Interview: Sharon is a liar and he always stalls peace process - Israeli writer

By Rene Gralla and Peter Orzechowski, Special to Gulf News
Hamburg He is an Israeli but speaks up for peace in Palestine. He has founded a couple of peace organisations and has warned of the escalating militancy in the Middle East.

Recently, he criticised the building of the wall and the policies of the Sharon government. He has received a German peace award (Aachener Friedenspreis 2003). Following are the excerpts of an interview with Israeli author Dr. Reuven Moskovitz.

Gulf News: All of a sudden there seems to be a push in the Middle East peace process. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon announced the removal of all Israeli colonies in the Gaza strip. Has the wolf turned into a sheep?
Reuven Moskovitz: No. Sharon is Israel's king of lies. He is convinced that he can fool the whole world.

You think, Sharon is a liar?
I say it again: Sharon is lying. It's his speciality to start seemingly sensational initiatives and to run a new duck through the village, like we say in Israel. But in reality, he has always stalled peace proposals coming from the US, Europe or from Saudi Arabia.

Sharon promised in an interview with the newspaper Haaretz to give up 17 colonies with 7,500 Israelis in the Gaza Strip within two years.
It will not happen. Even if Sharon starts removing some colonies and relocate them on the West Bank, how could little Gaza be big enough to be the only homeland of the Palestinians?

So you are saying that Sharon is not willing to give up one squaremetre of Palestinian land?
The world has to know: The only chance for peace is, Israeli troops have to withdraw from the entire West Bank and international troops have to be stationed there instead.

Israeli author Uri Avnery believes that Sharon's promise could be the first step to the so called 'Hitnatkut' - the complete separation of Palestinian territory from Israel. Meaning: The Palestinians would keep Gaza and some isolated territories on the West Bank - a total of not more than ten per cent of their original territory. Do you share this opinion?
Okay, let it be 15 per cent of their territory. The whole thing is a joke. There is a straight policy of Israel and that is to shatter all hope for a self rule of the Palestinian people.

And even if Israel starts to withdraw soon, militancy will only come to a halt when Israel leaves the Palestinians at least the territory they are now living in - Gaza plus at least 20 per cent of the West Bank. Otherwise, militancy will never stop, even if they try to root out all militants.

The Sharon government is aiming at a different solution. It is building a wall to separate Israelis and Palestinians.
I am afraid the building of the wall will end up the same way as the building of the Berlin Wall. It is only done to distract people from the real problem which is the Israeli occupation and the humiliation of the Palestinians.

But isn't the building of the wall an act of self-defence? There is hardly a day when there is no attack and no Israeli operation of revenge.
I am no sympathiser of Hamas. But any Israeli mission against Hamas or Islamic Jihad is followed by an attack by their fighters who commit innocent Israelis to death.

So, what is the alternative to violence?
You cannot go to war against militancy. The only remedy for militancy is to create an environment where everybody can live in peace and prosperity. With that you stop the motive and the motivation for militancy.

What could the EU and Germany do to help?
Berlin should demand from Israel to withdraw from the West Bank.

But then everybody in Israel would call the Germans Nazis again and the whole Holocaust trauma would come up again.
You could just say: We expect from Israel to treat its neighbours just as we, the Federal Republic of Germany treat ours.

When you received the peace award in Aachen, you tried to push a new lobby for peace. Why did you especially address Germany?
Germany has been a model to me. After WW II Germany stood for reconciliation, peace, the ability to find just agreements and not to use old prejudice for new solutions.

There are people in Germany who try to re-arrange history in a very positive way. To those people I said: The Israeli government is acting in a criminal, I repeat: criminal way. And this policy is leading straight down into the abyss.

In the last three years of intifada there has grown so much hatred within the hearts of the Palestinian people that it will take 10 to 15 years for it to disappear. This spiral of hatred cannot go on until the big bang.

It cannot be that a civilised world on the begin of the third millennium, that the United Nations would tolerate a government of a small country - Ariel Sharon and his team - which violates the human rights and doesn't care about them at all. I am founding a peace lobby to make an end to that.

Dr Rene Gralla and Peter Orzechowski are freelance journalists based in Hamburg, Germany.