A MOMENT Interview With Chaim Herzog
A MOMENT INTERVIEW WITH CHAIM HERZOG How does Israel's sixth president view the state-and the State-of the Jews? Let's start, if we may, with a question about the presidency itself. Traditionally,...
...There's a growing return to roots...
...Then what of the level and bitterness of the conflict in the society...
...The World ORT Union has in Israel 96 schools with 55,000 pupils, including four or five technical colleges, one of which is one of the leaders in the world in the standard of technology that it's achieved...
...I'd like to come back in a minute both to the ethnic and to the religious problems to which you referred...
...Is the fact that there are subjects of this kind on which you can no longer speak freely a frustrating aspect of your position...
...That's the issue...
...But I will say this: In my view, historically speaking, it's a bit early to evaluate the total effects of Lebanon...
...A high quality of life according to the highest western standard...
...Its mayor is a Moroccan who was a colleague of mine in the Knesset, Rafi Suissa...
...Unfortunately, we have a good deal of extremism...
...Do you see that as a problem...
...Still, it is true that we are seeing a growth in verbal violence in the country...
...We don't have that everywhere, of course, far from it...
...I have a peculiar background that enables me to deal with the problem, and I intend to deal with it...
...Of course, there's a certain percentage that goes back, about 20 percent or so...
...But with some of the extremists today, you have problems in this connection...
...The trouble with many visitors to this country is that they know Israel well— orat least they know the road from the King David Hotel to the Binyanei Ha-Umah...
...I'd rather not go into that...
...They grow apples and pears along the Lebanese border, and they have lovely homes with gardens an acre in size and a stable for the horse they have for riding—a wonderful quality, a wonderful standard...
...It was founded by Baron Rothschild...
...Or look at the public posts being held today, and you see that the problem is being solved...
...Does the perception by secular Israelis that the Jewish religion is "owned" by the extreme Orthodox inhibit their own interest in religious questions...
...That's too facile, it's not a serious description...
...And that's evidence of what's taken place here...
...The question is to get their religious leadership to tell them to cool it, to explain to them that there's another side to the coin...
...The same is true if you talk about an Iraqi and a Moroccan and a Yemenite and an Egyptian and a Turk all in the same breath, refer to them all as Sephardim...
...Go to a town like Yavneh, run by Mayor Shitreet...
...But they don't know what's happening on the other side of the pavement...
...Here you're normal...
...But the facts on the ground are that there's about a 20-25 percent rate of inter-ethnic marriage, which will solve the problem naturally, and there's a growth every year of the number of people of Oriental extraction in the universities...
...Now when the State began, it was about two percent...
...And then you suddenly get some act that pressures the public, an act, for example, such as stone-throwing on the Shabbat, which is in itself forbidden by Jewish law...
...Very much so Principally because of the effects of modem technology...
...These are farmers who have worked hard, who have had the right leadership, who have worked themselves right up...
...I've found quite a few very reasonable people there who are concerned about the way things are going...
...Some of them have entirely disappeared as a problem community...
...In other words, there are many, many aspects of the Lebanese problem that are not at all clear...
...This is the only place a Jew has the opportunity to be completely normal, free of complexes...
...I didn't know back when I was treading the path from my home to the Knesset...
...But that just can't work in a democratic society...
...But that doesn't mean that the public isn't interested in political issues, in international issues...
...It's a township—and I've seen such townships everywhere in Israel—where there's complete integration...
...Oh, you get used to it...
...The challenge...
...I wonder whether it is fair to say that Lebanon is becoming Israel's Vietnam...
...The art of debate has deteriorated...
...I've already had consultations with leaders, primarily in the extreme Orthodox sector...
...Tradition is more accepted today as a part of life, very much so accepted...
...Am I correct that these are unprecedented...
...The Chief of Staff is of Iraqi extraction, one of the candidates of the Herut party for Prime Minister is of Moroccan extraction, the president of Tel Aviv University is from an old Sephardi family, the head of one of the five largest banks in the country is Iraqi...
...What's the evidence for that...
...At the same time, I've found a lot of extremism, particularly among the youth, which is very dangerous, and it's spilling over into all sorts of aspects of our life...
...And there are very many subjects on which I do deliver my judgments, and am breaking new ground...
...and it's unbelievable...
...a so-called Anglo-Saxon kibbutz, and the club there would not disgrace any community center in the United States...
...That may well not be an accurate representation, and those whom they consider representative may be quite distant from being representative, but that doesn't affect the perception...
...the public seems to want a president who says what he thinks...
...We may be a few years behind the United States in that regard, but we are going in the same direction...
...If I can turn again to your prior career, as a military analyst—does Israel face a significant military threat today...
...You've got here a plethora of foreign artists, theatres, performers, and they're all pouring in here because the public is interested...
