Chas. W. FREEMAN, JR.: Let me welcome all of you to this conference, which takes place obviously in a very different circumstance than the one we envisaged when we planned it some time ago. For those of you who are not familiar with this series of conferences, or the Middle East Policy Council, let me very quickly introduce us.

I'm Chas. Freeman. I have the honor to be the president of the Middle East Policy Council. We are a small, struggling, impecunious outfit which does three things: First, we come up here, as we are doing today, and we frame a question which is timely, policy-relevant and neglected, for one reason or another, either because it is politically incorrect or because it is too hard, or for some other reason. Second, we publish a journal of contemporary policy on the Middle East called "Middle East Policy," which is the most often-cited journal in the field, and we're very proud of that. And third, outside of Washington, and therefore invisible to people here, we teach high school teachers throughout the country how to teach about Arab civilization and Islam, and we reach probably three-quarters of a million high school kids a year and confuse them with a fact or two about what they thought they knew something about but didn't.

Apparently there is a cell phone that's been left in a taxi in the last 10 minutes, if someone --

MR. : Yes.

MR. FREEMAN: If someone left a cell phone – all right, Salah [ph], you're excused.

Let us get into the topic at hand. I think last week's atrocities have once again focused attention in the United States on the Middle East. And the administration, if reports can be believed, is moving vigorously to press both Israel and the Palestinians to talk. Clearly, many people in the United States are convinced that it is more important than ever to U.S. interests to find a path to peace in that troubled land.

There is a common assumption that at some point, under some circumstance, perhaps after the parties have exhausted themselves in frightfulness to each other, they will come back to the table and pick up where they left off. That is the assumption. We're here to examine that assumption, because it is possible, given all of the changes over the past year since the peace process broke down, that that assumption is not correct, and that the past is no longer a guide to the future.

The past year has seen, for one reason or another, severe strain in U.S. relations with countries in the region, Arab countries in particular. It's seen the steady escalation of violence by Israel and the Palestinians. There are numerous dead on both sides. The figures for the Palestinians are absolutely appalling; I think almost 600 dead and 36,000 wounded. And while the figures are smaller on the Israeli side, they're no less horrifying. The resort to frightfulness on both sides has clearly hardened attitudes. It has not promoted compromise. And those who thought that the use of force would bring the other party to its knees have been disappointed. That is not what is happening.

In this context we really have to ask whether the will exists for compromise; whether the compromise can, as has long been envisaged, consist of the exchange of territory for peace; whether in fact settlements, some of which were apparently almost agreed to be retained in the last gasp of the peace process -- whether the settlements, in fact any settlements, are acceptable to Palestinians now, given all that has happened; whether the border adjustments that were contemplated have any validity at all; what will be done about the issue of Jerusalem, where there was progress but no agreement; whether the United Nations resolutions, on which the peace process ultimately rests, are still valid and a decent guide to action; and whether it is possible, given all that has happened, that Arab countries can normalize relations with Israel, or that Israelis still want to normalize relations with Arabs.

And all of this of course raises questions about the role of the United States, an issue much debated since the new administration came into office, with a different approach than its predecessor, and whether the United States can, as in the past, hold a monopoly, be the sole broker of peace when it doesn't have the credibility with either side that it once had. All of these are questions I hope the panelists will address.

Now, we're going to move right along in the order that is on the program, and the program has the biographic information on each of the speakers. I'm not going to say a great deal about each of them, and particularly not going to say a good deal about the first speaker who is the newly appointed president of our sister institution, the Middle East Institute, which does very valuable things; different than we do at Middle East Policy Council, but very valuable things to enliven the policy debate.

And Ned Walker has just escaped from the idiocy of government service, and has unlimbered his brain and his tongue. And the addition of Ned to the Washington public debate has already greatly enriched it. Ned was my colleague as ambassador in the United Arab Emirates when I was ambassador in Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War. He went on to bigger and bigger things: ambassador to Egypt, ambassador to Israel, deputy permanent representative at the United Nations and, until very recently, assistant secretary for Near Eastern Affairs. So, there is hardly anyone better qualified by experience to address the topics that we have before us, and I'd like to invite Ned to come up and speak for about 10 minutes.

EDWARD S. WALKER, JR.: Of course Chas. asked about four hours worth of questions and he wants me to deal with it in 10 minutes --

MR. FREEMAN: That's right.

MR. WALKER: -- so we'll get on with it.

I don't think you can deal with the peace process in a vacuum now. We have a totally new situation in the region. We have had a war thrust upon us. It's a war that in my view cannot be won by military means, although there may be a military component to it. Certainly if you look at the movement of our ships and planes there will be a military component to it.

But this is a war that's going to be fought out in the trenches of men's minds, and particularly in terms of the support that we can garnish or gather throughout the world to fight this scourge of terrorism. The nature of the organizations that are involved in terrorism is that they are scattered throughout the world in small cells. They are not tightly bound together. They tend to get cooperation from one another, but there is no real headquarters, no head to these many tentacles. I think it would be very satisfying to see the back end or the, whatever -- the end of Osama bin Laden, but the fact is that it wouldn't answer the problem. The problem is much deeper and it's going to take a much more concerted effort over a long period of time. It will probably be the hardest war we have fought, with the possible exception of the war on drugs, with which it has some similarities.

In order to win this war, however, we have to have the support of the countries in the region. And this is where you start getting into questions that have very little to do with Osama bin Laden, but do have a lot to do with the attitudes of people in the region. Osama bin Laden and the people that are around him appear to be intent on destroying America for a host of reasons, in order primarily to recover the holy land of Saudi Arabia from the corrupt puppet government that the United States supports.

That has very little to do with what the rest of the region is thinking and feeling. The rest of the region, I've been out a couple of times, is deeply concerned with the Palestinian problem, with the plight of the Iraqi people, and those concerns haven't gone away with this attack. They are compounded every time al-Jizira television goes on the air or CNN does a report. Pictures of Palestinians being shot and the suffering of people come across the airwaves and the Arab public is enraged.

It is a different situation than it used to be. This is a whole new era; the information age when people have access to independent lines of communication, to the Internet and so on. This is not something that is stimulated by governments. It's something that the people are pushing on the governments, and so the governments will react. Accordingly, if we want to have the support of these governments, we have to help them in their own relationships with their people in order to reduce the pressure on them. And that has a lot to do with the peace process.

The United States is a long-time friend and a very close friend of Israel; is clearly identified in Arab minds as being an ally of Israel, and they don't mind that. They don't mind that because it has always been clear to, at least most of my Arab friends, that the United States is part of the solution. This is the basic tenet that Sadat put out when he first talked about going to Jerusalem, and is has been held ever since by the bulk of the Arab governments and by many of the Arab people.

As long as we are part of the solution we can be well received, we can cooperate, we can get the kind of support that we're going to need. If, however, we turn our backs on the peace process; if we decide that we are so focused on this war on terrorism, then I fear that we are going to have considerable pressure built up in the region, and that pressure is going to encourage governments of the area to put some distance between us.

For them to stand shoulder to shoulder is going to be easy over the next few weeks because the emotion is out there, people understand our pain, our anguish, and they will cooperate. But a month from now, two months from now, as the pictures come on and we start seeing more violence, if we see more violence in the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, that support will erode. And that's, I'm afraid, the death knell of our war on terrorism, because this is going to be protracted, is going to take probably years rather than weeks or months, and we're going to have to hold the coalition together.

That's easy to say but it's not very easy to do. And one of the reasons that the administration felt that it should not engage in the peace process immediately, and I was of this mind myself, was that the parties need to come to grips with their own problems and they need to come to grips with each other and come to some conclusions about what their objectives are. That process has not happened. And I have come around to believing that it never will happen as long as they are forced into each other, as long as they are gripped within one another into this violence and this constant bloodshed and pain. They need to have somebody come between them; somebody that can help them understand that there is a potential for a solution out there, and that negotiation and a reduction in violence is not a futile path.

One of the problems of the Israeli departure from Lebanon was that it encouraged a great many people in the Arab world to believe that violence will win political concessions, that the Hezbollah was successful in forcing Israel out because it attacked the Israeli army, and there is very little appreciation of the internal workings of the Israeli government or the politics in Israel, and so on, that led to that decision.

That viewpoint, I believe, gave Arafat the choice, or sense that there was a choice. He didn't have to go to Camp David under the pressure to make an agreement. He had the option of going back out, walking away from the final push, and resorting to violence as a means of bringing further pressure on the government of Israel in order to get further concessions. And for a while it seemed to work because, indeed, as they moved towards Taba, Barak continued to negotiate and there was continuing concession, actually, on both sides.

But the lesson learned was a very bad one, and it is with us today still. And it is a guide for our own behavior in this particular situation. We can't start this process unless we're prepared to see it through and see a victory on our side, otherwise we will encourage a scourge of terrorism in the world like you've never seen, and it will be damaging to our relations in virtually every country in the region and it may even cause the instability of some of our friends.

I can't under-stress the fact that this is something that we have to go into with our eyes open. We have to know what we're doing. We have to be clear that each of the issues that face us in that part of the world are going to be linked together, not by us and not by any government there, but by al-Jazira, by CNN and so on. And so, we have to deal with all of the issues. We have to be broad enough in our approach in order to support our efforts with our allies to eliminate the scourge of terrorism.

I think we can do it, if we're smart, and if we avoid the trap of appearing to be anti-Islamic and anti-Arab. I think the worst thing that people in this country can do today is to vent any kind of anger on our Arab-American friends, citizens, or for that matter on the issue of Islam. We have to separate this out from those two subjects. It is not an Arab problem. It is not an Islamic problem. It is a terrorist problem. If we don't do that, we're going to fall into the trap that bin Laden has set and we're going to be the ones that lose. I'll leave it at that.

MR. FREEMAN: Admirably brief and to the point, thank you. I will now call on Ed -- actually this is not Ed Abington – [laughter]. Ed Abington is stuck in Paris as a result of the disruption of international travel.

We're very, very fortunate, and I don't know how Khalil has been able to do it given the pressure that he is now under, to have Khalil Jahshan with us. Khalil, again for our Washington audience, really needs no introduction at all. He has been active for many years in combating discrimination against Arab-Americans. He is the president of the Government Affairs affiliate of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. He's the vice president of that organization, and he's vice president of the American Committee on Jerusalem. And Khalil will provide a Palestinian perspective.

