Exclusive interview: Former PM Ehud Olmert on the existential threat facing Israel — from within

Chanan Tigay: Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, thank you for being with me this evening. As we speak, Israelis are still waiting to see if and how Iran will respond to the July 31 assassination in Tehran of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, which was widely attributed to Israel. They are also awaiting Hezbollah’s response to Israel’s killing of one of its leaders, Fuad Shukr. And, of course, the war in Gaza goes on. Yet you’ve said that the biggest danger facing Israel, the only one truly threatening the state’s existence, is the danger from within. 

Ehud Olmert: Well, this is not the only danger. The threats of Iran, the possible reaction of Hezbollah and the continued fighting in the south are all parts of what we have to face. But I’m very much concerned that there are quite a few Israelis — mostly in the territories now occupied by the State of Israel, in the West Bank — settlers that became messianic, extreme right-wingers, that believe that we have to get rid of the Palestinians living in the territories.

We have to find a way to live in peace with those people, to let them exercise their right for self-determination and establish their own independent state alongside the State of Israel — and not fight them and not persecute them and not lynch them, as some of those hilltop youth are doing almost on a daily basis.

Of course we have to fight against our outside enemies. But the danger that comes from within is a danger that we have to cope with forcefully, without hesitation, to bring Israel back into the basic values and fundamental principles upon which the State of Israel was established.

You wrote about this internal threat and the risk it poses in your Aug. 10 editorial in Haaretz. How exactly could the settler movement, as you describe it, threaten Israel’s existence?

The long-range interest of the State of Israel is to make peace with our neighbors and our outside enemies. We are now fighting Hamas, and I definitely want us to win. To a large degree we have won this war, and we broke down the basic military capacity of Hamas. One day, sooner than later, I hope we’ll (begin) negotiating with the Palestinians that are not terrorists; they are the overwhelming majority of the Palestinians. We’ll have to make political compromises, and political compromises also mean inevitably making territorial concessions. There is a fear among many, and myself, that those [settler] groups may not necessarily agree with us, and that can create an internal conflict, which I’m very much afraid of.

We saw an example of what that conflict might look like last month when a number of people from the community you’re talking about broke into the Sde Teiman military detention facility to protest the arrest of Israeli soldiers who have been accused of brutally abusing a Palestinian prisoner. Some have suggested that National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir may have ordered police not to respond right away. To hear you tell it now, it sounds like Israel could be headed to a situation where the rule of law breaks down, the central government loses control. Was this incident a warning sign of things to come?

The Israeli police have already been very grossly influenced by the messianic, extremist, radical approach of the minister of national security, who himself has been convicted numerous times for terrorist activities within the State of Israel. Before we come close to the point where there can be internal conflicts and violent confrontations between those who support the messianic attitudes of the minister of national security and most of the other people who are entirely different in their attitudes and their beliefs, we have to take the necessary measures. And this is now the time.

Has Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu’s government lost control of the situation? Or do you think this kind of conflict is precisely the scenario they’re angling for?

There is no doubt that this is explicitly inspired by the minister of national security and by the minister of finance [Bezalel] Smotrich. They have enormous influence on the prime minister, and the prime minister doesn’t stop them. He has the power. As long as he tolerates all this, he’s part of it.

What specifically can be done now to avert the disaster you are predicting?

To get rid of this government. It’s as simple as that. Netanyahu failed completely. He’s the prime [actor] responsible for the terrible disaster that took place on the 7th of October. Of course, the army failed, security forces failed, generals failed, and they assumed responsibility. They stood up and said, “We are responsible and we will draw the necessary personal conclusions from this responsibility.” The only one who seems to ignore his responsibility is the prime minister, and this is something that can’t be tolerated. We have to do everything in our power, within the democratic rules and within the framework of the principles of democracy, to overthrow this government in a democratic manner. The sooner the better.

Even if there are early elections and a new government, the settler movement that you’re describing as the heart of the problem will still exist. What happens then?

It probably will exist, but it will have to cope with a different government, with different methods of opposing it, and with the power of the different institutions of the government that will force them into a national discipline of a different nature.

Likud was instrumental in the settlements’ rise. Not exclusively, of course. Labor in the early years of the settler movement was very supportive also. But the settler movement was long associated with the right-wing and the Likud. As a one-time leader of Likud, I wonder if there’s a moment, as you look back, where the party could have changed course, might have made decisions that wouldn’t have led to the dire situation whose picture you’ve just painted?

I never was the leader of Likud. I was the vice prime minister of [Ariel] Sharon at the time that we were Likud, and I was one of the founders of Likud, going back over 50 years, to the early ’70s when Menachem Begin was the leader. At that time, the Likud was entirely different. The Likud of Menachem Begin, the Likud of [Yitzhak] Shamir and the Likud of Sharon were entirely different parties, with different spirits.

