‘Ours is a merciless and unforgiving neighborhood’
Questions for… Yehuda Avner
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Ambassador Yehuda Avner says until the Palestinians recognize Israel as a legitimate nation-state, the notion of peace is “a total eccentricity.”
If you go
Who: Ambassador Yehuda Avner
When: Tuesday, Nov. 27, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Joseph Kushner Hebrew Academy/Rae Kushner Yeshiva High School, Livingston
Contact: Alexa Silverman at asilverman@aipac.org or 212-750-4110
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November 21, 2012
An adviser to five prime ministers, Ambassador Yehuda Avner will bring a lifetime of insights about Israel with him when he speaks at the Joseph Kushner Hebrew Academy/Rae Kushner Yeshiva High School in Livingston on Tuesday, Nov. 27.
A native of Manchester, England, Avner moved to Palestine in 1947 and fought in Israel’s War of Independence a year later.
He has been Israel’s ambassador to Britain, Ireland, and Australia and served as a speechwriter and consultant to Prime Ministers Levi Eshkol, Golda Meir, Yitzhak Rabin, Menachem Begin, and Shimon Peres.
Avner is also the author of two books, The Young Inheritors: A Portrait of Israel’s Children (1984) and The Prime Ministers: An Intimate Narrative of Israeli Leadership (2010).
The latter book is now the basis for two movies — a documentary that will be released in the spring of 2013 under the aegis of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and a feature film being produced by Crystal City Entertainment that will make its debut in 2014.
The Kushner program is sponsored by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
Avner spoke with NJ Jewish News from his office at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.
NJJN: How has the role of prime minister changed since the days you worked for Eshkol, Meir, et al?
Avner: Compared to the present generation, those in the past were tried and tested with tremendous challenges, sometimes life-and-death challenges such as the Six-Day War and the Yom Kippur War. The state’s existence was being challenged. The new generation — Ehud Olmert, Bibi Netanyahu, Tzipi Livni — none of them had that kind of an experience. They came of age after the Holocaust and World War II and the state was established by the time they had matured. They are far better educated than their predecessors, but, like the rest of the world, they are far more materialistic. All of their predecessors, with the exception of Begin, were socialists. We are now in a period when socialism has been totally sidelined.
NJJN: Given the disaffection between Benjamin Netanyahu and Barack Obama, did you as an adviser to five prime ministers observe similar tensions between them and previous American presidents?
Avner: Time and again. I can go back to when Golda Meir rejected a peace plan by then Secretary of State William Rogers. We had our differences with Henry Kissinger when he was secretary of state.
When Gerald Ford was president he virtually threatened Prime Minister Rabin with sanctions. Virtually every president and prime minister have had differences of opinion at one time or another.
NJJN: Do you think that President Obama will be able to reinvigorate the peace process in his second term?
Avner: To what extent in Obama’s second term will the Israel-Arab issue be high on his agenda? My gut instinct is that it won’t be. I wish someone would whisper in Obama’s ear, ‘Come to Israel and seek to persuade our Palestinian neighbors to recognize Israel’s legitimacy’ — kind of the equivalent of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat coming to Jerusalem to make peace with Prime Minister Begin. But it would be wrong to heighten expectations.
NJJN: Do you see the possibility of peace with the Palestinians?
Avner: No. The Palestinians have to say 10 words that will change the course of history: “Israel is the legitimate nation-state of the Jewish people.” Until they recognize us as a legitimate nation-state with our culture and our history and our roots, the notion of peace — like the Canadian-American border — is a total eccentricity here in the Middle East.
NJJN: How would you describe the challenges Israel faces now?
Avner: We live in a very merciless and unforgiving neighborhood which is in total tumult at the moment. We are living in the long shadow of Islamic fundamentalism, which has totally doused the hopes of an Arab Spring and the idealistic voices of Tahrir Square [in Cairo].
The Muslim Brotherhood has come into power [in Egypt], so wherever you look, from the Khyber Pass in Pakistan to the Straits of Gibraltar, you see these convulsions.
NJJN: Do you see a likelihood of a military engagement with Iran?
Avner: I am neither qualified nor authorized to express an opinion. It is a delicate matter.
Comments
Zeev Raphael
November 23, 2012
NJJN: Do you see the possibility of peace with the Palestinians?
Avner: No. The Palestinians have to say 10 words that will change the course of history: “Israel is the legitimate nation-state of the Jewish people.”
Dear Gubbi,
I have always greatly respected you, your wide knowledge, and your outstanding history.
But why this pessimism?
Only yesterday (22/11/2012!) there appeared THIS headline in the Jerusalem Post:
>>> Mashaal: I accept a Palestinian state on ‘67 borders <<<
There have been peace feelers from the Arab side ever since 1970.
See MK Moshe Carmel (Alignment), Knesset Kecords of 26 May 1970 (!), on Peace overtures by President Nasser (!): “... would it not have been prudent on our part to officially respond ...”
Since 1970 there have been countless similar feelers from the “other side”.
The last is the decade old Arab League Initiative.
They have all been killed by silence…
One wonders why…
Respectfully,
Zeev Raphael
RABBI DR. BERNHARD ROSENBERG
November 28, 2012
——-Original Message——-
From: chaimdov <chaimdov@aol.com>
To: Malcolm <Malcolm@conferenceofpresidents.org>
Sent: Wed, Nov 28, 2012 10:53 am
Subject: Fwd: A Rabbi Appeals to the American Jewish Leaders on a solidarity mission to Israel RABBI DR. BERNHARD ROSENBERGEDISON NJ. 732 572 2766
This week, the conference of presidents of North American Jewish Organizations is dispatching a solidarity mission to Israel.
The time has come to suggest vital stops on the itinerary of the delegation, which generally are not on your radar.
60 American citizens who live in Israel and whose loved ones were murdered by Arab terrorists brought suit against the US State Department. Why? The US Government is obligated, by law, to investigate every case where an American is murdered abroad.
and because the US government has refused to prosecute Arab terrorists who have murdered US citizens who live in Israel - despite the fact that the US Justice Department has seen to it that murderers of Americans have been prosecuted all over the world.
It is not that the US hasn’t conducted a long process of inquiry
In that context, the US Justice Department and the FBI did dispatch a high level delegation to Israel to interview American citizens whose loved ones were murdered by Arab terrorists.
US officials interviewed mothers and fathers whose children had been blown to bits.
US officials interviewed children whose parents had been butchered in front of their eyes.
US Officials interviewed widows and widowers .whose spouses had been murdered in the most heinous of circumstances.
And, to top if off, US Officials viewed films of Hamas convicts interviewed by the Center for Near East Policy Research, where these killers of US citizens expressed pride - and no regret - in their vile deeds, because, as the killers said, their victims were Jews.
The question remains: where are we US Jews in all of this equation? Is this not the time for Americans, as Americans and as Jews, to stand up for the enforcement of the law?
The specific request that I make of Malcolm Hoenlein, the executive Vice Chairman of the Conference of Presidents delegation is that Conference of Presidents will meet with representatives of American families whose loved ones were murdered by Arab terrorists, and that the conference stand firmly behind the enforcement of American law, when it comes to prosecution of those who have murdered American citizens in Israel. RABBI DR. BERNHARD ROSENBERG, PRESIDENT ISRAEL ADVOCACY TASK FORCE