Before he comes up I just want to make one comment in response to something Ned said. If you read the Wall Street Journal this morning you will find that noted Arabist and Islamic scholar, Norman Podhoretz, analyzing the Arab psyche and Islam in great detail. And I think this is exactly what we do not need. I do not look to the editors of papers in the newspapers in the Arab world for insight into the Jewish psyche or Judaism, or the politics of Israel. And we need to be very careful not to engage in foolish and counter-productive and, indeed, deeply offensive and ultimately dangerous attribution of our fantasies to other people. Needless to say, I don't think a lot of the article. [Laughter.]

Khalil.

KHALIL E. JAHSHAN: Good morning. Thanks, Chas. I've always claimed that Ed Abington has better taste than I do. He chose this morning to get stuck in Paris and I chose to get stuck for two hours and 15 minutes on 395 getting over here. Some of us are lucky, I guess.

You know, the question that is raised in this panel, "Negotiating Middle East Peace: Can the Past be a Guide to the Future?" is a real, kind of, tough question, mostly because there is – you know, as a student of history I don't find any other conflict so deeply embedded, or at least few conflicts -- since we have a comparative politics person here -- few conflicts around the world or in history that have been so embedded in the past, to the point where there is no way to understand the Arab-Israeli conflict and the Palestine question or even to contemplate a political solution for that conflict without understanding its past.

Clearly both parties, namely the Israelis and the Palestinians, have their own versions of history. They have their own narrative of the underpinnings of the conflict, the way they see it and how it emerged, subjectively, or unfolded. Therefore they also have developed their own version of what constitutes a comprehensive, just, fair, lasting, secure peace, from their perspectives. These narratives have often been depicted in an irreconcilable way, occasionally in a mutually exclusive way that's making it very difficult to deal with negotiating this conflict in a detached manner or way from the past.

The parties, it seems to me, remain today, in spite of more than five, six decades of conflict and at least 76, 77 attempts at resolving the conflicts since 1937, the first Partition Plan -- the parties remain, I think, captives to their past. You know, Israel, for example, at the age of 53 remains still unable to redefine its identity in modern terms that are reconcilable with its environment, or even reconcilable with its own internal demographic realities. The Palestinians, like all Arabs, remain unable to break the barrier separating tradition and modernity by liberating themselves from the heavy burden of a long and complex history, and chart a new course for a modern nation adjusted to today's reality.

Every time they try, both of them, they seem to hit a brick wall. As a matter of fact, I think a better term than a brick wall is like a thick, bullet-proof glass like you see in the inner city of the fried chicken places where you can't get to the guy, like one of those real thick bullet-proof glass, because the difference between a brick wall is that with a brick wall you don't see what's on the other side. The frustration of that thick glass is you see what's on the other side but you can't taste it, you can't smell it, and you can't touch it. And that's the reason for the frustration we keep witnessing every day in different expressions of violence in the Middle East.

When you look at the history of the region, you know, when we talk about the past, it's not just the past in terms of conflict, but it's also there's a rich past in terms of conflict resolution. I mentioned '37. It's kind of ironic that the Arab-Israeli conflict – usually people tell you it started in '48 with the establishment of Israel, so why are we talking about peace proposals that were proposed 11 years in advance? It's kind of like it was an emerging conflict. I mean, people foresaw the conflict coming and began to propose ways to try to defuse it and prevent it from happening. And since then we have seen tons and tons of these resolutions. I just pulled off my shelf last night, when I was kind of thinking of what to say to you today – there are books actually written just listing these 77 attempts at peacemaking in the Middle East. And just for those of you old-timers, I'm sure you remember these things, going back to the Dulles Plan, the Eden Proposal, the Mushi-Sharaf [sp] Proposal, the Canadian Proposal, the Australian Proposal, Dag Hammarskjold's proposal, the Joseph E. Johnson Proposal, Bourguiba's proposals, Eshkol's proposal, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, until we got to the most recent one starting in 1991 with the Bush and Baker ideas.

And when you look at that past, how do you cope with it when you think of a resolution today? I mean, if we have to come back to the negotiating table, and I hope that we do, what do you do with all that history of peacemaking in the Middle East? The main thing we could do, as a favor to ourselves, is to avoid the mistakes of the past. And if we are to oversimplify things, and at the risk of doing so this morning, there were two problems over the years that have contributed to this huge cemetery of peace proposals in the Middle East, and these are two basic, simple questions. I remember people like Dennis Russ [sp] and Aaron David Miller and Dan Kurtzer, way back, used to refer to these two simple questions, saying in '91 and '92 that we have to overcome these questions if we are to succeed. And the two questions are very, very short, very simple: who and what? Who represents the Palestinian and what is this peace process all about? And there was an attempt – I mean, the magic of the Bush-Baker plan, at this earliest phase, was the fact that it addressed that. For the first time it allowed the Palestinians, even though it was haphazard and not quite direct, but allowed the Palestinians to participate in choosing delegates of their own choosing to participate in the process.

Now this issue is somewhat mute, and that leaves us with the lesson of the second question, what is this all about? And unfortunately, with the collapse of the Oslo process, this issue is very confused today. And since right now there is no alternative as far as we're concerned as the United States; we have no plan but we keep saying, Mitchell, Mitchell, Mitchell. You know, I like Mitchell. He's a fellow Arab-American and he's done a good job out there. But let's assume that the cease-fire that was announced, you know, a few hours ago, or a couple of days ago, holds, and I hope it does, and let's assume that we get into Phase 2, trust-building measures and what have you; confidence-building measures.

But then we get to Phase 3. The Mitchell Plan is not a peace plan, ladies and gentlemen. The Mitchell Plan is a cease-fire proposal. It's an attempt to kind of impress upon the people to stop shooting one another. So let's say we convince them to do Phase 1 and Phase 2 and we get to Phase 3. What are we going to do at Phase 3? And that's where the question of this panel becomes very important. What is still valid from previous negotiations and what is not? We have contradictory remarks. I mean, we have one party saying, we need to pick up from where we left off, and you have one party that's saying, whatever was done in the past is obsolete. We're not going to honor anything so we have to start from scratch. We're not talking about 80 percent or 90 percent or 60 percent. And, you know, when you hear Mr. Sharon, it looks like he was on vacation from this universe over the past 11 years. And so to get him at the table with Yasser Arafat would be a great achievement, and I hope they will do that. But what are they going to talk about? And that's where I think, from a policy perspective, we have a serious element missing here in Washington.

I was delighted to sit down with Ben Burns this week and others at the White House, the president's advisors, talking about there is a silver lining in this crisis. We hate to kind of admit it, but we have – in other words, we can't develop this coalition that Ned talked about, simply based on a negative concept. In other words, we are against terrorism. The administration is convinced that there has to be an affirmative aspect to this coalition. In other words, the coalition has to stand for something, not simply against something. I love that concept. It's great. I think it would help to give a measure of credibility to whatever we are trying to do in addition to the warnings that we heard by the previous speaker. But that requires preparation, folks. I mean, good intentions, good will do not a Middle East peace process produce, excuse my English. [Chuckles.] It needs more than good intentions. It needs some preparation. And I have a feeling that, in spite of the fact that there are good intentions, to take advantage of the current crisis, to revisit the issue of the Arab-Israeli conflict, but there are absolutely no preparations.

We are faced with the same situation as Camp David. We brought the parties to Camp David with absolutely very little preparation to ensure the success of Camp David. So we are faced with a situation, in a way, that is promising; we're delighted that the administration is projecting ahead this whole business of envisioning kind of a new deal that comes out of the rubble of the terrorist attacks that we have witnessed as a nation a week or so ago, but that is not enough. There has to be some preparation. We have been asking this administration from day one, as Ambassador Freeman said, that you either get involved – I mean, the lesson we have learned from the Middle East, those of us who have been at this for a while -- the lesson you learn from the Middle East is either you get involved proactively on your own terms when you can dictate the terms of your involvement, or negative events in the Middle East will dictate the terms of your involvement there.

So as we cope with the fallout: political, social, economic, psychological, of September 11, and as we try to develop this new policy and coalition, I think a credible, proactive policy aimed at achieving – of course the objective right now is how to develop an effective counter-terrorism policy. But I'll tell you, a credible, proactive policy aimed at achieving real, comprehensive, just and lasting peace would be the best counter-terrorism policy that this country can pursue at this time.

Thank you.

MR. FREEMAN: Thank you, Khalil. Very forceful and stimulating and I'm sure there will be lots of questions and discussion of the points you made. I'm now very pleased to invite Yossi Shain to take the podium. Professor Shain, who is a professor at Tel Aviv University has been visiting professor virtually everywhere: Yale University, Middlebury, St. Anthony's College at Oxford, and Wesleyan University. And he's currently visiting professor at Georgetown University, where I understand he is a very popular professor indeed. And we're honored to have him here. The last time we tried to get him here he got stuck at Tel Aviv because of the airport strike.

YOSSI SHAIN: Not in Paris. [Laughter.]

MR. FREEMAN: Not in Paris. Poor decision on your part. But in any event, Professor Shain, would you –

MR. SHAIN: Thank you so much for inviting me this morning. Certainly when the invitation was issued we were in a totally different world, and all our comments must address, I believe, as Ambassador Walker said and Khalil too, the last week's events. And indeed, your introductory remarks regarding the possibilities, or coming back to the same track, may seem indeed to many, completely out of the order.

So when one thinks about the possibilities of renewing any peace negotiation in the Middle East, indeed there are a lot of new elements on the table that must be taken into account. And since America has declared a war, and we are yet to fight this war, everything that will happen in the Middle East, and between Israelis and Palestinians, will be circumscribed by this war. It will not be separate from this war, although it may sometimes be entangled in it, I would say, in some ways that may lead people to think that we may be approaching a new way of negotiations in to this debacle.

I would say a few things in the last year because I was asked by the council here to discuss some issues pertaining to what I consider to be the Israeli perspective, or as I see it. Of course, I do not represent the Israeli perspective. I can have some reflections about the issues and the way I see how the Israeli administrations or governments, and the popular view, and the public at large, and commentators, and the organization of the Israeli polity responding to last year's events, and of course last week's events are very important.

I will take a realist approach to this because I think that what happened in the last year is incredibly dramatic in the sense that it was an understanding that the Middle East conflict, whatever it is, will be solved within the state system that we have in the Middle East, will be solved within the state system between Israel and its neighbors, and of course within the state system between Israel and the Palestinians when the Palestinians establish secure boundaries for themselves alongside Israel in a deal that was supposed to be accomplished in Camp David.

