agreement, those who are looking for perspective, would regain confidence. There may be very many ways of solving the problems. The only thing that cannot be accepted is maintaining the current situation. Every day, the seeds of hatred are planted. And they are planted in two peoples who are going to have to live together. A terrible situation.

What can be done now? What solutions do you see?
Some speak of international conferences, but conferences serve a purpose if there is preparation for them, if there is a preliminary state of mind, if there is an outline for discussion; otherwise, they are unproductive exercises. And the plan to give significant aid for reconstruction is useful, but it has to be enacted later, not now. Aid will have to be given so that the Palestinian economy can take off. To be sure, the miserable conditions of before are now enhanced by all the destruction that has been done in this period.

Senator Andreotti, what do you foresee for the future?
The future has to foresee in some measure the enactment of what was decided in Oslo: tracing out the boundaries between two states with the creation of mixed initiatives at the edges, so as to create common interests.

Do you think this is possible in the short run?
I think there are no alternatives! Otherwise these massacres and destruction can only continue. And I do not believe that world public opinion is so hard-hearted as to accept this situation lasting very long. Among other things, I give this warning: this is a fire whose sparks can be carried very far by the winds that are currently blowing! And if it is not put out in a hurry, this fire can open new, even more dramatic fronts of crisis.