At the very beginning I was part of this rhetoric, part of this euphoric attitude that we can take over all the territories, and so on. I changed long ago, more than 20 years ago, because I understood, being the mayor of Jerusalem and in charge of 300,000 residents of Jerusalem who were Palestinians, that there is never going to be real equality and full civil rights and human rights and political rights that will be given to the Palestinians as part of the country, and therefore we have to separate from them.

Subsequently many others within Likud at that time, including Sharon, changed their attitude. And therefore we established Kadima, and we won the election in 2006 with an entirely different attitude and platform. Unfortunately, it didn’t hold for too long, and when the Likud came back into power with Netanyahu as the prime minister, everything changed. The Likud today is the party of a very extreme, selfish, narcissistic prime minister who cares for himself and his personal interest, rather than the national interest of the State of Israel. 

You mentioned that Kadima didn’t last as long as you would have liked. Let’s imagine that you remained prime minister longer and had not resigned. You’ve spoken about having made the most far-reaching offer to Abu Mazen, to PA President Mahmoud Abbas, that Israel ever made, and yet you never heard back from him. Had you remained prime minister, what might you have done differently?

When I resigned, me and the Palestinian Authority and President Abbas were very close to concluding a comprehensive peace agreement between Israel and Palestinians. I was charged with corruption, which incapacitated me and subsequently forced me to resign before I was ever indicted.

I urged [Abbas] to sign the proposal, because I thought that this was the best chance ever to make a historic move that may have completely changed the life of our people and the life of people in the Middle East. He didn’t have the courage to do it for a variety of reasons. But he has to speak for himself. He himself said that had Olmert stayed another three or four months in power, there would have been peace between us and the Palestinians, and everything in the Middle East would have changed. But he was the one that didn’t sign it. They failed to respond appropriately to what I proposed, which was a historic opportunity. 

That doesn’t mean that we have to go in the opposite direction and ignore the need to come to terms with the Palestinians. The only possible way is to find a political framework that will help conclude this historic conflict, and this has to be the main purpose and the main strategy of any Israeli government. 

One of the big questions is what happens in Gaza once the fighting stops. Netanyahu has been criticized for not providing a picture or a plan for what happens next. What would you like to see happen once the war ends?

We have to end it today, because if we will not end it, we will not have back the hostages. And if Israel will not have back the hostages, then we will betray the most fundamental obligation that the country has to its citizens. Let’s not forget that not all of the hostages which were abducted were soldiers. They were citizens sitting in their living rooms and bedrooms and safe rooms inside the State of Israel. And because of the negligence, because of the arrogance and because of the failure of the Israeli government, they are in the hands of Hamas in Gaza.

[After the war ends] there should be a security force deployed into Gaza made up of Palestinian Authority security and possibly the soldiers of moderate Arab countries that would be ready to cooperate — Egyptians, Emirates, perhaps also Saudi Arabia and others. The security force will be mandated to stop any further attacks coming from Gaza into the State of Israel. And Israel will have to pull out completely from Gaza. Gaza is not part of Israel. Has never been part of Israel. We don’t need Gaza to be part of Israel. It’s a Palestinian property, and it has to be held and administered and governed by them. And then we’ll have to embark on negotiations with the Palestinian Authority for what I believe can still be achieved, which is comprehensive peace on the basis of two states.

Given your experience with the Palestinian Authority and with Abu Mazen specifically, do you believe that they are in a position to actually maintain control of Gaza?

If Israel will be prepared to make these moves, there is a likelihood that the Palestinians will understand that their interest in moving into this direction is much more significant than anything that they can achieve by terror.

In the months leading up to Oct. 7, some in Israel were speaking in terms of a brewing civil war. This was when changes to the judicial system were on the table. After Oct. 7, the country really seemed to unite in a whole-of-society effort to respond. But now people are speaking again in terms of civil conflict, civil war. Do you think this is a real threat?

Civil war is not something that can be entirely ruled out as a result of this situation, and the very heated confrontation with those who still believe in the Greater Israel, and in the integration of all the territories, and the expulsion of all the Palestinians from the territories. If there will be a new government, we’ll have the power, we’ll have the wisdom, and we’ll have the necessary support from the majority of the public in Israel to cope with it. It’s a very complex situation, very sensitive, very fragile. 

At the end of the day, we have to make a choice. Do we want to remain forever an occupier that will be boycotted and rejected by the international community, that will assume the status of what South Africa had in the past and run kind of an apartheid government, an apartheid country? Or do we want to move into another direction which promises to be much more valuable to us, to our younger generation living here, and to our neighbors? I hope that we’ll have the power, that we’ll have the determination, that we’ll have the leadership to do it.

Update on Sept. 1: The introduction was changed to reflect that the interview was conducted before a recent Hezbollah barrage and the execution of six hostages in Gaza.