"Let's not bring parents into this," Dr. Benny Begin tells me with a smile, answering my question about those who view him as a successor to his father, former Prime Minister Menachem Begin. In any case, just his name -- Begin -- is enough to elicit a wave of excitement. Even the people around us during the interview ask to speak to him or have their photos taken with him. As energetic as ever, ready to defend his arguments, Begin sits across from me and begins to fire ideas at me as though the words had been waiting two years -- the time he was absent from Israeli politics -- to be uttered. The former Likud minister, who is running in 11th spot on the Likud list in the coming elections, is focused, has a clear agenda and easily debates the issues with his fellow politicians. He is respectful, yet sarcastic. He wonders numerous times during the interview whether certain things he says would even interest our readers. Interviews conducted on the eve of elections are often characterized by interviewees who try to steer clear of minefields. Q: How do you see the current election? What is the focus- "The diminished focus on fundamental issues is not a coincidence; it is the result of a concerted effort by the various parties. Everyone is voicing strong opposition to the incumbent prime minister and to the Likud party, even those parties who were in the coalition not three months ago and did their best to work under the prime minister's direction. To a large extent, their efforts are bearing fruit because most of the media is cooperating with them. The feeling is that the relatively intense focus on petty issues this time is unique to this election. It is detrimental to democracy when the citizens are brainwashed like this." Q: There are still islands of free thought. ... What would you like the focus to be? "The fact is that on the rare occasion when there is a certain discussion of diplomatic issues, the Labor party has a hard time concealing how much it has lost its way. [Labor Chairman] Isaac Herzog is suddenly trying to convince the people that he will be responsible for Israel's sovereignty in Jerusalem, keeping it united as far as I understand, while two years ago he pledged to divide Jerusalem to make way for a Palestinian capital. "Two or three weeks ago he said he would make every effort to restore the peace process. He said, 'I will go Ramallah and bring a message of hope to the Palestinian parliament myself if I have to.' A week ago he admitted on Army Radio that he didn't have a clue about the negotiations between Western powers and Iran. As the head of the opposition he should have more than a clue. "In any case, he obviously isn't well versed in what is happening on the other side because if he goes to the Palestinian parliament, no one there will listen to him. The speaker of the parliament in Ramallah isn't exactly John Boehner. The speaker of the Palestinian parliament is a Hamas member, because Hamas won the majority of votes in the election. So Herzog will go and talk to Hamas and there will be hope -- that is a perfect example of the complete departure from reality in the new Middle East. "[Hatnuah Chairwoman] Tzipi Livni was asked whether [Palestinian Authority President] Mahmoud Abbas was a viable negotiating partner, and she admitted that he is not, but in the same breath she said that she would push the peace process forward. How does she plan to advance the peace process without a partner? "These people on the Left want to do their best to get rid of Judea and Samaria. They argue that the occupation corrupts and that sovereignty in those territories is detrimental and that the existence of Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria poses a diplomatic obstacle. When there is so much desire to advance the peace process it means that if there is an agreement they will evacuate, but they will also try to evacuate without a good agreement. We saw what happened in 2005 when we evacuated Gaza. Livni has said that she still thinks that the Gaza evacuation was a wise and necessary move. So you see whom we are dealing with-" Q: Let's talk about the word "occupation" for a moment. Israel has no authority over most of the Palestinian population, so there is no population occupation. We do indeed control the territory, but we have a right to it. So what "hope" are they talking about- "I appeared at two colleges and I tried to demonstrate to the students the primary and important difference between hope and delusion. The people in Israel's left-wing camp are trying to create delusions. It has worked for them in the past. They are the same delusions that surrounded the Oslo Accords in 1993, and most of the public bought it. They are the same delusions they created before abandoning Gaza, and they promised that the security of Israel would improve as a result. They even added that it was just the preliminary step before entering negotiations and striking a comprehensive peace agreement. In the current reality, these arguments are obviously nonsense. "Incidentally, Livni admitted in an interview with Roger Cohen in the New York Times not two months ago that it was Abbas who bolted from the talks. She pointed out that Abbas returned from Washington and entered a partnership with Hamas. "I think they are selling empty slogans, even when proposing the most far-reaching concessions in this arena. There is no possible way to strike a permanent agreement, not even with the PLO, and there is no possible way to achieve calm on the basis of unilateral abandonment of territories. What this means is that they are sowing delusions in an almost professional manner, and they