(Extremely Important) Ha'aretz interview with IDF Chief of Staff Moshe
Ya'alon

[IMRA: If one only has time to read one item this week - or perhaps month -
this is the one. COS Ya'alon spells out Israel's battle for survival
against Palestinians committed to the destruction of Israel in stages and
warns of the consequences of signaling national weakness.]

HA'ARETZ Friday Magazine 30 Aug.'02"The enemy within"

By Ari Shavit

HEADING:"The confrontation with the Palestinians is an existential,
cancerous threat to Israel, according to IDF Chief of Staff Moshe Ya'alon.
In his first interview since assuming his post last month, Ya'alon attacks
the Israeli pathology of self-blame, criticizes the media and accuses
various elements of undermining him in the Shehadeh affair. No, he's not
right-wing, just the same old kibbutznik at heart"

EXCERPTS:

. . .
"In my eyes he is an iconic Israeli," says the former platoon commander and
current Speaker of the Knesset, Avraham Burg. "A person of purity without an
iota of arrogance. Like a precious metal. A nature reserve of Israeliness."
I N T E R V I E W

Q. Lieutenant General Yarom,: of all the threats surrounding the State of
Israel, which disturbs you the most? Are any of the threats of an
existential nature?

A. "When I look at the overall map, what disturbs me especially is the
Palestinian threat and the possibility that a hostile state will acquire
nuclear capability. Those are the most worrisome focal points, because both
of them have the potential of being an existential threat to Israel. We have
good answers for all the other threats. We have a good answer for what
Hezbollah can do and for what the Syrians can do. We also have a good answer
for what the Iraqis are liable to do."

Q. There is something surprising in the fact that you see the Palestinian
threat as an existential threat.

A. "The characteristics of that threat are invisible, like cancer. When you
are attacked externally, you see the attack, you are wounded. Cancer, on the
other hand, is something internal. Therefore, I find it more disturbing,
because here the diagnosis is critical. If the diagnosis is wrong and people
say it's not cancer but a headache, then the response is irrelevant. But I
maintain that it is cancer. My professional diagnosis is that there is a
phenomenon here that constitutes an existential threat."

Q. Does that mean that what you are doing now, as chief of staff, in the
West Bank and the Gaza Strip, is applying chemotherapy?

A. "There are all kinds of solutions to cancerous manifestations. Some
will say it is necessary to amputate organs. But at the moment, I am
applying chemotherapy, yes."

Q. Describe for me the present campaign between the Palestinians and us:
Who is against whom, and for what, in this campaign?

.A. "The campaign is between two societies that are competing for territory
and, to a certain degree, for existence. I don't think that there is an
existential threat to the Palestinian society. There is an existential
threat to us. In other words, there is asymmetry here, but it is reversed:
Everyone thinks we are Goliath and they are David, but I maintain that it is
the opposite."

Q. Are you saying that despite what appears to be a war of the oppressed
against the oppressors, of the occupied against the occupiers, the
Palestinians actually have a sense of strength and power?

"Of course. They feel that they have the backing of a quarter-of-a-billion
Arabs and they believe that time is on their side and that, with a
combination of terrorism and demography, they will tire us out and wear us
down. There is also an additional reverse asymmetry here: We do not have
intentions to annihilate them and we have also expressed readiness to grant
them a state, whereas they are unwilling to recognize our right to exist
here as a Jewish state."

Do you not see the war of the Palestinians against us as a campaign to end
the occupation?

"If the term `occupation' had any relevance at all, it lost it, as far as I
am concerned, in the year 2000, when the State of Israel put a certain
proposal on the table that was supposed to resolve the problem. That
proposal was supposed to get the Palestinians off our back, but instead they
started to stab us. They stayed on our back, attached to us and stabbing us.
That is the reality. Therefore, without getting into a political discussion
of what the solution should be, I maintain that the story is not occupation.
The story is non-recognition of the right of the State of Israel to exist as
a Jewish state."

Are you saying unequivocally that the Palestinian struggle is not aimed at
liberating the territories that were conquered in 1967?

