After the Gaza Disengagement: Establishing Defensible Borders for Israel

June 27, 2005

Unedited transcript prepared from a tape recording.

Proceedings:
MR. RUBIN:  This is our panel on "After the Gaza Disengagement, Establishing Defensible Borders for Israel."

Before I go on and introduce the event, I'd like to remind everyone to turn off your cell phones.  This is a televised event and cell phones can be disruptive to speaker and audience alike.

I also need to thank both Suzanne Gershowitz, who helped put this together, and Dan Diker as well, for efforts through more travail than we had expected, and it's good that while this event had been postponed from earlier, everyone is healthy in here today.

My last administrative announcements are that outside, if you haven't picked it up already, you can get a copy of the book and the study which this event is featuring, "Defensible Borders for a Lasting Peace" that has come out of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.  There are also other articles there, one which is in the forthcoming issue just released of Azore by Dan Diker, another article by Newt Gingrich that is in the Middle East Quarterly, which didn't make it into your folders.  They're out at the front desk.  You can get them on your way out, if you haven't already.

At any rate, it's a very important subject we're here to discuss today.  Very timely.  I don't know how many of you saw the Washington Post today.  Page 1, above the fold, was a picture of scuffling relating to the demolition of some old Egyptian buildings which the Israeli government suspected would be or feared would be turned into residences by settler citizens of Israel.  What have you.

President George Bush has inserted himself into a newly active role in the Middle East peace process, made possible in large part by the success of the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, who is no longer funding suicide bombings.

But while many of the studies out there have been talking about demography, talking about what a final settlement or newly established borders might look like on the basis of demography and separating as much as possible the population of Palestinian Arabs and Israeli Arabs and Jews from each other.

What hadn't been discussed is what this means for security, and for that, I am happy to have with us some of the foremost experts on the subject.

With us today and giving presentations will be Dore Gold, the president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.  He was also very well known as Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations, and he served as an advisor to Prime Minister Netanyahu, and as an envoy to Jordan, Egypt, the Palestinian Authority, and the Persian Gulf states.

Also commenting and a key part of the study is Major General Yaakov Amidror, who is the Project Director of the Institute for Contemporary Affairs at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.  He also commanded Israel's National Defense College and headed the Research and Assessment Division of Israeli military intelligence.  I heard him speak this past winter in Hertzolia [ph.] and he is someone that can shake up a room.

He speaks bluntly to the point and addresses issues which many people comment about, but few people have the firsthand knowledge which he does.

I'm also happy to have here Scott Lasensky, who directs Arab-Israeli research and study projects at the United States Institute of Peace.

He will be commenting on the presentation as will our other commentators, General John Foss, who commanded among a very esteemed career the 82nd Airborne Division.  And as Commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, he served as the Commander of the multinational force of observers in the Sinai.

Lastly, our last commentator for today will be Richard Perle, Resident Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.  He has previously served as Chairman of the Defense Policy Review Board, and as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy.  He needs very little introduction.

I will moderate.  What we are going to do is ask our presenters to speak for ten minutes or so, followed by shorter commentaries from our respondents, and then we will open the floor for questions and answers.

With that, and a final reminder to shut off your cell phones, I look forward to beginning.  As you like.  Ambassador Gold?

AMBASSADOR GOLD:  Thank you, Michael. It's a pleasure to be at the American Enterprise Institute, which, looking at it from Israel, is one of the most important fora for thinking about the challenges both Israel and the United States face in the Middle East.

Today in Israel both supporters and opponents of the proposed Gaza disengagement that will occur this summer can be in agreement on one main point:  that the months ahead will be a period of tremendous anguish, concern and uncertainty for the people of Israel as this disengagement is implemented.

But our plan today is to not talk about Gaza disengagement.  We're looking at the day after.  And in doing so, I'd like to point out that there is a widening gap that is opening with respect to the expectations in the international community and among international observers, about what happens in future states after Israel pulls out of Gaza.

On the one hand, we have expectations that are best summarized by the statements of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to the Knesset not long after he presented the Gaza disengagement plan to President Bush, in which Prime Minister Sharon was trying to answer what was the advantage that Israel gained by its unilateral withdrawal.

And in trying to answer that question to members of the Knesset, the Prime Minister made clear that he received a letter from President George W. Bush on April 14, 2004, in which a number of assurances were given to the State of Israel about future stages of the peace process.

Probably one of the most important is on the cover of the booklet that you have seen, and that is the assurance that Israel, at the end of the day, will get defensible borders.  The United States reiterates its steadfast commitment to Israel security, including secure, defensible borders.

Now this assurance of President Bush was not a revolutionary break in the foreign policy of the United States or in U.S.-Israeli relations.  But actually laid at the heart of a consensus that existed for many years among Israeli and American leaders.  I just want to run you through this because many people have either forgotten it or never knew it.

The most important starting point is U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, from November of 1967, that was adopted in the aftermath of the Six Day War.  Many of you may recall there was a withdrawal clause in that resolution which covered the territory that Israel captured in that war, recognizing that Israel had entered those territories in a war of self-defense, and not in a war of aggression.

The Security Council suggested that Israel withdraw its armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict, not from "the" territories or "all the" territories.  And in case you think that that's being picayune legalese, the issue of whether the definite article was in this resolution or the word "all" would appear was not settled by negotiating teams in New York at the U.N. missions, but was the subject of the highest level discussions between then President Lyndon Baines Johnson and the Soviet leader Kosygin, who insisted that the word "all" or the word "the" go into this resolution and Johnson stood firm and said no.

But it didn't just stop at that, at the interpretations of 242.  In the years that followed, we would see that there was a broad consensus of leaders of those who had something to do with the Middle East that made it clear that Israel wasn't going back to the '67 lines, or what's sometimes called the 1949 armistice lines.

And it wasn't just confined to American leaders.  George Brown, the British Foreign Secretary in '67, talking about 242--the proposal said that Israel withdraw from "territories that were occupied" not "the territories" which means that Israel will not withdraw from all the territories.

Joseph Cisco, President Reagan, one of the strongest advocates of Israel's right to defensible borders, at the time when he announced his Reagan Plan, he said "in the pre-'67 borders."  That Israel was barely ten miles wide at its narrowest point.  The bulk of its population was within artillery range of hostile Arab armies.  "I am not going to ask Israel to live that way again."

Not going through everything, but George Shultz said it in the most summary form:  Israel will never negotiate from or return to the 1967 borders.

And this has continued on as a bipartisan position.  I negotiated with the Clinton administration what was called the "Christopher letter" on January 17, 1996.  Again, here the words "defensible borders" is used by Bill Clinton's Secretary of State.

And finally, the contents of the Bush letter of April 14, which talks about defensible borders.  I want to reiterate that in President Bush's letter he speaks about the American assurance to Israel security, to secure defensible borders and to Israel's ability to preserve and strengthen its capability -- American assistance to help Israel deter and defend itself by itself against any threat or possible combination of threats.

In other words, defensible borders are not borders created by U.S. security guarantee, by NATO troops.  They relate to Israel's ability to defend itself by itself.

So going back, President Bush was on very solid ground in terms of the history of U.S. policy and the history of Israeli understandings of U.S. policy in speaking about the fact that Israel had a right to defensible borders, and that it wouldn't go back to the '67 lines.

Now I said we have a problem in how in different parts of the international community different international observers are looking at what happens after disengagement.  Do they agree with President Bush's view that Israel at the end of the day will have defensible borders, or do they have another view?

Well, just to seize an assortment of comments from think tanks and from individuals, if you go to the European Union, we have go to Havea Salana [ph.], who has been the High Representative of the European Union for the Common Foreign Security Policy.  He gave an interview in Der Spiegel at the end of 2004 after the Bush letter.  He said, "Sharon wants to begin withdrawing from the Gaza Strip.  However, he must also pledge that the withdrawal from Gaza is the first stage in a process that will lead to a withdrawal from all the occupied territories."

I don't know if Selana had a copy of 242  on his desk when he gave that interview, but there seems to be a glaring contradiction between what the international community adopted unanimously in November of '67 and the statements of Selana.

Recently the Rand Corporation came out with a very surprising report.  I say "surprising" because I always associated the Rand Corporation with some of the best analysis on security developments worldwide.  And yet in 2005 they came out with a report for how to create a Palestinian state.  And in it, a key comment, the foundational documents noted in the road map for peace, including 242, 338, Arab League peace initiative--all explicitly or implicitly adopt the '67 borders as the borders separating Israel and Palestine.

So certainly it would seem that one of the leading think tanks in the world is looking at a very different view of how things will develop in the future.

I say it's very surprising because the report has all these incredible illustrations of town planning concepts for creating a Palestinian state.  But the issue of Israel's security isn't even mentioned one place in the Rand report.

And I just take a quote from Martin Indek from the Sorbonne Center--only because I think Martin Indek's comment reflects the view of those who were involved in the Clinton administration's diplomacy--who still look back on the experience of the 2000 Camp David summit, and some of the negotiations that went on afterward in Taba, and basically says that they have pretty much a clear idea how these negotiations are supposed to turn out, a Palestinian state to be established on 95 or 97 percent of the West Bank, and anything that Israel retains has to be part of a territorial exchange.

So that, again, we have our expectations built around the Bush letter to Sharon, that Israel at the end of the day will have defensible borders.  Yet there are many other voices in the international community and this is only a small sample of who are saying differently.

