Q: Who are they?

A: First of all Syria, then Lebanon, Hezbollah and the Iranians in Lebanon.

Q: What you are saying, then, is that if there is a significant rocket and Katyusha rocket attack from Lebanon, we will have to react against all those parties?

A: We have to confront them with a price that will make the realization of the potential not worthwhile: not for them and not for anyone who is thinking about using similar weapons against Israel in the future.

Q: But isn't it the case that a reaction of that kind could bring about a general deterioration in the north?

A: What is a general deterioration? There will be a certain period -- not very long -- in which we will have to learn to be on the receiving end, but then immediately to set a price that will make them understand that it is not worthwhile. All told, we have a crushing answer to Hezbollah. And if the Syrians try to take us on in the field of army versus army, we have a crushing answer to that, too -- they know it and that's what deters them.

Therefore, I do not think that a confrontation in the north is inevitable. But if they decide to escalate, we will be obliged to exact a very heavy price from all the bodies I mentioned.

Q: Is Bashar Assad really more adventurous than his father was?

A: As the Arabs wrestled with the problem between agreements and the armed struggle, Hafez Assad sat on the fence with both his legs and both his hands in the direction of a settlement. Bashar Assad is sitting on the same fence with both his legs and both his hands on the side of the armed struggle. There is a dramatic difference between the father and his son.

Q: Does that mean that Syria is turning toward confrontation with Israel?

A: Syria is turning toward support for terrorism. It is not interested in an army versus army clash -- under no circumstances. Part of the difference between Bashar Assad and his father is due to the fact that Bashar's formative experience is not the military defeats of 1967 and 1973, which his father experienced personally. Bashar's formative experience is the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon, which occurred shortly after he assumed power. His conclusion from that was that terrorism is victorious.

Bashar Assad understands our advantage in the face of his army, but he sees a possibility of vanquishing Israel by means of terrorism and guerrilla warfare. As a result, he is daring to do things that his father never dared: He is arming Hezbollah and directly supporting Palestinian terrorist organizations. Recently, as a result of Operation Defensive Shield and the effects of September 11, he is showing signs of restraint, but the element of risk he embodies is far higher than it was in Hafez Assad.

Q: Do you think the withdrawal from Lebanon was a mistake?

A: The question was when and how to leave. Today the withdrawal from Lebanon is perceived in the region as the major success of the export of the Islamic revolution. That is why it has a strategic price. It had implications for the Palestinian arena and in the long run, it also has implications with regard to the Syrians. It greatly reinforces the theory of the spider web.

Q: Why do you attribute such a decisive weight to this perception?

A: After the Six-Day War, we succeeded in burning into the regional consciousness the fact that it is impossible to destroy Israel by military means. Our ability to withstand the harsh opening conditions of the Yom Kippur War only reinforced that regional impression. That was the root of the tendency toward settlements with Israel -- the peace with Egypt and the peace with Jordan.

However, since our first withdrawals from Lebanon after Operation Peace for Galilee [the official name of the 1982 Lebanon War], that accomplishment was increasingly eroded. For nearly 20 years, the feeling developed in the Middle East that even though the Israeli army is strong, the unwillingness of the Israeli society to make sacrifices is creating a strategic Achilles' heel.

Q: Some people say that you have become right-wing.

A: One of the problems that is making our public debate shallow is the tendency to label people and not listen to them. Personally, I see myself as a Jew, an Israeli, a humanist, a liberal, a democrat and a seeker of peace and security. But I know that I am facing a cruel reality and that I have to defend myself. In the face of cancer, one has to defend oneself. It worries me that when it comes to the Palestinian question, people here are constantly going back to the argument about the narrative and the diagnosis. Despite everything that has happened, people are still arguing about the diagnosis. And without agreeing on the diagnosis, there is no chance that the prognosis will be correct.

Q: Do you see in Israel, over the past decade, that people are locking themselves into a conception the way they were on the eve of the Yom Kippur War 29 years ago?

A: I think the problem of the conception is far more severe today. There is a deep psychological problem here: Because it is difficult for people to apprehend

(Continued on p.12)

September 2002               - 11 -               Outpost