"Of course not. Of course not. The Palestinians have three stories. Their
narrative in Arabic is one of mobilization for a war of jihad and
non-recognition of Israel's right to exist. That narrative rejects any
attachment between the Jewish people and the Land of Israel, and it
mobilizes the Palestinian people for a war with the goal of bringing about
Israel's collapse. In English, the story is different: occupation,
colonialism, apartheid. Those are completely irrelevant terms, which are
intended to furnish the Western world with familiar terminology that
clarifies who the good guys are here and who the bad guys are.

"In Hebrew, they have a third story: the peace of the brave. But I know the
details and I say that [Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser] Arafat is
taking the name of Yitzhak Rabin, of blessed memory, in vain. He saw Oslo as
a Trojan horse that would enable the Palestinians to enter Israel, and
September 2000 as the moment of emerging from the belly of the horse. Today,
too, the ideology of Fatah is to bring about Israel's disintegration from
within. What they are after is not to arrive at the end of the conflict, but
to turn Israel into a Palestinian state."

In other words, the goal of Arafat and of Fatah is to liquidate Israel by
stages?

"Of course. Not to reach an agreement and not to arrive at the end of their
claims, in order to preserve the conflict and to let time run its course
according to the phased theory."

If so, you would say that the Oslo agreement was a mistake?

"We can't talk in terms of a mistake or not a mistake. If you ask me
personally, in terms of the rightness of our way, I find the situation far
more convenient today. When I move, in the end, to fight against what the
Palestinians are creating, I think that after what we went through in the
past nine years, I have fewer question marks and more exclamation marks. For
me, moral clarity has emerged here."

The spider-web theory

Do you see Arafat himself as a strategic threat to the State of Israel?

"Today he is greatly weakened. He has lost much of his strength and his
legitimacy. But the answer is yes: Arafat does not recognize Israel's right
of existence as a Jewish state and his game plan is to bring about Israel's
disintegration by means of a combination of strategy and demography. Even
today, in his weakened state, he believes in the spider-web theory. That is
why he persists in using terrorism.

What is the theory of the spider web?

"It is a theory that is attributed to [Hezbollah secretary-general] Hassan
Nasrallah, which holds that Israel is a military power, but that its civil
society is a pampered consumer society that is no longer willing to fight
and struggle. The Israeli army is strong, Israel has technological
superiority and is said to have strategic capabilities, but its citizens are
unwilling any longer to sacrifice lives in order to defend their national
interests and national goals. Therefore, Israel is a spider-web society: It
looks strong from the outside, but touch it and it will fall apart.

"Yasser Arafat maintains that he and not [Hezbollah secretary-general Sheik
Hassan] Nasrallah is the father of this perception of Israel. He is right.
That's why he does not want to put a stop to the terrorist pressure. Even at
low points, he is constantly looking for the cracks in the Israeli wall.
Time after time, he promises his people that Israeli society is about to
break."

Does he really see himself as Saladin?

"Yes. But his strategy is complex, a strategy of entanglement. He believes
that the more he entangles the situation, the more he will be needed. He is
trying to be both the problem and the person to solve the problem: both the
pyromaniac and the firefighter, both the person who lights the fire and the
fireman. Even now Arafat is trying to achieve escalation. Even though he
could stop the confrontation, he is not doing so."

Do you consider him an illegitimate leader?

"[U.S. President George] Bush's speech [on the Middle East on June 24] was
strategically decisive and normatively decisive. He defined things very
clearly: Anyone who is tainted by terrorism is not legitimate. Therefore,
Arafat can no longer be the decision-maker on the Palestinian side. There is
nowhere to go with him. The Americans made it clear that they are not going
to liquidate him, but that if the Palestinians want to see light at the end
of the tunnel, they themselves should neutralize him. That is an unequivocal
statement: Arafat will not be the decision-maker. He will not be."

What will happen if he is reelected in democratic elections?

"The alternative Palestinian leadership has to be elected democratically on
the model of Germany after World War II. Anyone who was a member of the Nazi
Party was not allowed to be a candidate in the elections there, and anyone
who is tainted by terrorism cannot be a candidate here."