...So all of this together—the standard of debate in the Knesset, as presented to the public, the way the media, as elsewhere in the world, focus on "man bites dog" stories, so that day-to-day positive coverage is frequently ignored—definitely, there is a polarization, there is an increase in verbal violence, there are very dangerous symptoms in the society...
...Which is, I take it, another way of saying that the solution must be a political solution, that there is ultimately no favorable military solution...
...You said earlier that you're more concerned about this matter than about the ethnic divide, which you say is being bridged...
...So you can see the light with regard to this problem...
...Strangely enough, I've been extremely well-received there, despite the fact that I arrive with all the trappings of State and what not...
...Let's stay with ethnicity a moment longer...
...It's been going on for years now...
...We have a free, open society—and one that offers the healthiest form of Jewish life in the world'—and certainly one that is constantly interesting...
...As they put it, they've become "Ashkenazised...
...People are more interested than before in the material aspects of life, in the car, in picnics, in weekend vacations and in going abroad, in enjoying themselves...
...Is that so...
...And the government has twice agreed to requests from the American government to postpone our withdrawal from the Shouf Mountains to the Awali River...
...In the final analysis, what you call "the secular element"— and that's not homogeneous—you've got those who go to synagogue only on Shabbat, and you've got those who go only on the Holidays, and you've got those who go only on Yom Kippur— basically, those who are called secular still all have some sort of relationship to the religion—their attitude, at any rate, is conditioned in no small measure by those whom they consider to be the representatives of religion...
...No, I wouldn't say that...
...But that consensus seems especially hard to locate these days...
...It appears that you intend to make the religious question in the country one of your foci of interest...
...In my view, the process of withdrawal will continue, because on that, there's no great debate in the Israeli public...
...In any case, I am certainly outspoken about it, and I am trying to do something about it...
...how do we get off it, without prejudicing in any way the security of the northern part of Israel...
...I've made my position on Lebanon clear before assuming this position, and it's no longer for me to enter the debate about it...
...Therefore, speaking from the point of view of the historian who is trying to depict these things, I think we are too close to the events to evaluate them correctly...
...You're here on a day when one who was an impoverished Moroccan immigrant is a strong runner for the premiership of Israel...
...I've said so...
...It's simply not an issue for some of them...
...It's just taking time...
...I can recall, when I was Chief of Intelligence, and we were talking about the gap between ourselves and the Arabs with regard to the human element, Ben-Gurion saying, "I am not prepared to believe that the Arab world with 100 million people cannot produce 300 first-class pilots...
...If that's what they're looking for, I'd send them to any number of townships and villages that are run by children of Oriental immigrants...
...What is it they want...
...Now there are people who see it as their job to emphasize the differences...
...People have taken, quite naturally, to referring to Lebanon as "the tragedy," which goes even beyond "the swamp...
...1 was not long ago in Yizrael...
...The Iraqi community has taken its place in banking in Israel, for example, in a major way, and in insurance as well...
...Life is not made up only of swimming pools and yachts...
...It's the same everywhere in the world...
...We're high up on the tree...
...In my first Rosh Hashanah talk to the people, I'm going to raise that issue...
...People seem to me much less bound up with the symbols of nationhood than once they were, far more interested in personal advancement, however they define that...
...It's obvious that there is no military solution, none at all...
...But the more I travel around the country, the more I realize what an unbelievable revolution has occurred here...
...At the moment, however, much of the debate is, of course, focussed on Lebanon...
...And you have to take into consideration the question of the split in the PLO, and the effect that that is having on the Palestinian population in the West Bank...
...Polarization is growing, particularly in the religious field—not so much in the This interview took place in the President's office in Jerusalem on September 1. ethnic field, where the problems are, in my view, on their way to solution...
...Until I became President, I was president of the World ORT Union...
...Just now, of course, we have the curious situation that we're being pressured to stay, because of the situation in Beirut and what's going on there even as we are talking...
...But most stay on and do well, and this year there's been a healthy growth in the number who have come, and there's also an important growth in the number of Israelis who are returning...
...Let me tell you what I said at the Assembly of the Jewish Agency...
...Finally, yet another established tradition in the short history of the Israeli presidency is that the president becomes a spokesman for aliyah, for the immigration of Jews to this country...
...Here in Jerusalem we have the ORT school of technology, which is as advanced a school of its type as you'll find anywhere in the world, concentrating on computers...
...It's true that whereas in the past they used to go more deeply into these issues, today it's all served up to them in a half-hour on television, and that's it...
...Of course he has complete freedom, but there's always something gnawing in the back of his mind, he's always trying to explain himself, to prove himself, and here you don't have that...
...So the problem is being solved...
...And you find that all sorts of people who appear in the name of religion are selective about the religion they represent...
