United States and Middle Eastern Policy

in a Changing Global Arena

Dr. Henry Kissinger

I met Yitzhak Rabin in 1967, right after the Seven Day War, as I remember the Six Day War because, on the seventh day, he rested so I counted it. Relatively soon after, he invited me to deliver some lectures to the military leaders and shortly after that we worked together when he was ambassador of Israel and I was National Security Advisor.

Very early in my period in office, Abba Eban came to see me and said: Remember, we Israelis consider objectivity to be a hundred percent agreement with our point of view. I thought he was kidding. But it was a complicated period. It was the period of the War of Attrition, of the Soviet missiles along the Suez Canal, then of the Yom Kippur War. And through that period Yitzhak and I worked not only together as colleagues but became close friends.

I admired his extraordinary analytical skill and, while he was a shy man, he was also a very passionate man dedicated to the security of Israel and to the peace within which that security must be embedded.

When he was taken from us, it was a terrible personal blow. I had seen him two weeks before the assassination at a long lunch at the Regency Hotel in New York. He said that Israel really had no choice and that with respect to the Arabs on the West Bank, there were only three possibilities: integration into the Israeli state, which would change the character of the Israeli state; turning the Arab regions into a kind of

-3-

Bantustan, which would destroy the moral basis of the Israeli state; or working on coexistence.

Once I met the Australian Foreign Minister after he had just had a meeting with Yitzhak, and he told me that in trying to persuade Yitzhak to some point of view, had said: 'but I am preaching to the converted.' And Yitzhak said: 'no, not to the converted, to the committed.' That was the essence of what he stood for and why he was as close to being an indispensable leader as Israel is likely to have.

He was fortunate to have had as a collaborator Shimon Peres, my long-time friend. The combination of those two men made for extraordinary progress towards peace. At present the question is: Where are we now and where should we go?

I have always been in a rather complicated situation personally. I am of course Jewish and I lost 13 members of my family in concentration camps. That links my destiny with that of the Jewish people. But I have also been honored by being the first Jewish Secretary of State (1973 - 1976) to have contributed to guiding the destiny of America in a very tragic period for America: the ending of the Vietnam War and trying to maintain American credibility at a time of enormous domestic crisis. In the middle of all this came the Yom Kippur War, and then the peace process, all of it in very complicated circumstances.

Many of my colleagues from this period will remember what pressures existed at that time. The energy crisis, the oil embargo, the pressures from most of America's allies to force Israel back to the '67 borders immediately - not a peace process at all but abandonment under outside pressure. And Arab leaders would not even talk to Israel in those days

-4-

[L.C.]

so that I had to carry messages back and forth. Of course since the two
parties never even came face to face, both of them probably thought
they could have done a lot better. And probably they could have, if they
would only have talked to each other directly.

Through this period, the people I have mentioned, and others such as
Simcha Dinitz who was ambassador then, and those of us on the American
side, may have had occasional disagreements but we always had a common
objective. And there was through all those years a fundamental agreement
as to where we were trying to go.

The point I want to make is that that is the absolutely essential requirement
for progress towards peace. It seems to me that there are three aspects
for Israel's position in a peace process. The first is its relationship to
America; the second is its relationship to the international community;
and the third is the preservation of the security of Israel through all of
this.

It is almost impossible to have every one of these three elements in
perfect harmony, or to expect that everything is possible within each
category. But enough of it must be achieved to allow for underlying
harmony.

The great contribution of Yitzhak Rabin was that he was totally trusted
in America and that by the end of his life he had established a truly
extraordinary position in the international community. I was in Asia once
and happened to be watching some Asian television when, quite by
accident, I saw his arrival in China, where he was treated as an honored
state guest. I tracked him down and called him up and said: I have
become somewhat of an expert in Chinese receptions and you have

- 5 -

received the most respectful, courteous and high-level reception that I have ever seen.

That was a great achievement for Israel and not just in China but everywhere. And through all of this, as a former Chief of Staff he maintained of course his dedication to the security of Israel. Now, where are we?

I do not want to talk in categories that are part of the Israeli domestic debate. I simply want to describe what I believe to be the challenges which must be met in the contemporary period. First, relations with America.

The Israel of today is dealing with quite a different America from the one that started the peace process. It is a generation which, on the whole, has no memory of World War II. My generation went through World War II, the restoration of Europe, the Marshall Plan, and the rebuilding of free societies. For us it was absolutely axiomatic that we would protect the Middle East against Communist dangers.