The point of the matter is, I think, that with the collapse of Oslo and with the ensuing violence, as Ned Walker described how the violence sort of like took hold in the Middle East, there's a tremendous shift in the concept of state solution. The Israelis at large, the government, the people, felt that as they moved forward in negotiation, as you describe it -- as Barak was moving forward in negotiations even after Camp David, the result is increasingly war, perhaps inspired by the Hezbollah, and the results of the day when Israel withdrew to the international border. The Israeli psyche changed dramatically. It became clear to the Israelis, in terms of the nature of the conflict, that this is a conflict between us versus them in the broader sense of Arabs versus the Jews, or perhaps radical Islam versus the Jews, with no center of, I would say, moderate Islam taking any voices.

One of the big issues that will be discussed, I think, in the next few years in this country and around the globe, is to what extent Islam has been hijacked; to what extent only radical Islamists are raising their voices in this business. And, indeed, Arafat himself was perceived in Israel as someone who was taking on this line, moving with it. As he came out of David and said, "It is not for me to negotiate over Jerusalem. I cannot represent one billion Muslims." The whole parameters of the conflict shifted dramatically in the minds of the Israelis and its government, and led to a watershed in terms of the perceptions within the Israeli society and of course, I would say, a complete overhaul of the Israeli political system, with the Labor Party today – if one wants to make a distinction between the Labor and Likud -- is basically indistinguishable from the Likud, if it is at all relevant to the Israeli political system, as it was before.

So, within this notion of state system, the very basic notion that Arafat should impose a monopoly over the means of violence -- a Weberian term that we use as social scientists, the very notion of what a state is all about -- collapsed. And the Israelis felt that this increasing violence, with terrorism being sanctioned by television, by sermons, by leaders, by the Arab world at large, by Egypt, with attacks that are becoming more and more associated with the Jews versus the Arabs, and with caricature of the Jews that became very much part of the campaign, it became very much clear in the Israeli mind that this conflict has changed and shifted. I think this legacy will be there for a long time, and I think only when this legacy will be able to shift again -- it will take many years I think -- we will be able to see, again, a certain trust within the system that people will start to negotiate in different terms.

We are facing now, indeed, an attempt to bring a cease-fire. I want to say that I think that, notwithstanding the cease-fire that was declared -- and I hope it will hold, as Khalil said -- I think that within the Israeli system, Arafat is no longer a partner for peace. So I don't think that he is a partner for peace in the minds of the decision-makers, as I read them, even the left-leaning decision-makers -- and I had the opportunity just 10 months ago to meet some of these very left-wing – regarding Arafat no longer as a partner for negotiating a permanent solution. He may be a partner for negotiating some cease-fire agreements; may be. And that's also a question of maybe because I think last week's events may force them to think that even more, but until last week it was not even the case whether he is a partner for negotiating cease-fires.

And that's a very important development, I think, to understanding who will be the next partner for the Israelis? The Israelis don't want to create the next partner in their mind, but they do not trust him. Barak, who dealt with him, called him a "thug." Shlomo ben-Ami, who dealt with him – and he, of course, belonged to the other camp, sort of the left camp – is not the Sharon, who is not treating the, as Khalil said, the development. But this is a people who have negotiated with Arafat, consider him an unreliable partner for future negotiations. And even Yossi Beilin, who is running back and forth to meet with Arafat, I don't think, as I saw in last months, considers him – and I don't want to speak on his behalf – anymore as a partner, but rather, as you said, very much sort of arranging some degree of accommodation at this level. And therefore, indeed, the question of returning to the table and negotiating a solution is a very problematic one.

I think one has to give attention in the next few years as we move along with this – whatever it means – this new war, what has happened in the Arab world as well. It is a question here of two things I think. One is the nature of the Arab states next to Israel, as Israel is perceived and to what extent there is an alternate ideology. We were moving within the state ideology over the ‘50s and the ‘60s – was within Pan-Arabism or state nationalism. And this ideology somewhat gave way to another ideology which was more related to radical Islam and the consolidation of Arab regimes; the consolidation of Arab regimes without the, I would say, any station of ideology that would lead them to somewhat be partners in a wider arrangement built on some shared values of a system.

Now, this has not been an issue for the Israeli government. Israeli government's have always said that we don't -- with the exception I think of Netanyahu for a while -- that we don't negotiate with states based on the way they conduct their affairs, those domestic affairs, but rather we take the realist approach. We have states responsible for agreements. This will be very interesting to examine now within the new situation because there are several states who are failing next to us. There is the case of Lebanon, which will have to be addressed, to what extent the Hezbollah will be part of the community of terrorists, as the Americans define them, or not; to what extent Syria will be part of this deal or not. These are very difficult questions that I think will be answered.

As America is building the new coalition, the questions in Israel are raising to what extent Israel will be compromised by this coalition; if this coalition means that Israel will be pushed as now people are perceiving the Madrid path, or perhaps the Oslo-Madrid path, at least in the government, as something that we have not thought about in an appropriate manner but rather we were pushed into it.

I will be done in a second.

So all of the above have really led to realignment within the Israeli public; I would say within the Jewish public. You have never seen such Jewish unity before, I would say, with the diaspora becoming more and more involved, and are called upon by the government of Israel to be more involved in Israeli affairs. There's a total shift in terms of questions of identity, which are very interesting. Khalil alluded to it. The whole posture of what people call post-Zionism almost disappears, and a new introduction of a new Zionist approach, with tremendous patriotism, growing in Israel, and an understanding, which I never saw in my life, sort of like that this is now a struggle over the basics; it's no longer a struggle in the margins. These are quite, I would say, impressive or – I don't know if impressive is the word, but quite remarkable changes from a year before in terms of the shift that we have seen.

And finally, of course, we have not discussed, but there is a very big question here of the Arab-Israelis or the Palestinian Arabs in Israel, citizens of the Israeli society, with their leadership. I think a lot of things have to be made. There are new calls for total empowerment of Arab-Israelis on the one hand, and total responsibility. I think there have been colossal failures of leaders in the Middle East. It began, I think, with Barak, Arafat, and the Arab leaders themselves. Within the Israeli society we have a lot of questions now regarding members of Israeli parliament who have been sort of calling in public for armed struggle against Israel alongside Hezbollah leader, Nasrallah, or with Sheikh Yassin, leader of the Hamas.

So there is like a tremendous sense that these issues must be resolved domestically. So we will see that the issue of domestic Arab-Israelis will take center stage more and more in the Israeli polity. And if indeed, as I hope, a new social contract will be able to one day be established, this will be one of the more important issues to be discussed.

Thank you for the time.

MR. FREEMAN: Thank you very much, Professor Shain. I think you've raised a number of very interesting and difficult questions and painted a rather grim picture, because if it is indeed true that the Israelis and perhaps the Jewish diaspora are united in regarding the Palestinians' leader as a thug, probably Palestinians and Arabs are now united in regarding the prime minister of Israel as a mass murderer, which doesn't speak very well for the prospect of dialogue as we had been discussing.

And you raise another issue, which perhaps we can come back to later which frankly disturbs me, and that is I feel, as you do, a sense that the Jewish diaspora and Israelis do have a sort of new unity coming out of this. But I wonder, in my own observation, whether part of the consequence of this is a breakdown in open dialogue between Jews and non-Jews because I hear more and more people outside the Jewish community expressing grave concern about some of the directions of Israeli policy: the political assassinations, the use of force on a mass level. And yet, the view in the Jewish community is completely at odds with these discussions and, in fact I agree with you, probably more united than ever before. So this is a little bit disturbing because it suggests to me that we are importing into our own society some of the divisions that have troubled the Middle East, and we've done very well not to have those divisions here.

I now would like to call on Ivan Eland, who can be counted upon always for his stimulating and interesting perspective. And just to point out to you how very prescient he is, he's just published a book called, "Putting Defense Back Into U.S. Defense Policy: Rethinking U.S. Security Policy in the Post-Cold War World." And perhaps he'll tell you where you can buy this when he comes to the podium. He's director of the Cato Institute's Defense Policy Studies and he's the author or numerous articles on terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and, very topically, homeland defense. And he will now take the podium.

Ivan?

IVAN ELAND: Thanks, Chas. I appreciate the opportunity to give my views today. I think Chas. described them as "always stimulating and interesting." That's a euphemism for politically incorrect. [Laughter.] And it's probably doubly politically incorrect in an audience who is really interested in the Middle East because people who are interested in the topic usually tend to advocate activism. And of course that's exactly what I'm not advocating.

This is a very important question that we're addressing here: Is the past a guide to the future? -- on this issue. And I think when we have a cataclysmic event, as we had last week -- and I think it truly is a cataclysmic event, not only in terms of the lives lost but in terms of reassessing our policy – it is a good time to reassess policy. I think we need to step back and look at this from a wider perspective, not only the negotiations but U.S. foreign policy and also U.S. role in the Middle East.

I think the terrorist attack is now putting pressure on Bush to do something in the negotiations so he can build the coalition to fight this broad war on terrorism, which I think is a big mistake in the first place, but I'll go into that a bit later. There's an exchange of interests here. Bush is saying, well, I'm not going to get more involved in the peace process and we really need your help in supporting our strikes and our wider war. And I think getting support for international strikes is good, but of course we do have a right to retaliate, and I think most countries are going to support us in the short term anyway. As I say, in the long term, I sort of sided with the Bush, the initial Bush reluctance to get involved, and I think we've also been, frankly, too aligned with Israel in the past. So I don't mind getting involved in a more neutral, mediating role. But I think Bush should avoid getting sucked back into this – a more active role in a process that he had the good instincts to keep himself out of, or at least a lower profile than he did before – or than it was originally.

Neither side is ready to solve this conflict, and I think that some of the other people who have spoken before me sort of reinforced my feeling on that while I was sitting here. But in the long term I think we need to look at a wider look at this policy; that is to say our deep involvement in the Middle East. You know, we ought to look at why are we there. Well, there are two main reasons that we are there: one is oil, and two is that we're friends with Israel. Bin Laden is very clear in why he does these attacks: because of the U.S. military presence in Saudi Arabia – oil – and because of our – what he sees as our excessive support for Israel. That's why he is attacking us.

So we have to ask the question is the Middle East strategic, and of course, to everyone in Washington the answer is, oh, yes, oil – right off the bat, and some would say also that our relationship with Israel is strategic. I say no to both of those questions. You say, well, that's a pretty amazing statement to say that oil is not strategic, but if you look at the underlying economics of this, during the Cold War we were afraid the U.S.S.R. would somehow get control of the oil, and we regarded Israel as helpful to any U.S. military action that might be needed to take – needed to be taken in that area, and also a strategic outpost in the effort to contain communism.

