Peres vs. Peres
The Jerusalem Post
Dec. 13, 2003
By Martin Sherman
In his "First Word" opinion piece in The Jerusalem Post entitled "Israel's two greatest mistakes" (December 5), Shimon Peres argues that our greatest blunders were first, the failure to take Anwar Sadat's peace offers seriously and thereby avoid the 1973 Yom Kippur War; and second, the Likud's insistence on constructing settlements across the 1967 Green Line, squandering huge sums which could have been invested elsewhere.
Peres goes on to regret the absence of David Ben-Gurion, who, in his view, would have ended the conflict through territorial concessions - much as Peres's Oslo policy purported to do.
As Peres put it, "had we invested the necessary energy in making peace with Egypt after Nasser's death and before the Yom Kippur War, we would probably have avoided that war and might have achieved a different kind of peace accord than we got at Camp David."
However, according to his own public statements, it is clear that one of the greatest opponents to Ben-Gurion's supposed largesse would have been none other than Shimon Peres himself.
Consider the following quotation made several years after the Yom Kippur War. In a detailed programmatic book entitled Tomorrow is Now (Keter, 1978), Peres blatantly rejects the Sadat "peace proposal" that Ben-Gurion would have allegedly accepted prior to 1973: "Now Sadat proposes a peace treaty in this generation. However, it may be the present generation of Arabs is not able to live in the full harmony of peace with the people of Israel; this is something that cannot be ignored. Perhaps the present Arab generation can do no more than reach an interim agreement; but such an agreement cannot involve a return to the 1967 borders or the establishment of a Palestinian state" (p. 232 - all translations are mine).
Indeed, Peres was quite explicit in his opposition to a Palestinian state, declaring in a chillingly accurate prophesy: "The establishment of such a state means the inflow of combat-ready Palestinian forces (more than 25,000 men under arms) into Judea and Samaria; this force, together with the local youth, will double itself in a short time.
It will not be short of weapons or other [military] equipment, and in a short space of time, an infrastructure for waging war will be set up in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip. Israel will have problems in preserving day-to-day security, which may drive the country into war or undermine the morale of its citizens. In time of war, the frontiers of the Palestinian state will constitute an excellent staging point for mobile forces to mount attacks on infrastructure installations vital for Israel's existence... and to cause bloodshed among the population... in areas adjacent to the frontier-line." (p. 232.)
In his Post article, Peres laments the settlement enterprise as a "tragic missed opportunity." "Had the Likud and its leaders accepted Ben-Gurion's view 25 years ago, the whole country would look, and live, differently. Tremendous sums of money invested in the territories would have been invested in the Negev. Instead of cultivating a cruel fight between us and our neighbors, we would have developed the alternative 'fight': with the Negev wilderness."
But who was among the chief architects of the settlements and one of their most ardent advocates? Again, Shimon Peres.
In the same 1978 book Peres wrote: "[Israel needs] to create a continuous stretch of new settlements; to bolster Jerusalem and the surrounding hills, from the north, from the east, and from the south and from the west, by means of the establishment of townships, suburbs and villages - Ma'aleh Adumim, Ofra, Gilo, Beit El, Givon and Nahal outposts - to ensure that the capital and its flanks are secured and underpinned by urban and rural settlements.
These settlements will be connected to the coastal plain and Jordan Valley by new lateral axis roads; the settlements along the Jordan River are intended to establish the Jordan River as [Israel's] de facto security border; however, it is the settlements on the western slopes of the hills of Samaria and Judea which will deliver us from the curse of Israel's 'narrow waist'" (p. 48).
Peres writes now that Israel's tragic "mistake was falling in love, without bounds, without demographic considerations, with the territories." Yet it was Peres who urged the nation to expedite its development of the territories, warning, "What we do not do today, we will sorely regret for generations, but what we invest and develop today will be accumulated wealth for generations. It is better that we owe money but develop our land, rather than lose land (whose value will ever-increase) and save money (whose value will ever-decrease)" (p. 49).
With regard to the Golan, Peres is no more consistent. He currently claims, "I know from my contacts with Hafez Assad that he was prepared to take an initiative that would have turned an agreement with Syria into an agreement with all the Arab countries." This is totally at odds with his former resolute affirmation of the enduring need for Israeli settlement of the Golan, declaring: "The purpose of the settlements in the Golan is to ensure that this territorial platform will no longer constitute a danger, but a barrier against a surprise attack" (p. 48).
Accordingly, if Peres is right in what he diagnoses as Israel's greatest mistakes, then he is undeniably among the chief perpetrators and instigators of these historic blunders. If he is wrong, then he is guilty of abandoning those who, at his behest, established their homes in the territories across the 1967 borders.
Either way, some humility would seem to be in order from a leader who has demonstrated a lack of foresight, staggering historical amnesia, or both.
The writer lectures in political science at Tel Aviv University.