Staying power

Is it your assessment that Israel is approaching victory in the struggle
against the Palestinians?

"Since Operation Defensive Shield [the Israeli army's operation in the West
Bank last April following the suicide bombing of the Park Hotel in Netanya
on Passover eve], and in the past two months especially, signs of cracking
have appeared on the Palestinian side. The situation is completely different
from what it was in March. But caution is needed. It's like in judo:
Sometimes you think you're throwing your opponent, but in the end, you're
the one who's thrown. And with the person in the Muqata [Arafat's
headquarters in Ramallah], extra caution is needed. He has been eulogized
and eulogized all his life, and he returns like the phoenix.

"The key point here is the staying power of the Israeli society. That is the
most important factor that is being put to the test at this time and will
continue to be put to the test in the near future. That is what the campaign
is about. When the Palestinians initiated the confrontation, their
evaluation was that Israel would not be able to withstand even a few dozen
casualties. They were surprised. Operation Defensive Shield showed them that
they were dealing not with a spider web, but with a tiger. But if they see
cracks and a chance of [Israel's] disintegration, a prospect of Israeli
capitulation, that achievement will be erased."

Do you have a definition of victory? Is it clear to you what Israel's goal
in this war is?

"I defined it from the beginning of the confrontation: the very deep
internalization by the Palestinians that terrorism and violence will not
defeat us, will not make us fold. If that deep internalization does not
exist at the end of the confrontation, we will have a strategic problem with
an existential threat to Israel. If that [lesson] is not burned into the
Palestinian and Arab consciousness, there will be no end to their demands of
us. Despite our military might, the region will perceive us as being even
weaker. That will have an impact not only on those who are engaged in the
violent struggle, but also on those who have signed agreements with us and
on extremists among the Arabs in Israel. That's why this confrontation is so
important. There has not been a more important confrontation since the War
of Independence."

It's that critical?

"Yes. I have no doubt that when this period is viewed historically, the
conclusion will be that the War of Independence was the most important event
in our history and this war was the second most important event."

Even more important than the Six-Day War or the Yom Kippur War?

"Of course, of course. Because we are dealing with an existential threat.
There was an Israeli attempt to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by
means of a territorial compromise, and the Palestinian reply was war. So
this brings us back to the confrontation of the pre-state period, the
partition proposal and the War of Independence. The facts that are being
determined in this confrontation - in terms of what will be burned into the
Palestinian consciousness - are fateful. If we end the confrontation in a
way that makes it clear to every Palestinian that terrorism does not lead to
agreements, that will improve our strategic position. On the other hand, if
their feeling at the end of the confrontation is that they can defeat us by
means of terrorism, our situation will become more and more difficult.
Therefore, I say that we must not blur the weighty meaning of this
confrontation. When you grasp the essence, it's clear to you what you have
to do. You have to fight for your life."

Does that mean that any move involving unilateral withdrawal before the
confrontation is resolved and before the violence ends is dangerous?

"Of course. That would give a push to the struggle against us. Even if
tactically it appears right to withdraw from here or from there, from the
strategic perspective, it is different. That was my argument when the
question arose of withdrawing from Joseph's Tomb [in Nablus]. It was clear
to me that leaving the tomb would be an incentive for the Palestinians,
whereas others thought that leaving the site would neutralize a point of
friction. But those who thought in those terms were thinking like Israelis,
not like Palestinians."

So that means that in the present situation, leaving settlements would be a
mistake with potentially catastrophic implications?

"Of course. I'm not talking about the political solution. I am not saying
what will be right and what will not be right after the violence ends.
That's not my affair. When asked, I will give my security recommendation.
But today, any such departure under terrorism and violence will strengthen
the path of terrorism and violence. It will endanger us."

In other words, as chief of staff, you are saying that even if you need a
battalion to hold an isolated settlement, if we leave it we will need a
great deal more?

"Correct."

Back to 1948

What are the implications of the separation fence that is being built? Will
it, too, not be interpreted in the same way?

