AMBASSADOR RABINOVICH: Thank you very much, Mr. Shiner--thank you all. It is indeed a family affair in the sense that it's not only my late father who was very much associated with B'nai B'rith, but also my older daughter, who was active in BBYO--and I have to confess to a temporary membership in, of all places, the Seattle chapter. (Laughter.)

And I leave you with the task of pondering how that happened. (Laughter.)

And it is indeed a delight to be with you.

Let me view the first 15 minutes of this briefing, my opening remarks, as basically a pretext and a preface to the questions that you will have. I'm a great believer in a dialogue and I think that in the give and take that the discussion period has, more comes out of what one has to say. But in order to impose some structure on the event, I will begin with introductory remarks. And I know that you have been briefed on the state of the Middle East negotiations by a senior administration official, and I will try to provide you with an Israeli perspective on these peace talks--or I would say with the Israeli perspective on this peace process, focusing on the previous round that has just concluded and looking forward to the next round which we expect to have in June.

I can think of nothing that will illustrate Israel's peace dilemma presently than the op-ed piece that was published today in The Washington Post. For Israelis and friends of Israel who remember our media problems two or three years ago, with the intifada being covered on television screens and Israeli policy criticized, to say the least, by the major American newspapers, an op- ed piece which gives Israel good marks and says that the onus or the burden is on the other side may have seemed like a great relief a couple of years ago.

But it is indicative of the present situation that we are in a peace process, and a peace process to some extent is a non-zero-sum game. You are in a peace process because you want to promote your own purposes and you want to move forward the interests of your country, of your side, but you are negotiating with negotiating partners, you are trying to effect a transition from net conflict to peacemaking to conflict resolution to a state of coexistence. And therefore you develop a built-in interest in the behavior of the other side. If the other side is not constructive, is not forthcoming, does not engage seriously and wholeheartedly in the negotiations, then the negotiations may not succeed.

And in this respect the fact that the other side was criticized for not being productive last week was gratifying in a sense that we know that we have invested all that we could, and we have demonstrated good will and enlightened self-interest in that respect, and that the other side has not responded in kind, and at least the observers from the sidelines see things for what they are.

But it is less gratifying to find out that the other side has been less than fully productive and that the peace process that took so long, so much care, so much knowledge to put together and to move forward is in danger of being stalled if not of being completely sidetracked if there is no movement in the foreseeable future.

Let me now elaborate on this observation. The peace process that is known as the Madrid process began in October '91; it was put together by the Bush-Baker administration. And it was and has been the only sustained effort to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict from the beginning of that conflict over 45 years ago.

And indeed it was a great achievement that such a peace process could be put together.

But the energy, the process at work, the factors that have governed the convening of the Madrid process sufficed for just that. They did not suffice for a breakthrough. And therefore for several months, from October in '91, to the late summer of 1992, the peace process was conducted, proceeded, but went nowhere.

And the Israeli government, the present Israeli government, when it was formed and took office in late July, made it one of its foremost priorities to move this peace process forward. It's a government that believes that a peace properly defined and properly achieved, that is to say, a peace that provides Israel with security, a peace package that answers our need for peace and coexistence, but does not neglect the basic requirements of our security, is a priority, perhaps the priority of Israel at this time.

It was not the only priority set by this government. This government also set to rectify relations with the United States, to improve the absorption of the new immigrants from the former Soviet Union and Ethiopia that have been coming to the country, and to put order in our social and economic house. It has done very well on restoring relations with the United States. We know the relationship now is very close, very good. There is less of an immigration, but I think most of the problems that have plagued the absorption of immigration have been at least ameliorated, if not solved. And the process of social and economic reform proceeds, not always as swiftly as the government would have wanted, but proceed it does.

In the peace process, the peace process as such, the government decided to move it forward and define a new policy, and gave us, the negotiators, when we arrived here last August, new marching orders on both the Syrian and the Palestinian tracks. I am not mentioning the Jordanian and Lebanese tracks, not because they are not important--important they are, but because it is a universal belief, an agreement, that a breakthrough in these negotiations can only be achieved in the Syrian or in the Palestinian negotiations or in both of them, and that both the Jordanians and the Lebanese are either unwilling or unable to proceed on their own, and that they would wait for the Syrians and the Palestinians to make the first moves.