I just want to review with you why I think this difference exists.  What's behind this.  What's caused the erosion of what existed in 242 and the solid backing of repeated presidents--of the Democratic Party side and on the Republican Party side--for Israel retaining defensible borders.

One I think has to do with the focus that exists in the last number of years of creating a Palestinian state with no other further commentary.

Of course the notion of creating a Palestinian state has had a kind of popularity in a lot of foreign policy circles because it's thought that that would be the panacea for Middle Eastern stability.  You somehow create the Palestinian state and then the whole Middle East settles down, like a crossword puzzle.  Like a jigsaw puzzle that snaps together.  I mean, this goes back to the times of President Carter and others.

Today it has to do with, I think, an incorrect mythology.  That somehow by somehow creating the Palestinian state you will be able to address one of the chief grievances of radical Islam towards America and the West.  I have long said that al Qaeda was not formed in '48 or '67, but in 1989.  It had absolutely nothing to do with the Arab-Israel conflict.

There are other reasons why this gap exists and who it persists.  We saw in the case of Martin Indek's comment that there is a view that says that the legacy of the Clinton years, of the failed negotiations of Camp David and Taba, somehow have been enshrined, must endure and will be picked up even though it never led to an agreement.

It's almost as though someone says that in sessions that President Reagan offered at Reykjavik can be picked up by Putin and someday thrown in front of President George W. Bush, with all the differences between those two cases.

Nonetheless, when agreements are concluded, and there is a national responsibility of a country when presented with agreements, it's understood that it carries over to a future government.  But negotiating positions that are offered certainly do not.

And I have to say that if I have to look for blame of why those positions were eroded and why the position for defensible borders was not always maintained, I have to say Israel has its own responsibility.  And I have to admit it to all of you.

And it's not, this is really government--the previous Israeli government--it's all Israeli government.  There has been an asymmetry in the way Israel has made its presentation over the last decade to the world.  If you ask most Palestinians, what do you want from the peace process, they would say a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.  Very defined goal.

Most Israelis, if you ask the same question, would say what do we want from the peace process?  Peace!  Therefore one side had a defined goal, one side had an abstract goal, and the whole negotiating process went in the direction of the side with the defined goal.

To conclude.  I think that for the future, particularly in light of the strategic realities that General Amidror will discuss, it is absolutely critical that Israel's requirements for defensible borders be placed on the diplomatic agenda equally to the Palestinian demand for a Palestinian state so that a fair individual looking for a fair solution to the Arab-Israel conflict will say, Palestinians, they are demanding a Palestinian state.  Israel, it's demanding defensible borders.

Ultimately, I think there is another reason why this is critical.  I think in our internal discourse about the Middle East, there is a tendency to look at the situation between Israel and the Palestinians in extreme terms.  People from, let's say, the extreme right in Israel might see things always in catastrophic terms.  That the situation between Israel and the Palestinians is on the verge of an explosion.  Or the worst possible military scenarios could occur.

People on the left in Israel tend to see things in much more rose-colored glasses and anticipate that once an agreement is made, no matter what the line of withdrawal is, everyone will adhere to their commitments.

The fact of the matter is, reality is far more complex.  I say this as someone who has been involved in negotiations.  You will not get full Palestinian compliance with future agreements.  That's been our experience.

And things may not always be so catastrophic.  But in order to make diplomacy workable, it has to--in order to have diplomacy advanced, diplomacy has to take into account murky situations where compliance is partial, where illegal weaponry is smuggled in, and yet Israel can defend itself.

And for that reason, in order to make a negotiating process work in the future, in order to have a viable negotiating process that leads to a viable peace, Israel will need defensible borders; will need an ability to defend itself in light of the uncertainties that it is likely to face.

Thank you.

[Applause.]

MR. RUBIN:  Thank you, Ambassador Gold.  General Amidror?

GENERAL AMIDROR:  I'll stay here because behind the corner there are some people that you cannot see from the podium.  So, with your permission, I'll stay here.

I have to apologize.  I was not raised in the United States of America, and my English is not as good as the Ambassador's.

I think that it is very important to define for ourselves what does it mean, "defensible borders" because at the end of the day, we the Israelis and you the Americans will think that the security of Israel is important for stability in the Middle East, we have to be sure that Israel is in a position to defend itself.

And in a way it's a very technical, professional question.  A professional question that we should bring to the experts.  And the experts will say, what should be the line that should be drawn in this complicated situation.  There is an answer.

In '67 there were a group of officers nominated by the Pentagon, and they gave a solution.  What should be from the purely professional point of view.  And they said no connection to politics.  And they draw a line, and this line is very strict.  It is connected not only to the geography of the Middle East, to the State of Israel, but also to the topography of the State of Israel.

And the fact that the West Bank, the Judea and Samaria, are higher than the strategic heart of the State of Israel, which is near the Mediterranean.  If it is purely professional, it is very clear.

The problem is that we know that everything is more complicated than the technical question of the military solution.  For example, people are saying okay, maybe if you come to a military school and you put the question, this is the answer.

But at the end of the day, now technology changed the whole atmosphere, and maybe you can do many things with technology that you couldn't do in the old days of the classical wars.

And the answer is that it is yes and no.  It is true that by technology we can achieve many things that you couldn't achieve in the past.  But at the same time, if you lose the ground, if you lose the high ground, your capability to defend is--no question, it's not as good as when you have the high ground.

You learn in Iraq what we learned in Janeen--that when you have to deal with insurgency, technology is not the answer.  You have to be on the ground and control the ground before you are going into technology.  And without being there defending your strategic assets, without having a buffer between you and the targets, and without controlling the infiltration of people and munitions into the area, nothing will help you.

You can be the United States of America, with superior technology, if you don't have the control on the ground and you have not isolated the area from infiltration, you will not win any way against insurgency.

So technology is part of the answer.  It cannot be the answer.

Okay, people say, but politically it's not a problem anymore.  We have an agreement with Jordan, we have an agreement with Egypt, the Americans are in Iraq, so what are you afraid of?

And the answer is that you are not building your national security and your ability to defend yourself in the present situation.  And nobody in this room can guarantee us what will be at the end in Iraq.  Will it be a Shiite country hostile to Israel?  Or a democratic country, with very good relations with Israel?  What will be under the umbrella of the Iranians in this area if they will have nuclear capability?  Will the Iraqis feel that they are more connected to Iran than to the State of Israel?  What will happen in the next 20 years in Egypt?  Can anybody exclude the possibility that Egypt will be under the influence of radical Islam within 20 years?  Or what will happen in Jordan after having a Palestinian state?  What will be the relationship between the two countries?  Somebody can exclude the possibility that Jordan will be a Palestinian state and we will face a Palestinian threat which begins in Iraq and ends in Jerusalem?  Or in Kalquilia?

So when you build your ability to defend a state like Israel, in a unique situation, I think it's one of the few countries around the world which will not have a second chance.  We cannot take any responsibility for being in a situation in which Israel is going to lose a war.

Because unlike France in the Second World War, or even Kuwait in the nineties, Israel will not have a second chance.  So when it is coming to building a system which ensures that in the future Israel will be in a position to defend itself, we cannot build it on optimistic scenarios of the future.  We must take into consideration some more realistic or pessimistic scenarios about the future.

And at the end, nobody is ready to pay the insurance that all these scenarios will not happen.  When it is coming, think about yourself, are you ready to pay a thousand dollars for insurance that it will not happen?  Will you be ready to risk a thousand dollars promising us that Egypt will not be under radical Islamic influence, or Jordan will not be a Palestinian state, or Iraq will not be a Shiite country, hostile to Israel?

Nobody is ready to risk a thousand dollars.  I think that Israel should not risk its ability to defend itself based on these optimistic scenarios.  I hope and I pray that these optimistic scenarios will be in the future, but I am not sure that is in reality what will happen.

So, people are saying, you know what?  Maybe you are right.  Technology is not THE solution.  And maybe there are some very bad scenarios in the future, but anyhow Israel is a very strong country, and always can use a preemptive strike to defend itself.  And if worst comes to worst, you will reconquer the West Bank.

We learned on the pathway, that only after more than a thousand Israelis, who had been killed inside Israel, we recaptured Janeen.  And only then reduced the ability of the other side to attack and to kill Israelis.  And there was not any sovereign state on the other side.  It was only something which is very amorphic.

And we know that when it is coming to political decisions, we learned it before the Yom Kippur War in '73, when the government, when they have a very clear message that war is coming behind, within a few hours, the decision-makers could not make a decision about a preemptive strike.  Because when it is coming to a political decisions connected to the international community and so on and so forth, you cannot build your security on the assumption that this decision will be taken in time.

So at the end of the day, what we have to say to ourselves, that we must build a system that at the end will give Israel the ability to defend itself.  To defend itself from three kinds of threats.  One is the classical war, that nobody can assure us will not occur in the Middle East in the future.  Today very remote.  But in the future, who knows?  Who knows what will emerge from Syria?  What will happen in Iraq?  What will be -- who will control the big army, the big military forces of Egypt in the future?

The second threat is the missile threat.  All the countries around Jordan, all of them have a huge store of missiles from Hezbollahs to the Syrians to the Egyptians, all of them -- and of course the Iranians -- and people are saying but for missiles, what does it mean?  What is the matter?  What is the line?  The missiles are from the atmosphere.  Don't connect it to the ground.  You are right; the line is less important.  But the space behind the line is very important.  Because if you cannot spread your infrastructure, you cannot have the ability ensuring that you have the capability for the second strike.  If you cannot be sure that you can defend your infrastructure, if such an attack will occur, you will lose your ability to defend yourself.

