An Interview With Yehoshafat Harkabi
Dreifus, Claudia
THE PROGRESSIVE INTERVIEW Yehoshafat Harkabi When a general becomes a dove BY CLAUDIA DREIFUS Major General Yehoshafat Harkabi, sixty-eight, is one of the world's most unlikely doves. The former...
...You've said that there are a lot of Israelis who feel as you do—but they are scared...
...We don't mention the PLO...
...But this is not true...
...In 1974 and 1975, he was assistant to the Minister of Defense for strategic policy, and in 1977 he was Prime Minister Begins intelligence adviser...
...Now, I don't mean quality in elitist terms...
...In my book, I say that the Israeli leadership is putting the country on a suicidal course...
...Before that, they were 10 per cent of the Roman Empire and were very important, but because of this war, they were relegated to the margins of history, to become objects rather than subjects...
...Harkabi: I would like Israel to be a center of quality, that we should have good universities, so that American Jewish students and others will come to us, and so that there will be exchanges of personalities...
...On the contrary, I believe that Israel will eventually choose the right course and, partially, it will be because of pressure from the outside...
...But now, the Arabs are making a change and they agree to a two-state solution...
...From 1950 through 1959, Harkabi was director of military intelligence...
...but they also returned the Likud to power in the last general election, and they went so hard-line in reaction to the intifada...
...Harkabi: Yes...
...But what the war did was give a big shock to Israel...
...And when they make a change, we have to meet them...
...And as I described in Israel's Fateful Hour, we stopped understanding that in war you have to think in systemic ways...
...They are ready to praise their own books, but not those written by others...
...They didn't help me...
...Q: Let me use the word "timidity" again...
...An adviser to a Prime Minister should have an intimate relationship with him...
...Nobody understood one word, because they spoke Yiddish in this village...
...Because they are self-centered...
...There are certain assurances in democracy of the possibility of correction, which does not exist in an authoritarian regime...
...I am soft-spoken...
...I won't say that there were no achievements in the war...
...Like many of the ranking citizen-soldiers of his age group, he was a protege of David Ben Gurion, Harkabi s ideological mentor...
...But I would like the Jewish religion not to intervene in politics...
...With so many generals shedding their hawkish attitudes, some Israelis joke that theirs is probably the only country in the world that would benefit from a military coup...
...They also predict a kind of South Africa, where the Palestinians are, at best, second-class citizens...
...They take a dovish position, but the Arabs are not in their minds...
...Before, it was the Israeli or the Zionist side that took a conciliatory position by agreeing to partition with a two-state solution...
...Harkabi: No...
...Nobody [among the world powers] cares for them...
...Harkabi: No...
...What I say is not, "It is not nice...
...Harkabi: Everything should be judged and not magnified out of proportion...
...And then there will be a very big crisis in Israel, because people will suddenly see that the leaders misled the whole country by insinuating that there is a possibility of annexation...
...Perhaps...
...Q: I was struck, in your book, by the degree to which you think the Israeli public and leadership has been deluding itself about power, mythology, and omnipotence...
...So these are the limits...
...This will change the whole situation of international support, because by assuming a conciliatory position, we had the support of the world community...
...I wanted to show something optimistic...
...It brought down Begin...
...Find out what is possible and what is not...
...And then the religion will suffer, because a religion that calls for a political line that fails will suffer from the rebound...
...You implied they were much too timid in their opposition to current policies and too obsessed with maintaining their jobs and their standard of living...
...Harkabi: Of course...
...The agreement to start "substantive dialogue" with the PLO preceded the Bush Administration...
...How do you know Arabic so well...
...And especially not to take the wrong line, which eventually will mean that they will suffer the rebuff...
...Q: The 1982 war in Lebanon, how did that change Israeli political and military life...
...Terrorism has nothing to do with it...
...Why did you quit...
...There were possibilities of better solutions, but they lapsed, because time does not wait...
...Do you feel that you've been a kind of negative prophet...
...Ben Gurion said, "quality...
...God's finger...
...As a result of [the Arab-Israeli war in] 1967, the Israeli position became a rigid call for a one-state solution—"Greater Israel...
...War is not decided by one battle...
...In 1982, we started it...
...They closed their eyes...
...Claudia Dreifus's last interview for The Progressive was with Constantin Costa-Gavras in the September 1988 issue...
...So I'm not fixed...
...Shortly after the conference, I met Harbakifor a quiet lunch at the Nassau Inn in Princeton, New Jersey...
...The Americans won all the battles in Vietnam, and still they were defeated...
...I'm very proud of the Israeli army...
...And [Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak] Shamir is for a one-state solution...
...I do think there will be changes in the Israeli climate of public opinion...
...Q...
