The exchange of Israeli solider Gilad Shalit for 477 Palestinian prisoners.

This week's featured guest is Deputy Consul General of Israel Gil Artzyeli.

Click here to listen to all previous shows and here to "Like" the Facebook Page, "Eye on the Middle East."

To subscribe to our podcast on iTunes, click here.

Featured song: "Two Gypsies" by Solace

Run Time: 24:10

---

TRANSCRIPT:

Benjamin Gottlieb: Gil, thanks for joining us today.

Gil Artzyeli: Thanks for inviting me. 

BG: Can you describe to us the current mood in Israel.

GA: Well, the current mood today and yesterday is of joy, of happiness. But at the same time people also have their concerns. This was a real dilemma and the definition of a dilemma is choosing between two bad options, it's not between two good option or good and bad, which makes it very easy. Here, on one hand you had the release of a soldier kept in inhumane conditions for over five years, in isolation. He had no access, the Red Cross had no access to him, no one saw him. We just learned he didn't have his reading glasses for over five years. He didn't see the sun for over 5 years. It seems he wasn't fed too well in over five years, so for us it was a humanitarian issue to bring him back. At the same time, by handing over in an exchange 1,027 terrorists, perhaps we'll get into later who are these 1,027 terrorists that we have back to the Palestinians. This was in a sense an incentive for the Hamas, another Islamic fundamentalist organization to keep on abducting Israeli's, soldiers or others. And also you had bereaved families in Israel in which entire families were assassinated-- sons daughters, parents, grandparents-- indiscriminately assassinated in Israel and after a few years the family see that the assassins are being liberated. So, this was a tough dilemma and the Israeli Prime Minister and the government, Netanyahu and his government decided in overwhelming majority 26-3 to go for it. And once it was decided, I think in Israel everyone and outside of Israel couldn't resist shedding a tear, seeing these emotional pictures of Gilad.

BG: As the Deputy Consul General in Los Angeles, what about the mood of Jewish Americans?

GA: Everyone understands the downsides, the difficulties, the challenges, the risk we're taking here. At the same time, we have this sense of solidarity, responsibility to one another and especially to a soldier who was abducted while he was defending the country. He was within Israel when a Hamas group infiltrated into Israel and abducted him and killed two of his colleagues.

Arezou Rezvani: Now, would you say that this prisoner swap legitimizes Hamas and their decades-long struggle?

GA: I'm not sure. Look, Hamas did gain some points yesterday within the Palestinian society but I don't think it's a long-term gain because after all they're not delivering to their society in Gaza where they are ruling. They are not delivering in any other social aspect and perhaps this is one of the reasons why Hamas gave up some of its demands because of the unrest in the entire Arab world. They are feeling that it is coming to them too because of the miserable situation in Gaza, which is 100% the responsibility of Hamas who chooses to buy guns and missiles and rockets to kill a few Israelis rather than look for the needs, cater to the needs of the Palestinian people in Gaza that can live much better if their leadership would choose to and they didn't. 

AR: How do the Israelis define the term terrorism?

There is a clear definition of killing civilians indiscriminately in order to achieve political goals. But let's look at the list of people, some of the people that were released yesterday and perhaps you can judge and any one of your listens can judge who these people are and what do they stand for. Let's speak of Walid [Abd al-Aziz Abd al-Hadi] Anajas. He was sentenced for 36 life prisons and some of the things he did are, he's in charge of taking the lives of 36 Israelis-- I knew two of them personally-- in two different events. One in an explosion at the Tel Aviv University at the Frank Sinatra Cafeteria on July 31, 2002. My friend and colleague from the Foreign Ministry David Ladovsky from Argentina, Argentinian-born, was assassinated when he was 31 years old having coffee at the university cafeteria. Another one in a pub in Jerusalem named Moment, Cafe Moment, it's a coffee bar. Orit Ozarov, 26 years old, a colleague of mine from the foreign ministry. She was taking her drink at night at this place and she was assassinated by this Walid Anajas and he was released yesterday. 

AR: Forgive me for interrupting, I was just wondering how did the Israelis determine which prisoners would be let go.

GA: This was part of the negations. Some of the names Hamas put forward we objected some of the names. For example, Barghouti who was not released who I think he is also tried for 5 life imprisonments. Ahmad Sa'adat who is in charge of the assassination of an Israeli Minister of Rehavam Ze'evi. He and others who are symbols for the Palestinians were not released. Others were released, unfortunately, but one has to make a clear moral distinction between Gilad Shalit and assassins, people who assassinated kids, babies, families in coffee bars, in restaurants, in buses, in universities just with one sole goal: killing Israelis and Jews as much as they can indiscriminately. And this is not the case with Gilad Shalit, of course. 

BG: Gil, Hamas is recognized as you know as a terrorist organization internationally. However, Israel seems to have had a willingness to negotiate with them. Does this mean that Israel is willing to negotiate with terrorists? 

GA: It's a good question, a very good question and the answer is we negotiated the release of Gilad Shalit for…Hamas itself, in its charter states three things: not to recognize Israel, to kill every Israeli and every Jew-- not only Israelis but to kill also Jews-- and they don't recognize  our right to exist. Now, we are willing to speak to anyone who recognizes Israel, who doesn't use terror as a political tool and who will recognize also and respect previous agreements signed between Israel and the Palestinians. Hamas doesn't comply with any one of those requisites, that's why there will be no further negotiations with them. 