And at the end of the day, redundancy is the name of the game when it is coming to missiles.  And if Israel is going to give up the whole area of the West Bank, all its infrastructure will be concentrated in a very, very limited area, and will lose its ability for having any redundancy for the second strike.

And the third one is terrorism.  And you know we are now facing a new phenomenon in the Middle East.  Just yesterday I saw that the CIA leaked--I don't know if the CIA leaked it out-but it was leaked from the CIA that they believe that in the future, all those who got training and experience in Iraq will go to other places.  That's the phenomenon that we face after Afghanistan.  So we are going to face terrorist threats for the next decade.

The only chance for Israel--and that was one of the great successes for the idea--fighting terrorism in the West Bank, is to isolate the area.   If I can give advice to anyone who is facing insurgency, the first tool is to isolate the area.  You cannot do it without being in the Jordan Valley.  Imagine yourself with all these munitions which came into Gaza, which came through Jordan into the West Bank.  What will happen to the infrastructure of the State of Israel around Tel Aviv?  The only way to defend--even if you have a fence--is by having a buffer zone before the fence and after the fence.  So you have enough time to catch the terrorists before they are crossing the fence or after they are crossing the fence.

The fence now is almost on the green line.  It's around 700 meters, that's all.  This is the buffer that we have.  If we will not control some areas in the West Bank, we will lose our ability to defend the State of Israel not only in a classical war but also in a terrorist war which waged against us in the last four years.

We have to face it in the future if the whole situation in the Middle East will not be changed.

And, you know, in a way it's an interim need.  Because in the future, if you will succeed to change the Middle East, the whole Middle East will look like North America, or like Western Europe.  Maybe all these needs will be diminished.

But until then, we have to understand that Israel in its unique position with these asymmetries in geography, in demography, in culture, should not be in a position that Israel cannot defend itself.  We will not have a second chance so we cannot take the risk.  And for that we have to have defensible borders.

People are talking about many elements of the future agreements, demography, history, whatever, so on and so forth.  We have to put on the table to bring into the diplomatic vocabulary the need of Israel to have defensible borders.  Where and how it connected to the whole nature of the agreement.  But we must be sure and we must make all the effort that in the future in the agreement we will have this element inside the agreement between us and our neighbors.

No question that we have to convince the Israelis that it is needed, and Americans that is it needed.  Only if the Israelis understand it and the Americans back it, we will have it in the future.

Thank you.

[Applause.]

MR. RUBIN:  Scott Lasensky can comment on,  from an American perspective, some of the politics and policies as they relate from what you heard in the speeches and read in the study.

MR. LASENSKY:  Thank you, Michael Rubin.  And I want to thank the American Enterprise Institute for having me.  General Amidror, Ambassador Gold, General Foss, and Mr. Perle.

I have been told that the American Enterprise Institute casts a considerable shadow in this town, in Washington and in this neighborhood.  And I'm here to attest that in fact that it does, since I work on the third floor, right across the street, and the shadow is a considerable one.  My hours of sunlight are often limited, simply because of the presence of this institution.

[Laughter.]

MR. LASENSKY:  On a serious note, I want to also commend Ambassador Gold on the work of the JCPA.  I find myself, maybe because I don't have hobbies, I spend hours, sometimes literally, on their web site.  The JCPA is a pioneer in, I think, creating a marketplace of ideas in Israel.  They need to be commended for that.  Israel needs more institutions like the JCPA.  In fact, the Middle East needs more of an ideas industry, I think, the way that we have one here, if I could be kind of self-centered for just a moment.

I am going to mention--organize my comments around three subjects.  One, I'll say something about the role of outside parties.  Make a few specific comments on the report and offer a couple of recommendations.

In terms of the role of outside parties, let me just talk briefly about what I feel are the positive contributions outside parties can make to helping Israel achieve defensible borders.  I'll say something about the negative roles and talk briefly about why outside parties will play a much more central role in the West Bank than in Sinai or in Golan or in other arenas.

On the positive side, I think outside parties, particularly the United States, can play a tremendous role in helping to broker security exchanges between Israel and some of its neighbors.  Here I walked in the room past a very looming portrait of President Ford.  It was Nixon, Kissinger and Ford, they came up with this essential, this core formula for U.S. peace building, which is to provide to Israel security goods that it could not obtain from its neighbors, and at times vice versa.

It's this precedent of a security exchange of the U.S. as an outside party stepping in and helping to create a formula for a sustainable peace that I think is a laudable one and one that can be applied with some very important caveats on the West Bank.

A second positive role that outside parties can play, and again here my comments are mainly focused on the United States, is that we can play in role in terms of what I call defensible restraint.  It's not my opinion, but plenty of other people in Washington, and particularly in Israel, will tell you that the United States, the Bush administration, has had an effect.  I'll just take one example.

On the route of Israel's separation barrier, and I think in a way that will be ultimately more positive for Israel's own security, but also for a settlement of the conflict, and there I point to again what I call defensible restraint.

Now obviously there are negative roles that third parties can play and the report focus squarely on these.  In particular, if outside parties play a role, and then are impotent in the face of aggression--the United Nations force in the Sinai decades ago, or United Nations operations in Lebanon more recently, clearly that's an arena where outside parties will play a negative role.

I don't want to spend too much time talking about why I think outside third parties, the U.S. and others, are going to play a much more essential role.  Maybe we can get into it in the Q&A, but a lot of it has to do with scale.

Unlike in Sinai, the other arena, our initiation in the Arab-Israeli peacemaking, there is no edge, as I like to say, in the territory as with Israel and the West Bank.  There is no edge.  You have overlapping conceptions of homeland and of heartland.  And in my calculation, this is only going to lead, when we get to a settlement, to third parties playing a much more central role.

Let me make a few specific comments about the report.  I'll make four.

One is I think it could go a bit further in capturing the richness of the debate in Israel over defensible borders.  I point to bodies like the Council on Peace and Security, an NGO in Israel which has provided briefs, I understand, friends of the court briefs in Israeli Supreme Court.

But there is a larger sense of what I call the new security debate in Israel, which posits demography as a much more central factor in coming up with equations for Israel's defensible borders.

Now I understand the report and the authors are very clear in saying this.  The report was not meant to deal with this issue of demography or even settlements and what their future status would be.  But I think it is important, as you think about defensible borders, I know as Israelis do, and certainly as American policy specialists do, we need to think about it.  We need to think about this new security debate.

Secondly, I would put forward that Israel's footprint in the West Bank--it's important to note that it's both security minded but it also has national elements.  The report again could go a bit further, I think, in trying to get at the interaction, which is a very dynamic one, between some Israeli actions and aspects, certainly not the entire threat, but aspects of the threat that it faces.  We can get into more if there is time.

The third, I'll get even more specific here.  On some of the points in the report on Jordan.  I'll point out a couple of issues.  On some of these, I'll admit I haven't resolved in my own thinking, but they require more attention and more consideration.

First, on Jordan, there is an element in the report of what I call the stability/governance tradeoff.  Or the security/governance tradeoff, which was very much a part of Israeli foreign policy in the early years, probably beginning with Rabin, and the first Israeli attempts to negotiate peace with Egypt.  But it certainly was a core element of the American policy towards the region and the Arab-Israeli realm.  It's a tradeoff between stability and governance in the region.

The U.S. has fundamentally reassessed this as a core element of our policy, and I think Israelis have as well.  In fact, I remember it wasn't so many years ago Prime Minister Netanyahu spoke here before a joint session of Congress and said the only--I'm paraphrasing--but an enduring Arab-Israeli peace will only come with democratic change in Israel's neighborhood on Israel's borders.

So in advocating for--how shall I put it--the preservation of a certain government in Jordan or a certain ruling elite--the Hashemites in Jordan--I think we have to also think in terms of a balance between these interests.  So, that's kind of one element.

But a second one is that I think even in Jordan or at least if you take states views from Jordan, the ruling elite there, the King in particular, seems to reflect an evolving attitude about the West Bank and about the future prospects of a Palestinian state.  And that maybe Jordanians don't--and this was always an implicit element of Jordanian thinking--but their need and their requirement for an Israeli buffer in the West Bank are receding.  And at least on the surface we hear Jordanian leaders saying that in fact to preserve their own hold on power, they need the emergence of a viable Palestinian state on the West Bank border.

Let me say just one last comment about the specifics in the report. Towards the end there is a discussion about the Bush assurances, particularly the April exchange of letters and statements since then, as well as the Clinton parameters from late December-early January 2001, which are off the table, or no longer U.S. policy.  That's a whole other discussion to talk about, how American leaders put forward positions, particularly in the Arab-Israeli realm.  The whole notion of what it means for an American president to put an idea forward is undermined from the get-go by saying well, you know, it has a time limit and it might expire.

But anyway, I think there is a way to interpret the Bush assurances in a way that is not mutually exclusive with the Clinton parameters on settlements, on land swaps, on Jerusalem, on a whole range of issues.  It all comes down, I guess, to the interpretations of the issues that both of these packages of ideas are silent on.  So I'll just put that on the table.  I don't see these sets of ideas as exclusive.

Let me just put forward a couple of recommendations, ideas, suggestions.

One aspect of trying to find the magic formula that helps Israeli achieve defensible borders and helps the United States facilitate that is the U.S. guarantee for Israel's qualitative and military edge.  And I think General Amidror in his comments on the balance between technological innovation but also the traditional realities of territory would agree with me.