...The leaders have misled the Israeli population to believe that it can annex the West Bank...
...Yehoshafat Harkabi: I don't know what's so negative...
...Therefore, all the legacy of wisdom that the sages gave to the Jews is on relations between individuals, not on how a state should be run...
...Q: The thrust of Israel's Fateful Hour is that in the Middle East, moral dimensions and political dimensions become military dimensions...
...Everyone does for themselves...
...Harkabi: The intifada proved to the Israelis that the Palestinians are not individuals, that they constitute a people...
...I saw it first-hand...
...I say, be cool about it...
...Therefore, I am very worried...
...And it was Harkabi whose keynote speech set the tone for the deliberations...
...Q: And that never was possible...
...And now there will be a tipping of the scales in favor of the Palestinians...
...With all that is going on in the Soviet Union, these professors now must feel very uneasy...
...Harkabi: Yes...
...Therefore, all those components now have surfaced, and religious people have now become the spearhead of Israeli nationalism...
...I wanted to draw attention to this because in politics one has to be very careful in measuring what can be done and what not, what is in your power and what are the obstacles...
...What I believe is that war is not an ideological venture...
...I simply warned that the situation will worsen, and many people didn't want to see that...
...In the past, there was a possibility to reach an agreement with the Jordanians, which would have been much better than an agreement with the Palestinians...
...The Germans and the Japanese in World War II wanted . . . their desire to succeed was not weak...
...They didn't succeed because of objective factors...
...Q: In a book you wrote in 1983, you warned that "Israel's control of the Occupied Territories will become less tolerable and [that] civil unrest will bring about a Belfastization of the situation...
...The big problem is how to make our destiny become our adventure...
...The Palestinians are not...
...Simply, there are people who participate and moralize...
...It's psychological...
...It achieved breaking the PLO and forcing it to disperse to the seven winds...
...Moreover, I believe that the coming competition between nations will be less on territory and power and more on technology...
...I say, "It is not good for us...
...Harkabi: Yes...
...So I think there may be a change because the PLO made the change I spoke of earlier...
...But as a result of [the military victories in] 1967, the religious circles suddenly feel power...
...Q: And the decision to go into Lebanon—was it made in what you call a "systemic way...
...There is a lot of talent among the Jews, and it has to be harnessed...
...Harkabi: Well, the Jews are people without political experience in international relations...
...The Europeans will discuss it with the Americans, the Soviets will discuss it with the Americans, and they will both urge the Americans to bring some kind of a solution...
...The number of casualties we suffer from terrorism is very slight...
...Q: But some people can...
...And the result is not what one desires, but what is more tolerable to all...
...I simply try to describe the situation as I see it...
...And what I say is that I think Israel is on a suicidal course if it follows this policy, that I recognize the democratic* right of the Israelis to vote for their own suicide...
...There is a tendency in Israel to believe in all kinds of myths—for instance, that reality is not important, that the subjective will mold the objective, that to be a realist you have to be a nonrealist...
...He has a six-year-old granddaughter, and he worries that politicians and generals are making her future untenable...
...I studied Arabic literature because I thought we were in an Arabic environment and should know it...
...Because the settlements were one step towards annexation, which I believe is the terrible danger...
...It is not in our best interests...
...Q: Your reading of that Arabic poem at a conference where many PLO members and Israeli doves were present—was that meant to be symbolic of anything...
...My father used to live in a small village near the Lake of Tiberias, and from time to time the Turkish policeman used to come to the village and read a proclamation to the village in Turkish...
...It was prompted by the belief that you can achieve some spectacular event and change the entire history of the Middle East...
...Q: How much has the growth of religious feeling in Israel impeded a settlement...
...The Israeli leadership rejects the PLO because it is the leadership of a Palestinian national movement that aspires to have a state...
...Q: Yes...
...This is nothing new or exclusive to Israeli society...
...Now, there's a difference if you start a war and lose, and if you don't start a war and lose...
...If you annex the West Bank, the Arabs will become the majority of the population within a few years...
...Q: Do you think the policy of Israeli settlements on the West Bank, which began under the Labor government, was a mistake...
...Harkabi: All regimes can make terrible mistakes...
...With the intifada, we see that they are ready to sacrifice, that they will go on, and that despite casualties, they will not be deterred...
...he speaks in highfalutin bravado terms which give me a shudder...
...What it boils down to is that so long as the Arabs took a position that they wanted to destroy Israel, everything we did was defensive...
...Harkabi: Not for me...
...In addition to his military credentials, he is a scholar of Arab literature—and he closed his talk with an Arabic poem...
...They are disenchanted, disheartened...
...So people are most hesitant to start wars...
...Begin said, "populism...
...In our generation, it's been the reverse...
...People have resigned themselves to a geographical division of the world...