BG: Do you believe that the recent deal for Gilad Shalit is possibly a sign of warmer relations between Israel and the Palestinians? 

GA: I would like to this so. Look, we have been trying for the last two decades. Many Israeli governments came forward with far-reaching offers to the Palestinian leadership, whether it was at the time of Arafat and now with Abu Mazen. Suffice to mention the offer of Prime Minister Barak in Camp David rejected by Arafat and he started an intifada and then the far-reaching offer of Prime Minister Olmert in 2007 again rejected by Abu Mazen. So, we are willing and working for a two-state solution in which the Palestinians will live in their own independent, democratic, prosperous state. That's our aim and our goal and our wish. Side by side with Israel not instead of Israel, and as long as we don't have a partner for this solution, then we just can wait until they come to the table. We are willing to go to the table not tomorrow but today, immediately, in order to negotiate a two-state solution. But this is not the case now with Abu Mazen who is opting for going to the UN, it won't bring him anywhere, and at the end of the day we have to confront together all the open the issues on the table, which are security arrangements, refugees, borders, water, security, etc. So, again, the only way to deal with that is to negotiate. We did it with the Egyptians 30 years ago with great success, with Jordan 20 years ago with great success. There was some significant success with the Palestinians in the last 20 years since the Oslo Accords, the situation today with the West Bank, what would be part of it would be possible future Palestinian state is much better than in Gaza.

AR: Now you said that you'd like to think that this is a sign for a warmer future. What the major impediment standing in the way of lasting peace?

GA: To sit around the table and to negotiate. 

BG: Yes, but what is the number of talking point? Once you guys are back at the table again for negotiations, what is the first thing that could get the ball rolling.

GA: There is no one issue, there are many issues and all should be tackled together by the two parties. We understand that we need to give up some of our, some the things we want, in a compromise we need to give some of them up. The same goes to the Palestinians. It's tackling each and every issue. Until everything is resolved nothing is relived, so we have to deal with the issue of security first and foremost because our concern is, look at what happened when we left Gaza 5-6 years ago. We left Gaza to the Palestinians instead of making it an exemplary place of a Palestinian future statehood. What they did was they attack Israel and instead of taking care of the needs of the Palestinian people, they are still more concerned with killing Israelis. So we don't want that to duplicate in the West Bank. So, again, we have security guarantees, Jerusalem, refugees, water, borders, all open issues. We have to tackle of them together the only way to do it is to sit around the table. 

AR: Would you say that there is one issue in particular where it would serve both parties best to speak about that first so that you could come to some agreement and set up a good infrastructure for moving forward on some of the more difficult elements?

GA: Yeah, I hear you. Look, so far we tried all tactics, whether it's resolving all of them at once or going in a more gradual way with confidence building measures, etc. The main thing is to have the good will, the bona fide to sit down. Then we have the same goal, hopefully, to have a two-state solution. A Palestinian state for the Palestinians and aJewish state for the Israelis. As the UN resolution from 1947 states, we accepted at the time the Palestinians rejected it time and again throughout the years. So, we have reasons to believe that many of them, not all of them but a significant part of the Palestinian society still longs and dreams of eradicating Israel. Some of them say it openly, some of them say it in a discrete way. The other day I heard one of them saying that "We shouldn't say that we want to extinguish Israel, this is a gradual way, we shouldn't say it right now." Again, in spite of all that we are willing to negotiate for the Palestinians to live in a decent state of their own.

BG: Is there any relationship between the demonstrations in Tel Aviv and the exchange of prisoners? 

GA: No. no. First of all chronology wise Gilad Shalit was abducted five years and four months ago, 9,941 days ago and the social uprisings, if you want, in Israel started a few months ago. These are entirely different subjects. Speaking about that, 5 months ago, the Israeli society rose up against the high prices in Israel, etc. and 500,000 people out of 7 million Israelis went to the streets in the biggest ever demonstration in the country and not one detainee, not one window broken, not one drop of blood. Hundreds of thousands of people on the street in a civil protests.

AR: Do you think that the American media has sufficiently covered the protests that we've seen unfolding in Tel Aviv?

GA: I don't know to what extent the American society is interested in it. I read in newspapers around the world, people showed a lot of interest in this protest. It's spreading now, it's different now. Speaking of Occupy Wall Street, there are some similarities but there are also many differences. It's too long an issue to get into now. In Israel it started with the cottage cheese prices, which got to nearly $3 for a small can and someone started on Facebook and then it went over to real estate prices and then all over. It captured the vast majority of the Israeli society so that a majority of them saw an inadequate distribution of wealth and their government nominated a committee which already issued a recommendation which has already been adopted by the government and in a gradual way we are going to modify and correct what should be corrected. For example, we are not abandoning the capitalist system. No one in Israel seriously challenges that this is the best system. But saying that, one can correct it, one can have it better formed with more social justice for all. The market as we see can't manage it on its own. One has to have some regulation, not too much, but sufficient in order to make the market work better and to serve everyone in a better way. 

AR: Gil, thank you so much for joining us today

GA: Thank you Arezou, thank you Ben.

---

To reach Benjamin Gottlieb, click here.

Follow him on Twitter @benjamin_max.