So we brought new elements into the negotiations with Syria. We have indicated to Syria that as part and parcel of a genuine peace, we would be willing to include the element of withdrawal in the peace package, but that we'll say just that. We will not elaborate on the extent of withdrawal, and we will only elaborate on the extent of withdrawal when the Syrians tell us in very clear terms what they mean by peace, when they indicate to us that the security package that is a sine qua non of peace will be respected by them, that peace with Syria will be part of the quest for a comprehensive settlement in the Middle East, but will have a life of its own, or to use our negotiating jargon, will stand on its own two feet.

And we have also told the Syrians that if they want this peace process to move forward, they need to engage in positive public diplomacy, to indicate both to the Syrian public and to the Israeli public that Syria has crossed the Rubicon, that it wants to bury the hatchet, it wants to make peace, and to do so in a very public way.

To the Palestinians, we came with an autonomy plan and willingness to hold elections and to build a concrete timetable. Last summer, we were quite successful with the Syrians; we were less successful in eliciting a positive response from the Palestinians. The Syrians began to engage us, and we began to draft the joint statement of principles. The Syrian-Israeli negotiation was transformed, became positive, genuine, serious negotiations, and then it reached a certain deadlock because the Syrians then began to insist that we tell them that we recognize Syrian sovereignty over the Golan and that we will agree to a full withdrawal before they elaborate on any of the questions that I have mentioned earlier.

This is not our policy, we have been repeating our position, and in a sense we became locked in this argument last fall, and we still are locked in it today.

With the Palestinians, the problem was that the PLO, the force or the power behind and beyond the Palestinian delegation negotiating here, regretted the terms on which it came to Madrid, and throughout the summer and the fall insisted that the terms be changed, that the PLO be brought directly to the negotiations, and that the negotiations really focus on statehood and not on autonomy. And for that reason, there was no engagement on the Palestinian talks.

Then there was a hiatus of almost five months in negotiations, brought about by two main factors. One was the fundamentalist challenge to the negotiations, which led to the Israeli response through temporary removal, or deportation. And the second and frankly the more important one was the absence of a functioning U.S. administration. The Bush administration had been defeated, the Clinton administration was still not in, and it was only in early February that the Clinton administration was in, had a foreign policy team, had made a decision to deal with the Arab-Israeli process, and was beginning to have its impact on the negotiations felt.

And it took another 10 weeks for all of this to be translated into a resuscitation of the peace talks, on April 27, when the delegations came back for the ninth round of talks in this town.

Progress in this ninth round of talks was limited. The Syrians continued to insist on the demand that I have mentioned earlier. We realized that in a sense we are not negotiating, we are bargaining, and we are bargaining with a very effective bargainer. The Syrian ruler has demonstrated his ability for over 20 years now to outsmoke many partners in negotiations. And we do not plan to be outsmoked. We have patience, we will be there, we know what's essential.

And there is some progress. I just want to cite the interesting interview granted on May 10th--or published on May 10th, that the Syrian president gave to a British journalist. It was published first in Arabic in London, and in a shorter version in The New York Times during the following week, which is the single most important statement by the Syrian president on the peace process, on the whole positive, on the whole very detailed. There is only one very minor problem. To date, as far as we are aware, it was not published in Syria. And we would want to wait and see that this is also being broadcast to the Syrian people.

Going back to something that I said earlier, for us the public diplomacy side of these negotiations is not less important than the substance because for peace to last, for peace to be meaningful, it has to enjoy a broad basis of support in the population. The late President Sadat at the time had demonstrated to all of us that he not only had the vision, but had the support at home to travel, to journey to Jerusalem and to go back. And we need to see some indications of seriousness, not the same, but similar, from Syria.