Well, the Cold War is long over, but we haven't changed our policy. It's on autopilot. First of all, we really don't need to defend oil, and the real – this seems like an amazing statement, but if you – the problem is that economists don't talk to national security type or the national security types don't listen, I think. We are – before the Gulf War, both Milton Friedman, on the right, and James Tobin, on the left – both Nobel laureates – wrote op-ed pieces, and they said, well, you know, you can go to war against Saddam Hussein if you want, but don't do it for the oil. The fact is that the oil is going to flow, probably, anyway. I mean, the countries need to sell it more than we need to buy it. They have heavy dependence on exports of this commodity for foreign exchange, and also there was this economic study done that showed that if Saddam Hussein had invaded – in the worst possible case had invaded Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, the price increases that he would be able to impose would be – would cost the U.S. 1/2 of 1 percent of its economy.

We don't go to war – we never talk about going to war for semiconductors, yet we are dependent on east Asia for 80 percent of our semiconductors, and we spend 35 percent more on semiconductors than we do on oil, and also we have a heavier dependence on one region for that key – or if you want to call it a key – item. Sheik Yamani, one of the architects of the 1973 oil embargo recently said that the era of oil is over, and he was referring to hybrid cars, fuel cell cars, et cetera.

So I really think that we – that the dependence on oil raises such a cry, but we're dependent on a lot of products in a globalized economy, and frankly, I don't think oil is any more strategic than any other commodity.

The second thing that we need to look at is is Israel's existence now threatened. I say it isn't. It is at peace with the most powerful Arab state, it's also at peace with Jordan. Syria, Israel's only major contiguous enemy, hasn't modernized its military because it lost its Soviet client or -- I mean, its Soviet benefactor, and Israel has modernized its military. Israel is now a wealthy country, and it has a vibrant high-tech sector. Of course, it would be even wealthier if it solved this problem, but – and regained the foreign investment it has lost since the peace process went sour, but nonetheless it still is a very prosperous state.

Israel, of course, should solve this Palestinian problem, but it does not threaten its existence. And of course Iraq is not contiguous with Israel, and you can argue that the Gulf War actually reduced Israeli security because they didn't get hit with missiles until that happened – until the U.S. intervened. So I think that Israel needs a missile defense, and is now building one. But we have to ask ourselves whether we should disengaged from the Middle East, and whether we should basically pay parties to do what is in their own interest, and that a very hard-line attitude, but that's what happened with the Camp David peace accords. And I no longer – at least that was during the Cold War, but now we're in the post-Cold-War era, and I think we should really question whether we want to do that any more.

So I think we need to ask these big questions, and I'm saying that the U.S. should take a lower role in the Middle East, don't mind being a mediator when the parties are ready to come to the table, but our interventionist policy in the Middle East has led to this attack, I think – has been one of the factors, certainly – one of the main factors, and I think we need to question U.S. interventionist foreign policy and particularly in the Middle East.

Now is that appeasing terrorists? No, I'm for a very strong military strike, but I think we ought to keep it narrow because I think we're going to fall into bin Laden's trap. It's a common practice for guerilla movements and terrorist organization to attack and then try to induce a massive retaliation, which galvanizes their own forces and brings about external support for their cause. The KLA did this in Kosovo, and I think bin Laden – that's the trap that's been laid here, so I think we need to be very careful about a wider war, attacking other countries.

Also, some of the other – one of the other panels mentioned, are we going to include Hezbollah, Syria – all these countries that we're now trying to get to support us that also support terrorist groups. Are we going to include them?

I don't think – I think after the dust settles we do need to ask these tough questions. Are we bringing on these attacks by being overly interventionist in a region which I don't regard as strategic? I realize there are a lot of people who disagree with me, but I would like to refer them to the economics of oil, and I think that we can be a negotiating mediator, but the parties really have to want to solve the conflict, and it's – they're not there yet. And I'm asking the question, is it really worth taking on casualties – mass casualties in our own homeland, particularly if the terrorists get biological, chemical and nuclear weapons, which could make last week's attack look puny in comparison.

So I think our concern for security in other regions – and we learned this during the Cold War when we were fighting a worldwide enemy, which was not – which is no longer there – we tend to overdo it, and I think that's now endangering the homeland. I think the cost-benefit ratio of intervention has dramatically changed. We're always fighting the last war, and I think we're fighting the last now. We need to change our policy. During the Cold War, the benefits of intervention were far greater. We had to combat the Soviet Union, and the costs were manageable because we learned how to only be in conflict with the Soviets in peripheral areas. We never challenged each other's main areas – for instance, Eastern Europe or North America.

But now that has changed. I think the benefits of the intervention are far lower since we don't have a global enemy, and I think you see the costs of U.S. intervention in the Middle East last week. And I have to say -- Khalil said that solving the peace process is the best counterterrorism program that you could have, and I would agree with that if they were going to solve – if there was any likelihood that the problem would be solved, and I would also agree with that if it would take care of all the problems. But of course the oil problem is still there and our presence in Saudi Arabia would still be there. So I'm not sure that I would necessarily agree with that. Khalil also mentioned that we've tried 77 times to broker peace in the Middle East, and finally we ought to learn something: let the parties get ready to negotiate and then, fine, we can help them do that.

I think national security policy should increase security and not decrease it, and the first goal of any security policy should be to safeguard U.S. territory and the people in it. We've got to start there and build outward, but we now have this extended defense perimeter which is actually making our homeland vulnerable, and I think we really need to reassess security after this incident. I think it is a watershed event, and it should make us think a little bit about what we're doing, our role in the world, our role in the Middle East, and our role in this negotiating process of Middle East peace.

MR. FREEMAN: Thank you. That's a stimulating notion that the way to – if I understood you, Ivan – the way to minimize the problem is just basically to get out of the area. That is a different viewpoint that probably most people here have and may lead to some interesting discussion.

We now turn to the discussion and question and comment period, and I'd like as we begin it to commend all four of the presenters for terse, well-organized, interesting presentations from which I'm sure we all learned a good deal. Many of them addressed the question of the formation of some sort of grand coalition against terrorism, which is the current focus of American diplomatic activity, and it's clear that there are a number of things that could destroy that effort. They include the absence of conclusive evidence – evidence that is persuasive about who the perpetrators were, and therefore, indiscriminate attacks – attacks that are not focused on those who carried out these atrocities last Tuesday – or Tuesday last, and who may be prepared to carry out further reprisal following what ever action we take against them, since one has to imagine that they have already planned ahead for this cycle of violence. Or the United States could act unilaterally. That would also destroy any possibility of international cooperation. It has been suggested – to one degree or another by every speaker – that the subject we have been discussing is either the principal factor or a contributory factor or some sort of factor bearing on this question of terrorism. In one way or another, all of the speakers alluded to connections between the terrible problems that Israelis and Palestinians have made for each other and our problems.

So Khalil may be right: the best anti-terrorism program, or the most effective one, might be to try to solve this issue or to have it solved. But as I listened to all of the speakers, I must say I was rather hoping, since this is the Jewish New Year, that we would have some good news, and I didn't hear any good news, and I'm sort of wondering whether we shouldn't adjourn and all go home and weep because no one really was able --

MR. : Ambassador Ned Walker just said that we have to wait for Yom Kippur for that. [Laughter.]

MR. FREEMAN: Oh, okay. All right. Good point.

But in any event I now invite people who are here to address questions to the panelists – or comments. Bob? Please identify yourself. We do record this, and we like to give you credit for your brilliant thoughts.

Q: Okay. Robert Freedman, Baltimore Hebrew University and Johns Hopkins University. Just a very quick comment and a question to Mr. Eland. Having listened to your most interesting presentation, I now see why economists and national security people don't talk to each other. That having been said, the question is how to get the Israelis and Arabs talking again, and it's a two-stage thing. It's not just Israel and the Palestinians, but Israel and the Egyptians. Yossi mentioned that the invective now in the Egyptian press against Israel is having a negative domestic effect in Israel. There's no question about it – lesser extent in Jordan.

Now my question for the entire panel is is there a role now for Europe? For awhile there before the terrorist attacks when the U.S. had a total hands-off policy, it looked like the European Union was trying. My question to you all is is there, even in the new situation, a role for Europe, not only in the specific Israel-Palestinian conflict, but also in getting all sides to tone down what has become horrendous invective.

And I just have to add a very personal note here in response to Chas. I'm a member of Peace Now, which is an American group working for peace, and we on the peace end of things in the American-Jewish community have been horrendously undercut by the Al-Aqsa intifada. In fact, the general view of the American-Jewish community was that Arafat was Sharon's campaign manager in the last election. So there's obviously a need to move on that front, but we need something to work with, so maybe there's a role for Europe as well as the U.S.

MR. FREEMAN: Thank you, Bob – a very timely and useful question, and I take your last observation as a statement of fact that is readily verified by anybody who looks seriously at the situation.

Khalil, would you like to start?

MR. JAHSHAN: Is this working, or –

MR. FREEMAN: I think so. Go ahead.

MR. JAHSHAN: The answer – I guess the main question is, is there a role for Europe in the new situation that we find ourselves in. The answer is yes – a definite yes. I think that the failure of the Oslo process and subsequent developments clearly, I think, illustrate that U.S. hegemony over negotiations or peacemaking – or Middle East policy in general, interaction of the West with the Middle East – cannot continue. As a matter of fact, as it was mentioned, I think, on a couple of occasions during the presentation, the U.S. purposeful, conscious bias toward Israel has contributed to the collapse of the peace process. We kind of downplayed it over the years here internally in the states, but it came back to haunt us, and it did contribute to the failure of the process.

Now the question is what role for Europe – I mean, right now because we at – at least in the first few months of this administration, the administration did not want to get involved heavily, so it kind of delegated, if you will, to Europe. They gave Europe the role of, basically, carry the broom and the dust pan and clean after us.

Now the question is, is Europe willing to play just that limited role? Does it have a little bit more of an ambitious role than that? And will we, if we begin to see a succeeding and growing role for Europe, would we allow it? I think, no. Washington still does not want Europe to replace it in the Middle East. At the same time, it doesn't want to play the role itself. So it's kind of a negative hegemony that continues right now.

MR. FREEMAN: Ivan, do you want to comment on this?