So it's important that the United States helps Israel maintain its qualitative military edge.  Does this undermine Israel's traditional posture of self-reliance as kind of a core foundational idea in Israeli defense planning and national defense planning, which is discussed in the report?  It may.  I won't touch on that.  Israel's qualitative military edge needs to be maintained.

Secondly, I would prefer that the United States--and here I'll freely admit I don't have the answers today--but the U.S. needs to think much harder about parameters for intervention on the ground that fall somewhere between tripwires and trusteeship.

I think the notion that has been debated for some time in Washington that the U.S. could go in and perhaps establish a new trusteeship in the West Bank and Gaza, or that other international actors could, is a wrongheaded one.  But because of the proximity and because of the scale, because of all the unique elements of this arena--and here our discussion today is Israel and the West Bank--we have to get somewhere beyond tripwires, which aren't adequate.

And last, I would put forward the counterintuitive or counter-convention idea, which is that the United States would be smart to continue to provide Israel with additional security, but particularly economic and political incentives, as it takes steps, the forward steps like Gaza disengagement, steps like the wall even.

I hear a response sometimes when you put an idea like that forward, why should we--let's say in the context of Gaza disengagement--why should the United States subsidize an action that Israel takes that it never should have taken in the first place?  Well, for those of us who are practical-minded, and I think who are consequentionalists, the idea if the U.S. can continue to draw on its reserve of influence, sometimes if it takes positive inducements to do this, well then it's money well spent.

So let me end on that point and return back to Michael.

[Applause.]

MR. RUBIN:  Thank you, Scott.  General Foss, if you have any thoughts about the military angle for this presentation.

GENERAL FOSS:  Yes, let me make a few comments about that because I enjoyed the General's and I enjoyed your comments very much.

And I think you had an opportunity to look at the map.  And to see what the pre-'67 borders actually were.  What a great impact that would have.

As a soldier I would tell you that the pre-'67 borders are not defensible in the long run for Israel.  They absolutely cannot live with those borders with those distances, and especially the most important one is right there along where the population is on the coast, and you're running distances of ten miles or so.  There are other parts that are absolutely important, too.

So the soldier would then go in as he normally does and say, this is what I would like to have as defensible borders.  And I have had the opportunity go around Israel quite a bit and been up in the Golan Heights, in the West Bank and had the opportunity to command forces--visited all the outposts on the Sinai.  And clearly I would say the Golan Heights, as the JCS said back in '67, the Jordan Valley and to remove the problem that you see right there, on the West Bank that's going right toward the population of the major part of the country.

That would be what I would lay on the line there, saying this is what we have to do.  Now you have to remember along the southern border we have the MFO, in which the U.S. forces are a major part of, and probably the total contributor to, as far as maintaining the agreement between Egypt and Israel.

We have had forces there since 1982.  The first battalion of the 82nd Airborne Division went in there in 1982.  That's 23 years.  And that's a long time.  So, given all that, the politicians will very well come back and say, you're not going to get all that.  You're going to have to make adjustments.  And you're going to have to make accommodations in order to fit, because we all know through history that if the country that borders you is totally unsatisfied with the border that has been chosen between them and you, that in the long term it's going to run into conflict.  Whether that's a matter of a couple of months or a couple of years, or even longer.

And as we have seen in Yugoslavia, a country that was a country for 65-70 years, broke apart.  Or Czechoslovakia came apart.  Because the internal conflicts were too great for them to stay as they were before.  Now Czechoslovakia was peaceful, but Yugoslavia is not peaceful and we have American forces there in Yugoslavia right now, the former Yugoslavia.

So given all that, you then have to start looking at what can I do, as the General said, what weapons can I use, what kind of measures can I use, what intelligence can I use.

And clearly you cannot base a border for a long term role of a nation on the weapons that can be shot against it, because we know the ranges are increasing on weapons and missiles every year, although not at the rate that they did during the Cold War.  The introduction of new technology is not at the rate that we had during the Cold War.

The accuracy is improving considerably and therefore as we saw during the Gulf War, there were parts of Israel that were under attack by the scuds from the Iraqis. And primarily Tel Aviv.  That vulnerability was there 14 years ago.

The other one clearly there for the import of Tel Aviv

[End Tape 1, Side A, begin Side B.]

GENERAL FOSS:  --the border around, how far away can I get from weapons, because that's not going to be it.  You then have to go into how are we going to counter the weapons and that's where the technology role that the United States will clearly have with Israel if we wanted to support the borders that they choose.  Because we are not going to choose those borders.  But Israel will have to choose those borders, and that will be a responsibility that we clearly take on, that we will have to go ahead and provide them with the capability to counter those weapons.  The technology, anyway.

And I think the third point, with my experience with the MFO and what has gone on since then, is that it would be very difficult for the American public to pick up another responsibility of putting forces in the Middle East.

The MFO is essentially a barren area.  I had the opportunity to fly other there.  I had the opportunity to drop in on most of the outposts we maintain.  There was one outpost in a deep valley that had a break in the valley that could have been a potential invasion route from Egypt into Israel. And our soldiers spent 20 days at a time out there, and then 20 days back at [inaudible] Sharmalsha [ph.].

So, as I talked to a young sergeant who was there all by himself with him eight men, one designated cook who was an infantryman who learned how to cook, if he didn't, he got changed out in a hurry!  And one dedicated infantryman who was also a medic.  And he had a radio.

I said, what's going on?  They were then in about the 18th day of their tour.  And they said, well, sir, down this valley here about a week and a half ago came a camel and he went down that route there.  Then down this route here came a Datsun pickup, that was about five days ago, and he went out that way.

So there is not a great population out there.  The areas we are talking about in the future, whether it be the Golan Heights, whether it be the Jordan Valley or anyplace else, you are going to find that American soldiers would be right in the middle of a large population of people who are not necessarily friendly to Americans, certainly after Iraq.

I think as you look at these considerations there I agree that what we have now is a problem that you cannot live with--Israel cannot live with--in the long term.

Somewhere between what the military would like and what has to happen, there's going to be a difference.  And that's where we have to begin to examine our responsibility towards helping Israel to make up that difference.

[Applause.]

MR. RUBIN:  Thank you very much, General. And before we go on to questions and answers, our final comments from Richard Perle.

MR. PERLE:  Thank you, Michael.  Let me say first that I think this is an important piece of work, an important reminder of an issue that has been an essential issue from the beginning, but an issue that, as Dore observed, was from time to time obscured.

I recall the beginning of the obscuring of this important issue, when Menachem Begin was elected Prime Minister of Israel.  And I recall very well his first visit to Washington.  He was, among other things, a guest in the Senate, and I was present when he met with a group of senators, and brief them on the situation in Israel.

He talked at great length about the history of the Israel and Judea and Samaria, and I have to tell you that the terms "Judea" and "Samaria" were new to most of the senators in the room.  They were well accustomed to hearing about the West Bank.  But along came a prime minister who talked in quite different terms.

And Begin went on at some length about the history of Judea and Samaria and the relationship of the Jewish people to that territory.  And about 20 minutes into his remarks, my boss, Scoop Jackson, leaned over to me and said, "He's losing the senators.  Go to the office and get a map."

I was a young staffer.  I ran back to our offices and got a map of Israel and the West Bank.  I brought it into the room and Scoop said, "Mr. Prime Minister, could I make a point?"  And he brought the map out.  And the point he sought to make was that Israel on the armistice lines was indefensible.  It simply lacked defensible borders, a point that Begin did not mention in the whole of his presentation.

And every one of the other senators in the room understood what Scoop was talking about and few of them understood what Begin was talking about.  And for the 20-plus years since there has been far too little discussion of the physical realities of the State of Israel in relation to those who would destroy it.

The map tells the story, as our two generals have indicated.  I think if you drew on that map the arcs showing the coverage of 155 millimeter artillery and you placed those artillery pieces on those borders, you would find that most of the population of Israel is within artillery range, 155 millimeter artillery range.

This is a threat that no country relying on its own defense could begin to contemplate.

Another glimpse of the history.  In 1970, on the night of August 13-August 14, the Egyptians in violation of an understanding moved surface-to-air missiles into a zone along the Suez Canal, which they had agreed they would not do.

The Israelis immediately reported signs of the movement of these antiaircraft missiles and Secretary of Defense Mel Laird was responsible for responding to these reports.  It took him 12 days to conclude that the missiles had in fact been moved.  It took him 12 days because it was monstrously inconvenient to recognize that the Egyptians violated their understanding on the day it went into effect.  Within hours.  By the way, these missiles were manned by Soviet forces as well as Egyptians.

I make the point because almost any settlement one can imagine would put restrictions on the deployment of artillery in the West Bank.  But so did the agreement of the 13th of August 1970 put restrictions on the movement of surface-to-air missiles in the Suez Canal zone.  That was violated and it is not unreasonable to expect that any arms control undertaking with respect to the territory of what will become a Palestinian state may be violated as well.

It is much too easy to say, well, if they did that, it would be war.  And that's precisely the point.  When you are faced with the prospect of war because there is a violation of an agreement, you begin facing the prospect of the very thing that the agreement was intended to avoid.  And the tendency is not to go to war, it's to figure out ways to cope with the violation.

So it would not be difficult to imagine a settlement on indefensible borders that would be eroded by violations of restrictions on the movement of weaponry into that area, to which there would be no instantaneous response and where the situation could and almost certainly would deteriorate over time.

