Yossi Olmert is blunt when it comes to the survival of Israel. Making peace with the Palestinians, believes the former minister of justice under Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, is secondary to the continued national liberation of the Jewish people and preserving their homeland.
“The fortunes of Zionism do not depend on peace,” said Olmert, who appeared after Yossi Beilin to present another viewpoint at “The Israeli/
Palestinian Conflict: Is There A Way Out?” at the Osher Marin Jewish Community Center. “Nor do the fortunes of Zionism depend on the recognition by others of the Jewish people’s sacred rights.”
The Nov. 2 talk in San Rafael, which drew a crowd of about 175, was sponsored by the Jewish Community Relations Council and the Israel Center of the S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation. Olmert admitted that Israel will have to make painful concessions for peace, but “normal people cannot make peace with Arafat. He is not a true partner for peace; he’s a terrorist. You need two for a tango. On what grounds, on what basis do we make peace with terrorists? I don’t believe the current Palestinian leaders one bit.”
Olmert, the brother of longtime Jerusalem mayor Ehud Olmert, said he is baffled by the notion that Israel must make peace with its enemies. “If this were true,” he said, “then Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt would’ve made peace with Hitler.”
Israel’s objectives should be to defeat the terrorists, not negotiate with them, said Olmert, who alternated between combative and humorous postures. “After, we can talk with those Palestinians who truly want peace.”
He said the nationalist camp, which others label as the Israeli right wing, cannot indefinitely control 3 million Palestinians. But, he said, “you must only make peace with those whom you can.”
Palestinians must understand that Israel will never waiver from certain hard-line positions, Olmert stated. First, “all the settlements must stay. There is a historic right of Jews to settle anywhere in historic Palestine. Judea and Samaria will never be Judenrein [without Jews].”
Second, Jerusalem is the undivided capital of the Jewish people, he said. “Even Clinton understood that the Jewish people own Jerusalem.” Olmert, who also served in the Likud government of Benjamin Netanyahu, said, “Jerusalem is mentioned 2,284 times in the Bible and never once in the Koran. Jerusalem has always been the Jewish capital, and there was a Jewish majority there by the mid-1800s.”
Olmert spent most of his time attacking the political positions of Beilin, a man whom he claims to admire personally. “People like Beilin blame Israel for Israel. Those people care less about Jews than they do about the Palestinians.”
The failure of the Oslo accords, for which Beilin was the principal architect, is proof enough that Beilin and his associates cannot be trusted, Olmert said. “Since Olso, more than 1,500 Jews have died. That is more than before it. This accord worsened the situation. The Geneva initiative would perpetuate the disaster of Oslo.”
He is also irked that the Geneva initiative, which provides limited compensation for Palestinian refugees, completely ignores the plight of the 800,000 Jewish refugees from Arab lands. “The Geneva initiative says Israel will pay a lump sum for Palestinian resettlement,” said Olmert, “but we will not be able to raise the issue of Jewish refugees. We believe that only the Jews as a collective group have the right of return to Israel.”
Olmert also believes that “any agreement with the Palestinians will not be confined to a few weeks or months. Any agreement will have to be tested on the ground for 10, 15, 20 years. The teaching of hatred for Israel in Palestinian textbooks must end before we withdraw.”
Summarizing the differences between himself and Beilin, Olmert said “a solution based on the creation of a Palestinian state should be negotiated, not a pre-condition. We support the right to self-determination for the Palestinians, but Beilin surrenders. I give away slowly. Beilin makes full use of his democratic right to be wrong.”
Olmert had his supporters and detractors in the audience, which had thinned out after Beilin’s talk.
Lynn Finerman, a Bay Area filmmaker who has chronicled the peaceful coexistence between Arabs and Jews in a village in Israel, said she felt her blood pressure rise as she listened to Olmert. Viewpoints such as his, she said, are dangerously wrong and border on the hysterical. “They play on Israelis’ fears,” she said. Finerman found herself engaged in a spirited debate with another audience member, an Israeli, who blamed the left for not understanding the plight of the Jews throughout history and the need for a secure Jewish homeland in Israel.
Basia Leaffer, a San Rafael social worker from Poland, regularly argues against Israel’s hard-line policies. But after Olmert’s talk, she acknowledged, “I have to say much of what he said is true.”