Political Peace Processes/Political Leadership
Gershon Baskin
IPCRI (Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information)
Portrait »
Interview Highlights »
“ The fruits of peace never showed up for most common people. The agreements were never implemented; there were different interpretations of what the agreements said, and of what the obligations to the agreements were. Violence didn't stop, terrorism didn't stop. The power of the spoilers, the extremists on both sides grew. The Israeli leaders from Rabin on didn't know how to confront the settlers, and they became more and more powerful. What were good intentions became bad intentions and lack of trust. As the breaches grew, and there were no mechanisms within the agreements to deal with breaches other than complaining about them, it became such that the breaches were more than what was being implemented, and people lost faith in the peace process.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Sarah Karajeh
Bereaved Families Forum
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Interview Highlights »
“ I am sorry to say that the people who are now leading aren't the people who have suffered. Those who view the situation from a distance are different from those who witness the situation first hand and in a clearer way. We have a centralized leadership and a few individuals control everything. Even if some leaders who are concerned about our people and believe in our cause reach certain positions, they will not be the decision makers, and will surely never be the sole decision makers.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Gidon Bromberg
EcoPeace/Friends of the Earth Middle East
Portrait »
Interview Highlights »
“ I think we have to forgive each other for horrible things that we've done to each other, and that hasn't happened. We need to go through that process. We also need our leaders to make those political statements to help create the environment for forgiveness, and to stop the suffering that we impose on each other, but peace is about reconciliation, forgiveness, understanding. We've got a long way to go. It's going to take years; it's going to take generations. It's a marriage, and a marriage, a partnership, requires working at it every day at every level, and that's what peacemaking is about, that's what peace is about.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Gila Svirsky
Coalition of Women for Peace, Women in Black
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Interview Highlights »
“ The Oslo process gave us the understanding that we have to aim for a two-state solution. Prior to the Oslo process only 20% of Israelis-- these are real figures-- believed that a two-state solution was worthwhile pursuing. Today 80% or more of Israelis say that it's inevitable. In fact I'm sure that it's more than 80%, that number is already 4 or 5 years old. So, that's a major change, and that was brought about because of the Oslo process.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Dr. Khuloud Dajani
People's Campaign for Peace and Democracy
Portrait »
Interview Highlights »
“ I am sure that a large percentage of the people who know the word “Oslo” know it just by name. They are not aware of what exactly Oslo was, even the people who signed Oslo. I am serious. I wish that people would carefully study the papers they sign, and be able to discuss and explain them to the people. There are many missing, unclear issues. Secondly, the different treaties--take for instance Camp David-- there was a chance, but the Palestinian resistance movement was not mature at that time. We are always backwards and we never carefully study our opportunities. We constantly refuse some opportunities illogically. We do not deal with opportunities in a tactical way. […] we are not mature enough in politics, negotiations, and in different roles. Centrality exists here.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Prof. Sami Adwan
PRIME (Peace Research Institute of the Middle East)
Portrait »
Interview Highlights »
“ We cannot say that this project, by itself, will lead to peace. Grassroots work - the development of this and other people-to-people projects - is necessary, but not sufficient for the achievement of peace. A political decision or agreement can be implemented from the top down, but in order for peace be to transformed from a political decision to a reality, people must follow it. For this reason, we need both bottom-up and top-down mechanisms to function together and reinforce one another.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Meir Margalit
Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions
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Interview Highlights »
“ Our work changes according to geopolitical changes in the region. There was a time when we had a more sympathetic ear in the government, for example, when Barak was Prime Minister. Usually when the Labor Party takes part in the coalition and controls the ministries relevant to our matters we could just pick up the phone to the ministers and say, 'look here, you've gone too far!' [...] Things have changed. We no longer have people who listen in important government posts, so we work less on lobbying and more on using the legal framework.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Robi Damelin
Parents Circle - Bereaved Families Forum
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Interview Highlights »
“ Of course we try to talk to as many politicians as we can to show them another sort of aspect of daily life here that could make a difference. What happens politically will affect the work that we're doing. The closer we get to some form of agreement, the more important our work is, because we all feel that no agreement will happen unless there's a reconciliation process built in.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Ofer Shinar