...Mostly, the side that began the war succeeded...
...But beyond that, it won't become like that...
...Q: In your book, you said, "Many Israelis do not understand the extent to which peace is within Israel's interests...
...I think Begin misinterpreted the Camp David Accords...
...But today Harkabi is one of many high-ranking Israeli officers articulating dovish views on the future of the Middle East—among them Generals Mati Peled, Giora Ram, and Moti Gur...
...I don't pretend to be a prophet...
...They accepted our demands...
...When people say the Israelis reject the PLO because it is a terrorist organization, that is all false...
...The destiny of humanity is that we are doomed to live side by side and no one of us can have all his desires...
...Q: You say in your book that world conflicts are resolving themselves everywhere...
...Q: The pretext for the Israeli invasion of Lebanon was the shooting of the Israeli ambassador to London...
...Q: Many Americans looking at Israeli politics are surprised to find so many high-ranking military people coming out for a settlement with the Palestinians...
...Which means that the people perceive...
...Fight against it...
...Before, the aim of changing borders was the main cause of wars...
...I don't like that...
...And I came to the conclusion that our leaders are not working for the best interests of the country...
...And of falsification, because that was done by Abu Nidal's organization, which is outside the PLO, which fought against the PLO, and which has killed many more people in the PLO than Israelis...
...Harkabi: I studied philosophy and Arabic literature at the university...
...Quality should be a popular urge...
...Or Israelis who say, "Palestinians are always terrorists...
...They start out on the principle that it is not nice to dominate other people...
...Harkabi: No...
...Harkabi: It was the first defeat that Israel suffered...
...Until the intifada, they did not say, "Negotiate with the PLO...
...So my grandfather decided that my father should study Turkish and Arabic, and he sent my father to Damascus to study at an Ottoman military school...
...For Harkabi to come to this conclusion is particularly noteworthy...
...Suddenly, we are not omnipotent and so on...
...Harkabi: Of course, but that was before [PLO leader Yasir Arafat said that the PLO would accept a two-state solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict...
...So it was a long journey that brought Harkabi from the heart of the Israeli military establishment to the historic "Road to Peace" conference held last spring in New York City—a gathering of PLO activists, Israeli doves, and American Jewish intellectuals...
...To draw attention to this, I wrote a book some years ago on the Bar Kochba Syndrome, on how the Jews committed a big mistake in launching a rebellion against the Roman Empire...
...You can say anything you want in Israel...
...Harkabi: In every religion there are components of hostility to nonbelievers, to other religions...
...He was born in Haifa to a family of passionate Zionists of Hungarian origin...
...I know it...
...But we are witnessing a global change in the view of the conflict, and this is what is important...
...There's a difference between changing attitude and changing behavior...
...It's dust blown in the eyes...
...There's another factor: Previously, there was a high correlation between beginning a war and winning a war...
...Harkabi: I think not...
...How then has the intifada changed Israel...
...That was the assumption under which the Egyptians signed the agreement...
...War is something very serious and, therefore, the considerations should not be clouded by ideological considerations, but simply...
...Q: One senses your bitterness at the mildness of the internal opposition to the Likud's policies...
...They don't deal with the problem...
...Now, people have resigned themselves to the borders that they have, more or less...
...Recently, there was a poll where 54 per cent of the population called for negotiations with the Palestine Liberation Organization...
...Harkabis It never was possible...
...Q: Why was that—jealousy...
...I was a positive prophet...
...Q: You've gone a long distance in your thinking, from hawk to dove...
...Harkabi: Well, the future is grim if there is no peace...
...Many of those who started wars, lost—the Argentineans in the Falk-lands, Germany in two world wars, Iraq—I wouldn't say they lost, but they didn't succeed...
...Harkabi: "God intervened," they say...
...Q: You were his intelligence adviser until 1977...
...Q: Do you think Israel's many past military successes have been myth-making and, in the long run, dangerous to the country...
...Is this an example of "magnification...
...It's not that...
...Q: Begin is a complex figure—interesting...
...When I published this book—mine is the only book till now that summarizes the moderate position—they didn't support me...
...We are all frustrated...
...Still, I don't despair...
...it's better to see what is your situation as compared with the situation of your enemies...
...The Jews suffered at least one million casualties and stopped being a subject of history...
...Harkabi: I think there is a change, but it started earlier...
...Which, I believe, eventually will be proved wrong...
...Q: You're saying democracies can make terrible mistakes...
...And once you belittle objective factors, you are on a dangerous course...
...The Arabs were agreeing that there should only be one state—an Arab state...
...It doesn't mean that they immediately change the way they vote...
...Q: Give us your alternative view of Israel's future...
...There is no continuity between winning one battle and winning a war...
...My father felt I should study, too...
