Interview with Dore Gold

In this piece you see a kind of combat between Colvin and Gold where Colvin asks about about the Palestinian plight and Gold keeps hammering away about Israel's security needs. The fence is mentioned by Colvin only in the context of "When will it be taken down?". Colvin probably thinks he gave a very balanced interview.

Why doesn't Mark Colvin -- or any other Western reporter -- ask a question like: "So what IS Israel doing do prevent another thousand lives from being lost as a result of this latest peace initiative?".

Israeli official reinforces message of unconditional Palestinian ceasefire

Reporter: Mark Colvin

MARK COLVIN: There's a chance of some peace, or at least a breathing space, between Israel and the Palestinians as a result of a meeting of Palestinian factions in Cairo.

All 13 major factions have agreed on a conditional period of calm until the end of the year.

Israel immediately said it would continue to refrain from military offensives as long as the Palestinians observed a de facto peace, but there's still strong scepticism in the Israeli camp.

Dore Gold is a former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations who has been an adviser to the Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

He's in Australia at the moment, and he says the road map for peace makes it clear that the Palestinians have to ceasefire unconditionally, and dismantle their terrorism infrastructure, before anything else.

Dore Gold spoke to me this afternoon.

DORE GOLD: The fact that the Hamas and Islamic Jihad will put the safeties on their Kalashnikov rifles is a better situation than having them shoot but we're not there yet. It's not the kind of ceasefire that was unconditional, that was originally envisioned by the leading powers of the international community.

MARK COLVIN: Is it though an indication that Abu Mazen has a greater ability to control groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad than Arafat ever did, or is it actually an indication that Arafat never really tried?

DORE GOLD: I think to the contrary, I think Arafat was interested in seeing them attack Israel. Arafat saw Hamas and Islamic Jihad military capabilities as leverage against Israel in a negotiation. He believed in the legitimacy of armed struggle, of terrorism against Israeli civilians.

Mahmoud Abbas believes that terrorism's counterproductive. But whether he has the authority and the ability to bring about the kind of ceasefire that the road map speaks about, that Israelis are expecting, remains an open question.

MARK COLVIN: But still, the Israelis would surely seem churlish or intransigent if they didn't at least welcome the fact that there is a halt to hostilities.

DORE GOLD: Well again, if somebody was shooting you and they stop shooting you, you embrace that fact and you're very pleased by it. But don't forget Israel committed itself to a peace process in 1993. It hoped that finally we had reached the end of the Arab-Israel conflict.

We all remember Yitzhak Rabin and Arafat shaking hands on the White House lawn under the spread arms of Bill Clinton, the President of the United States.

Well after that famous ceremony we lost over a thousand Israeli lives to Palestinian terrorism that emanated from areas under Arafat's jurisdiction.

Therefore we have to be cautious and beyond the ceasefire the road map also additionally stipulates that the Palestinians have to dismantle the infrastructure of terrorism. That's technical security language for the entire array of terrorist organisational capabilities.

MARK COLVIN: But I've heard you speaking about it, that infrastructure, dismantling the infrastructure, as something much deeper, as actually dismantling the groups that support these things. Now how practical is that, when you are actually asking for the dismantling, perhaps, of Hamas, which also sees itself as a social organisation?

DORE GOLD: Well many times the social organisation, the day care centres, or the clinics, are used as a cover for military operations. I mean, one of the best ways to raise money is to say well we're raising money for orphans, and you only need about a tenth of the money for the orphans, and nine tenths go to buying explosive materials like Semtex or C-4.

MARK COLVIN: But people who report from Gaza say that one of the attractions of Hamas, one of its recruiting strengths, is that it does do genuine social work on the ground. Are you asking for the complete dismantling of these organisations?

DORE GOLD: Well I think it would be best if the Palestinian Government took control of those social functions so that Hamas isn't able to use them to recruit militants to engage in terrorist activity.

Then I think we can talk about a much more stable situation emerging.

MARK COLVIN: You've talked about the conditions on the Palestinians – unconditional ceasefire, dismantling of the terrorist apparatus. But what are the conditions on you, and what is Israel prepared to do in return if these things happen?

DORE GOLD: Well again, let's go back to the language. I don't mean to approach this like a lawyer, but the language of the road map was that the cessation of violence has to be unconditional.

MARK COLVIN: So is the answer that Israel won't, cannot make any concessions until these conditions are met?

DORE GOLD: These conditions are basically the sequence that the road map, which again are the agreed terms of reference, lays out. But Israel is already frontloading a lot of concessions for the Palestinians.

Israel's not required to unilaterally disengage from the Gaza Strip and to tear up a dozen settlements with people who've lived there for three generations. Israel's frontloading that concession, giving it ahead of time.

So we are taking, making concessions, we are taking moves, and we just hope that the Palestinians provide us with what is minimally expected by the international community. We're not asking them to go above and beyond.

MARK COLVIN: And if they do?

DORE GOLD: If they do, then I think we have a great opportunity to move forward in the peace process. But if they don't, we're not going to make concessions while the other side is building its military capabilities.

MARK COLVIN: A great opportunity to move forward in the peace process is a nice phrase. What does it mean?

DORE GOLD: Well what it means is I think we can sit down with the Palestinians and try and etch out together the terms of a settlement that address both Palestinian interests and Israeli interests.

MARK COLVIN: A two-state solution with very rigid separation?

DORE GOLD: I think we're talking about a two-state solution. The reason why we need separation in terms of a security fence is because in the past we saw that we couldn't rely on the Palestinian security services.

We can rely on Jordan to police itself and make sure that Hamas doesn't launch attacks from Jordanian territory. We can rely on the Egyptians to make sure that al-Qaeda or Egyptian Islamic Jihad doesn't launch attacks against Israel from Egyptian territory. But we can't rely on the Palestinians. That was the experience of the last 10 years, and we have a thousand dead to prove it.

So we will need the security fence. We will also need defensible borders, which is our right.

MARK COLVIN: The security fence forever?

DORE GOLD: We will need the security fence for the foreseeable future. I think the gaps between the parties remain substantial, because Mahmoud Abbas also has very firm positions, what he wants for the Palestinians.

But if we can, at this point in time, stabilise the situation, create a breather, allow economic and social growth for both Israelis and Palestinians, we can create a new situation on the ground, from which can spring the peace settlement down the road.

MARK COLVIN: Dore Gold, former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations and adviser to Ariel Sharon, speaking to me in Sydney this afternoon.