MR. ELAND: Yes. I'd like to comment on the first comment and on the question. I think the national security community doesn't talk to the economics community because that would not justify going to wars like the Persian Gulf or other – you know, the Pentagon is, at least currently, planning two wars: one in the Middle East, one in the Korean peninsula, and that may change, but nonetheless, the Middle East has always justified a lot of military hardware and that sort of thing. And so they probably have a self-interest.

The main question – I think there – I agree with Khalil completely on this point. I think that the role for Europe should be increased and it's true Washington doesn't give Europe a role – a greater role, and it should because I – in advocating a lesser role for the U.S., I think that our rich, European allies should do more in the latter regard – security and defense, and certainly in the Middle East peace process.

MR. FREEMAN: Ned?

MR. WALKER: I don't know that we're going to have a whole of choice. If we want to have strong European cooperation in this effort to bring terrorism under control, I think they are also going to be very interested in insuring that we're engaged in the peace process because they will see the connection – or they will see connections, whether they are there or not. So I think that the Europeans will probably want to see a more actively engaged administration, and that there will be a trade-off in that regard.

In terms of the more general question, I have always thought that we should have a more open approach to peace negotiations and include not just the European states, but even more importantly, the regional states like Egypt and so on, which wasn't done prior to Camp David, and that was one of the real problems. At the last minute, when the president gets on the phone to talk to Mubarak, to talk some sense into Arafat, Mubarak has no idea what he was talking about and did not feel that he could engage at that point. So we have to bring along a whole – a rather broad coalition on the peace process as well as on the question of terrorism.

MR. FREEMAN: Yossi?

MR. SHAIN: With regard to Europe, I think the Europe will have very little to play in the Middle East in the future, nor will the parties be receptive, nor when Europe will be available. And I think it will be because of the nature of the European Union, because of the nature of the decision-making process. When we heard a statement here and there from Joschka Fisher, from Larsen, sometimes from the French, there is a completely different ballgame. Europe is uncapable – or incapable of doing anything in the Middle East. Solana can run back and forth if it's a very good trip, but it is irrelevant to the Middle East in terms of the arrangements. So I have very little doubt in my mind that the Europeans will not play a role. How they will play a role because of the coalition – and I think this is a big issue here because this is a total different ballgame. It's not the talks about – after the collapse of the intifada Shlomo ben Ami running around with Solana thinking about where to involve which we saw could not materialize because of division within Europe itself and because of uncertainties on the ground. It's – I think that's a very important question. I think – and that's my thought for today, at least – that Europeans will play some role in the coalition, but they will not be again as important for the American action. I think American actions will be very much to build the coalition ideologically, to identify the targets as we move for a very long sort of struggle, and Americans will be unilaterally, more or less, acting – from time to time enticing Europeans and from time to time having European criticism. But that will not be, I think, a deterrent to American foreign policy, nor will it be relevant in the long run to the Middle East Israeli-Palestinian conflict which I think is completely separate from the plan that Americans will put for the entire issue of terrorism as it is going to fight it.

So I think – it is differently. There was another question, but I won't take it.

Q: My name is John Hisslop [sp]. I'm a retired civil servant. This question is for Mr. Eland, and it regards the issue of petroleum.

I have two questions – two points. The first, in regard the importance of petroleum, I am struck by the willingness of leaders in many of these countries to impoverish their citizens so long as their own lifestyle doesn't change, so I question whether or not the oil would continue to flow under these circumstances.

And the second one – I used to be an economist a hundred years ago. The difference between average analysis and marginal analysis – I'm struck by how inelastic the demand for oil appears to be in this country, and the howls of complaint whenever prices rise as a result of reduced availability.

MR. FREEMAN: Briefly.

MR. ELAND: I think people may not – these governments may not distribute the profits of the oil, but I think they really – for their national coffers they would like to keep foreign exchange coming. And I have no doubt that they'll sell the oil because in some place they don't have much else to sell. And certainly, oil is inelastic demand, but we always have these oil – like we just had an oil-price scare during the summer, and the economists at my institute said, well, if you let the market work, the price will go back down, and it did. And in 1973, that's what led to this national trauma.

If you go back and look at the economic data, it was U.S. monetary policy – they turned on the monetary spigots that cause a lot of the stagflation, the poor economic policies. If you have – the price of one commodity increasing does not lead to inflation, which is a general price increase, because what happens if you have a fixed budget is people spend a lot less on other commodities or goods or whatever else they're spending on, and so those prices go down. So we have to separate the price of one commodity increasing from the general phenomenon of inflation, and I think when you go back and look at the '73 crisis, there's an economist named Doug Bohey [sp] who factored out all these other factors – monetary policy, et cetera – and oil – the oil crisis, as it was called back then had about 0.35 percent effect on the U.S. GDP, which is not that great. I mean, there are a lot of other factors, and I think a lot of economists really questioned that.

Of course, that has never percolated to the media, and so every time the price of oil rises, we get this scare like we had this summer. So I think it's – a lot of this is media hype.

MR. FREEMAN: I have to interject that – please, Professor Peretz – but I have to interject that when the price of oil is extraordinarily low and our friends in the Gulf are hurting, there is very little discussion of those consequences or indeed any sympathy at all for the producers. The only time we're interested in this is when our own pocketbooks are gouged, and that does tell me something interesting about the role of oil in our lives.

Q: Don Peretz, retired professor. A question to Ambassador Walker. I'm not quite sure what victory over terrorism in the war against terrorism means. Victory against a nation-state – you occupy the country, you remove the government, you destroy the army. But terrorism, it seems to me, is much more amorphous and much more diverse.

Suppose bin Laden leaves Afghanistan and goes to another country, then all this military preparation would have to be focused on that country. Then he goes to still another country, and the focus has to be on the third country.

Terrorism is much more amorphous and much more diverse. There's not only bin Laden, there's the Basques terrorists in Spain, the Corsican terrorists in Corsica, the IRA, of course, in Ireland, terrorism in Indonesia. Where does victory over terrorism end? When is there a final victory over terrorism?

A brief question to Khalil. Khalil, do you think that if Israel withdrew from all of the occupied territories that that would really end the Arab-Israel conflict?

MR. FREEMAN: Ned first.

MR. WALKER: Well, Don, I didn't choose the framework here. It was chosen by the attack on the two towers and by the president and his response, and the war terminology is an inept description for what we are engaged in. This is not a war against a specific location. This is a war against ideas, against people's minds. It has to be engaged in virtually every country. It's not just as question of the Middle East. You had cells in Germany, you have cells in Latin America, you have cells in this country. It is going to be a long, intensive effort to try to eliminate the financing, increase the intelligence cooperation, engage in legal actions, and at the same time, keep in mind that we have to take, at some point, a strong, hard look at what it is that starts this problem, creates this problem in the first place. So there are definitely some issues that we have to deal with in terms of generation – why terrorism exists.

But the war of terrorism, as I have suggested, is something that's going to be years long, not something that's going to be months long. And victory is described by the general acceptance in the world that terrorism is not a vehicle for political – is not a politically viable lever in international affairs; that it does not lead to benefits or results – something this country has stood for for a long time. You don't negotiate with terrorists. You don't give in to terrorist demands. And that's a principle that many countries in the world still haven't accepted.

Q: What's the point of the big military buildup?

MR. WALKER: Well, I haven't got anything to do with the military buildup. [Laughter.] You tell me, Don. I don't know. I mean, you've got a – you've got Afghanistan out there, which apparently is going to be the target. I don't know what your target is or who you're going to go after.

Q: [Inaudible..]

MR. WALKER: Well, you know, I have said that I don't think this is a victory that can be won by military means. I believe that perhaps in the short run, for the American psyche and so on and the commitment that has been made, we may have to engage in military action, but I don't think that that's going to solve anything. Even if we manage to kill Osama bin Laden, it's not going to solve anything because the roots of this thing are much stronger.

MR. FREEMAN: I'd like to make a comment before I invite Yossi Shain and Ivan Eland to join this, and we still have a question for Khalil, who may want to comment on this, as well.

I was abroad when the atrocity occurred, and it was very interesting to observe reactions to the sudden introduction of military overflights of Washington and New York, and the deployment of aircraft carriers off New York. The predominant reaction by thinking people was that these moves were a demonstration of our confusion and impotence rather than a demonstration of our capacity to deal with the problem because this is not a problem that can be dealt with from 15,000 feet. That's the first comment.

The second comment is that I take the war rhetoric as having a different significance. I think the phrase "act of war" has a resonance for Americans in two senses: first, it is a legal term and it says that the normal peace-time constraints on our behavior no longer apply; and second, it is a call to mobilization and to national unity. It evokes memories of Fort Sumter, of the Lusitania, of Pearl Harbor, and it is a valid political term in that context. But like you and like Ned, I have a hard time seeing what the relevance of B-2 bombers to scruffy people in caves in Afghanistan might be. I would like to be wrong that all of this military might, in fact, will contribute to some kind of answer in the sense that Ned gave it; that is, that the use of – ruthless use of cruel violence against innocent civilians will be punished with sufficient severity that it will no longer be an attractive option for those who are passionately aggrieved against the United States or anyone else. But I have my doubts.

Yossi Shain?

MR. SHAIN: I just – I consider this war as a total war, and when you have a total war, all the means, as the president said, are available to you. And what does it mean when you say that you can move – you compare Corsica, past terrorism – this is a completely different story.

If the war – if the plan is a total war, which has an element of a certain force that declares war against America, as the president defines it, of course all the means are available. Now it means, also, that it has to be resolved within the state system. It doesn't mean that Osama bin Laden will be able to move so quickly. Moving – which means that we have to move across frontiers. State that will be available for terrorism will be punished. They will be severely punished. So military will be available for all sorts of terrorist activities.

I think that the solution is quite more simple than people assume. It is not an insolvable issue. It is a solvable issue; very much so. It is a solvable issue within the nation-state system. Nation-states have eradicated terrorism many times.

Now this type of terrorism has not been addressed. It has not been addressed in this country, it has not been addressed on the European continent, and of course, it has not been addressed in the Middle East conflict. In this specter I absolutely see the solution to that. It is never a total solution, but it is a total war. In that respect, you can see that – indeed, comparing it to the total war against Japan and to the total war against Nazi Germany. They were eventually brought to their knees because they were also acting in a certain manner. Now once you identify what are the targets, and you call upon the states to assume responsibility that they will have monopoly over the means of violence – no shenanigans with that – I think it will get very quick results.