The Palestinians came here, and we have accompanied the negotiations with a series of goodwill gestures. We have taken one measure that I will not define as a concession, but as a policy decision, to allow Faisal Husseini to come to the negotiations, not as a concession, but because we believe that he is an authentic, genuine leader with standing and support among his own people, and if we want to give this delegation a fighting chance, to give it the standing, the authority, the legitimacy that it needs to have in order to deal with us effectively, we came to the conclusion that the idea raised by the United States to have him invited to the delegation was also good from our point of view, and we agreed to that.

We were hoping that for all the measures that we have taken, the Palestinians will respond by seriously engaging us on the autonomy or the self-governing authority concept, and that we shall be able to have early results in order to demonstrate to people on the ground that progress is being made. To put it in the strongest of terms, we all saw the sad news from the Gaza Strip on television yesterday, so that four persons, four people, two Israelis and two local Palestinians were killed by gunmen traveling in a car, when they were just doing business, buying and selling vegetables in the Gaza Strip.

We also heard reports about Palestinian children being hurt. A stop has to be made to all of this, and a stop can only be made to this, not through repression, but through sending the message to the people that there is a serious negotiation, and that there is hope, that there is a political solution. And if the Palestinian delegation, and those responsible for dictating its moves, do not participate in this message, they are perpetuating violence.

Rhetoric about human rights will not achieve us anything. Progress in the negotiations will. And we very much hope that when we resume, and reconvene here in June, the Syrians will come to negotiate and not to bargain, and the Palestinians will come to engage us in serious discussion.

I want to emphasize, in ending my remarks, that time is of the essence. It's not very politic for a party participating in negotiations to say that time is of the essence. We have all participated in this or that negotiation of sorts, and we know that a demonstration of healthy--a healthy dose of disinterest is good for the end result.

But we do not simply have the time and the luxury of engaging in these histrionics of negotiations.

Time is of the essence because time may be running out in the Middle East, and time may be running out here. You all, practically all live here. You know that the administration has a full agenda of domestic and external issues, and if the administration realizes that the parties in the Middle East--and I underline the parties--not one party. The parties in the Middle East are not about to (inaudible) to achieve progress in the Middle East, it will lose interest. It will continue to deal with the Middle East, but not at the high level that is required for U.S. engagement if progress is to be made.

And if our Arab partners in negotiations really want to make progress, they should engage before it is too late. Thank you very much. (Applause.)

MODERATOR: You should know that we are here at an international board of governors meeting, and we have delegates from four continents who are very much interested in the peace process, and particularly since you are a participant, more than interested in hearing your message.

We now will entertain questions.

Q: Mr. Ambassador, Charlotte and I were in Calcutta in 1966, at the time Bangladesh forced 10 million Hindus to leave that Muslim country.

We heard no United Nations resolution, we heard no front page in the newspaper, but apparently, instead of killing terrorists, instead or imprisoning terrorists, Israel saw fit to deport 400 presumed terrorists and the world condemned the action with great vitriol.

Can you tell us, in your judgment, why this difference of standards in evaluating actions of countries of the world.

AMB. RABINOVICH: Thank you for the question, Jack.

Of course there was a double standard exercised in the case of the Hamas deportees, and of course we unfortunately have been used to double standard in the world treatment of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

We can spend time bemoaning the fact, but to no avail. And we can spend some time in analyzing the fact to some avail.

I think that the difference between the Indian- Bangladeshi example that you mentioned earlier, and let's say our, our conflict, can be summarized under the following headings.

One is that the world is more interested in the Middle East problem in Israel, in us, in our issue than the world is interested in the problem of Bangladesh. I'm saying that as a neutral fact, but a fact it is. And when the world is more interested people also make comments and write editorials. I think on the whole we should appreciate the fact that the world is interested in us.

I think that it would have been difficult for us to cope with indifference. We have coped with persecution and prejudice and double standard, but indifference is something that Jews find very difficult to cope with.

That is one reason. The second reason is that Israel is a Western parliamentary liberal democracy and is judged in the standards set by itself, for itself, in conducting its own political and social life.