All of the speakers this morning have put an emphasis on the importance of Israel defending itself.  And I agree with that and believe that it is fundamentally in the interests of the United States that we not bear responsibility for the defense of Israel.  And therefore, Israel has to be able to defend itself and that means borders that can be defended.

If you look at the size of the Israeli Army that would be required on those borders with no time to mobilize, it is an army of a size that Israel cannot sustain over the long term.  It takes, as I think the report observes, 48 hours to mobilize the Army fully.  Where do you find those 48 hours?

Geography is important, and the concept of defensible borders has been at the very heart of a potential solution between Israel and the Palestinians from the beginning, from the earliest U.N. resolutions.  It's a shame that we lost sight of it for so long in a period in which the focus was shifted to other issues.

So I'm very pleased that the authors of the report have brought us back to a fundamental reality.

Last point.  Scott talked a bit about outside parties, about U.S. guarantees, U.S. promises, the statements and suggestions of previous presidents.  I hope the day never comes when this country relies for its defense on the promises of third parties.  I don't know anyone in this room who would wish to be in that situation. It seems to me not unreasonable to suggest that we should not propose to our friends that they accept a situation that we would never accept.  We have to defend ourselves.  We have to rely on our capacity to defend ourselves.  And to suggest to others that they rely on something other than their own capacities seems to me a double standard of a potentially lethal nature.

[Applause.]

MR. RUBIN:  Thank you, Richard.  Earlier this month, I actually very quickly visited the Gaza Strip, and when I was flying into Ben Gurion Airport, it's amazing now looking down when you consider the security implications.  The one point I would just like to make is that oftentimes sitting inside an embassy or sitting in a diplomatic corridor or such, it's easy to forget the military implications, especially when in our society nowadays, there is a growing gap between those who have experience with the military and those who don't.  I saw this firsthand with regard to Iraq and the Fallujah siege when the Coalition Provisional Authority was making snap decision which would have definite impact on the group with regard to the siege of Fallujah without having extensive military input in making some of those decisions on a political level.

And the last point I make before going to questions would be, oftentimes with regard to this debate in the newspapers and cocktail discussions and so forth, we hear a lot of conventional wisdom, but while conventional wisdom may be conventional, it's not often wise nor accurate.

And in this case, I very much want to thank all our guests for having addressed the issues specifically and precisely because these are issues which may not be on the front pages of the newspapers, but which unilateral disengagement or any other form of peace agreement or movement in the negotiations are going to have to take into account because facts by nature of being facts refuse to be papered over.

With that, I'm going to turn over to questions and answers.  I'm going to ask each of you to identify yourself and to ask a question rather than just comment and I would prefer so that we can get as many questions in as possible if you would address your question to specific panelists.

With that, I'll start all the way in the back, in the back corner before I forget the back corner.  Also, please wait for the microphone.

MR. FRIEDMAN:  Hi. My name is Alan Friedman [ph.].  My question is directed to Scott Lasensky.  You--and I think maybe you or another panelist may have mentioned a divergence between security requirements and demography and demographic requirements.  But aren't most of the Palestinians, about 95 percent or plus, living in areas--in what were Area A and Area B when Israel--under the previous Israeli withdrawals?  And isn't that less than 40 percent of the land?  So aren't the security and demographic requirements not necessarily in so much conflict if only a tiny minority of Palestinians lives in over 50 percent of the area in question?

MR. RUBIN:  Thank you.  Scott, would you like to take that?

MR. LASENSKY:  Yes.  Very brief answer.  I think what it comes down to--it's a terrific question, and your facts are correct.  What it comes down to is, I think, is what do notions like viability that the President many times has talked about--that a Palestinian state needs to be viable. But he hasn't explained what that means.

Or the idea of contiguity.  The President has spoken on a number of occasions about the importance, as well as the Secretary of State has, about territorial contiguity, but hasn't quite explained what that means.

So what it comes down to--and here the Rand report is interesting, because it both addressed this in some respects, but also ignored it in others.  If you look at the maps, which I recommend to anyone to show what a future transportation grid and a commercial infrastructure would look like in a future State of Palestine.  It moves toward the realm of specifics and about both Israel and a future Palestinian state could square those imperatives of security requirements and demographic ones.

I can't give you a precise answer, but I can say if you just take population centers, I think everyone understands that's not enough.  If you are looking at a settlement, sure you can draw neat lines around the vast majority of population centers.  But it's not enough for a sustainable settlement.  And I think the way we are moving now, that's what we are going to hear from the U.S., I think, in the months ahead, more and more, is what the Bush administration really thinks about these ideas of contiguity, what it really means.  Fleshing it out.  The President and the Secretary of State, their comments have gotten more and more sophisticated as time goes on.  Let me leave it at that.

MR. RUBIN:  Morrie? [ph.]

MR.          :  My question is directed to Ambassador Gold.  To what extent do you think the comments made by President Bush in his conference with Mahmoud Abbas might have undercut the assurances of the April letter?

AMBASSADOR GOLD:  That's an excellent question, because when I first looked at the statements that were made by President Bush at the joint press conference recently with Mahmoud Abbas I was wondering whether there was a bit of a problem there.

I think we have to understand the nature of American assurances that appear in the original April 14th letter.  The United States has taken the position--and this is a position taken by past administrations--the best way to resolve where the borders will be in the future will be a bilateral negotiation between Israel and its Arab partners. And the United States is not going to dictate those borders.

But let's say we're sitting at Camp David in the year 2008.  And we're trying to work out a permanent status agreement.  And the Palestinian delegation turns to the United States and says, okay, we're supposed to work this out together, but what is the U.S. position with respect to the use of future borders?

In that case, the Bush letter becomes very relevant, because the Bush letter then speaks about Israel having defensible borders, borders that enable Israel to defend itself by itself, as well as the famous references to large Israeli population centers, meaning settlements.

But as a first preference, the United States would want this to be settled bilaterally, and that's essentially what President Bush was saying in his joint press conference with Mahmoud Abbas.  So there is no contradiction.

A second scenario that I think is important is, let's say next year the members of the quartet that consists of the United States, the United Nations, European Union and the Russian Federation, get together and the other three, the non-American members, say you have to strength Abu Mazen, how do we do that?  Let's give him a political horizon.  Let's give him something very tangible about what he's going to achieve in the future.  Let's start carving out borders in our joint declaration.

And they put something on the table which will correct the '67 lines.  Then theoretically the Bush letter should kick in, and the United States will say, wait a minute.  We made assurances to Israel when they got out of the Gaza Strip, in exchange of the quid pro quo that Israel was going to get defensible borders in the settlement block.  So we can't go along with you, the Russians, the Europeans, and the U.N. Secretariat.

So again the scenarios are those types of scenarios.  Not that the United States is going to come in and impose a solution based on the Bush letter.

MR. RUBIN:  I haven't forgotten the people in the back, but first, Ben, AEI.

MR. WATTENBERG:  Ben Wattenberg, of the American Enterprise Institute.

A question and just a one-sentence comment against the rules for Ambassador Gold. The question is this:  Does Israel have policies to encourage Israeli settlement in the northern part of the country, which is quite sparsely populated, and in the Negev, which is more difficult because of the terrain.  But my understanding is that, particularly in the north, the best defense is to move around, and I wonder if not, why not.

And this one comment.  Demographic situation.  Whatever you read, birth and fertility rates in Arab countries are falling very rapidly beyond what anyone thought as they are falling around the world.

MR. RUBIN:  If you can just guess the question.

[Laughter.]

MR. RUBIN:  We're not doing--

AMBASSADOR GOLD:  I will touch on both and slightly bend the rules here.  With respect to Israeli settlement policy, that really isn't the subject of our discussion.  As I said before, too many times there are reports coming out to try to determine Israel's future borders on the basis of demography, where are the settlements, how do we draw lines to get a maximum number of settlers in a minimal amount of territory. Every other consideration other than the security of Israel.  So we're here to talk about the security of Israel.  If there is a settlement in an area where there's security, fine.  If there isn't, it's a different story.

With respect to the question of incentives to the north or in Negev, there are certain border areas that are high-risk areas where the Israeli government provides tax breaks, reduced rates of mortgages for somebody wanting to buy a home, you know, if they want a good view, but there's a Hezbollah base on the other side of the Lebanese border.

[Laughter.]

AMBASSADOR GOLD:  Those incentives are very similar to the incentives you get if you go live in the West Bank.  There isn't much difference here.

I just want to make one other quick point, which is related to your question.  And the questions that we're hearing here in other cases.

[Brief pause.]

AMBASSADOR GOLD:  We all talk about demography.  It keeps coming up all the time.

Here is a tangible case of a dilemma.  We have here the security fence, 2005 route designed by the Israeli government after it was pressured by all different kinds of groups in the international community to move the fence.

And lo and behold, there are in this case, let's take one Palestinian village, Rontist [ph.].  And that whole area, where you have a yellow area, which is a launch area, where if somebody took an SA5 shoulder-fired missile, he could bring down an Israeli jumbo jet.  Or you know what?  An American jumbo jet, coming to land at Ben Gurion airport.  He could hit our air traffic.

Now, let's say you have a dilemma.  Let's put a very clear dilemma.  That yellow area, let's say that's 30,000 Palestinians.  Somebody who has this fear of demography would go: 30,000 Palestinians?  Put it on the Palestinian side.  I won't want 30,000 Palestinians in the Israeli political system.  If demography is all you're thinking about, then that would be your choice.

If you are thinking about the security of Israel, and the security of its main international airport, you'll say, you know what?  I need to control that area and if there's 30,000 more Palestinians and they will vote in the Knesset, then that's fine.  But security is a paramount consideration here.