Consultant to the Bereaved Families' Forum
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Interview Highlights »
“ The work done by most of the theorists who write about reconciliation stems from the assumption that reconciliation is a process that starts after a peace accord has been signed. That's the concept that everyone is talking about. Or at least hand in hand, simultaneously. I believe that we have to start with some notions of reconciliation, some gestures, some ways in order to have people thinking about it and wanting it, and pushing it, and saying, "there is something that was missing in Oslo, and we want it, it's something good for us." If people will feel like that, then we might come to a place where we can have it formalized into a commission or another formal mechanism.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Gila Svirsky
Coalition of Women for Peace, Women in Black
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Interview Highlights »
“ We're in a climate that is in great fear of Palestinians, and a belief that they don't share our worldview. President Katsav, our current President, said shortly after this intifada began, "We are dealing here with people who are not only not from the same frame of mind as we are, they are people who are outside our entire realm of being, they don't even act like they come from the planet earth." Those were his words. And that's the message that Israelis get. Palestinians are aliens who don't share our values, they're aggressive, primitive, cruel, etc. So it's very hard when your President and Prime Minister and the entire government are saying things like that, and you're trying to say, "Look, they are people just like us." Nobody hears that message.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Gidon Bromberg
EcoPeace/Friends of the Earth Middle East
Portrait »
Interview Highlights »
“ Peace, and sustainable development. That's the mandate of the organization; we're working at creating peace between peoples. We're very much aware that if you only focus on the prime ministers or the presidents signing some sort of accord, it's meaningless. Israel and Jordan have had a peace treaty for ten years. There's no peace between Israelis and Jordanians; it doesn't exist, it's a fallacy. Most Jordanians are hostile toward Israel, and most Israelis are unaware of anything that's really going on in Jordan. It's not peace, and if it stays at that artificial, governmental level, with a change of government, it will all crumble, it will all disappear. The type of peace process that involves people, that involves communities and the shared environment, creates real foundations for peace, it builds understanding.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Gershon Baskin
IPCRI (Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information)
Portrait »
Interview Highlights »
“ The agreements had problems with them, but there's no peace agreement that doesn't have problems. You can find flaws with every agreement, every treaty. The problem is that what they agreed on, they didn't implement. There was a great deal of good will at the beginning of the process, the good will got lost very quickly. Five months into the process there was the Baruch Goldstein massacre in Hebron, at which point I think the Palestinians began to lose good will. The peace process brought with it a situation that made life more difficult for Palestinians rather than easier, with the whole policy of closures and permits that developed in the peace process. Before the peace process Palestinians could move throughout this land freely, no checkpoints, no permits. And all of a sudden you have a peace process and life becomes more difficult?” [Source in Complete Interview]
Rutie Atsmon
Windows
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Interview Highlights »
“ During one of the talks at Camp David, the Israeli negotiation team wanted to break the ice with the Palestinian negotiators so they suggested coming to the meeting wearing sweatpants. Now anyone who knows anything about Palestinians understands that this is ridiculous because in Palestinian culture one doesn't go to a summit wearing sweatpants. It isn't respectful and it is even insulting to suggest it. What seemed so natural to the Israelis wasn't natural for the Palestinians. The person who told me the story said that the Palestinians were willing to loosen their ties a little… ” [Source in Complete Interview]
Shlomi Daskal
The People's Voice, Realistic Religious Zionism
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Interview Highlights »
“ The project [The People's Voice] is a civilian, joint Israel-Palestinian initiative that is an attempt to achieve peace. The initiative states a very simple thing. All the former initiatives failed for a simple reason, because we never set a target. For the first time we’re saying that we aim to arrive at a certain place. The document includes six principles. It was drafted by Israelis and Palestinians together, not by only one side. It is based on six ideas: two states for two peoples, accepting the pre-1967 borders, and evacuating settlements, Jerusalem as a free city; Palestinian neighborhoods will be governed by Palestinian rule and Jewish neighborhoods will be governed by Israel. The right of return will apply only to the Palestinian state, just as Jews will have the right of return to Israel. The Palestinian state will be a demilitarized zone. After all this happens comes the sixth clause, which pronounces the conflict over and the mutual claims fulfilled.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Sarah Karajeh
Bereaved Families Forum