And it is not judged by the standards that are applied to Third World Countries. Let's say opinion-makers, pundits, intellectuals, and others who express themselves in public in this country, and other Western democracies, apply to Israel very much the same yardsticks that they apply to themselves.

There were many searching questions asked after the Waco, Texas tragedy, very reminiscent of questions that are addressed to us after a raid that is justified, that in which all the questions have been asked by the people in charge who, who had to make the decision, and yet the raid is made and oftentimes bystanders and innocent civilians end up being wounded or killed. And the criticism emanating from this, directed to us, reminds me of the wave of criticism that you had in this country. That is the second factor at work.

The third is that, unfortunately, Israel is a state, and the Jewish people, as a people, still elicit a negative attitude from a variety of groups. I don't think it's a major factor. I don't think that we should conduct our lives and policies in light of this factor. But it cannot be totally ignored that some critics criticize Israel because they are hostile to Israel. I would not want to rush to a conclusion and I wouldn't want to overstate the case, and there are criticisms of Israel that if not justified, at least are understandable. But at least some of the criticism derives from hostility.

I think these are the three main forces at work that explain why the, why our act of deportation was denounced without any effort to put it in perspective, to relate it to other factors, and the like.

Q: Let me just say how delighted we are, those of us who come from overseas (inaudible) to see you here now.

AMB. RABINOVICH: Thank you.

Q: I have a couple of questions (inaudible) more than one, but number one, from the status of Israel, I'm sure that there is no question to be related to Jerusalem at all, obviously, but I still have a feeling that ultimately your negotiations will eventually find that that will be a very difficult issue to overcome.

Is there anything that you feel, that around the world B'nai B'rith can do in terms of (inaudible) irrelevant, it's going to be an issue to be settled between the parties, and there's nothing that we can do, because certainly the non-Jewish world finds it difficult to understand why Jerusalem means so much more to us than to anybody else.

The second question. If you can comment a little bit on another concern that many of us have which is the potential problem of nuclear missiles in Syria, Iran, and so on. To what extent you can comment on that, thank you.

AMB. RABINOVICH: Thank you. On the question of Jerusalem, of course it will be laid on the table, not by us, and will become an issue, quite early on. Because when one starts dealing with autonomy or self-governing authority and comes to questions of water, land, voting, and the franchise, practical questions relating to Jerusalem immediately come to the fore.

The issue almost came to the fore when we allowed the participating of Faisal Husseini who has a residence in Jerusalem, but also in the West Bank, and for us it was not the Jerusalem issue.

And there were those who thought it was a Jerusalem issue, including the opposition in Israel. Sometimes the interesting dynamic is that the issue becomes an issue because the critics of government policy turn it into one.

But I think finally it became universally accepted that this was not a Jerusalem issue. But there should be no illusions, the issue will come up, it will be difficult, we have a position as you said correctly, we'll defend it, and we shall be able to use any help given to us. It's a political issue, it rests on perception, public opinion, political interests and so forth. Political interests could not perhaps be changed, but perceptions and attitudes could.

You live in a Catholic country, the Vatican has a position on Jerusalem, others can affect other important bodies with opinion on Jerusalem because the day for using every inch and every gram of influence will come, and I'm delighted that you are willing to invest the resources you can muster, and we'll need them.

With regard to nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, the imminent danger for a Middle Eastern country to acquire nuclear arms is now, now lies in Iran. Iran is actively pursuing a nuclear program, and it may have a nuclear device if nothing is done about that, within four or five years, and it will become a very unpleasant moment in the Middle East if this materializes.

Iran also acquires ballistic missiles from North Korea, and it is a very interesting, and a very worrying thought, that the Iranians invested the money necessary to increase the range of the Nodeng (phonetic) missiles from North Korea from 1,000 kilometers to 1,300 kilometers. And one need not be a great strategic thinker to figure out where the extra 300 kilometers are, in what direction.

So this is something that worries us, but incidentally, not just us. Other states in the region, and I think the international system, realize the danger of that, and I don't think we'll be alone in having to contemplate the significance of Iran acquiring both nuclear weapons the missiles necessary for delivering them.