have been doing it for a long time. It worked for them, twice, but their success was a failure for the state of Israel, and the results have been terrible." Q: A significant portion of the retired defense establishment is cooperating with them. They think we haven't done enough on the Palestinian issue. "I haven't counted how many former defense officials supported the Oslo Accords. Probably many. What does that say about their judgment, besides being security professionals? In 2005 as well, quite a few former defense officials were taken in by the delusion of the benefits of abandonment. ... It means that a member of any profession, be it shoemaker, biologist or security professional, isn't always an authority on a deep diplomatic understanding. There is no such monopoly. " Q: In his book "Ma Leumi Babitachon Haleumi" ("What is National about National Security"), Maj. Gen. (ret.) Gershon Hacohen coined the term "security technician." "I know defense officials, especially among those who are serving today and served in the IDF general staff when I was a government minister. These are impressive people -- their education and their strategic understanding. They are very serious people. There is apparently something in the human psyche that prompts us to cling to a delusion even when we know the truth, are smart and wise. There is such a thing. It is apparently more powerful than many of us. Even after two of these delusions were painfully shattered. How many more experiments will be done on human subjects here before they understand that the root of the disagreement between Israel and the PLO is not about the Likud party? The disagreement between Israel and the PLO is about the very foundation of the issues. People talk about a solution, with quote marks, without quote marks, of two states for two peoples. For the PLO there is no such thing. In their eyes there aren't two peoples. And this is the 'moderate' PLO, not Hamas. "That is just one example of how deep down they don't want to -- today we can say that they no longer can -- recognize the right of the Jews to sovereignty over any part of the land of Israel. The evidence: At a recent PLO meeting, they reiterated their refusal to recognize Israel as the national home of the Jewish people because they refuse to allow such sovereignty even theoretically. They argue that there is no Jewish people. Only a Jewish faith." Q: The geopolitical shifts aren't making things any easier for us
"That adds wonder on top of wonder. The security situation surrounding Israel has not improved since 2005. For about a year now we have seen hundreds of uniformed Iranian soldiers on the other side of our border, in southern Lebanon and in the Golan Heights. Now on top of that there is the Iranian declaration that they want to arm the West Bank. This means that if we evacuate the territory, it won't be taken over by a proxy, like Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza, but directly or almost directly by Iran! I cannot understand how some people fail to grasp that we are facing enough threats beyond our control, the fruits of our enemies' plans and thoughts. They want to add more homemade threats, created by Israel, by abandoning territory. "I am truly old, I'm not just saying that, and I still don't understand how anyone can think this way when Iran is taking over ever-growing parts of the Middle East right before our eyes. Borders have been blurred, after all. There is no real border between Iraq and Iran, or between Iraq and Syria, or between Syria and Lebanon. They took over Sanaa, the capital of Yemen. Just this week an adviser to the Iranian president said that Iran was an empire and therefore Iraq is part of it and Baghdad is the capital, the capital of the ancient caliphate from hundreds of years ago. Somehow this fact managed to escape the former defense officials. I can't understand this willful ignoring of the facts. And then, when you present these facts to people, their odd response is, 'You're scaremongering and blowing the threats out of proportion,' or 'We are a strong nation, now we will address social issues,' etc. I am all in favor of addressing all the problems, but not while ignoring the obvious danger in front of us. We can't solve all the problems, but why should we make things easier for our enemies? That is the paradox." Q: Perhaps deep down the left-wing avant garde wants to bolt from Jerusalem and from Judea and Samaria not just because these are geographical areas, and not just because of the "occupation," but because of the Jewish identity that is an inherent part of these swaths of land. "There are different explanations and motivations that bring people to conclude that the most important objective is to get rid of Judea and Samaria. They explain that Arabs live there and we directly, or indirectly, control them. They add to that the diplomatic difficulty that stems from our presence there. They changed the way they look at things, at least the Labor party did, after June 1967. Then the Labor party said that these territories in Judea and Samaria were a bargaining chip for peace. That has changed. Because today, these people who have lost the ability to conduct commerce, are announcing to the world that these bargaining chips are burning a hole in their pocket and they can't wait to offload them. They have lost the negotiating skills that their predecessors in the Labor party once possessed. The logic that guides them is no longer hinged on reality. Their motives are internal and they prefer to ignore any sign of danger. They say that 'a solution will be found.' These are the same people accusing us today