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Interview Highlights »
“ The main blame [for the failure of previous peace agreements] is on the occupying power, which didn't fulfill its commitments. The second reason is the Palestinian leadership that failed completely. The Palestinian leadership was concerned about its personal interests such as who will become a minister or a manager or a legislative counsel member and didn't think about the suffering of its people.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Ihsan Turkiyyeh
Arab-Hebrew Theatre in Jaffa
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Interview Highlights »
“ I feel the people who make peace [on the political level] have their intentions and they are the only people who are enjoying the results of peace but the people didn't feel it. And that's why it failed. If the people feel peace on ground, they will feel they can work, they will have good life-peace is going to be stronger. But if the benefits are only going to go to the dealmakers, there is not going to be peace. That's why it was destroyed.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Daniel Seidemann
Ir Amim
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Interview Highlights »
“ The Palestinians will never go back to a process that is incremental, because they will always see this--legitimately--as an Israeli ploy just to gain advantages and buy time. Israelis will never go straight to endgame. And what we have to do is develop methodologies that will be sufficiently endgame in order to generate Palestinian willingness to engage, and sufficiently incremental at least in implementation in order to allay genuine Israeli suspicions.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Orly Noy
All For Peace Radio
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Interview Highlights »
“ With the Oslo process I remember there was really a sense of hope. And I felt that Rabin was really determined. Something clicked in his mind and he came to realize from within that it cannot go on like this. After the assassination everything just collapsed. For me personally, not on a national level, but on the personal level, the assassination of Rabin was one of the biggest traumas of my life, because in a single moment it killed every trace of hope that we had.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Ariel Huler
Seeds of Peace
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Interview Highlights »
“ I just had a discussion today about the media, that was trying to deal with the fact that in surveys Israelis reflect some understanding that a solution would be a two-state solution and that they are willing to withdraw from all the settlements in order to achieve this. When they do surveys you can see that the majority of the Israeli public, around 65%-70%, thinks more or a less that that's the deal. They're prepared for this. But when elections come around they don't vote for parties that represent these ideas. And that's a paradox in Israeli society. Voting originates in a lot of places. There is this Ashkenazi - Sephardi conflict, and many Sephardi people, even though they support the idea on the whole, or understand that there should be some compromise, would never elect a leftist party.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Khulood Badawi
Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), Ta'ayush, Coalition of Women for Peace, Bat Shalom
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Interview Highlights »
“ Oslo failed because of the Israeli patronization of the Palestinian side. The Israeli war strategy is part of the Israeli patronization of the Palestinians. For example, most of the peace proposals were formed by the Israelis, and were ready when proposed by Israel. The Palestinians only negotiated around or rejected what was proposed. Israel has an agreement that suits every stage it is in. None of the negotiations were based on shared principles between the two sides. The negotiations were actually held within one side [the Israeli side], which then forced the agreement that suited them onto the Palestinian side. ” [Source in Complete Interview]
Rami Nasrallah
International Peace and Cooperation Center (IPCC)
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Interview Highlights »
“ I differentiate between peace building and peace making. Peace making is an agreement with elites. Peace building is engaging the majorities on both sides to benefit from peace as a way of life, and as something that can contribute to them on a collective level and on an individual level.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Eliyahu McLean
The Sulha Peace Project, Jerusalem Peacemakers, Middleway
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Interview Highlights »
“ The problem is that the negotiations that happen in Washington or in Europe are between English speaking academic Palestinians and English speaking academic Israelis. They don't incorporate any of the people-to-people approach, the grassroots elements. They leave out the religious and spiritual dimension, which is often missing from statecraft. We're trying to reclaim the indigenous tools of Middle Eastern peace wisdom-- the sulha, text study-- tools found within Islam and Judaism in particular, but of course also in Christianity and in all the traditions here. Spirituality deals with the trans-rational level, the non-rational world, with spiritual ideals. Sometimes if you try to approach this conflict only from a rational point of view, you don't get anywhere; it's almost like deadlock.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Ali Abu Awwad
Bereaved Families Forum, Al Tareek (The Way)
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Interview Highlights »