If you look at where terrorism exists today, it is not in Corsica. It is not in the Basque. You have in the Basque – throughout the years in the Basque country – I can show you the data – it's – you know, so you have from time to time a bomb, but this is not the key here. The key here is the war – you know, because we have changed – the life has been changing now. America has been attacked in the most colossal fashion, and people will not forget that. As a result of that, it will be the most colossal response.

Now how it will be determined – I think it will be determined, as Bush is calling on Arafat to be with us, he will call on the Syrian president, he will call on the Egyptian president, and I assume that they will take responsibility – that these will not exist within their midst. If it will exist, I assume there will be a harsh response, and I will not think – well, you see the aircrafts are now moving – or the carriers – it's not necessarily to Afghanistan. My assumption that they may move to this direction, but they will respond in other places as well. So I don't see that as a way of – that terrorists can move so quickly. They cannot. If there is an infrastructure, infrastructure can be fought against, and I think historically there are many examples.

This is different, but I absolutely think that it can be won.

MR. FREEMAN: There is an irony here which Ivan may wish to address; that the United States, until now, has been really unique in that our defense department, our defense ministry has not had a defense function. It has been charged with supporting intervention in areas remote from our shores and not with homeland defense. And the reactions to this and the incomprehension with which employees at the Pentagon greeted the attack on the Pentagon -- not to mention the horrors in New York – are emblematic of that mental lapse. We've had two oceans to protect us, and we have assumed that we can act with impunity throughout the world. We can do things to other people, and they can do – or will do nothing to us. That world is gone. That world is gone, and therefore, whatever else is going to happen, we are going to be focused now not just on events abroad, but on the defense of our own shores.

Ivan?

MR. ELAND: Yes, I would just like to say that's very true. I agree with that statement, and I think this war is going to be – is ill-advised, as I mentioned in my presentation, because I think that's what bin Laden wants. It's like a recruiting poster for more terrorists if we just indiscriminately flail around. I think we need to make our military response focused and designed to retaliate against this bombing.

But whenever the government declares war on something, you'd better get your pocketbook ready and get ready for ineffectual results. We've had the War on Poverty, the War on Drugs, and now we have the War on Terrorism. I remember Clinton declared war on terrorism and that never came to anything, so we'll see what happens here.

But I think it's very difficult to wage a war like this with conventional military means. You can go bomb things, but as you mention, bombing from 15, 20,000 feet is not going to do much good. You have to have special forces commando teams to go in and either capture or kill the terrorists, but the problem is we haven't had too good of luck in finding bin Laden or we probably would have captured and killed him to start with.

You know, if you're guarding the homeland against biological or chemical or nuclear weapons smuggled in, we have a lot of borders. We only get 5 to 15 percent of the drugs, and those are bigger quantities than any sort of device. So I think it might be – there are some technical aspects to making these devices that terrorists may not be able to do yet, but bin Laden is certainly working on it. They discovered a chemical and biological lab in eastern Afghanistan with the satellites the other day.

So I think the war on terrorism – to paraphrase the IRA, they once said to the British, you have to be lucky all the time; all we have to be lucky is once. And they've already gotten lucky once with conventional means. If they use some superweapon next time, the casualties could be worse.

And one other thing: if we want to be on a constant war footing, are we sure we really want to do that? I mean, we're an open society. We had troops on the streets of downtown Washington, and to me that was sort of like a country in the developing world, not the world's superpower. So I think that's another indication where foreigners might see us as threatened.

So I think we really need to consider whether we want to do a total wider war on terrorism or whether we want to – in the short term take narrow military action and then rethink, maybe, our policy in the long term.

MR. FREEMAN: One thing to reflect upon is that other countries have not had oceans around them and have felt that their defense rested in part on diplomacy and political action and not just on military force, and perhaps we should reflect upon that.

Khalil?

MR. JAHSHAN: A quick comment on that, and then I'll go back to your question, Don.

Frankly, look, there is a lot of exaggerated talk about this total war. We all understand the psychology and the pain we all – you know, we went through as a nation. I do not envy the president in terms of what he is doing. He is declaring war on an unexisting enemy, on a concept, okay, on a practice, on a behavior, and we don't even have faces most of the time for all of this. But let's face it, I think when you put all that aside, all this talk about war, the fact of the matter is the military component of this campaign is only a very small component, and we are going to discover that rather sooner rather than later in the campaign. This type of "war," quote, unquote, against terrorism is going to be mostly financial, mostly security-related, mostly restrictions-related.

Within – I agree with Yossi. It's going to be with the state system. If, indeed, cooperation is established with many other countries where we have questions with regards to the freedom or facilitation, directly or indirectly, that some of these groups or some of these individuals have received, you know, you will be winning the war in that sense. But, I mean, running around with bomber and things – I mean, who are you going to bomb? Who the hell are you going to bomb? And so sooner rather than later we are going to discover that this type of talk is like wetting your own pants; I mean, it has this initial warm sensation, but in the long term its disadvantages tend to outweigh its advantages. [Laughter.]

With regards to the – your question on the Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories, you know, I've been asked that question over the years by many people for different motives. There are some people, for example, in Israel who ask that question in the sense that what if we solve the Palestine problem. I mean, we will never have total peace with the Palestinians and with the Israelis because a few of them might still be whining after that. If the purpose of asking the question is if somebody will remain whining after peace, then neutralizes or negates the usefulness of peace, fine. Then the answer is of course not. Somebody will, of course, remain unhappy.

But if Israel withdraws from the occupied territories in the context of the establishment of a peace agreement that produces a sovereign, independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, solving the settlement issue, solving the refugee issue adequately to the satisfaction of both the Palestinians and the Israelis, then again, that would imply not necessarily a solution that share the 21 percent of Palestine known as the West Bank and Gaza. That – those 21 percent have to go to the Palestinians to establish a sovereign state, not to share those the way the Barak, quote, unquote, "proposal" was. If that is the case, I think that most – you know, I would have been more definitive ten months ago in my answer because, as Yossi said, he was very clear about the changes that took place in Israel. What happened on the Palestinian side – there is also a mirror image of these same changes on the Palestinian side. I mean Yossi Belin and the rest of the gang who feel that Yasser Arafat is no longer a credible partner – well, fine. If they want to wait for Shevri Aseen [ph] to negotiate with, they're welcome. I'm not sure they're going to get a lot more cooperation from him or for some, you know, bin Laden to emerge on the Palestinian side. They're welcome to do that if they think that's a credible risk to take. But most Palestinians today – a majority of the Palestinians and a majority of the Arabs would be delighted if an agreement in the context that I mentioned emerges, and I think most of them will be – would be willing to endorse an end of conflict resolution with the state of Israel within its 67 boundaries if a legitimate Palestinian state, a credible one, emerges from that agreement.

Q: My name is Nimin Saleh [ph] from American University, and I have two questions. The first one is for Mr. Eland, and you said that you want the United States to disengage from the Middle East, and I'm wondering whether that involves withdrawing funding for Israel and Egypt.

The second question is for the panel in general. I heard a lot – I'm not a specialist on Middle East peace negotiations, but when I heard talking about that, it was only, you know, you get sovereignty on this territory or that territory, but it seems that the Palestinian people want basic economic rights like, you know, the rights to dig a well, the right to get an education, the right to go to hospitals. I'm wondering to what extent these basic constraints play into negotiations between the two sides, whether that's – whether they play any role. Thanks.

MR. FREEMAN: Ivan. First, let me say that we have some time constraints. Ed Walker can only stay with us another five or ten minutes, and at 11:30 we have to yield the room to Senator Feinstein, who is going to be examining some far less interesting subject matter – [laughter] – but Ivan, go ahead.

MR. ELAND: I'm pretty forthright that I think that we should reduce and eventually eliminate aid to both Egypt and Israel, but I'm not big on foreign aid anyway to any country because I think that it actually has negative effects on different countries. But I think Israel's a very wealthy country now, and it's sort of embarrassing to give money to a wealthy country, frankly, in my view, and I think the Israelis have shown that they are very capable in the wars that they have been in, and they're very wealthy, and their military, I think, is more effective than ours in many ways. They learn how to improvise. We buy high-tech equipment and use it every so often. They have to fight for – the stakes are higher there for them. So their military is very effective.

I think we don't have to yank the rug out from under it. I think we could draw down both aid to Israel and Egypt and the rest of the countries. But I think, in general, foreign aid – many times we have – if you look at the countries that we give foreign aid to, it's groups that have constituencies in the United States; for example, Armenians, et cetera. Are they – people are under the assumption that most of this aid goes to humanitarian purposes, and I think we traditionally use foreign aid to pay for military bases, and we've used it to buy peace in the Middle East – or at least partial peace in the Camp David Accords. And so I think economically foreign aid usually goes into the pockets of – not necessarily in Israel, but in other countries it goes into the wrong pockets, and they have no incentive to reform their system, and the small amount of foreign aid is dwarfed by the amount of private foreign investment they could get if they reformed their systems. So I think foreign aid is actually a detriment to most countries.

In the case of Israel, I think it – they would be better off if they were less dependent on us, so I think – yes, I would.

MR. FREEMAN: I'm going to ask Ned Walker to comment briefly on the second question.

MR. WALKER: You have to distinguish between foreign economic assistance and foreign military assistance. They are two totally different subjects, and the reasons for having those programs are totally different. I would agree that economic assistance often can be distorting to the economy and it can dissuade countries who are undergoing important reforms. I would disagree that the money that is being spent is going into pockets of leaders, at least not as it is exercised by USAID. It goes into project assistance, it seldom is cash transfer under any circumstances.

But I agree that – and in fact that what we are doing is – or what the government is doing is….

[TAPE CHANGE.]

MR. WALKER: …military assistance to Israel. I think that the kinds of threats that we're going to be facing in the future, possibilities of missile attack, possibilities of weapons of mass destruction, are going to require enormous expenditures, which are beyond even the wealthy Israelis. And we have an obligation and responsibility to help in that regard.

MR. FREEMAN: Let me briefly address your second question. I think it's fair to say that both Israelis and Palestinians, individual Israelis and Palestinians, want personal security, they want the ability to manage their own lives in an efficient and productive manner. There really is no fundamental difference between them in those regards. And when the negotiations have taken place, I think leaders on both sides of the divide have tried to address those requirements of their constituencies. Unfortunately, neither side has succeeded in producing these very valuable benefits for its own population.

MR. JAHSHAN: May I just add one brief thing?