And that's the kind of trade-off we have to face from time to time.  And what I am saying is my contribution to this report is that security is the paramount consideration.  And not all the other fears that you hear voiced from time to time.

One last thing.  I'm sorry.  Just remember when I put forward this scenario, I'm not taking out some wild scenario that you can't imagine.  Nobody knows where the SA5 inventory of the Iraqi Army is.  It's all over the Middle East.  It spread.  And in fact, al-Qaeda has fired an SA5 at an Israeli passenger jet in Mombasa, Kenya, not long ago.  Yes, they tried.  They fired an SA5 in Mombasa.  SA5, a shoulder-fired missile.

MR.           :  An SA7.

AMBASSADOR GOLD:  An SA7.  Excuse me.  You're right; SA7.  Excuse me.  A little jet lag.  They fired an SA7 at a commercial jet in Mombasa, Kenya.  So the scenario is not a wild scenario, considering the inventory that's available in the Arab, the Mashrub, and the precedents that have occurred against Israelis.

MR. RUBIN:  Yes?

MR.         :  My name is Sayeed [ph.] [inaudible], daily newspaper.  My question is for the General and Ambassador Gold, could you show us on the map the different borders of Israel as you would like it to be?  Going back to the map.  We understand from General Foss that the Jordan Valley, you know, that's a given and the Golan Heights is a given, but on the West Bank, could you show us, please?

GENERAL AMIDROR:  We don't want to go into the details of a solution.  What we want to do is to bring into the vocabulary of the international media and the negotiators the notion that security should be secured.

And it is part of the negotiation.  We are not negotiating now.  We gave some examples.  Dore just gave an example around Ben Gurion Airport.  We talked about the Jordan Valley, And we are not part of the negotiation now.  We are in the middle of a process to bring into the table the understanding that at the end of the day, Israel should be in a position to defend itself.

And if it will be this line or another, it's part of the negotiation.  Because there are some other elements which were mentioned here, like demography, which is very important.  We cannot ignore it.  There are some other elements, like water.  The whole water of Israel is coming from this area.  Should Israel take it into consideration when it's dealing with its plan or not?

So we are not here to negotiate a line.  We are here to bring into the table the understanding that at the end of the day Israel should be in a position to defend itself.  And in some areas it may be that it will not be the border of Israel but Israel will have control in some areas which is in the Palestinian side.  Only for the security reasons, Israel will be in control of some areas which will be under Palestinian sovereignty.  We are not going into the details.  On purpose we are not going into the details.  But only to make it very clear, at the end of the day, Israel should be in a position to defend itself.  How and when and where and what areas to take and how these areas are to be controlled by Israel and so on is another issue.  We are not going into these details.

MR. RUBIN:  A response from Ambassador Gold before we go to the next question.

AMBASSADOR GOLD:  I'll answer your question with a quotation.  The quotation is on the back cover of this study, and it's a quotation from our late Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin.  Very few people know what I am about to tell you.  But one month before Rabin was assassinated, he stood in front of the Knesset and he sought ratification of the Oslo II Interim Agreement.  And at that time, of course he didn't know what was going to happen a month later, he laid out his legacy for the people of Israel as to the future borders of the State of Israel.

I am going to quote him now:  "The border of the State of Israel during the permanent solution will be beyond the lines which existed before the Six Day War."  He went on and he said, "We will not return to the 4th of June '67 line."  And he specifically stated, "The security border of Israel will be located in the Jordan Valley, in the broadest meaning of that term."  That means not the river bed, but the eastern slopes of the West Bank hill.

Of course, he concluded that Israel would need a united Jerusalem and a settlement block in the West Bank.  So just to give an idea of somebody who stood for defensible borders during his entire political life.  When he was prime minister in the seventies, and when he was one of the fathers of the Oslo Agreement in the 1990's, this was the map of Rabin.  And this would probably represent the consensus of the State of Israel today.

MR. RUBIN:  Question right up here, and then we're going to get some of the questions on the side and in the back.

MR. COHEN:  To General Amidror and Ambassador Gold.  Ariel Cohen with the Heritage Foundation.

How does the withdrawal from a hundred percent of Gaza, which confirms the precedent of the withdrawal of a hundred percent of Sinai--the withdrawal of Gaza in exchange for no tangible security guarantees on behalf of PA strengthen your case for defensible borders.

And, if I may, the second part of that, how lack of debate and discourse with regards to Gaza and West Bank territories as being disputed and not occupied from the point of view of the Israeli government strengthens or weakens the case for achievement of what you advocate.  Thank you.

GENERAL AMIDROR:  The outlook depends on your political view about the retreat.  Those who are against it, like myself, think that it is increasing the notion of those who really believe that Israel should go back to the '67 line.  Of course, it happened in Gaza, why shouldn't it happen in the West Bank?

Those who are for the retreat, like the Prime Minister himself, say it will strengthen our position because it will show the difference between Gaza, in which we were ready for a unilateral retreat, and the West Bank, in which it is so critical to Israel to have control on areas which are behind the '67 line.

So it depends how you put it--no question that Israel is taking a very high risk in this unilateral retreat.  Will it strengthen its position when it comes to the West Bank?  It depends on your political position on the unilateral retreat.  I believe that it will not help the State of Israel, but the Prime Minister really believes that it will show the difference and will make very clear why Israel cannot do the same in the West Bank.

AMBASSADOR GOLD:  I'll just add a sentence.  It is absolutely imperative, as this disengagement is implemented, that if indeed the Prime Minister saw that the quid pro quo for getting out of Gaza is achieving defensible borders in the West Bank, that we give that some substance. If we forget about it, then we're just getting out of Gaza and getting nothing in return.

MR. RUBIN:  There's a question.  Two questions back there.  In the corner.  Please stand up. Thank you.  And then we'll go all the way in the back.

MR. KAHN:  Adam Kahn.  What I'm hearing here is a--

MR. RUBIN:  Did you give your affiliation?

MR. KAHN:  I'm not affiliated.  What I'm understanding here is that you are defending the status quo in terms of the defensible borders.  But I don't know if you can confirm this or deny that the reasons we have groups like al-Qaeda, militant Islamic groups, is because the international community has failed to quickly come to some sort of agreement on how to put down conflicts in parts of the Muslim world.  Like in Kashmir, Chetchnya, Afghanistan, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

 And that this leads to the Muslims reaching to the holy book where, you know, you're supposed to take up arms to defend your fellow Muslims who are in these areas of struggle.

So when can we expect to see the international community take a serious approach to solving these problems so that sends a clear message to all these terrorist organizations out there that they no longer need to recruit?

MR. RUBIN:  Yes, Ambassador.

AMBASSADOR GOLD: Well, you're touching on something which I mentioned in my presentation I feel a need to emphasize even more so after your question.  I can't speak for the other conflicts in Chetchnya or Kashmir, but there is a myth out there, that I touched on before, that somehow the Israel-Palestinian conflict is connected to the rage of militant Islam against the West.  I even hear it in the statements sometimes of Prime Minister Tony Blair, talks about "the most conflict to resolve in the world."

Well, having written on Saudi Arabia last year, two years ago, a book on the rise of al-Qaeda, I have to emphasize al-Qaeda was not formed in reference to a single Arab-Israeli conflict or event.  Not in '48, not in '67, but in 1989 when the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan.

And during the 1990's, as Israel made unprecedented concessions, during the Oslo process, from '93 to 2000, you did not see a lessening of hostility in, let's say, the radical Muslim sector, but in fact an increase over those years of brazen attacks:  '93 was the World Trade Center attack; '95 the first al-Qaeda attack in Saudi Arabia; '98 the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania come under attack.  The year 2000, USS Cole.

So in my judgment there is no correlation between the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the war the United States is facing against international terrorism led by al-Qaeda.  There are simply disconnected issues.

GENERAL AMIDROR:  The only connection which is, is that maybe historically the great mistake of the western world was to give Arafat and his gang permission to go to the United Nations, and to choose to achieve so many achievements, and so many people around the western world really believe that by terrorism they can achieve many achievements for themselves.

If you are going back into history, maybe that is the real connection between the struggle of the Palestinians and al-Qaeda.  That the standing of many Muslims around the world by terrorism--they can--at the end, terrorism will prevail.  Look at Arafat, what he achieved, and we can do the same.

Because this al-Qaeda was built in Afghanistan after they won the war against the Soviets. What was the conflict: the Taliban made it and helped al-Qaeda after they won the war in Afghanistan.

So I think that all these efforts to connect the Palestinian-Israeli conflict to the original al-Qaeda is a great mistake.  The only connection is that we made a great mistake by letting the Arafat people win their territorial war against the State of Israel.  And by that, showing the others the way.

MR. RUBIN:  There's a question almost directly behind our previous questioner.

MR. KADIN:  Jeremy Kadin from the American Enterprise Institute.

It seems to me that perhaps one of the issues that the three other parts of the quartet have a problem with is that maybe they don't understand why it is that borders that were seemingly defensible in 1948-67 and become indefensible since then.  What is it that's changed?  It seems to me that they had missiles that they could launch into what was then Israel before 1967.  And they didn't have those missiles at all?  There were no missiles in all of the West Bank at all before 1967 to launch into Israel?

AMBASSADOR GOLD:  No.

MR. KADIN:  Okay.  I'm wrong.  It seems absurd to me.  I find that hard to believe.

MR. RUBIN:  Next question, Mr. Gaffney in the background and then we'll come to you, sir.