of implementing a policy of occupation in Gaza! They said that if we evacuate Gaza we would no longer be considered occupiers, legally speaking. What good was their advice-" Q: What is your response to the claim that your party's direction is toward a binational state, while they are offering a Jewish state that doesn't need to control the Arabs- "It will be a very small state, narrow and diminished, fighting far tougher security challenges than the ones we are facing today. I don't understand this claim of a binational state. The Arab residents of Judea and Samaria freely elected a parliament, and freely chose Hamas as a majority in that parliament. They have a government, a president, representatives and ambassadors in the world, they have non-member state status and they have representatives in various U.N. bodies. We don't interfere in all that. We have all of 400,000 Jews in Judea and Samaria, of them about 100,000 living between the drainage divide and the Jordan Valley. I don't see how a binational state could develop under these circumstances." Q: You leveled harsh criticism [ADD LINK: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=24041] against the recent publication of the "concessions document" in Yedioth Ahronoth [ADD LINK: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=24005]. "I tried to explain that the document should not be interpreted in the way Yedioth Ahronoth presented it. This document did not belong to Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu. This was an American draft proposal, one of many, meant to test the receptiveness toward the American position, which was never and will never be accepted by either side. It is not binding. What does it have to do with thinking that Netanyahu made any kind of concessions? I felt that it was important to expose the truth." "I heard that the Zionist Left's candidate for prime minister, Tzipi Livni, remarked that I don't know what I am talking about on this matter. I was very sorry to hear her remarks because I know that she knows the truth. She knows the facts." Q: What are the facts- "That this was an effort to formulate an American position. I am extremely disappointed that in her efforts to achieve her next public position she is knowingly cooperating in the propagation of a lie. There are people who don't know it is a lie, and they are just guilty of spreading this libelous allegation. But she knows." Q: She was involved in the negotiations in question. Wasn't she- "She was serving as justice minister and she possessed certain responsibilities in regard to the negotiations with the Arab side. Of course she knows! I know that for a fact. When a candidate for the prime minister's position or any senior politician knowingly lends a hand to lie, that should set off some serious alarm bells. In any case, let's say that I don't know what I'm talking about. But Dennis Ross confirmed what everyone in the Likud Party said all along. Does Dennis Ross also not know what he is talking about? He mediated these negotiations!" Q: Can you outline the details of this document? "In 2009 and 2010, there was an American effort to formulate a document shared by both sides known as a 'terms of reference' document, in which the sides would jointly define the boundaries of the talks, the issues and the objectives. I used to tell my American friends that in my opinion that was a waste of time. A year or two later, they saw that I was right. Then, the character of the efforts shifted. Now the aim was to get the sides to the negotiating table, with the negotiations held under the title of a non-binding American position. It was as though the Americans said they would diplomatically sponsor the negotiations and they let the sides know what their position was before the talks began. "The American position is important to many in the world, and certainly to us. Therefore, each side would take the American position and try to bring it closer to their position. And still, it was agreed in advance that the American position was not acceptable to us. "Dennis Ross did something admirable. He decided that it was important for him that the truth come out, so he set the record straight last week. According to him, it was agreed in advance that each side could reject the document. Why am I harping on this? Because as a result of the previous negotiation, some people still believe that the document in question is that same kind of binding document that both sides agree to and sign before the negotiations begin. But if we had agreed to [the concessions outlined in the document] there would be nothing left to negotiate. It would be like we had sold all our stock before anything even began. "That is the story. That is why there was draft after draft and they couldn't agree on the way the Americans would present their position. It had nothing to do with 'concessions' of any 'Netanyahu document' that have been thrown around, with various individuals wittingly and unwittingly participating in this false allegation." Q: You have voiced a stance that most politicians are afraid of, regardless of Yedioth Ahronoth. Essentially, it appears that this election is biased in favor of a "party" that was never elected to office -- the media. "Even more incredible was that the remarks made by the American mediator in these negotiations, which completely refuted the Yedioth Ahronoth report and set the record straight, were made public Sunday morning in your newspaper [Israel Hayom]. That afternoon, when I checked on Ynet [the website affiliated with Yedioth Ahronoth], I saw that the libelous article was still up, and not a single word had been corrected with Dennis Ross' decisive explanation. I think that is rather depressing proof of the obvious bias in the media. Sure, if you want to do a follow-up article on an interesting topic, even if it isn't true, fine. But not to try to balance things out? There is certainly a political undercurrent there. Haaretz is continuing to operate on the assumption that this was a 'concessions document' without understanding