MR. FREEMAN: Please.

MR. JAHSHAN: I think the basket of issues you refer to, which could be, I guess, characterized as the humanitarian issues -- since the beginning of the peace process, unfortunately, they have not been put on top of the agenda. They were used as a bargaining chip all along. They continue to be used as a bargaining chip today, in spite of, by the way, legal documents; binding documents.

I'm looking here at the letter of assurances that the United States government gave to the Palestinians back on October 18, 1991, telling them that if they accept the invitation to come to the table, that the U.S. government is basically saying that – let's see here – "We believe Palestinians should gain control over political, economic and other decisions that affect their lives and faith." And so the Palestinians, from the beginning, focused on this improvement at the personal level. And there we are 11 years later and whatever little gain was achieved has been rolled back again and again. So this has been a key frustration, or cause for the frustration, on the Palestinian side. It was never taken seriously throughout the process.

MR. FREEMAN: And at least on the personal security level, a vital matter of frustration to the Israelis as well.

Q: -- I work with the Bosnia Support Committee.

MR. FREEMAN: Right.

Q: I just wanted to make one statement about Bosnia. Two hundred thousand people were killed in Bosnia and the two main war criminals that started the hatred between each other, the many groups, are still at large.

The question that I wanted to ask you was about why the Israelis will not accept some sort of peacekeeping force. If they don't want it from the United Nations, would they have it in another way? I guess because I was a former teacher, when you think of the young Palestinians and the young Israelis, I mean, you're creating more terrorists. They're learning to throw rocks, they're learning to be suicide bombers, they're learning to retaliate in an armed way. And instead of having a peacekeeping force where you're hoping that eventually there will be peace, you have to educate a generation to think positively about how to develop a country, like the Palestinian are – a state – they have to have good feelings about being Palestinian, and what is it, and forming nations, and so forth. This has to be taught. This has to be part of the way they think, and it isn't right now, I would think.

MR. FREEMAN: Ned and Yossi, and others? Why don't you go first, Yossi?

MR. SHAIN: Okay. I just will say that the whole idea of peacekeeping forces in the Middle East certainly has a value, but also has a lot of bad history. The very role of the United Nations has been compromised many times in the Middle East. One should not forget that when the – before the Six Day War, the peacekeeping forces, or the separation forces of U Thant moved very quickly out of the region.

We know that there is a lot of mistrust upon the Israelis about the United Nations in particular. We saw the charade in Durban, and Israel has no trust in them. We saw what happened now with the abduction of Israeli soldiers and civilians in Southern Lebanon, and the United Nations cassette disappeared. So, I don't think the Israelis have any trust in the United Nations as an arbiter, and I don't think that the forces themselves have any authority. We have seen them in Hebron, and they were completely ineffective in stopping anything. So I think the idea of an international force in such heavily concentrated, populated areas, in a non-starter in the context of the Middle East, and I think that that will not be a starting point.

With regard to education, et cetera, this is a much wider program that one has to think about. I would begin with abolishing the summer camps for suicide bombers in Gaza -- it's a very interesting idea -- and of course, with educating and going all the way to educate the Israeli public and settlers and so on, eliminating that.

As Mr. Freeman before said, I also grew up and participated all my life as a member of the Peace Now movement in Israel. The last year has changed many, many minds in Israel about the conflict. I've never missed a demonstration in Israel, and my last 25 years has been tremendously active there. And the last years have changed many minds in Israel about the nature of the conflict. We are no longer looking at what we have done wrong. We will look at that again, but there is another side that has to take control. And the control, I think, begins with the state control, the very notion that there is an authority. An authority must be responsible for asserting its authority. That's how the Israelis look at it. And that's how I look at it as someone who studied this for many years. And I think that's very important.

In addition, there are all the other problems with regard both to the Palestinians and the Israelis in order to bring them one day together. I think the last year did not contribute to that, sort of like, sources of healing, but rather have made, in an incredible fashion, Arik Sharon the favorite among the Israeli center left while he's being criticized by the Israeli right, which is quite remarkable in my mind how this has happened in the last year.

MR. FREEMAN: I think we need not belabor the point that what has taken place is a serious further polarization of attitudes, a hardening of views on both sides. And I would add, I believe there has been a terrible development of moral corrosion on both sides of this conflict. It has been enormously damaging to the prospect for the idealists on either side to realize their dreams of a decent society.

Q: If it's not the U.N., may I just ask – I know the U.N. didn't work, but is there any possibility of another type of –

MR. FREEMAN: Well, there's no intervention from the international community of the sort that occurred in Bosnia that would impose a peacekeeping force. It would have to be invited by both of the parties. I think Professor Shain has very faithfully recounted all of the doubts that Israelis have about not only the United Nations but outside peacekeeping forces generally. The Palestinians have called for such forces, but the prospects are not good. And I'm going to ask Ned to comment.

MR. WALKER: You've got two different kinds of operations, one is peacekeeping and one is peacemaking.

Peacekeeping is -- you've got to have peace before you can keep it. It requires an agreement. It requires honest goodwill on both sides. And then an interposition force can be a help, such as the Sinai Force in the Sinai. It just gives everybody an excuse not to do things that they don't really want to do anyway. That's peacekeeping. That's not possible under the current circumstances.

The alternative is a Chapter 7 operation such as we had in Bosnia. That's when you send in heavily armed forces to actually impose peace on the parties. That's a non-starter. I can't conceive of the Security Council ever agreeing to such a force going into the Middle East. They'd have to shoot their way in. And I doubt seriously if we have the stomach for it, or anyone else for that matter.

MR. FREEMAN: Andy.

Q: Andy Constantzos, independent consultant.

A question in my mind is, going to Stage 3 that Mr. Jahshan mentioned, are negotiations possible between two parties that are so drastically unequal in strength, where the stronger party can dictate the terms? And shouldn't that be influencing U.S. policy in acting as an arbiter? I remember that U.S. prestige reached a zenith during the 50's when we intervened to stop the invasion of the Suez Canal by our allies.

MR. FREEMAN: Ned, would you like to comment first?

MR. WALKER: Well, the forces aren't quite as unequal as you suggest, because it is not just a negotiation between the Palestinians and the Israelis. There are components that involve virtually the rest of the Arab world, but particularly countries like Egypt.

You know, the original agreement at Camp David – the first Camp David – had a major portion of it related specifically to the Palestinians, and the Egyptians were given the mantle of negotiating for the Palestinians in the autonomy talks and so on. And they have had that mantle all along. So it's not quite the equation that you suggest. The Palestinians rather consistently seek the support and the advice of the Egyptians, and they've been helpful at times and maybe not so helpful at other times.

The other balancing factor is the United States. And that's why we do have a place and a role in this equation. And our commitment to a vision of peace, somewhere around the parameters of where we were going in Camp David and so on, is a guarantee for the Palestinians and the Israelis, and I think it's an important guarantee in the long run.

MR. JAHSHAN: You know, I think this whole issue of lack of symmetry has been, again, going back when I said about the failure of the 77 attempts thus far historically, and I mentioned just two and I said there are other reasons. This is one, I think, of the inherent reasons in the nature of the conflict from the very beginning that contributed to kind of the failure of many of these peace processes, and continues to influence the results today.

There is no symmetry between Israel and the Palestinians. Does that mean they shouldn't sit down together and negotiate? I don't think so. I think most Palestinians, while not suffering necessarily from a virginity complex with regards to their understanding of this lack of symmetry between them and Israel, and also fully understanding the bias on the part of the sponsoring or mediating parties, still believe that it's worthwhile, considering the fact, I think, that Yossi described earlier, that there are very few people on this planet that Israel is willing to trust. So you need to have some role to bring in a party that will give Israel the psychological kind of ease to be able to move forward. I mean, you know, there's basically the United States, maybe Germany, very few other actors left that Israel is willing to entertain in terms of a role to kind of mediate.

But that places the burden to kind of neutralize that lack of symmetry, or to bridge the gap somehow, to balance the act – puts that burden on the sponsoring party, on the mediating party. And we have not done a good job. The United States has not done a good job. It was virtually – I mean, our performance, when you look at it objectively over the years, particularly in the Oslo process, it was the equivalent of two people accused and a plaintiff coming before a judge and the judge saying, hey, I like you, you step over here. You, I don't like you, sit down. State your case.

Well, you know, this has been our behavior. We have not really, in spite of some improvement under Clinton in dealing with the – an attempt to understand the Palestinian side, but there has never been a sense of symmetry in managing peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.

MR. FREEMAN: As I suspected, you have stimulated Yossi Shain. [Laughter.]

Please, do you want to make a point?

MR. SHAIN: I think that it's a very important point with regard to the perceptions. I've recently read an article by a member of the Knesset, Rubenstein, who is a member of the Meretz left. And he wrote this article in the Ha'aretz newspaper. "We are the David and they are the Goliath. Don't ever let them mislead us. The perception is completely different than they way you think, in terms of where the Israelis are standing." And that's a very important point.

Now, I'm not going to get into the analysis, who is right, who is wrong, but I also think that the idea that Israel does not trust the world is also misleading in many ways. Israel signed a peace agreement with Egypt. Israel was on the verge of signing a peace agreement with Syria. Israel was signing a peace agreement with Jordan. Israel was on the verge of signing a peace agreement with Arafat. There was a whole new Middle East supposed to be established. Not only that, Shimon Peres called upon the Israelis to forget about their boundaries. Think about a new Middle East. Think about if you don't have boundaries. Israelis' mindsets have changed dramatically. Seventy-six percent last year supported the compromises made by Barak at Camp David, including the division of Jerusalem.

So one can take this view of sort of like there was never a change, and this is always what it is, and the Israelis are stuck in their insecurities. No, Israel has a very good reason to be insecure -- a very good reason. The last year has changed our lives dramatically. Now, it changed the life of the Palestinians as well, one cannot dispute that. But the question in politics is not always where the blame is, but what is the solution? The point is whether there is a state-to-state authority solution. Israel brought the Palestinian Authority with guns into the West Bank in Gaza, with 50,000 soldiers and police. I visited Gaza and always -- that was the number one payroll in Gaza. There was a lot of other issues.

So there was tremendous trust on the Israeli part, tremendous rethinking about where we are. And one who goes back and says, you know, this is a failure of the Americans, also is misleading. The Americans made tremendous strides for the Palestinians. No other nation in the world would have given the Palestinians what the Americans could deliver. The Americans delivered the Israelis to the Palestinians on many occasions.