“ Not being able to go home after I was released according to a peace agreement was a problem for me, but the greater problem was that this agreement didn’t provide the Palestinian people with what it was supposed to. The agreement didn’t ensure a Palestinian state and didn’t stop the settlements. At the same time the Oslo agreement didn’t ensure security for the Israelis and didn’t stop the operations inside Israel, therefore it was a failure for both sides. The Oslo agreement was a result of the efforts of the politicians, not the people[…] This led to the second intifada which was more violent. The attitude of the people on both sides was that we tried peace, and it didn’t work, therefore peace with the other side is impossible. The anger involved in the second intifada was far deeper.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Dimitri Diliani
People's Campaign for Peace and Democracy
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Interview Highlights »
“ If you look at past peace agreements or proposals for peace and reconciliation, you'll see that they are not even known by the names of the people that made them. Take Camp David. Oslo. Sharm El-Sheikh. Camp David II. Or there are agreements that bear names like "Tenet" or "Mitchell." None of these names are Palestinian or even Arab. Except for Sharm El-Sheikh, perhaps, which was only a security arrangement. So you find yourself thinking, where are the ordinary people? Why don't they speak their minds? The doctors and the bakers and the teachers and the scientists… why don't they voice what they want?” [Source in Complete Interview]
Gila Svirsky
Coalition of Women for Peace, Women in Black
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Interview Highlights »
“ [My Palestinian friend and I] call each other every couple of weeks, and if there's one significant thing we say to each other, in every conversation, it's that our leaders, all of them, are majnoon, majnoon, majnoon, meaning "crazy" in Arabic. Sharon is majnoon, Arafat is majnoon, Rantisi is majnoon. We do all of the leaders on both sides, and we feel a lot better after we've said it, because we know we both agree that our leaders are getting us into trouble, and if it were up to us there would never be this craziness.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Shlomo Zagman
Realistic Religious Zionism, Mosaica
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Interview Highlights »
“ I think that currently religion is fueling the extremists both among Jews and among Muslims. Extremist orthodox Jews transform religion into irreconcilable fundamentalism – into control over lands. Fundamental Islam transforms religion to be uncompromising about control over Palestine and nationalism. We know for certain that both religions have content that is different than that. There are different kinds of orthodox followers and there are different religious streams that can converse. They must be addressed, given a speaking platform and assisted in disseminating their perspective.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Ali Abu Awwad
Bereaved Families Forum, Al Tareek (The Way)
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Interview Highlights »
“ The reason for the failure of the previous peace attempts is that they weren’t implemented on the ground, not because the Palestinians don’t want peace. All the Palestinians want peace, even those who carry out suicide bombings. I am sure they want peace, but they have reached a stage in which their lives are of no value. I think this is because there is no peace. If there were peace life would have a value. There would be games for the children, employment and opportunities. While there is no peace, there will be no life.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Dr. Ron Pundak
Peres Center for Peace, Peace NGOs Forum
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Interview Highlights »
“ We [the Israeli leadership] were stingy [during the Oslo process] on the issue of prisoners, the economy, and almost everything-- not because we wanted to sabotage the process, but because from our point of view, all this might have led to a Palestinian state, which we did not dare to say out-loud-- for example, partition of Jerusalem, which is a must for any agreement. If we continue to say during negotiations that Jerusalem will always be under Israeli control, we are pushing aside Palestinian legitimate activities and sending the wrong message in regards to what we want to have. So to sum it up in a nut-shell, I think we screwed it up. ” [Source in Complete Interview]
Prof. Dan Bar-On
PRIME (Peace Research Institute in the Middle East)
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Interview Highlights »
“ I think a change in the political situation is necessary [before The Ministry of Education accepts our textbooks]. I think education will be one of the first issues that will come up on the agenda when dialogue begins again on the political level. Both sides are aware today that it's important to do something to change education. In Oslo it was neglected. We see it as a problem that in Oslo and even in the Geneva Initiative there was no chapter on education. We feel that education should be a major issue in any upcoming peace agreement.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Rutie Atsmon
Windows
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Interview Highlights »