"It is liable to be interpreted like that. But the route that was chosen may
offset the strategic threat it entails. There is also a tactical improvement
in that you succeed in preventing infiltrations. But I don't think the fence
will solve all the problems."

So you are not an admirer of the separation fence?

"It's complex and it's in the political arena, so I am very careful here. If
I were given that money, I would invest it elsewhere."

Can we sum up by saying, without getting into the political question, that
your professional opinion is that concessions that are made under fire are
dangerous? Is it your view that any possible Israeli concession can be made
only after the confrontation is decided and the violence ends?

"Yes."

If so, and if the position of the Palestinians is as you say, where is all
this leading? What will the end be? How long are we to live by the sword?

"I would refer people who ask what the end will be to a well-known quotation
of Moshe Dayan. When he was asked, in 1969, what the end will be, his reply
was, `Do not fear, servants of Abraham.' Dayan said that the emphasis should
be on the path and not on the final goal, on the process of the struggle and
not on the final destination. As human beings, we want a solution now. Now.
But in the situation of Israel, nowism is false messianism. Nowism is the
mother of all sins. And it makes no difference whether to the word `now' is
added `messiah' [thus, `messiah now'] or something else now.

"We live in a very complex neighborhood, in which our right to exist has not
yet been recognized. We have been living for a hundred years in crisis
management. Therefore, we have to maneuver it into directions that
strengthen us. And we have to win in this confrontation. Otherwise, the next
war will not be far off."

Are you saying that we are entering a basic, existential situation again,
that we have to understand that the confrontation is an inseparable part of
our lives, but that if we are strong, we will reduce and control it?

"Do we have a choice? We must understand: The Palestinians have returned us
to the War of Independence. Today it is clear that the State of Israel as a
Jewish state is still an alien element in the region. It will take
generations until various elements in the region accept its existence.
Therefore, we have to go back to the ethos of standing fast, not because I
am enamored of that ethos, but because there is no choice. It is an ethos of
no choice.

"At the same time, there is no reason for gloom. We are a power. Even though
we are only 6 million, we are a power: a military, economic, cultural and
scientific power. Nor do I think that there is any sort of decree from
heaven here. In Islam, there are waves that rise and fall, sometimes in the
direction of extremism and sometimes in the direction of moderation. The
Muslim world is not monolithic. It is possible that over time, the region
will see processes of Westernization, democratization, a joining of the
global village. But as long as we are under attack, Israeli society must
show staying power. True, it is difficult, but when I was a boy, it was more
difficult. And true, people are sad. But we should look at things in
perspective: After 54 years, we are truly a power. Therefore, at bottom, I
am truly optimistic."

No sleepless nights over Iraq

You said that the second existential threat to Israel was the nuclearization
of the Middle East.

"If a hostile state acquires nuclear weapons, that will have three
implications. First, it will be able to use them against Israel. Second, it
will be able to make use of biological and chemical weapons without fear, in
spheres where we have so far achieved deterrence. Third, under a nuclear
umbrella, a hostile state will certainly also dare to act in additional -
conventional - areas. The appearance of hostile nuclear weapons will also
violate the balance that exists today in the region between moderates and
radicals."

Is your conclusion that Israel should adopt the Begin doctrine of using
operational force in order to prevent hostile states from going nuclear?

"I will not go into that."

Let me put it another way: Is it in Israel's supreme interest to prevent
hostile nuclearization in any way?

"Yes. Unequivocally. All efforts have to be made so that no hostile state
will achieve nuclear capability."

Are you not concerned about the possibility that in the event of an American
attack on Iraq, Saddam Hussein will attack Israel with nonconventional
weapons?

"If Iraq feels its survival is under threat, it may definitely want to
demonstrate force against Israel along the lines of `Let me die with the
Philistines.' However, Iraq's capabilities are shallow compared to what they
were in the Gulf War. They are not capabilities that give me sleepless
nights."

Iraq today does not constitute an existential threat to Israel?

"No. Obviously, we have to prepare for the possibility that they will launch
a missile or a plane. But we have good answers to that threat, and the
threat itself is limited. It might be unpleasant, but not terrible."