So I think the whole map, one has to read it as it is before one sort of like starts to go back to the rhetoric of the mighty giant and the Palestinians who are in bad shape. Of course they are in bad shape. But Arafat's own parameters of this conflict immediately changed when Jerusalem was in the idea. We are with the Islamic world, and that's how it worked. And that made a hell of a difference in the Middle East. And of course there will be misreading, and again there will be interpretation, but that was a hell of difference, that Israel was on the run. That was the sense: Israel was on the run, we're going to finish it. And the Israelis sort of like got this vision, and again got back into what I call "the Jewish security dilemma revisited." I have two essays published on that. This is not to make them so – but this one in the next Orbis, when I talk about this mindset and the Jewish security dilemma.

And when they enlarged it to the attack on Judaism itself and to Zionism as an illegitimate concept – what does it mean it's an illegitimate concept? It means that there is no right of the Jews to have a state of their own. The Palestinians have a right, everybody has a right, the Jews don't have a right. This is a totally different ball game, and that has caused an earthquake in the Israeli public, as I quoted from Rubenstein, who is on the left, including the left, all around. So I think the parameters have to be defined correctly and according to the events.

MR. FREEMAN: Sir.

Q: My name is George Hishme [sp]. I'm a newspaperman.

For the last 10 months the Bush administration has said they cannot intervene in the Israeli – pursue the peace negotiations. Isn't it amazing to this panel that the Bush administration now has intervened, were able to get the two partners to come to truce talks? I mean, isn't there something basically wrong? I mean, are we responsible for this, partially, for sitting back doing nothing about the – leading to these tragic events in Washington and in New York -- to bring this crisis about?

MR. SHAIN: If I take another word.

MR. FREEMAN: Okay.

MR. SHAIN: I think it's not. I think it's a clear case that, again, Arafat is extracting himself from this debacle. If Arafat can call on halting the violence, he could have called halting the violence throughout the year. Many times he was called upon to halt the violence. There was a big question whether he's in control not in control. If he's in control, so just control. This is your responsibility. You are the Palestinian Authority. You cannot play the double game.

I think Arafat had the double whammy here. He played the double game. Now when it was clear to him that very quickly he may be associated with the terrorists, he jumped the wagon, just exactly as he did after the Gulf War. He understood that he aligned himself badly and then he reshaped, because this is the last call. And he was saved by the bell, again. He was saved by the bell with Joschka Fisher's visit because he played it out.

So it's not that the United States could have opposed Arafat. Arafat thought that this is the way it will go. It will internationalize the conflict, it will bring disunity among the Israelis, it will bring the United Nations to impose an Israeli sanction in Durban and so on and so forth. He misread the whole thing, I think. And that's the tragedy of it. In my opinion that's the biggest tragedy of the whole thing.

[Cross talk.]

MR. FREEMAN: I think, in any event, it's very clear, and we are commenting probably from very different perspectives but saying the same thing, that the context has changed. The stakes went up for Israel, for the Palestinian Authority, and the leverage of the United States, thereby, went up. And if you doubt this, look at the editorial in the Washington Post a few days ago attacking Ariel Sharon's refusal to cooperate with President Bush. I think Mr. Sharon got a certain message from that and Mr. Arafat got a certain message, and they responded to the pressure. Whether either of them is sincere remains to be seen. I have my doubts.

Khalil?

MR. JAHSHAN: I just wanted to make a couple of points. You know, the issue of whether Arafat is in control or not, I think what has happened this past week is the whole, kind of, balance of power has shifted as a result of the attack in New York and in Washington. What prompted Arafat to be maybe more courageous and more aggressive and his order look more credible than in the past, is not that Arafat changed. Arafat hasn't changed. I think what has changed is Arafat challenge – that prevented him from making those steps before and make them stick changed. It's the fact the Islamic opposition, and the radical opposition within his own circle of Fatah, they are the ones that are afraid they're going to be targeted now by this international coalition that's coming in. And that emboldened Arafat to take the more convincing and more aggressive stand that he took this week.

It's not that Arafat changed, it's that his opposition has weakened. His opposition has no legitimacy right now, and he took advantage. That's typical Arafat. This is the classic Arafat. He always -- just like a phoenix, he rises from the ashes. And he's done it a million times before. Anybody who has studied Arafat politics, he always benefits from crises.

And this crisis, immediately he noticed that there is a silver lining in this dark cloud. He took advantage of it. His opposition is right now in disarray. They cannot rise up and challenge him now the way they could have done two weeks ago. He was on the run, and he was on the run because Israel weakened him, the bombing that has been taking place over the past 11 months, undermining his own security forces. The same security forces that have been formed, armed, and continue to be asked today to protect Israel's security are under fire by the Israeli army, and yet they are being told, it's your responsibility to protect Israel. How can you protect Israel when you are under fire from Israel?

So we weaken Arafat. We undermine his authority, we undermine his security services, and we say you are not doing your security job. He's done it for a long time before and no Israeli complained before. Where did these weapons come from, the 50,000 weapons that are in Palestinian hands? They came from Israeli and American sources. So as long as he was doing the job for Israel it was okay. Now that he's standing up for himself it's not okay. But Israel cannot have its cake and eat it too. You cannot undermine Palestinian authority and expect Palestinian security agencies to still protect Israel's interest. I mean, these are the people that are being assassinated. They are in charge of different security apparatuses, particularly the ones close to Arafat, the Fatah ones. They're in charge.

But what has happened is not just an Arafat initiative. It is not also just an American pressure on Arafat. There are objective changes that have taken place internationally and that have taken place in the region that allowed for such a decision to be made.

MR. FREEMAN: Everyone is reacting to the changes -- sir, would you like to come to the microphone? Everyone is reacting to the changes. It's far too early to know how far these changes are going to go or what further shifts in the context will happen. I thought Professor Shain, in his presentation, in linking this situation so directly to the global context, was making that point and I agree with him.

Sir.

Q: My name is Karim Haggag. I'm from the Egyptian embassy.

I had a comment for Professor Shain. I actually enjoyed your presentation very much.

MR. SHAIN: Thank you.

Q: There was one point I think I have to take exception with, and that was the notion that Arab politics, or the Arab political debate, has somehow been hijacked by Islamic radicalism. I think that was your view.

Notwithstanding the reality or the fact that this may be a growing perception in Israel, I think it is a misperception. I think it stems from the penchant in Israel to interpret criticism that has been very vocal in the Arab world against Israeli policies as somehow being radical or a manifestation of radical politics, whether they be Islamic politics, Arab politics, or any other type of politics.

I think if you do read the debate closely in the Arab world, in the Arab press, that debate encompasses a very wide range of views. There is a minority view within that that has been expressed in Islamic terms. But I think if you look at the mainstream view within that body of criticism, you will find that it has focused on very serious objections to Israeli policies, number one being the settlements, number two being the penchant on the part of Israel to renegotiate compromises over and over again.

And if you look at the underlying assumption of that type of criticism, it's not so much a criticism of the peace process itself, but a criticism of Israeli policies that undermine the possibility of peace. That is why, I think, you have seen, on the Israeli side, that criticism being more and more vocal. So I think it is a misperception to say that Arab politics has been hijacked by a sort of radical element within Islam.

And like Khalil said, I think that there is a mirror image on the Arab side that does see Israeli politics being hijacked by a radical sentiment, many of which are not in the press or in public opinion as much, but they're now in the government. And Arab commentators have made this point that if you look at members of the Israeli government and their backgrounds, I think that point is clear.

I just wanted your comment on that.

MR. SHAIN: As you describe it, and I appreciate your point, the idea that Islam was hijacked in fact is a quote that was given to me by Khalil Jahshan. [Chuckles.] When I was interviewing Khalil I was doing some work on the Arab Americans in '94, '95. There is a question here, indeed, that there is a question of who represents what, as you said.

Who represents what? There is no doubt in anyone's mind that what is happening is not Islam; you know, anyone's mind. And anyone will tell you the word crusade is ridiculous. Anyone knows that we live alongside the Muslims. We have tremendous respect for anyone, religious-wise. Otherwise it's a completely terrible, terrible scenario of civilization clashes. I don't think so.

But nevertheless, if you look at the last year, at the sermons; if you look at the last year rhetoric, including on Egyptian TV, there was kind of an inflammatory language which was used. And indeed, it creates different reactions among radicals in the Israeli camp. No doubt about it, you're absolutely correct about it. And I think that has to be stopped. I think there was a very important role for Egypt to play, and I think it was misplayed. It was a sense that Mubarak was considering the peace process more important than the peace itself. Mubarak was sheltering Arafat from the beginning in the sense of like, rather than taming, sort of like, that situation. Mubarak himself made it clear that he is not coming to visit Israel throughout the peace processes that have taken place because of, perhaps, internal pressures on Mubarak himself. We will need something different. We will need a genuine approach to this dilemma.

Now, this dilemma can be solved without any love. It can be solved without any affections. It can be solved even with some innate rivalries, as Khalil described them, as something that will be always there. And people will be upset, but yet boundaries will be established. Israel had that with 30 years with Hafez al-Assad. You know, we lived like that, and there were no – the question of the Hezbollah is a different story. So there are levels of reconciliation that can be taken into account. I think the political one is the most critical one. And I agree with you that once you lower the rhetoric, once you lower sort of like the notion of the conflict from – civilizational conflict, which must be lowered, it will help all sides in the state level. In the state level it has to be done.

MR. FREEMAN: I'm actually very surprised by some of the tenor of the discussion here because I, frankly, expected more controversy on the fundamental issue of whether there's been a sort of paradigm shift; a kind of break with the past. And I find all of you, in one way or another, and even Ned who is not here to defend himself anymore, basically saying that things have changed. The continuities that one might have hoped for are not there, and some sort of fresh answer will have to be formulated. We seem to be having a hard time formulating such an answer. Perhaps it's because of the circumstances in which we are meeting.

I would like to thank everyone who came today. And I would like to thank the panel very much for coming. I know there are many other demands on your time. Normally we have a larger crowd, and therefore I'm particularly appreciative of those of you who did come because there are a lot of people in this city at the moment working on rather urgent matters who were unable to come as they normally would. And those of you who took the time to come and participate really have our gratitude and appreciation.

I think, in deference to Senator Feinstein's intended use, or misuse or abuse – [laughter] – of this room, I will now adjourn this meeting with the request that you join me in a round of applause for all of the panelists, including the absent one.

[Applause.]

Thank you very much.

[END OF EVENT.]