“ Barak offered the Palestinians the "ultimate proposal they could not refuse" without realizing that regardless of what was included in the proposal, you just don't offer a closed deal; you negotiate, you discuss. This is done all over the world, especially in the Middle East where negotiation is such an important part of the culture, including how to negotiate, how to deal with all that. When Barak laid a closed deal on the table, not open to negotiation, he demonstrated a lack of understanding of the place he lives in and who he is talking to. Even if the proposal was perfect, which it wasn't, I don't think the Palestinians could have accepted it because that just isn't done anywhere in the world. It's very patronizing to come with a closed offer.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Dr. Khuloud Dajani
People's Campaign for Peace and Democracy
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Interview Highlights »
“ The people working for peace need to be able to give the Palestinians back their legitimate rights. If you work for peace and do not achieve anything, you will never be remembered in history, or you will be remembered negatively. People are for peace, but for a just peace based on international legitimacy, including the 1967 borders, compensation and return of the refugees to the Palestinian state, return of Israeli settlers to Israel, etc.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Ofer Shinar
Consultant to the Bereaved Families' Forum
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Interview Highlights »
“ I discovered, reading the Oslo Accords, that they are very legalistic. Legal thinking has failed us throughout the process. This is the best example of the limitations of legal work. Lawyers can only go so far. You can make a contract and treaties, but changing the perception of people is so much more complicated and demands so much more than legal work.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Daniel Seidemann
Ir Amim
Portrait »
Interview Highlights »
“ I think everybody knows what final status in Jerusalem looks like 10 or 15 years from now, and nobody knows how to get there. The ability to work incrementally is one element that I think is clearly peace work. Also, politicians are good at arriving at agreements but they rarely ask what I call the "will you respect me in the morning question," namely, if you agree on something, is it going to work? So that too is an element: putting political ideas to scrutiny in order to see how viable they are, how sustainable they are. ” [Source in Complete Interview]
Dimitri Diliani
People's Campaign for Peace and Democracy
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Interview Highlights »
“ Palestinians have a clear national goal: the establishment of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital. Likewise for the Israelis, the Zionist Movement is founded upon the goal of establishing a national home for the Jewish people. The ironic thing is that the two objectives are consistent. The Palestinians agree to have their state along the 1967 border. Israel cannot be a Jewish national home if it continues to have four million Palestinian Arabs living inside it. In other words, Israel cannot continue to occupy us. […] So it is in Israelis' interest to agree to a kind of separation. They have their country and we have ours. And this is precisely our national goal, as Palestinians. So, in principle, there is agreement on a two-state solution. […] However, if a two-state solution is not implemented, Palestinians are going to call for a bi-national state. Continuing to live under occupation is not an option: if we cannot get a state, then at least give us rights as citizens in your state. If this happens, however, then neither the national Palestinian objective nor the Zionist dream will be achieved. So it is in everyone's interest to establish two states for two nations.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Itamar Shapira
Combatants for Peace
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Interview Highlights »
“ Supporters of the Labor party want to end the occupation and the conflict but they claim that the moment we put down our arms they will shoot at us, and cite Oslo as an example of this. The other side also says that too -- if we stop terrorism they will forget because they don’t care that people are living this way. If we stop using terrorism it won’t sink in, they won’t comprehend that something is wrong, that people are being oppressed and it will take hundreds of years to gain independence. Both sides are right. This is how it is in most places. The goal is to put an end to this cycle.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Dr. Khuloud Dajani
People's Campaign for Peace and Democracy
Portrait »
Interview Highlights »
“ The mutual violence rose out of the fear that peace agreements would not succeed, especially after the failure of Camp David, Taba negotiations and the return of Israel’s practices of oppression, killing, confiscation of land, checkpoints, etc… Palestinians responded to the oppression in order to defend themselves. One way of defending themselves was by carrying out martyrdom operations. At a certain point, we needed the parties who carry out such operations to think twice about the operations that target Israeli citizens. Despite the fact that we are living in a period of conflict, we should let our plight be known through the media on the international level and find an Arabic, Palestinian, and even Islamic spokespeople who could reflect the truth about us; the truth that we are not for the killing and targeting of civilians.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Yehuda Stolov
Interfaith Encounter Association
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Interview Highlights »