Today there is no longer that sort of Communist danger. The formative experience of the current generation of Americans was the Vietnam War and its disappointments. In America today there is isolationism on the left and unilateralism on the right, and the government has to navigate with great care between them.

As some of you may know, President Clinton was my second choice in the last election. Nevertheless, I say that only to indicate that I support him on his recent initiatives to China, his NATO expansion policy and, if he should feel that it is necessary to take a strong stand against Iraq,

-6-

which I certainly believe, I will certainly do my utmost to bring about bipartisan support for him in that respect.

But bipartisanship in America now is more difficult. Over 30% of those in Congress have never been outside the United States, and many of the issues we read about in the newspapers are almost incomprehensible to them.

When I am asked about the Middle East, or about the Palestinian-Israeli issue, I always ask an American audience: What is the distance from the Jordan River to the sea? Will you please raise your hand. Never have I found one person who knew. They think 300 miles, 500 miles. When I say 50 miles, it is a stunning piece of news to them.

So when the issue is how many kilometers one can safely withdraw, that is a very difficult concept to get into the minds of the average American. There is also inherent disparity with the views of a continental country which has never been in mortal danger or suffered a major defeat in war. Not even Vietnam really touched American soil.

In a country like Israel, which has never been out of danger, never been recognized and has lived a ghetto existence for most of its history, the dialogue between America and Israel is important and absolutely essential to acquiring some understanding of where we are going.

The second aspect of Israel's position in a peace process is its relationship to the international community. The international situation today is totally different from what it was 25 years ago. At that time it was a two-power world and it was relatively easy to integrate the thinking about the relative power positions of the various countries.

-7-

Now we have a Russia which is back to the borders of Peter the Great. We have a China growing at the rate of 10% a year for 20 years, an unheard-of evolution. India is developing rapidly. South East Asia is also growing. And then there are changes in the area much closer to you in Israel, in Iran, and possible changes in other regions as well.

In terms of just America, the question is how to handle this, and what the American national interest is in such a situation. We live in a world of global economics but politics remain national. I do not know how much of our current debate is presented in the Israeli press, or what the countries of South East Asia and elsewhere are saying. But we have to find a way of insulating ourselves from economic crises which start far away and are orchestrated by pension funds and other institutions we do not even understand. This will absorb an enormous amount of American attention, and Israel must be placed in all of this somehow if it is not to become in time the focal point of a lot of pressures.

So now let me talk about Israel. What a unique country. What other people would conceive to return to where they had not been for 2000 years. What a testimony to faith to build a significant nation on this territory.

I came here for the first time in 1961. The first Israeli leader I met was Yigal Allon, when he was studying at Harvard for three months in 1965. He told me about the Independence War in 1948, a fantastic adventure, but Israel then had only a few hundred thousand people.

I came to this city for the first time in 1962 when Shlomo Argov, who is now lying in the Hadassa Hospital because he was shot in the head by an Iraqi assassin, took me around and we stood at the separation of the

-8-

City of Jerusalem and looked into the Old City. So, without a doubt, Israel has had a very complicated past, has grown into a modern industrial state, and is in the best economic position it has ever been in. But how can it look to the future?

As a result of its history, Israel has developed, or some Israelis have developed, notions of peace and security that are almost eschatological. The notion of security is one of perfect security and of avoiding a repetition of the endless cycle of wars through which Israel has lived. Or, if that is not achievable, perfect security against all the outside world.

The notion of peace is that some magic point will be reached when an agreement is signed, after which the Middle East will live with a consciousness of harmony. I think neither of these objectives is going to be achievable quickly. But definite and significant progress can be made towards each of them, and has been made towards each of them.

With respect to the problem of security, it is of course essential that Israel never be in a position where aggressors believe they can achieve a decisive victory; or where Israel is totally dependent, or even largely dependent, on foreign support for its security. On the other hand, Israel must also find itself in an international environment in which it is not perceived as the principal cause of tension in the region.

In 1973, when the peace process started, I was perhaps the principal advocate of what was then called the step-by-step approach. My reasoning was as follows: all the surrounding countries were demanding that Israel return immediately and unconditionally to the 1967 borders, after which they would be willing perhaps to open peace negotiations.

-9-