Back to Ambassadorial Speeches - Ambassador Zalman Shoval

CNN Interview with Ambassador Shoval on the Palestinian Deportations
Interviewer: Carl Rochelle December 19, 1992

ROCHELLE: Ambassador Shoval, I'd like to ask you first, what did Israel hope to accomplish by deporting the more than 400 Palestinians into this limbo, if you will, out of Israel, across the border into Lebanon?

ZALMAN SHOVAL, Israeli Ambassador to the U.S.: Not out of Israel, out of the territories. Israel's dilemma is the dilemma of any democratic country. How does it cope with people who want to destroy a democratic society by violence, by subversion, by terrorism, and so on? This is a dilemma which England faces with regard to the IRA, which the United States faced it, sometimes Canada, Germany against the neo-Nazis. Israel wants to isolate the ringleaders, the infrastructure of this fundamentalist terrorist organization, Iranian- financed, by the way, and to isolate them from activities in the territories.

ROCHELLE: But are these 400 people the ringleaders?

AMB. SHOVAL: Yeah, they are probably the infrastructure. They are maybe not the people who throw the grenades or stick the knives into peoples, but they are the political and organizational infrastructure of the Hamas Organization.

ROCHELLE: But the picture that people are seeing around the world is not of terrorists, not of leaders, it is a group of people --

AMB. SHOVAL: How do terrorists look? They look just like anybody else. And you know, the U.N. Security Council yesterday, instead of taking a firm stand against violence, against terrorism, they created further mischief by condemning Israel's response to terrorism and violence.

ROCHELLE: Well, not only the United Nations condemned but also the United States has condemned. You've been roundly criticized around the world for this action.

AMB. SHOVAL: Well, I must say in fairness that the United States, in the statements both of the administration and President-elect Clinton, took a very balanced, even-handed stand, condemning violence. They did not agree with the measures which we resorted to. But I think there's a great deal of understanding of the United Nations -- in the United Nations meetings, the United States delegate and the State Department took a more balanced view.

ROCHELLE: Well now let me ask you, what happens to these people now? They're out there, they have nowhere to go, the Lebanese won't let them in, Israel won't let them back. What happens to them? They can't stay there forever.

AMB. SHOVAL: Well, I don't really know, but I think this is just posturing on the part of the Lebanese government. And I would hope that the Lebanese government -- after all, these are the same people, they are Arab brethren, they will take them in, that they will not create a sort of, well, political ping pong on the heads and the backs of these people. They will take them in. As you know, this is a temporary removal, for less than two years. The deportees have the right to appeal within 60 days. Maybe some of the decisions will be reconsidered. I would say that the Lebanese government has an obligation, to take them in. After all, they are in Lebanon.

ROCHELLE: Well, they also have a chance to make Israel look bad by leaving them out there.

AMB. SHOVAL: Well, I'm sure they will. I mean, they have left Palestinian refugees for 44 years in camps to make Israel look bad. There's very little consideration in the Arab world to the Arab brethren. There's very little consideration for humanitarian considerations of that sort. I hope they will take a more -- well, a wiser, more humane attitude.

ROCHELLE: But can't it backfire on Israel by making Israel look less than compassionate? It's cold out there. The pictures are obvious, it's 20 degrees.

AMB. SHOVAL: You know, police sergeant Toledano [sp?] was not treated compassionately when he was strangled to death. He didn't have a right to appeal. We are not facing a political opposition group. This is not a parliamentary debate. This is an organization, Hamas and Islamic Jihad [sp?], which wants to destroy Israel. One of their people said this morning that they are happy about the Hizbullah -- another fundamentalist organization -- slaughtering Jews. This is an organization which wants to slaughter the people -- the population of Israel. They want to destroy the peace process, and we have to take some very severe measures, which are not always very palatable to us, as well. But as I said, that is the dilemma of a democratic society, fighting against undemocratic elements.

ROCHELLE: Don't you also run the risk, though, of organizing these groups against Israel? I understand they're all against Israel now. But bonding them together and this being a common focal point?

AMB. SHOVAL: Perhaps for a short while. But I think the majority of Palestinians are more moderate, more pragmatic. And hopefully, their delegation here in Washington will convince them that the only way to improve their lot is by talking to Israel, by achieving a peace agreement, a peace -- modus vivandi, let's put it like that, with Israel, and not to encourage terrorism. They have gained nothing by that for the last, I don't know, 40 years. The only way to improve their lot is to come to an agreement with Israel. And therefore, we are very, very strongly in favor of the peace process.

