LOS ANGELES TIMES INTERVIEW : Shimon Peres : An Architect of Mideast Peace Savors his Long-Sought Break

With Israel and the Palestinians taking their first steps on the road toward peace, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres is in a moment of glory as an architect of the historic breakthrough, but he remains quite hesitant when invited to savor it.

There is a danger, on the one hand, of euphoria, he suggested in a conversation last week, but equal danger of being overawed by what still lies ahead in the nitty-gritty of the negotiations needed to make Palestinian self-government work and then come up with a final settlement.

Peres keeps secret virtually everything about his clandestine diplomacy: the details of whom he met, the when and the where, the turning points in the talks with the Palestine Liberation Organization, the tradeoffs made.

Most of all, he does not boast. He gives careful credit to Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin for his willingness to pursue the talks with the PLO and then the courage to make the necessary compromises. He makes clear, as he has in earlier conversations, that although they are longtime rivals, he and Rabin are now a team.

However, Peres does want to sell the agreement, to persuade his own people against their real fears that it is Israel’s best chance for peace and to win vital political and financial support abroad to underpin it.

Now 70, Peres has held almost every key ministerial job over the past 25 years--immigration minister, transport minister, defense minister, finance minister and prime minister, as well as foreign minister. He led the Labor Party for 15 years before Rabin won back the chairmanship in 1992.

His work today, as Peres emphasizes, is peace, in which he sees a historic opportunity for Israel, its Arab neighbors and the entire Middle East. In soaring metaphors, he argues the case to the Knesset, Israel’s Parliament, and seeks out other audiences with which he can share his vision of the Middle East at peace.

Question: A lot of Israelis seem to be scared at having Palestinians--people they call murderers and terrorists--as their neighbors. What can you tell them?

Answer: . . . You cannot negotiate with the shadows of history--they don’t exist. You have to negotiate with the new situation, the new opportunities. And that is the sense of the negotiations.

In the agreements, our side, particularly (Prime Minister Yitzhak) Rabin, put great emphasis on security arrangements. So, even during the five years’ time (the interim period of Palestinian self-government in the occupied territories), there won’t be any lull in the security measures that are needed to defend Israel from an outside danger and Israelis from violence and terror.

Q: Do Israel and Syria also have a secret agreement?

A: No, we don’t. We are (ready) to negotiate with Syrians about an agreement with them as well. We are for a comprehensive agreement in the Middle East.

We want all wounds to be healed, and we think that negotiating problems of the past and settling them is not sufficient. We have to build a new future. That’s why we are talking so much about a new Middle East.

Q: Isn’t there a danger that the agreement with the Palestinians might be undercut by Syrian caution about it?

A: I have all respect for Syria, but Syria is not the master of the world. Maybe this is a great sensation. We are ready to negotiate with the Syrians, but we are not afraid of them.

Q: After the agreement on mutual recognition with the PLO, what are the next steps? What do you see as the main difficulties ahead?

A: According to the forecast, we may have twins next week (an agreement with Jordan on a draft treaty as well as the Palestinian pact). Two babies in one birth is not so bad. . . . I think there is a fair possibility for this.

Then we shall have another couple--the Syrians and the Lebanese. If the Syrians will just remain positive atmospherically but remain unwilling to touch the ground and become specific, then we shall have fair weather without a political agreement. But, clearly, we are willing to reach an agreement with them as well.

Even if we should reach an agreement with the Syrians and the Lebanese, there are still important problems of a regional nature for the future, (both) security and economy. The security (arrangements) must meet the range of the missiles, which is regional and not national in range. The political agreement must (take into account) the danger of nonconventional weapons, which is political and not military.

So we must have an agreement that in scope is both military and political and in range both national and regional. Then, if you touch water or tourism or infrastructure, once again it’s regional.

So from my perspective, this is the beginning.

People are worried because they don’t like to depart from a known situation. Usually, people prefer to remember than to think. Goethe said the smallest departure reminds one of the final departure. This is the reason people don’t want to depart from anything. That’s why habits and routines are so strong. So we have to negotiate within this psychological framework, and we know it.

Q: Is the final destination a Palestinian state? This is what they want.

A: You cannot censor the hearts or the wishes of any people. We don’t intend to. And if they claim (an independent state under the right of self-determination), they claim. I am not going to stop their claims. This agreement is about what each party is doing, not what it is claiming.

We have a triangle made of Israel, Jordan and the Palestinians. For a permanent peace, we need an arrangement, an agreement with all the three angles. Otherwise, one is going to eat the other--like (what) happened in Yugoslavia.

If you ask me, my solution, a viable solution, would be a Jordanian-Palestinian confederation . . . or a confederation of all three (Jordan, Palestine and Israel).

