Secrets and lies

[Colorado Blue]

Fascinating but pessimistic interview, which resonates with the other piece posted today.

Barak foresees more trouble, that the withdrawal will be seen as a victory for terror, which will cause more terror. He regrets lost time and opportunities, and castigates Sharon for his lack of strategic vision.

But most of all he sees more terror and more death, essentially because the Palestinians will never accept the State of Israel. He regards rapid completion of the fence as an absolute necessity.

By Ari Shavit

I went to see Ehud Barak not because he has returned to politics. Not because he is running again for chairman of the Labor Party. And not because his comeback faltered and then recovered, and now his comeback has encountered a major challenge from Amir Peretz. The reason I went to Ehud Barak is that for the past year and a half he has been trying to tell us that the disengagement plan is flawed - but we haven't been listening.

Ehud Barak is someone worth listening to. It's not certain that it's worth raising funds for his campaign, or that it's worth laying your body on the barbed-wire fence for him. Nor is it certain that it's worth supporting his renewed run for prime minister. But it is worth listening to him. There are few Israelis who see the historical situation in which we find ourselves with the same cruel clarity as Ehud Barak.

snip

"On the day after the withdrawal we are liable to see the realization of some of the assessments that `Bogey' Ya'alon and Avi Dichter described to us. I very much hope that we will find in Abu Mazen a person who will muster the strength to dismantle the terrorist infrastructures and to conduct negotiations. But it is possible that we will see Hamas become even more powerful. It is possible that within a few months we will see terrorism resurgent in Judea and Samaria. Maybe in Gaza, too. That terrorism is liable to reach into Israel."

snip

"What will happen after the disengagement is that Abu Mazen will try to extract more Israeli concessions and to isolate Sharon. The Palestinians will say they are ready for immediate negotiations on the final-status settlement and that Sharon is refusing. To get out of that trap, Sharon will offer a few more settlements: maybe the Jordan Rift Valley settlements, maybe four or seven or ten isolated settlements. But that will not be enough for the Palestinians. So, after a time things will get bogged down. The violence will resume. The violence will not lead the world to be on our side, but the opposite. At a certain stage we'll lose the support of the international community. Initially the United States will support us, but in time its support will also be eroded. Israel will find itself isolated. Internal cracks will appear within Israeli society. And only then, when there will be no choice, Israel will do what it should have done from the beginning. Having no alternative, Israel will do what it could have done by thinking ahead."

http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasen/spages/578206.html