And the situation on the northern border, where Hezbollah has deployed
thousands of rockets, doesn't disturb you either?

"The situation in the north cannot not be disturbing. But Israel will never
say die. The problem there is less severe than in the Palestinian arena."

Is the threat from the north more serious or less serious than it was before
the withdrawal from southern Lebanon?

"The potential that exists today in Lebanon is far graver than it was in the
period when we were in the security zone [an Israeli-controlled strip on the
Lebanese side of the border]. Hezbollah, together with the Syrians and the
Iranians, has created a strategic threat to the north of the country, which
consists of a combination of rockets of various types and various ranges
that are threatening Israeli population centers in the north."

How tangible is that threat?

"If the Hezbollah potential is unleashed against us and we meet it with an
appropriate response, it is possible that the response will, in fact, have
the effect of strengthening Israel's deterrent capability. If it is
unleashed and our response is inadequate, it will hurt us. So, if the threat
materialized, we will have to exact a heavy price from those who are
responsible for its development."

Who are they?

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

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?

"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."

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

"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."

Is Bashar Assad really more adventurous than his father was?

"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."

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

"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."

Strategic Achilles heel

Do you think the withdrawal from Lebanon was a mistake?

"Leaving Lebanon was a matter of time. The question was when and how to
leave. We have to investigate this: Was the timing of the departure correct
when we knew that the process with the Palestinians would be completed in
September 2000, or should we have restrained ourselves for another half a
year? It is also right to ask whether there was a way to execute the
withdrawal in a manner that would not strengthen Hezbollah and the Iranians.
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."

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

"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.

"That perception affected all the process of armament and the military and
terrorist thinking in the region. The conclusion was that because it is
impossible to cope with the Israel Defense Forces, ways have to be found to
get around its might in order to strike directly at Israeli society, which
is incapable of absorbing casualties. Hence the emphasis on
surface-to-surface missiles and hence also the emphasis on terrorism. The
assumption was that a direct strike at Israeli society would set processes
in motion. And it worked.

"That is what happened, first in 1983-1984, and then in the Jibril deal [the
exchange, in May 1985 - following negotiations with Ahmed Jibril's Popular
Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command - of three Israelis
taken prisoner in the Lebanon War, for 1,150 terrorists who were imprisoned
in Israel], and then in what was interpreted as Israel's bending in the face
of the stones and terrorism of the intifada. It continued after Oslo and
South Lebanon, when it appeared that Israel was unable to bear a situation
of 20 to 30 [army] deaths a year.

"Therefore, in terms of the person who is supposed to provide security, I
can say that whereas in the sphere of army versus army, and in the
nonconventional sphere, we created effective deterrence, we did not succeed
in creating that kind of deterrence in the face of the surface-to-surface
rockets or terrorism. Israeli society was marked by many in the region as a
target which, if struck at, could bring about Israel's capitulation."

Blaming the media

Some people say that you have become right-wing.

"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."

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?

"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 a reality that they do not control, it is more convenient to blame
the Israeli side. Or the army. Or the chief of staff. Or whoever is
reporting to them that the reality is not exactly the way they would like it
to be. In addition, there are people for whom the conception has become
their whole world, so they entrench themselves in it and refuse to let it
go.

"I have to say that I am concerned about the part played by the media in
creating this conception. Before the Yom Kippur War, the media were less
investigative and more engaged. Today, the media seem to be investigative,
open and safeguarding democracy, yet they are nevertheless part of the
conception. Even though they are seemingly not engaged, the media had a
major part in building the conception. They led the process."

Were there years in which you felt alone because of the gap between your
perception of reality and the perception of the media, the political echelon
and a large part of the public in Israel?

"I don't want to praise myself unduly. I only punctuated Arafat's intentions
with an exclamation mark a month after the Sharm el-Sheikh conference - a
month after the outbreak of the present confrontation. Before that, since
August 1995, I had thought only in terms of question marks. But I remember
that when I appeared before the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense
Committee at the beginning of October 2000, people asked me whether the peak
of the confrontation was already behind us. Suddenly, I understood the gap
that exists between the world I live in and the world they live in. Because,
since November 1999, I saw the confrontation taking on flesh and bones and I
tried to prepare for it.

