The Arab value system is the greatest obstacle to peace, according to Limor Livnat, Israel’s minister of education, culture and sport.
“I know we educate our children to live in coexistence. We teach our children tolerance, democratic values, to believe in peace and to see the hope,” said Livnat, who was in the Bay Area last week. “On the Arab side, we see education to hatred and incitement to anti-Semitism. In order to make a peace treaty, the Palestinians and Arabs have to adopt democratic values.”
A member of Ariel Sharon’s conservative government, Livnat, 53, has been a Likud Knesset member since 1992. Some analysts contend that Livnat is one of the top contenders to take over the leadership of Likud when Sharon is no longer head of the party. She spoke before 75 people during a special session of the Jewish Community Relations Council in San Francisco on Nov. 11. Earlier on Veteran’s Day, Stanford Hillel sponsored her talk at the university.
Livnat cited a recent Saudi television interview as evidence that Arab societies encourage and promote anti-Jewish teachings even if they are not part of mainstream Islam. In the interview, a 3-year-old boy claimed that he hates Jews because they are apes and pigs. The broadcaster then asked him, “Who said so?” The boy answered, “Our God in the Koran.” Livnat was distressed but not surprised that that view was aired and endorsed on state-owned Saudi TV.
Another roadblock to peace, she said, is that current Arab and Palestinian leaders cannot be trusted to help broker a peace treaty. Noting that Arabs have continually broken their word, she said, “Israel has to be more careful or we won’t be able to survive.
“There should be no deals with those who don’t have freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of commerce and the rule of law.”
Livnat staked out her position from the outset, and put the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the larger context of the war against terrorism. “I’m sure the democratic world, the free world, the Western world, can and should push those regimes toward democracy, “Livnat said. “Israel is the only and lonely democratic outpost in the region, and she is surrounded by non-democratic regimes that support terrorism.”
She began her 30-minute speech by explaining her vote against the Israeli Cabinet’s recent approval of a prisoner swap with Iran and with Hezbollah in Lebanon. Israel plans to exchange more than 400 Arabs for a kidnapped Israeli businessman, Elhanan Tannenbaum, and the remains of three Israeli soldiers.
“The moral question or dilemma of the Cabinet vote on the prisoner swap was the most difficult issue since I became a minister in 1996,” said Livnat, who previously served as Israeli minister of communications from 1996-99. “Israel and the families want very much to have back the bodies of our soldiers. On the other hand, there is still Ron Arad, our pilot, in Iran.”
Livnat said Hezbollah kidnapped Arad nearly 20 years ago and eventually sold him to the Iranians. An Israeli committee recently concluded that the likelihood that Arad is alive is greater than he is dead.
“Part of the deal I rejected is releasing the men who captured Arad. They would be free to go home. Is that moral? We should demand to know what happened to Ron Arad and not make any deals with murderers. Part of Hezbollah’s demands is also releasing murderers like the ones who killed a family in Nahariyah,” she said, referring to the 1979 attack in northern Israel.
She also noted that “if we make a deal with the head of Hezbollah, what will be his interpretation of our willingness? The interpretation from terrorist groups and Arab leaders will be that Israel is weakened and surrendered. They will kidnap and kill more Israelis to get want they want from us.”
Defending the fence Israel is building, much to the consternation of the United States and other countries, Livnat said, “It is a defensive fence, which should be understood by any honest person as something Israel must do to protect its citizens. It will minimize the number of terrorists who will get into Israel.”