MR. GAFFNEY:  Thank you.  I want to commend you for the focus you are putting on security.  I just want to come back, if I may, on Ariel Cohen's -- I'm  sorry.  Frank Gaffney, with the Center for Security Policy.

Ariel Cohen's question about security and Gaza.  If I may press the two generals, this seems to me to be a fairly straightforward question.  Is the relinquishing of Gaza--to say nothing of communities of the West Bank--to what would appear to be one form or another of a terrorist community, and quite possibly simply a state sponsor of terror in the making, not going to create indefensible borders for Israel when it happens, to say nothing of what might transfer over to the approach to the West Bank?

GENERAL AMIDROR:  As I told you, I try to explain Israel's unilateral retreat is a great mistake for tactical reasons.  It is bringing Ashkelon and other places under the range of the missiles for strategic reasons, because it is showing again the Palestinians that terror prevails.  And for political reasons, because it is a very dangerous precedent showing that Israel is ready to give up without getting anything.

But at the end of the day, this is the decision of the State of Israel, issued and provided by the Parliament.

What is very important to put here on the table in this occasion is that although it is a dangerous step that Israel decided to take, to take some risks, you cannot put it at the same level as the risk that Israel has by losing control on the West Bank.  At the end of the day, because of the geography, because of the topography, because of where the mass of the population of Israel is living, and many other elements, and because of the connection to Jordan and infiltration of people and munitions and so forth, it is dangerous in Gaza but the Israeli government decided to take the risk.

It is higher and in another league of danger to the State of Israel when it is coming to the West Bank.  So what is very important now here in Washington, the origin place of the quartet road map, which is unfair basically because it promises the Palestinians an independent state, promising nothing to the Israelis at the end.

But here it must be very clear that Israel cannot make the same risk when it is coming to the West Bank.  This must be very clear, although I think Israel should not take the risk in Gaza.

But if it is going to happen and will be implemented, you have to be very clear.  It is not the same in Gaza.  The West Bank is really critical to the existence of Israel.

MR. RUBIN:  Does General Foss have anything to add?  And then Richard.

GENERAL FOSS:  Yes.  Let me make a comment because when I talked about the borders that I would choose were I in charge of picking the borders, I listed them there.

But as the military always understands, there are other factors that are laid out.  And they tell their masters, as I'm sure the General has done here, the risks that will happen if we give up those.  And then the military is left with the fact that it has to modify its behavior in some sort of way in order to deal with those risks and if you are left with a West Bank border like that.

Clearly, the Israeli capability to mobilize and take 48 hours to mobilize and what it kept on active duty, and that would have to change.  It would have to become much more of a full time army than it would be a reserve-based army that could mobilize and meet the threat.

Because you just have no distance at all in order to compensate for any of those things.

I will go ahead and leave Gaza as such, because there is an additional risk that goes there.  And the leadership has chosen to accept those risks.  And as the General said, and I agree with him totally, the West Bank risks are much greater.  How those borders are defined by Israel and the other countries involved at the end of this is going to mean how much risk is taken in the long  term, and will probably have a certain effect on the United States as to what we do to help them compensate for that.

AMBASSADOR GOLD:  I would just add, Frank, there undoubtedly be members of Hamas, Hezbollah and other organizations in Gaza who will be tempted to exploit the Israeli withdrawal in a military sense.

Let me just say that they will do far more than anything said around this table to make the point about how fundamental defensible borders are if they do that.  So the political consequences of firing missiles or artillery pieces into Ashkelon [ph.], I think, will make the case that the General earlier tried to make in this document.

MR. RUBIN:  We'll take questions after this gentleman.  But I just, as a point of information, want to say we are all talking about Ashkelon.  Ashkelon is one of the major power generating stations in Israel, which is, aside from being a population center, why it is of such strategic importance.

Yes, sir?

MR.          :  I've got a question to the Ambassador and also to Mr. Perle.

MR. RUBIN:  Could you--

MR. MORRIS:  Mr. Ambassador, are you familiar with James Bamford's "A Pretext for War" book?  This is addressing a prior response about the 9/11 attack--

MR. RUBIN:  Could you identify yourself?

MR. MORRIS:  Sure.  It's James Morris, no affiliation.  I just want to ask him a question regarding his response moments ago about no connection between the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the tragic World Trade Center attacks in 1993 and again on September 11.  Are you familiar with James Bamford's "A Pretext for War" book?

Just to let you know, Mr. Bamford is the most respected by many--considered to be the most respected intelligence writer in America.  Are you familiar with his books?

AMBASSADOR GOLD:  I am familiar with the "Declaration of War" in 1998 written by Osama bin Laden--

MR. MORRIS:  It goes well before that, sir.

MR. RUBIN:  To answer--

MR. MORRIS:  I'm making a point.  If--he isn't familiar with the book, obviously.  Mr. Bamford has the terrorist Ramzi Yousef, who attacked us in 1993 at the World Trade Center, whose primary motivation was for our support for Israel.  His uncle, who is Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, the plotter of the 9/11 attack.  And he finished off what Ramzi Yousef couldn't.

So to say and put forward Israeli propaganda like you are doing here, sir, with all due respect, is just false.  It's just propaganda. The bottom line, if you read objective analysis, our support for Israel is a direct result for the tragic 9/11 attack.

Now, my next question--

MR. RUBIN:  Sir, your question--

MR. MORRIS:  My next question is for Mr. Perle.

MR. RUBIN:  You have asked--

MR. MORRIS:  Wait a minute, sir.  I traveled a long way to come here.  Mr. Perle, you lied to Congressman--

MR. RUBIN:  I need to limit you to one question, sir--

MR. MORRIS:  --about the clean break agenda.  In Bamford's book.  Clean break.  You lied to him about it.  On April 6th Armed Services hearing.  Are you familiar with Mr. Bamford's book, as well?

MR. RUBIN:  Sir. The microphone.  And then do any of you--would you like to respond?

GENERAL AMIDROR:  I didn't understand the question.  Do you suggest that the United States of America will capitulate and give up all of its principles because the terrorists want the United States of America not to help the State of Israel?  This is your notion about what the United States of America should do?

I am asking you, sir, as an Israeli, but I think this is a question that you, the Americans, are supposed to ask yourselves, if you are right about the whole connection.  Thank you very much.

MR. RUBIN:  Okay.  Next question in the back there, please.

MR.          :  I'm sympathetic to the report, but I do recall Moshe Dayan saying with respect to Egypt, I'd rather keep Sharm El Sheikh and have a peace treaty, and then they went ahead and had a peace treaty with Egypt.

I understand that there are important risks and I'm very sympathetic to that.  But there are also risks of not doing something.  And I think that all those towns along the border, I mean, it does seem to be that there maybe needs to be some other solution.

Don't you have to weigh the risks of not coming to some sort of agreement against the risks of having to live with somewhat insecure borders?

MR. PERLE:  Of course.  Of course you have to make that--judge that balance.  One of the problems with insecure borders, they are very tempting.  They can produce exactly the thing that the risk in accepting them is intended to avoid.

A defensible border, a border that would be difficult, ideally impossible, but certainly difficult to breach is a force for peace and stability because it's a discouragement to those who would make war.

So, yes, you have to have a balance, but accepting vulnerability is seldom historically certain and seldom the best way to achieve a durable peace.

MR. RUBIN:  Yes.  In the back, there.

MR. KROGER:  Stanley Kroger with the Cato Institute.  I always like to look at historical examples.  So that's my question to the panel.  Can you provide an example in which a conflict was terminated by the two sides agreeing to a border whose inherent defensibility averted further conflict?

MR. RUBIN:  Very interesting question.  Does anyone want to take a crack at that?

[Brief pause.]

MR. RUBIN:  Can we have our panel consult for a moment.

[Brief pause.]

GENERAL AMIDROR:  Yes, I can give you--what happened with the Egyptians.

[End Tape 1, Side B]

MR.          :  [In progress] --and the Egyptians understood what they need more than a basis to attack Israel, a sovereignty on Sinai.  So it was they have the sovereignty and we have the time which is needed to mobilize if worst to come to worst.  Later on because it was an agreement between two states and an empty area, the MFO came in as part of the agreement.  For both sides it was very important.  The Americans are in so the Egyptians felt very strong about their sovereignty, the Israelis are not going to violate it.  We felt very strong about this empty buffer that we have between us and the main forces of the Egyptian state in Sinai and it is a very good example of how you solve a conflict by giving one side the ability to say, okay, it is giving me enough security.  I think it's a very good example.

MR. RUBIN:  If Richard Perle could just comment.

MR. PERLE:  I think while we're on the subject of history, it seems to me historically there are not many instances of countries yielding the territory that they were physically capable of possessing.  In most history that I can think of off the top of my head, a country that was capable of possessing territory even if it was disputed went on possessing it until they were dislodged by force.  They didn't voluntary enter into undertakings to relinquish that territory.

MR. RUBIN:  Yes, this gentleman?

MR.          :  [Inaudible.] with the American Task Force on Palestine.  If I could take advantage of your jet lag to ask you for a candid answer here.

On the other side of your argument, sir, are people who are equally distinguished as yourself and equally committed to the security of the state of Israel in official and unofficial Washington, in the international community, in Israel itself, members of the Knesset, analysts, journalists, who believe that, no, the 1967 borders are defensible, not the borders per se, but based on the borders with the land swap.  What in your opinion accounts for this tremendous gulf in your thinking and theirs?  Are they misguided, misinformed?  What is the problem?