Syria has an impressive array of Scud C missiles, not with nuclear warheads, but apparently with chemical warheads, and when we get to more advanced phases of peacemaking we'll talk to the Syrians directly about that.

But you know, this serves to illustrate the purpose of the peace effort. Iran is not, is not for peace. Iran openly conducts a policy that denies the value of the present peace process and tries to abort it.

Syria is in a peace process and I think it negotiates seriously and wants to make a deal, and if I can think of the benefits of the deal with Syria, the elimination of a potential war in the future between Syria and Israel in which advanced weapons systems like Scud C missiles can be, can be averted, is one of the most important prospective fruits of a deal between Israel and Syria.

It is something to worry about, but also a motive for enhancing the efforts to make a deal with Syria.

Q: I come from Santiago, Chile. My question, Mr. Ambassador is, a couple of months ago, since September I came here, and it looks that the main problem in negotiating with the Palestinians was the internal kind of tug of war between PLO, Hamas, and the Palestinians who live in the territories.

A couple of months after it seems that Palestinians (inaudible) territories are being swallowed by the PLO and the Hamas.

My question is what's your opinion about that issue, and how do you think it will be developed in the (inaudible)?

AMB. RABINOVICH: Thank you. I fully agree with your observation that the fragmentation of the Palestinian community and the fragmentation of the Syrian delegation is one of the major obstacles to making progress in the negotiations. In the case of Syria, we're still fighting, bargaining over the terms, but there is no question as to the effectiveness of the Syrian state and its ability to deliver when the decision is made. This is not the case with the, with the Palestinians.

And indeed both Hamas and the PLO have been trying to dwarf the significance of the people who live in the territories. We think that they should be the cutting edge in the negotiations, and as I indicated earlier, the fact that we agreed to Faisal Husseini's participation in the talks is primarily motivated by the will to have an authentic leader from the West Bank take the lead in the delegation and become our chief partner for the negotiations.

Q: Mr. Ambassador, I'm the token American in this (inaudible) panel of questioners here. (Laughter.)

I'm Joseph Morris from Chicago, USA. I'm chairman of B'nai B'rith's committee on international, governmental and Israel affairs.

Mr. Ambassador, my government, the United States administration, has recently declared itself a full partner, quote, unquote, in the peace process.

Just a couple questions about that. First, what does this mean, what is full partnership, and what can full partnership mean?

Second, we just saw the American administration put on the table a substantive proposal. Is it helpful for this role to be one of putting forward substantive proposals as opposed to facilitating the process in a more procedural sense?

And third, finally, are there other countries, other powers not in the region, that ought to be full partners in this process?

AMB. RABINOVICH: Let me begin with, with your final question, and with a brief, with a brief negative answer.

The United States is not only the sole surviving superpower on the international arena, but is the only party that has a standing with both sides to this conflict, which would enable it to play effectively the role of a full partner. And to put it from a completely partisan Israeli perspective, is the only power that we fully trust in order to put our faith in, and not just permit, but sometimes even ask to play the role of an active full partner.

Now "full partner" is a term that was introduced, or reintroduced into the arena a few weeks ago, on the eve of this round by Secretary Christopher, when he came to the region. It's a term that was current in the late '70s, during the diplomacy that preceded the Camp David accords, and it essentially is a term that was appetizing to the Arab side.

We are interested in direct negotiations. Most of the Arab negotiators with us are really interested in negotiating with the United States, and incidentally, also with us, and therefore a larger U.S. role is normally welcome to the Arab partners.

We take a more, I'd say a more ambiguous view of this, in the sense that we insist on direct negotiations as psychologically and politically the only way to normalize our relationship with the other side to a conflict, but we recognize that without a U.S. role, an Arab-Israeli deal can never be finalized. That even peace with Egypt, with which we are so proud, was effectively achieved in the last round through American mediation. Camp David was an interesting and unusual exercise in American mediation.