If you look not at the land, which is the second most important matter, but at the people, which is the most important consideration, most of the Jordanians are of Palestinian origin and Palestinians residing in the territories hold Jordanian passports. It makes a lot of reason that they will remain under the same roof.

And to do this before a disagreement will arise, to do it instead of a war, to reach a serious agreement on how to live together, this is a matter for the permanent solutions (for the Palestinian problem). What people wish and dream and claim is part of their rights.

Q: Have there been any discussions yet about a common market among Israel, Jordan and the Palestinians?

A: I believe it’s a must for all the countries. We must learn from the European experience and adapt it to local conditions.

In large terms, I would say that to build a new economy in the Middle East, you have to first get rid of negative expenditures--like (the) arms race, like boycotts, like secret services--as was done in Europe. Then we have to get rid of the dangers facing the Middle East--for example, the desertification of the land, and to “water” the whole Middle East, to make it green, make it productive, so that children will have food to eat.

Then we have to develop new industries, particularly the most promising one in my judgment--tourism, which can create hundreds of thousands of jobs at a relatively modest investment. Tourism is also a political industry because it requires tranquillity and it creates vested interests. And then we have to build a new infrastructure and new installations.

For countries like those in Europe that have become so productive that the main thing they are producing today is unemployment, because the more they are productive, the more they have unemployed. So, export your unemployment, invest it in positive terms, give jobs to your own companies and create more markets, more opportunities here in the Middle East.

Q: Israel is asking for a lot of investment and development assistance for itself and to underwrite the peace plan. Can you promise those you are asking--the U.S., the European Community, Japan--that after all these years of conflict, this agreement will work, that it is viable economically?

A: What should we promise the Americans and the Europeans? We have to promise this to ourselves. We are doing it not just to pay money to lawyers; we are doing it to bring peace. It is our own concern. Are we doing it to please anybody? We are doing it because this is the need of the Palestinians and this is the need of the Israelis, and because there is no substitute for it. And we are interested in making out of it a success. For that reason, there is this very strange story--we are going around and asking for economic support for the new (Palestinian authority), not for Israel. And we are doing (so) because we are convinced that a political agreement without economic support may fall down.

Q: The European Community has decided to submit to the Council of Ministers at its meeting this weekend in Belgium a five-year, regional assistance plan of $600 million. Is that enough?

A: This is enough as first aid for the Palestinians. But I foresee the European Community will do more than that for the construction of a new Middle East. We have suggested to them--and in principle it was accepted--that they will give investment guarantees to their own companies that want to invest in the building of the installations and infrastructure that is needed for a new Middle East.

Q: Some people talk harshly about you and compare you to Marshal Henri Petain in France or Neville Chamberlain in England and call you a traitor.

A. Some people in France called even President (Charles) de Gaulle the same name. So what?

This is the opposition. They were caught in a confused situation, so they shout. When you shout, it doesn’t demonstrate that you have other or better arguments. You raise your voice because you don’t have an alternative.

Q: Going back to the origins of this development, at what point did you think this was possible?

A: I am not going in for telling stories. I don’t feel like it, because, basically, I am not a storyteller and, secondly, because this may prevent me from continuing to work. You cannot be both a historian and an active politician, and I prefer my activities rather than my memoirs.

Q: The PLO has long been a devil for many Israelis. How can you explain that so suddenly that this devil is someone with whom you can build a future?

A: You cannot make out a person as either a devil or an angel. He will always remain a human being. And the choice is not about the nature of the person but about his policies. If the PLO will change its policies, so it will be a different organization . . . . It has happened on so many occasions all over the world. But I never attempted to portray people in terms of angels or in terms of devils.

Q: The signing of the accord with the Palestinians will be a turning point in Middle East history, in Israel’s history. How do you feel personally about it?

A: This is the beginning of the story. And my freedom to continue and to contribute overshadows all other considerations. I am not attuned to the glory of the past; I am more attracted by the potential of the future . . . .

Q: You seem to be the Israeli politician, more than any other, with a vision of the future Israel as it interacts with the Arab world. Would you like to lead your country into that era?

A: I think that in order to attain what we are attaining we should not fall into a broken leadership. As far as my contribution is concerned, I shall keep the leadership united because I think it adds strength in attaining the goals.

I am no longer a baby, but neither have I reached the age of becoming an egocentric old gentleman, which I would consider as a failure, as foolish psychologically. So I am looking at things soberly as much as I can.

When I see a goal, I am asking myself how to achieve it. My answer is that, in a democratic country, it cannot be achieved by a single person. We have to have a group, we have to work together; we shouldn’t fall into the traps of ambition and competition unnecessarily. If you can hold to it, it is to your credit.