ROCHELLE: Let me ask you, there's a story in today's Los Angeles Times quoting senior Israeli officials and strategic analysts as saying that this deportation could lead to Israel's first face-to-face talks with the Palestinian Liberation Organization as a way to work this out. Is that -- is that likely to happen?

AMB. SHOVAL: I don't think so. I think we talk to the official delegation of the Palestinians in the territories. We do not think that it would be advantageous to talk to a different group of terrorists because, after all, lots of terrorism is still going on, also, by the hands of the Fatah PLO organization.

So I don't think so. I think the Palestinians in the territories are waking up to the reality that only by talking to Israel can there be a modus vivandi, which they would benefit from just as we would. And I hope that the next round of talks -- when it starts again in February, and I hope it will start -- will improve the situation. I mean, we must put an end to violence. The Palestinians must put an end to violence. We can take legal steps, police steps, military steps, but the Palestinian leadership has to tell its own people, 'Look friends, look brothers, look sisters, this has brought you nothing so far. Let's go and talk to the Israelis. The Israelis will be very generous once we reach a conclusion.

ROCHELLE: But many people from the Arab world say the deportation signals the end of the peace talks.

AMB. SHOVAL: I think they're wrong. I think the peace process is irreversible. I think everybody stands to gain from the peace process, mainly the Palestinians. Look, the Arab world has given very, very little consideration for their Palestinian brothers over the last 40 -- perhaps over the last hundred years. What have they done for them? They kept them in camps. They have not -- they have thrown them out of Kuwait, after the Iraq- Kuwaiti war and so on and so forth. We are willing to grant the Palestinians a way to run their own lives, something which they have never had before. But they must talk to us. They must stop violence.

ROCHELLE: But the last session of the talks here in Washington was boycotted, was it not?

AMB. SHOVAL: It wasn't so bad. It wasn't so bad.

ROCHELLE: What do you mean by it wasn't so bad?

AMB. SHOVAL: Well, I will leave aside now the Arab states, Jordan, Syria and so on. With the Palestinians, we had good atmospherics in the room. We exchanged some thoughts and ideas. We were not too far from the possibility of agreeing on a common agenda. Not too far. And I would say that after -- the tempest will cool down in the next six or eight weeks. After the Palestinians will reconsider their situation, we hopefully shall sit down again. Look, the Palestinians, they must understand that they would be the biggest gainers from this peace process coming to fruition. Israel wants peace, Israel needs peace, but for them it's the first chance, perhaps the last chance.

ROCHELLE: Let me just ask you, and I'm asking you to tell me what you think the Palestinians -- but would they read what you're saying the way you do? Would they believe that?

AMB. SHOVAL: Yes, I think they would, and I think the people in the room, in the negotiating room, realize that. But they have a problem with the PLO, among others, who are sitting on their backs. I think by the way that our friends, the Palestinians, the negotiators, are making a mistake when they come back to the territories and instead of saying, as Djerejian, secretary of state Djerejian -- undersecretary -- assistant secretary of state Djerejian said yesterday, 'Look, the glass is filling. Let's not only show the half- empty glass. The glass is filling.' And it is filling for the Palestinians. If they would do that, I mean the delegation, then the people in the territories would say, 'OK, this progress has a chance of achieving something.'

ROCHELLE: Mr. Ambassador, let me just ask you one more time about the persons who have been deported, are there any circumstances under which Israel will take them back?

AMB. SHOVAL: Well, as I said, this is a temporary removal anyway, for up to two years. There is a legal way to appeal that. There is a legal way to appeal the --

ROCHELLE: But you're talking about 90 days down the road. Like now, are there circumstances, if somebody said, 'I'm sorry,' if somebody -- is there any circumstance right now when you'd take them back?

AMB. SHOVAL: I wouldn't know. This is a decision, of course, for the government to take. But my feeling is that everybody must understand that Israel, even reluctantly, had to undertake firm stance. Six Israelis were killed in the last two weeks by the Hamas, the Jihad, Islamic Jihad fundamentalists. By the way, the policeman who was killed was killed in Israel proper. It had nothing to do with the territories. He was killed in Israel when he left his home to go to work.

ROCHELLE: Ambassador Shoval, thank you very much for being with us today. We're out of time.

AMB. SHOVAL: Thank you.