...The wisdom of the Israeli government will be judged by the degree to which the political leadership takes advantage of the military edge that we have in order to solve the problem—politically— before the danger becomes too great...
...The only debate is under what security conditions you pull out...
...Almost two-thirds of the students in that entire system, which produces technicians and practical engineers, are from Oriental families...
...Traditionally, in Israel, the President has been the principal articulator of the national consensus...
...I talk about it where I can, and it was the main theme of my speech before the Knesset when I was sworn in...
...fiiom this point of view, we've been successful with a lot of the western aliyah...
...And that has already happened...
...How long we'll be able to keep the edge, at what point you'll just be able to lock yourself up in a subterranean cave and press a button—that's what worries me...
...Some precepts they accept, some they don't...
...The only question is how to get out...
...a graduate of Bar llan, one of the youngest and one of the ablest mayors in the country, with a sense of what it lakes to develop a high quality of life...
...I've been this week to celebrations of a little township called Mazkeret Batyah, celebrating its hundredth anniversary...
...But there's a growing amount of intolerance of the other person's views, a growing assumption that because you believe it, it's God-given, and what other people say is not important...
...And I can say that without going into the question of whether or not I agree with what we have done...
...Still, basically in Israel there's a growing respect for tradition...
...I hear from some of my Ashkenazi friends a kind of bitterness, as if they've lost control, as if they feel it's no longer their country...
...We're doing better at absorbing the western immigrant, but the main thing is that it's a challenge for them, it's a place where they can find fulfillment—and, after all, it's not as if they're cutting themselves off from the world or from their past, it's not the same as it is for a Russian who leaves his family behind, who comes to a country with a political system that is entirely unfamiliar...
...And especially because of the effects of the push-button aspects of that technology...
...I'd say they are the exception to the rule...
...The military solution is only in order to preserve our independence and give us a chance to develop a political solution...
...The only issue is keeping the doors of opportunity open...
...In the Torah, for example, it is made clear that there is one law for the citizen and for the stranger who lives in our midst, because, according to the Torah, the Almighty is the Almighty of both...
...Even before we get to the issue of conflict among different segments of the population, we have the matter of what might be called "privatization...
...If you look around, a very high percentage of the mayors in the townships around the country today—some of them highly successful, born leaders, very good—are of Oriental extraction...
...What is it that you think might be the incentive, the pull...
...Seventy percent of its pupils are of Oriental extraction...
...At the moment, the human element is still dominant, because even this pushbutton technology requires a certain standard on the human side...
...Now that I'm in this job, I see it...
...I know that my influence is very limited, but at the same time, I know that the presidency here has a certain moral influence that must be exercised...
...Surprisingly, the Lebanese government is now, for the first time in seven or eight years, taking a strong position and using its armed forces...
...They are doing very well here...
...People here, as everywhere else in the world, are increasingly preoccupied with the whole question of the quality of life...
...I know that it's not the high standard of living that will impel Jews to come here, nor, so far as American Jewry is concerned, will it be anti-Semitism...
...At times it feels as if there's a kind of professional ethnicism...
...We tend to idealize the past, to forget that there were very, very fierce political battles in the past...
...In Bar Ilan and in Beersheva, the percentage is now about 35 percent, and it's only a little lower in the other universities...
...Or a few weeks ago 1 visited a friend of mine in a village called Ramol Naflali in the north Believe me—these are the children of immigrants—you don't see that quality of life in many affluent suburbs in the United States...
...it's very dangerous...
...No, I don't think that's fair, because one thing is quite clear: As opposed to what happened in Vietnam, where events dictated what would happen to Americans there, here the Israelis have taken the initiative, and there is a national consensus now to get out of Lebanon...
...The language used then wasn't always better than the language used now...
...And the reaction from the public is good...
...Sephardim...
...Where the human element is not dominant, it becomes dangerous...
...So I'm doing my best...
...I can't see the same light with regard to the religious question, with regard to religious polarization...
...This never happened before...
...Do you, from your perspective as a military analyst, see Israel's intervention in Lebanon and its aftermath as a tragedy...
...Then, too, it's very foolish to talk just about Sephardim on the one hand and Ashkenazim on the other...
...He's a very fine person, and he's fully accepted by the old families, the "Mayflower families," who think he's doing an extremely good job representing their interests...
...When you talk about Russian Jews and American Jews and call them both Ashkenazim, look at what a generalization that is...
...I somehow or another believe that a Jew does not come to full fruition in the States...
...Still, the human element remains important, and the gap is still there, so the problem today is not yet as serious as it is bound to become in due course...
...If you go back over the history of the presidency in Israel, each president has tended to have not only his own style, but also his own pet subjects, areas of concern...
...You'll only be able to evaluate those effects, for example, when the struggle that is going on now between the Lebanese government and Syria is resolved...
Vol. 8 • October 1983 • No. 9