And therefore our view of this role of the full partner is, one, we are for it; second, it's been defined by the administration in a way that agrees with us. Thirdly, we will continue to support it as long as the directness of the negotiations is not affected.

I should also say, in conclusion, that this role will continue to evolve and rightly so, and a full partner in April is not a full partner in June because the negotiations proceed, and a somewhat different role is called for.

But given the fact that we have a very open, close relationship with this administration, and we have not had any important disagreement with this administration over strategy or tactics since it took power, we are not in the least worried about the role of a full partner.

Q: I think of us from the United Kingdom have a certain sense of deja vu in this whole question of negotiating a difficult situation, for as you know we have Northern Ireland, and Northern Ireland has a certain number of parallels which I would just like to raise to you.

The difficulty, time and time again, of reaching a final (inaudible) always been upset by the terrorist element affecting the political parties who were negotiating, in our case the provisionals. The provisionals (inaudible) they're being supported by, I'm afraid to say, an Irish, mostly North America. We therefore have a situation quite parallel to that in Hamas (inaudible) the south of Lebanon.

These forces can, in my opinion (inaudible) I think in most people's, effectively undermine real substantive negotiations. I'm therefore asking--it takes two to tango--I'm therefore asking you why an approach is not made to the United Nations to put effective pressure on countries like Iran to make it impossible for them to financially and otherwise support this form of terrorist activity (inaudible) you cannot negotiate with a gun put against your head (inaudible) negotiators on the West Bank, if they think that tomorrow they'll be dead.

AMB. RABINOVICH: Thank you for the question. It could also have been--the example could also have been raised when we were talking about double standards. For some of the British media there are terrorists in Ireland and guerilla fighters in the Middle East, but-- (Laughter.)

Q: (inaudible) (Laughter.)

AMB. RABINOVICH: Right. But in any event, I agree with the analysis that terrorists, particularly supported by states who have all the paraphernalia of a state organization, can undermine a peace process, particularly a fragile peace process, and fragile this peace process will continue to be. I mentioned earlier that it was the fundamentalist challenge to the peace process that led to the deportations and almost derailed this peace process, at least delayed it for some time.

And Iran is one of the major, not the only backer of terrorism in the region. So we agree thus far. I think we, we ma;y have a slight divergence or disagreement on the effectiveness of U.N. policies and sanctions as against states supporting terrorism.

You know, there are sanctions on Libya. There have been sanctions on Libya for a long, long time over the Lockerbie affair, and the two individuals in question have yet to be handed (over). Libya is under the pressure and there are indications that the Libyans feel the heat, but it's been an awfully long time, and the two individuals in question are still there.

And I'm just doubtful that U.N. measures in themselves will, will suffice. The United States exerts pressure on, on Iran. There are sanctions on Iran. The United States will not sell Iran certain type of equipment. But there are other countries in the world who would be delighted to step in and have the economic benefits of selling what the United States will not sell. It's very difficult to enforce international sanctions.

So let me conclude by saying that we agree on the analysis of the problem and we have yet to agree on a solution.

MODERATOR: Can I reserve for myself the last question, please. We have been very involved and interested as an organization in Syria, and with our Syrian Jews. At one time President Assad seemed to agree to let Jews, whoever wanted to leave the country, be able to leave, and then there was an outflow of many. And all of a sudden the gate sort of closed and there's just been a trickle coming out. Could you comment on that, and is that being something that Assad would like to use as a political negotiating chip? And since you're involved with those Syrian negotiations, we would appreciate hearing from you.

AMB. RABINOVICH: Thank you. I will be rather economical in what I say about this. This is an issue that best be dealt with--is best dealt with discretely, and it concerns the fate of thousands of human beings, and I wouldn't want to jeopardize the prospects of any of them to, to move from present circumstances of life to freedom by saying, by saying too much on the record.

I'll just say that this is not an issue that is dealt with in the negotiations. It is--has been dealt with primarily between the U.S. government and the government of Syria. It was effective until last fall. Changes occurred last fall and I would pin my, my expectations on a resolution of the difficulties on U.S. government activity.

MODERATOR: Thank you. (Applause.)