“ Peace means harmonious relations between all the residents of the region. I don't think it is associated with any specific political model. I think that peace makes many political models possible, some of which seem like complete fantasies given the reality. Without constructing the human infrastructure, even the most conventional model - such as that of two states - seems pretty bizarre, too. An agreement can't hold up if it lacks human infrastructure. The Oslo Accords didn't fall apart because it was a bad agreement but because there was no trust between the two communities.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Kitty O. Cohen
Folklore of the Other: The Institute for the Study of Religion and Communities in Israel
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Interview Highlights »
“ I think that peace must be made between Palestinians and Israelis. The fewer outsiders are involved the better off we’d be. I don’t think a peace process can be achieved outside of Israel -- neither on the White House lawn, nor in Geneva and not in Paris or Oslo. It has to be negotiated and achieved here.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Yehuda Stolov
Interfaith Encounter Association
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Interview Highlights »
“ We address relationships between communities through discussions that purposefully set aside the political issues that are disputed. We attempt to establish relations as an interaction that is both positive and profound, and which assists people in overcoming prejudices or even hate. It constructs mutuality, recognition, and respectful and friendly relations. When this process is sufficiently advanced and we'll be able to establish that hundreds of thousands of people underwent this, then we will be able to hold talks regarding issues that are disputed politically, with the ability to solve them in a manner that will be sustainable.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Ariel Huler
Seeds of Peace
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Interview Highlights »
“ I always use this analogy when people that are coming from outside the conflict don't understand the context: I tell them to try and imagine what kind of relationship a traumatized couple would have. And I think this is the case with the Israeli and Palestinian societies. I think honest leaders should do as much as they can to show their societies what are the essentials, what is the trauma that the other side is suffering, because this conflict is not only about borders, it's about traumas. Both societies have different traumas. ” [Source in Complete Interview]
Rami Nasrallah
International Peace and Cooperation Center (IPCC)
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Interview Highlights »
“ The leadership is not able to think of creative ideas about how to make a just peace. They know what to demand but they do not know how to build systems to achieve peace. Part of my duty is to think of the system. Peace is a whole system. Everything should work together in an integrative way. Economy, education, democracy, culture, trade, infrastructure, etc., should work together smoothly as a part of a peace agreement. The leaders are responsible for signing the agreements and we should find ways to implement them. Peace agreements will not tell us how to do it, rather what piece of land we will get. I assume that if we get all that we demand, we will ask the question, "What are we going to do with what we achieved?" I want to answer this question, irrespective of when the Israelis are going to leave us to establish our state in all the areas occupied in 1967.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Daniel Seidemann
Ir Amim
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Interview Highlights »
“ The negotiators got too far ahead of their constituencies, and they weren't the real decision makers. At the time, during Camp David, I thought that the parties were not ripe for a final status. I think that the attempt to go whole hog and try and reach one without a fallback solution was a mistake.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Aziz Abu Sarah
Bereaved Families Forum, All For Peace Radio
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Interview Highlights »
“ In the end, I guess that the political leaders are the ones that are going to have to do something - there are certain things that I personally cannot do. If I sign a paper with an Israeli and solve the whole conflict, it would be great. But I’m not the one who will do this. In the end, it will be Sharon or someone else, maybe Abu Mazen or his successor who will sign the paper. I think that the grassroot’s work is very important. In the previous peace process - the Oslo Convention -people felt no change taking place, nothing that made them feel peace. i.e. There was no change in education. The leaders thought that if they only signed papers for a peace process, everything would change, and this belief is erroneous. If the common people did not understand or interact or agree with what is going on, it’s hard for anyone to succeed in fulfilling a treaty.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Nasser Laham
Maan News, Bethlehem Television
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Interview Highlights »
“ I used to have a vision, but now I don't anymore. Is that a disgrace to say that I don’t know? I really don’t know. I wish I did, and then perhaps I would be able to explain things to my children. The hardest questions come from them. I have 13 year old twins. They say to me, “Dad, what about Israel?” But I’m as silent as a mule. I can’t explain things to them because it pains me. I don’t know what to tell my son – whether he should carry on and build a family or stop; whether there is hope that the Israeli people will make decisions or the generals will continue to decide; whether Dan Halutz will decide or rather you will; or my friends in Israeli society, the journalists, will.” [Source in Complete Interview]
