It is still unclear what will be the final composition of Barak’scabinet. One thing, though, is already abundantly clear: The peace effort will be in the handsof retired army generals. Like Yitzhak Rabin before him, Barak does not trust anyone who hasnot lived his life in the army. And that is very worrisome to me. This is not because of someprejudice of mine against officers. On the contrary, I think that as a group, they are superiorto politicians. Men like Ehud Barak, Amnon Lipkin-Shakhak, Matan Vilnai, YitzhakMordechai, Yossi Peled, Ori Or and Danni Yatom most certainly are not inferior in their level,quality and thinking ability to a comparable group of civilian officials and partyfunctionaries. In Europe and in North America the military upper echelon tends to be arightist, conservative and nationalistic group. Our generals, on the other hand, areprimarily in the center, maybe somewhat left-of-center. (Rehabam Ze’evi and Raphael Eytanare exceptions.) On the whole, these are moderate people, people genuinely interested inpeace and who understand its price. Example – Yitzhak Rabin. The real question is: Do theyreally know what peace is? Once, Abu-Mazen told me what had happened in Oslo: The Foreign
Ministry officials and the academicians came to an agreement. In the end, Rabin sent hisofficers. They went over each clause with a fine-tooth comb and in the end changed every one.Security won out and put a stranglehold on peace. The military profession, as any other, hasits own unique pattern of thinking. It is very practical, exact, specific. A military personlearns to think in quantitative concepts: This many divisions, that many troops, that manycannons, that many kilometers, that many hours. Things that can be measured with precision,that can be drawn on a map. (Maybe this is why this profession is so well-suited to the characterof the Sabras, and particularly to that of the Kibbutzniks, who, by and large, have disdain forabstract and theoretical thought, preferring practical, action-oriented thinking.)
Ariel Sharon is a perfect example of this. He doesn’t go anywhere without a pile of maps coveredwith transparent sheets full of colored arrows. Very impressive. In war, there is a clash ofquantifiable manpower and weapons, within measurable territories. The officer trains,specializes and moves up the ranks within this world. But the work of peace is an entirelydifferent world. In Israel’s circumstances, there is a conceptual disproportion. We arerequested to give back conquered territories — territories measured in square kilometers,with strategic and material assets, such as water and land. We, on the other hand, demand fromthe other side things that are not quantifiable: To internalize the willingness topeacefully coexist with us, to accept us as belonging in the region, to welcome our state as areal partner in the overall fabric of the region. Were you to tell an officer to give up 100square kilometers in return for good will, he would laugh at you. Are you nuts? What kind ofnonsense is this? To give something for nothing? When they are ready to give something,they’ll get something in return. And just what do they have to offer us anyway?
A classicexample: Immediately following Oslo, we members of GushShalom, the peace bloc, proposed toRabin that he should immediately free the 5,000 Palestinian “security” prisoners. They areenemy soldiers, and since we have just embarked on the road to peace, all prisoners of war mustbe freed. If we send them back to the 5,000 families scattered throughout the towns andvillages, we would electrify the atmosphere and would create a new spirit. Rabin couldn’tunderstand what we were talking about. Atmosphere? Spirit? Mere words, these were to him.Whereas prisoners are a concrete matter, merchandise to be traded piece by piece at a highprice. And so was lost a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Making peace is complex work, onethat has nothing in common with the mental world of a professional military person. It, ofcourse, also has a security aspectc — but it is only one of many components. If this onecomponent takes over all the others, then peace suffocates from lack of oxygen. Both Egypt and
Jordan have proved that excellent agreements, prepared by officers, can be signed, but realpeace is absent. In order to make a peace that sticks, one must understand the other side, itsinner world, its fears and hopes, creating a solid basis for coexistence. The objective is notto bend its arm as far back as one can, but rather to create a life framework conducive to bothsides wishing to coexist, not for a year or two but for centuries to come. Rabin began tounderstand this only just before his assassination. Forty years ago I proposed the creationof a “White General Staff.” The Khaki General Staff is responsible for waging war, and weshould have a parallel General Staff, also composed of experts, responsible for wagingpeace. Now we see the reverse: the Khaki General Staff has taken over the peace process. I fearthat Barak will accelerate this trend.