" Q: Or perhaps wanting not to understand ... "At the very least failing to understand the material, as I've tried to explain. The difference between a terms of reference document and a document presenting a third party's sole position. I will only say this: The accumulation of such incidents makes it very hard for me to always have a positive attitude toward these particular professionals. There are of course exceptions, just as everywhere else." Q: There were people on the Right who, in some sense, cooperated with, or took advantage of this document to argue that Netanyahu has agreed to give away everything and that he is no longer right-wing
"I am saddened by these remarks, and I can only assume that, now that the truth has come out, they regret having suggested it. These things happen. But all that is truly behind us. The election is still ahead of us." Q: Speaking of the election, what is your analysis of the map within the national camp? Does it make any difference how the Knesset seats are distributed among the right-wing, conservative parties- "First of all, it is not entirely clear today which party is part of the left-wing bloc and which is part of the right-wing bloc. The blocs are very fluid. There is one party whose chairman declares that he would be willing to join this bloc or that bloc under certain circumstances. My friend Moshe Kahlon says it. I think that making such a declaration is wrong. It doesn't seem reasonable that a man would assume that there is no difference in terms of national considerations between the camps. It contributes to young voters' cynicism. There you have your 'successor of Menachem Begin.' I can certainly see a situation where Kahlon's party serves as a conduit transferring votes from the Right to the Left. Kahlon's no. 2, Yoav Galant, admitted it freely when he said this week that Herzog would be the first candidate for prime minister that [Kahlon's party] Kulanu would join forces with. "And another thing. It was proved in the last Knesset that instability is structural. We were forced into a new election within a year and a half of the last one because from the beginning it was painful to see the main axis of the government with only about 20 Knesset members. It is almost impossible [to build a stable government that way]. What if a coalition is assembled and in a year and nine months we have elections again-" Q: Some people claim that they are the successors of your late father, Menachem Begin. In other places I see groups that attacked him when he was alive now adopting him as a symbol and using him to represent the antithesis to the Likud of today. "Let's not involve parents. It is not for me to judge. I am not Menachem Begin's spokesman. I don't speak on his behalf. I sometimes look with a degree of disbelief at the people who are certain they know what he is up to these days. I saw somewhere that someone wrote that 'Menachem Begin is rolling over in his grave' over something that I had said. We hear someone use that expression every week, sometimes on the Right, sometimes on the Left. Everyone apparently knows what is going on in these graves. It is entertaining." Q: Do you think that the Likud party still upholds Ze'ev Jabotinsky's five famous basics: food, housing, clothing, education and health? "Yes, I do. There is always more that can be done, but there are important social undertakings that are simply being obscured. The relocation of IDF bases to the Negev has immense social impact. The total sum that will be infused into the Negev in the next eight to 10 years is, in my estimation, up to 40 billion shekels. It will be an entirely different Negev. It will flourish. That is a first-rate social undertaking. Furthermore, the relocation frees up real estate in high-demand areas of central Israel. Day care for working mothers, excuse me, for working parents; free care for children starting at age 3; first year's college tuition subsidies for students in the periphery of Israel; massive public transportation projects with enormous social implications; the war on unemployment, which has been very successful; higher employment rates among Arabs and ultra-Orthodox Jews; a higher education program and benefits for Arab and ultra-Orthodox students. All these things are positive social developments. Should more be done? Yes. Has the housing problem been solved? Not yet. But the number of apartments slated to be built in 2015, according to my friend Construction Minister Uri Ariel, is 50,000. The housing supply is expected to lower the prices. The governor of the Bank of Israel even talked about a future price decline. We will see in December." Q: Last question, a personal one: Why did you decide to return to politics- "I looked at public opinion polls and I realized that, as in 2008, the two large parties are neck and neck and the two blocs, as well as they can be defined, are about equal in size. This was compounded by two more things: One, my fear that if a left-wing government is established they will abandon, with or without an agreement, large parts of Judea and Samaria. And two, my feeling, and I can't prove it, that my presence on the Likud Knesset list can help. If I succeed, that is all the reward I require.