...It was bad in 1973, but we didn't start it...
...At one conference, one of the central people said, "The PLO is not marketable in Israel...
...I could not...
...Young Harkabi was a captain during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war and participated in the Israeli defense ofJerusalem...
...Harkabi: No...
...When people play God, I'm taken aback...
...Q: Has the moral high ground that Israel had in the wake of the Holocaust run out...
...When the idea is quality, it will be different...
...Harkabi: Of course...
...But on the whole, I did not have any reservations about the way we behaved...
...Professors at the university are more interested in signing manifestos about sabbatical policies than anything else...
...The former head of military intelligence for the Israel Defense Forces, the former intelligence adviser to Menachem Begin, he has recently published a book Israel's Fateful Hour (Harper and Row, $22.95), in which he calls for a two-state solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict—specifically, a Palestinian state on the West Bank of the Jordan...
...Q: At the recent "Road to Peace" conference at Columbia University, you were extremely critical of Israeli intellectuals...
...Harkabi: First of all, South Africa is not my ideal...
...Do you think this will be true of the Bush Administration...
...What impelled him to speak out, he repeatedly stressed, was his fear for the future...
...In four years, we suffered twenty-six casualties...
...Camp David was based on the assumption that negotiations would involve United Nations Resolution 242, which means withdrawal [from the occupied territories...
...Without it, I don't believe Israel would have been established...
...Harkabi: I don't know...
...I don't say that we were paragons of humanity, no...
...Harkabi: I do not engage in ontological thinking to describe political situations...
...I think theology has to be kept out of this thing...
...To put it very bluntly, the blacks in South Africa are orphans...
...I can't envisage a Jewish state where the Arabs constitute a majority of the population...
...The 1973 war was bad at the beginning, but we overcame...
...When someone uses demagogical terminology to the people in order to pump up their position...
...I think I did this very much under the influence of my father...
...This was 1948...
...I worry," Harkabi said, "that my generation has failed hers by not grasping at opportunities for peace and solving problems that can be solved...
...It brought the PLO to the point in 1985 of accepting the principle of land for peace...
...And they don't explain how one can take a dovish position because, for them, the Arabs don't exist...
...The problem is that we did not do enough to educate the people about what is possible in this world and what is not possible...
...Q: Are there concrete signs of a change in policy...
...In the Jewish religion, they were under control, because the Jews couldn't afford it...
...Furthermore, the Egyptians signed the agreement because they thought this was not a separate agreement, that there will be other agreements...
...I know that you, among others, are all for a two-state solution...
...In a democracy, an island of wisdom cannot exist if it is surrounded by an ocean of stupidity...
...I am against professors who said that the Soviets will always be aggressive...
...I bewail this...
...I'm also against Arabs who say, "Zionism is always expansionist...
...When the other side makes no bones that their purpose is to destroy you, then you have to defend yourself...
...Leaders can be elected in the most democratic fashion and still not understand what is good for their country...
...You should, too...
...Harkabi: The Labor Alignment became, more and more, a stooge of the Likud...
...Do elaborate on this...
...Harkabi: He had inherited me from the previous government...
...I saw great differences in views and in character...
...Q: "God gave us these victories...
...Q: The Reagan Administration generally gave Israel a blank check...
...What would you say to their astonishment...
...Peace Now" was against reaching an agreement with the PLO until two or three months ago...
...People changed their attitude...
...Q: At the "Road to Peace" conference, you read an Arabic poem...
...Q: So you're saying, "People should be cool on the terrorism issue and not let it get abused by the politicians...
...We cannot achieve all that we desire, because our will is pitted against the will of the rest of the world...
...Harkabi: Yes...
...Harkabi: It's not fear...
...Yehoshafat Harkabi's story reads a bit like a page out of a John LeCarre novel...
...They are prima donnas...
...The Americans will say, "The Palestinians made a change...
...But right now, it's gotten more hard-line...
...Many of the doves have a kind of self-centered dovishness—dovishness for its own sake, dovishness as social chic...
...Intellectuals have an obligation to educate the people, and therefore I blame Israeli leadership and Israeli intellectuals [for the current situation...
...But Jordan now is out of the game and we must reach an agreement with the Palestinians...
...I do not believe the one-state position is viable...
...Q: To be a realist in this language means to be a kind of "Rambo...
...Therefore, they cannot convince...
...He is the author of the major Israeli textbook on the Palestinian Covenant and he was, during the 1950s and 1960s, the principal ideological architect of the Israeli hard-line strategy toward the Palestinians...
...Harkabi: Yes, to think that you can achieve everything yourself, that will is the major component of success...
...Then, for a certain time, the two sides called for a one-state solution...
Vol. 53 • June 1989 • No. 6