MR.          :  First of all, to place everybody in the right position here, I stressed when I spoke earlier than the position of defensible borders is a long-term position held by both the leaders of the United States and the leaders of Israel, including our late Prime Minister Rabin who signed the Oslo Agreement.

I'll share with you a little inside discussions that we have in Israel about the alternatives to defensible borders.  Alternative one, let's say every military man you meet in Israel says I need two brigades of the IDF in the Jordan Valley.  And let's say somebody who is no longer in the IDF but he is associated with more left-wing parties in Israel would say, yes, I'll put in those two brigades of the IDF in the Jordan Valley and it will be on the soil of the Republic of Palestine.

So then we have two models.  One is that those two brigades sit in an Israeli sovereign Jordan Valley where Israel has complete control, and the other is an extraterritorial military presence inside of a Palestinian State.  A, I would contend that that alternative model will not be accepted by the Palestinians, and Mohammed Dahlan said to repeatedly in negotiations with Israel as we went from Camp David into Taba negotiations.

Number two, if they were forced to accept it, it would be eroded very quickly and Israel would lose those two brigades and whether you're talking about two brigades or early warning stations or any of the Israeli needs, that's the fundamental difference.  There is no big disagreement about Israel's security needs.  The disagreement between let's say the generals of the left and the generals of the right is over what kind of sovereignty do you need on that piece of territory in order to assure Israel the security that it needs and is entitled to.

That's an honest debate in a democratic society and that perhaps explains the different views.  But the preponderant view today, the preponderant view reflected by the democratically elected Prime Minister of Israel Ariel Sharon and by the majority in the Knesset, and I would also say the majority in Israeli public opinion, is that Israel should seek to get sovereignty in the West Bank where it has security requirements.

MR. RUBIN:  Yes, we have a couple questions at this table.  First this gentleman and then the lady in the back.

MR.          :  Thank you.  I'm--from the United States Institute of Peace and Hebrew University of Jerusalem.  Also jet lag, but I hope it wouldn't reflect on my question.

I have a Talmudic question.  Can Israel have defensive borders?  Yaakov, you mentioned missiles not only from the West Bank, some seven, but from all over the place.  So what does it mean?  Do we have to take more and more and more as some suggested?

Or maybe the answer to security is peace, a political settlement.  I believe also to, as Scott mentioned, the Council of Peace and Security, and they are not only professors.  Most of them are generals and they only think that the best way to achieve peace and security is peace and try again, try again, try again.

Another thing, the issue between Islam and occupation and what have you, our friend Sharon was not a professor, Ariel Sharon.  It took him 36 years to discover that occupation is something which should be changed.

So what is the suggestion about this arrangement in the West Bank?  You want to continue to occupy it?  As the matter of demographics it's still very important because it's not a matter of territory, it's a matter of people.

MR. RUBIN:  You've asked a couple questions and hopefully we'll get a couple answers.

MR.          :  I'll begin with my friends the generals.  When you talk with them  professionally, they say maybe you are right, but in the end of the day nothing will be achieved without going back into the '67 line, and because we believe that peace is the end solution, we are ready to take the risk.

But when you ask them can you exclude a scenario in which Israel after the retreat to the '67 line will be attacked by the Arabs, no one, no one if he is responsible enough, will ensure that you that it will not happen.

What's the difference, that I am saying because you cannot exclude it, you have to build your agreement with the notion that it might happen.  What they say, because we see that there is not anywhere that the Palestinians agree to other than the '67 line, we are ready to take the risk that we will not be in a position to defend the State of Israel.  I don't want to be in this position.

We had such a day in the Knesset and the head of this organization came and said and it is on paper, he said at the end of the day, I believe that the only way to achieve security is by peace.  But even he cannot exclude the scenario in which Israel will have to defend itself in the end in a real war against terrorists or against military forces, classical military forces.

And the question is now, are you ready to take the risk that Israel will not be in a position to defend itself?  If the answer is yes, you are right.  Go to the '67 line.  If you are not ready to take this risk, and I'm not ready to take the risk and I think that Israel should not be in a position to take this risk, Israel should not go back to the '67 line.  If it's the price that we will not have an agreement with the Palestinians, let's do it because we have to be in a position to be to defend ourselves before we are in a position to sign an agreement with the Palestinians.

If you say what is more important from my point of view, to be in a position to defend the State of Israel.  And you know and the others know and all the generals know that if they will go to a Chinese general which is not affiliated with the Middle East at all and bring him to this geography and topography and ask him can Israel defend itself in the '67 line, the answer will be no.

If you're ready to take this risk, this is a political situation.  It's not--if you're general or not.  You are ready to take the risk, I am not ready to take this risk.

And we faced it.  We had been in this situation after the Oslo Agreement.  I told the government if you're going to the Oslo Agreement, you will be in a situation in which Israel cannot defend itself from terrorists.  They were ready.  Your people were ready to take the risk, and we changed it only after we have more than 1,000 Israelis killed inside Israel, not behind the Green Line, inside the Green Line.  More than 1,000 Israelis, most of them civilians.  Only then we reconquered Jenin and Shechem and Hebron and we abolish the situation which was implemented on the ground because of the Oslo Agreement.

So if you are ready to take back the risk that you're in a position not to defend yourself, it's a democratic system.

MR. RUBIN:  We need to go on to other comments.

MR.          :  No, am not saying the demography is not important and maybe at the end the line will not be drawn in a place which from the professional point of view is the best line.  But at least let's understand what risk we are taking upon ourselves by not drawing this line in this place.

And what happened in the last 20 years that we are not arguing about security?  We are arguing about demography, about occupation, about the international legitimacy, about the rights of the Palestinians.  The Israelis are not--let's talk about security.  Maybe at the end it will be the line which is not far from the '67.  At least we will know what risk we are taking.  Don't cheat ourselves.

And what my friend and his organization are doing, they are cheating themselves by saying at the end of the day you will have security by peace.  That's okay if the other side is not violating the situation.  But with our experience after what we faced with the Egyptians, after what we had with the Palestinians, after Oslo, how can we go back to square one saying let's give the Palestinians the chance without our security interests?

MR. RUBIN:  Ambassador Gold?

MR. GOLD:  Nobody that I know if we go outside of Israel builds peace agreements with the understanding that the other side will never try and violate the terms of the treaty.  That's why we put the limited forces zones and demilitarized areas into Sinai, to take into account what happens if the Egyptians ever try and overthrow that agreement.  We hope they don't, but you have to put in a safety in the event of violations.

One of the finest articles I ever read in Foreign Affairs magazine was an article that was printed before I was really politically aware back in 1962 by Fred Inkley, and it's called After Detection, What?  What happens when people violate agreements?  It's a big problem.

First of all, countries that sign agreements hate to admit that their adversary or former adversary violated them.  It makes them embarrassed, therefore, sometimes they'll do anything.

One time I was accompanying Prime Minister Sharon on a trip here to the United States and he privately said to me never put yourself in a position where you have only two choices available, going to war or doing nothing.  I think maybe he was thinking about the 1970 missile crisis with the Egyptians.  Israel must be in a position where it can assure that any kind of demilitarization arrangements it makes with the Palestinians can be protected by Israel and not just rely on the general good-will, the atmospherics of a meeting or the nice feeling you get when you have meetings with Palestinians in four-star hotels in Europe.

You've got to have something on the ground that helps you protect yourself.  We are not naive.  It's not 1993.  We've gone through the implementation of Oslo, and over 1,000 Israelis are dead.  We have to make certain that if we go back to the negotiating table in the future that we don't put our country in that position ever, ever again.

[Applause.]

MR. RUBIN:  Richard Perle?

MR. PERLE:  I just want to take up the suggestion that because missiles are of various ranges, where do you stop.  It's a fair question, and I think this whole discussion is about managing risk.

Obviously, Israel's borders are not going to be placed such that no missile can reach Israeli population centers, but neither should they be placed in my view such that even an artillery tube can reach Israeli population centers.  First.

Secondly, as has been observed, but I think it deserves emphasis, there may be a distinction to be drawn between where the border-defining sovereignty is and where Israeli security forces are present.  On this I may disagree with Dore.  I'm not sure.  We'd have to discuss it further.  But I can imagine a settlement in which high ground is possessed by Israel under circumstances about which Israelis can be sufficiently confident even if it means Israeli forces behind the border.  I think that certainly ought to be explored.

But clearly the question is how do you strike the right balance.  You don't want Israel so vulnerable that any firebrand can ignite the forces of war on the Palestinian side.  Neither can you get absolute security by creating a border that makes Israel untouchable.  So we're all really talking I think very much about the same thing.  It would be extraordinary if it turned out that the safest balance, the best balance, just happened to be the 1967 border.

MR. RUBIN:  Our final question before I thank our speakers, at this table?

MS. HANDELSMAN:  My name is Tamara Handelsman (ph).  Defensible borders, I was appreciative of the fact that Ambassador Dore Gold that you brought it from President Johnson right up to the present time.  It's not a new concept.  It's the most important concept, and that's what everyone has been talking about today.  But it seems to me that ignoring the concept of peace is a mistake.  I think that we don't have to do one thing and ignore the rest.

My question is what can the United States or what should the United States be doing to ensure the Palestinians will find an incentive to do what is in I think their best interests and certainly in Israel's best interests?

MR.          :  Just to summarize, my view is that defensible borders allows a peace process to work because if you go under the assumption that Israel goes automatically back to those armistice lines from 1949, a peace process will collapse, the people of Isra