"I also remember a meeting with a group of American researchers in July
2000, in which I said that we are headed for war, and I saw from the look in
their eyes that my interlocutors thought I had gone out of my mind. They
looked at me and listened to me and thought I was a warmongering general who
doesn't know what he's talking about. But it's not just a matter of being
alone. Sometimes it's worse. You stand and try to contain [the other side],
but they are shooting at you from all directions, and people from your side
come and undermine you. Absolutely undermine you. That is frustrating. Very
frustrating. Sometimes it drives me crazy."

Can you give me an example of some particular thing that drives you crazy?

"The incident of Salah Shehadeh was a tragic event in the context of harming
innocent people [referring to the death of 15 civilians, many of them
children, when a one-ton bomb was dropped on a building in Gaza in order to
kill Shehadeh, a top Hamas activist]. There is no question of that. There
was a hitch here, a serious hitch, and that is something that must not be
allowed to happen to us. But to come and say that the attack on Shehadeh
torpedoed a cease-fire that was supposed to come into effect is to take
half-truths and build a lying narrative out of them. Simply lying.

"There was a discussion about a cease-fire, I don't deny that. But it was
decided in the negative by Hamas on July 15, a week before the bombing. It
was decided in the negative by the Tanzim four days before the bombing. The
decision of the Palestinians was not to embark on a cease-fire, because they
understood that Arafat didn't want it. Whereas here, a story was built up to
the effect that the army torpedoed a cease-fire, and those who built up the
story were not Palestinians. It was Israelis who conceived the idea of
accusing us of `torpedoing' a cease-fire. That is an Israeli idea that the
Palestinians took a ride on afterward."

Is there an Israeli pathology at work here?

"Of course there is a pathology. You have to understand that we are in a
combined campaign - military, political, civilian, media, economic. In order
to build a defensive wall, all those elements have to work in synergy. You
have to understand that if you build a military wall but there is no
political wall, then there is no wall. If you build a wall of the Shin Bet
[security service] but there is no publicity wall, then there is no wall.
And it is absolutely clear that there is no wall if Israelis come along and
break it or undermine it."

A happy childhood

Lieutenant General Ya'alon, where do you come from? What are the sources of
your Israeliness?

"I suppose it begins with my parents. My father fled Bolshevism in 1925. One
of his brothers was murdered because he was a Jew and another brother was
arrested for Zionist activity, and then their father decided to pack up the
property and the factory in Ukraine and come to this country. My mother is a
Holocaust survivor. She fled the Nazis and survived. She joined the
Partisans and, in the end, reached Italy and from there came here after the
war and was imprisoned [by the British] at Atlit, but she managed to get
away from there, too.

"Our home was a typical one in Kiryat Haim [a Haifa suburb]: an
Israeli-Zionist-workers' home with all that Kiryat Haim of the 1950s and
`60s reflects. My father was a worker in the Shemen factory [which
manufactures cooking oil and soap] and we lived a very modest life. At the
time, I didn't understand that we were poor, but today I understand that we
were poor. But I didn't feel any lack; I had no idea that there was any
other kind of life. [There was] no bicycle, no car, not even a telephone in
the house. Once every few months, we had felafel. Most of the time, we drank
water and ate black bread because it was cheaper. Everything was on a modest
scale. Our good time was the beach. Still, for me, it was a happy
childhood."

Was there a sense of the Holocaust in the background?

"It wasn't talked about. But there was no [extended] family. Nearly the
whole family on my mother's side was murdered. Finally, you understand that
even though no one talked about it, it was a formative experience. You
understand that you imbibed it."

You are a person who is constantly demanding of yourself, with a deep
feeling of being engaged and committed - is that right?

"Yes, absolutely. I was active in the Noar Ha'oved [left-leaning youth]
movement. It was clear that one had to go on to self-realization: to settle
the Arava [desert] was part of Zionism as far as I was concerned. I took the
whole thing about equality and humanism very seriously. And also making the
desert bloom. The hold on the land. I take all that seriously today, too."

