Former Defense Minister Ezer Weizman said the time has come for Israel to consider recognizing a “Palestinian entity” on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. In his first public appearance in many months, he said last night in an interview on Israel Television in conversation with the noted Arab affairs expert, Prof. Moshe Shamir, the political leaders should learn how to take advantage of breakthroughs on the diplomatic front, just as army generals succeed by utilizing breakthroughs opening up on a military front.
Weizman suggested that Egyptian President Anwar Sadat’s visit to Jerusalem in 1977 had been such a political and diplomatic breakthrough which has not been sufficiently utilized to bring about a wider peace. He named Moshe Arens, chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Security Committee, as an example of Likud or Herut members who originally were opposed to the Camp David agreements but nevertheless stayed on in official positions (and by inference, did not make sufficient use of the political breakthrough).
“Geula Cohen was at least consistent. She opposed the agreements and left the Likud. I did not leave Likud — they left me,” Weizman said. Cohen is now a leader of the ultra-nationalist Tehiya Party. He said he was not afraid to use the term “Palestinians” while everybody else prefered “Arabs of Eretz Yisrael.”
“The Palestinians are there. Read the Camp David accords,” he urged. “It says there that there should be an Israeli withdrawal and a handing over to a Palestinian entity. I am not scared of that.”
Weizman described the Israeli bombing of the Iraqi nuclear reactor as an “aspirin. You won’t remove the nuclear threat in that manner.” He also said that he would not have ordered the bombing of terrorist headquarters in the middle of Beirut. “We’ve always known the headquarters were there,” he stated.
Weizman said he would only return to politics if he thought he could implement a large part of his political philosophy. “Until then, I am on the outside,” he said.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