Do you still feel yourself to be a kibbutznik?

"It is not only a feeling. I am a kibbutznik. And I am very proud of it. If
you ask me where I am from, I am from Kibbutz Grofit [north of Eilat]."

A military life

Lieutenant General Moshe Ya'alon was born in 1950 in Kiryat Haim, a suburb
of Haifa. He was drafted in 1968, serving in the airborne unit of the
paramilitary Nahal brigade. Within the framework of the "self-fulfillment"
doctrine of his youth movement, he joined Kibbutz Grofit, north of Eilat, of
which he is a member to this day.

In the Yom Kippur War of 1973, he fought as a reservist in the Paratroops
and took part in the conquest of the Suez Canal. Returning to active service
after the war, he completed an officers' training course and served in
command posts in the Paratroops. Knesset Speaker Avraham Burg and others who
served under Ya'alon remember especially that company commander Ya'alon's
wife, Ada, would come to the base on the weekend and stay with him in a pup
tent.

In 1978, Ya'alon was the commanding officer of the Paratroops' sayeret
(reconnaissance unit), taking part with it in Operation Litani in southern
Lebanon. He spent the next three years in the elite Sayeret Matkal
reconnaissance unit and then was appointed commander of a battalion in the
Paratroops. He was sent to England for advanced studies in 1986 and, on his
return, was named commander of Sayeret Matkal. He rehabilitated the unit in
the wake of a series of crises it had experienced and, among other
operations, led it in the liquidation of Abu Jihad. His next appointments
were as commander of the Paratroops Brigade (1990), commander of the West
Bank Division (1992) and commander of an armored division (1993).

In June 1995, Ya'alon was appointed director of Military Intelligence and
already then began to have doubts about Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat,
arousing the wrath of Shimon Peres. In May 1998, he became head of Central
Command, where he prepared the command's units for the violent confrontation
with the Palestinians that he foresaw. He was appointed deputy chief of
staff in September 2000, and on July 9, 2002, took over as chief of staff.
For the past few years he and his wife have lived in a small community in
the center of the country, even though they are both still kibbutz members.
They have three children. (U.S.)n

Dead children

Was the Shehadeh affair hard for you?

"The dead children are hard for me."

Explain to me what happened.

"We went to attack a person who was unprecedented in that he was the
commander of the terrorist arm of Hamas both in Gaza and in Judea-Samaria.
This is a person who is responsible for the killing of hundreds of people.
He systematically clung to the civilian population because he understood our
sensitivities. In quite a few cases, we avoided attacking him because his
wife was with him, or his daughters. Shehadeh had six daughters. More
recently, we made things easier for ourselves and said that even if his wife
is with him, we will attack him. Moreover, a discussion began about whether
it would not be right to attack him even if his daughters were with him. But
we made a decision against that. We decided that we would not harm his
daughters.

"On the Saturday evening before the attack, we held a discussion. It was
clear to us that in order to knock down the building, we would need a ton
[of explosives], and the question was whether we would use one bomb of a ton
or two of half a ton. Our experience was of dropping 160 bombs in the
Palestinian arena without a single innocent civilian being killed, but the
concern was that two bombs raised the statistical risk of a miss.

"So I sent the air force to do its homework and they came back to me with
the answer that a one-ton bomb was more certain. The assessment was that the
result would be the destruction of Shehadeh's house and damage to the empty
neighboring building, and shattered windows in the area and tin siding that
would be sent flying from the tin shacks. People wounded, not killed. In
retrospect, though, it turned out that the neighboring house was not empty.
The execution of the air force was perfect, but the intelligence gap in
regard to the neighboring house caused a hitch. Six children were killed in
that house."

And how did you feel?

"This is not my first day in the arena. I have been in the profession for 34
years - not by choice, but by necessity. I work constantly with the
resolution of a surgeon's scalpel so as not to hurt innocent people. So what
do you imagine I feel? I feel that something very heavy fell on my head. It
is not pleasant. It is extremely unpleasant."