[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 87 (Friday, July 1, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: July 1, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                    PEACEMAKING NOW A PUBLIC PROCESS

 Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, I have long been an admirer of 
Shimon Peres, the former Prime Minister of Israel, who now serves as 
Foreign Minister.
  Recently, he had an op-ed piece in the Los Angeles Times talking 
about peace in the Middle East and the necessity for creating a 
situation where we do not solve our problems through military means.
  The item is vintage Shimon Peres.
  I urge my colleagues and their staffs who did not read the original 
in the Los Angeles Times to read it, and I ask to insert it into the 
Record at this point.

    Perspective on the Middle East: Peacemaking Now a Public Process

                           (By Shimon Peres)

(Among Israelis and Palestinians, the media achieved what armies can't 
                   do--establish a minimum of trust)

       Jerusalem.--Until recently, negotiations on Israeli 
     security and the occupied territories had been a process that 
     involved only two parties, the Israeli government and the 
     Palestinian leadership. The most important party, the people 
     of Gaza, the Palestinan people themselves--so many of whom 
     are young and angry--were on the sidelines. Now, with the 
     creation of a Palestinian entity, they have been brought into 
     the process as legitimate ``public opinion.'' With Israeli 
     public opinion, they are the critical third party of the 
     equation.
       While watching TV recently, I was struck by the change this 
     new role of public opinion and the media will have on our 
     future. The man who was appointed by the Palestinian leaders 
     to be in charge of Gaza is a young man, an angry man, who was 
     in prison for 20 years. He had made a name for himself for 
     being tough and violent. Then, in his new leadership role, he 
     appeared on Israeli television dressed like someone who had 
     just flown down from London. He spoke eloquently and with 
     respectability because, through the TV medium, he was 
     speaking to all the people of Gaza, whose trust and support 
     he needed. He thus had to broaden, perhaps even temper, his 
     message, for it is now his job to persuade his people that 
     the peace process will work for them, and he must mobilize 
     them in that cause.
       From the bitter closure of prison to the openness of 
     television--in this I see the key innovation of our age: The 
     media and the public judgment they bring to bear on 
     governments and leaders have become an increasingly critical 
     force in diplomacy between states and in negotiations among 
     parties at conflict. The greatest change in our time has not 
     been effected by armies or states of international 
     organizations; it has been driven by the spread of 
     information.
       What brought down communism in Russia? An anti-communist 
     party? A coup d'etat by the army? Invasion by a foreign 
     force? No. Communism was brought down by Communists who could 
     no longer separate their people with an Iron Curtain from 
     images of other parts of the world that were moving forward 
     as they stagnated under repression. The truth could no longer 
     be hidden.
       Our first priority in this new media-driven context is to 
     make the very complicated treaty with the Palestinians a 
     reality. There will be mistakes and setbacks. Sadly, we will 
     have to walk through corridors of blood and tear and 
     misunderstanding yet ahead. We will have to face uninvited 
     disturbances and situations for which we are not prepared.
       But the decision to make an agreement on Jericho and Gaza 
     was the right one, and we will see it through. If we had 
     tried to do more, we would have achieved nothing. If we had 
     tried to do less, we wouldn't have a partner. So we've 
     selected enough land to have a partner and excluded enough 
     complications to make an agreement.
       The public is also a partner in our negotiations with 
     Syria. We know that it is hard to reach an agreement with the 
     Syrians. But when you reach agreement, the Syrians are very 
     good keeping it. However, when we can arrive at the point 
     where they are willing to make an agreement that they will 
     keep remains an enigma.
       What Syrian President Hafez Assad would basically like us 
     to do is to commit ourselves completely and fully to 
     withdrawal from the Golan. Then he would be willing to 
     negotiate with us about the phasing of that process.
       That is very hard, almost impossible, for us to accept as a 
     democratic country. When Assad says that he is for the 
     normalization of relations, he cannot forget that 
     normalization begins with the way you negotiate.
       At the end of the 20th Century, you cannot negotiate just 
     by emissary. The negotiating team--in Israel primarily, since 
     Assad tightly controls his people--is the whole nation and 
     not just a delegation, because everybody here is watching 
     television and listening to the radio and they want to be 
     sure that the partner we are negotiating with is serious, 
     openly serious, about peace. In a democratic state like 
     Israel, our negotiations are necessarily bound, through the 
     media, by the judgments of public opinion.
       Now U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher is leading 
     the attempt to open up and equalize the negotiations with 
     Syria through establishing a quid pro quo wherein the process 
     will be gradual on both sides. The Syrians have to understand 
     that our public will not allow us to jump through all the 
     hoops while they stand by, reluctant and watching us jump.
       All of this fits within the larger aims of Israel in these 
     new times: We are not just seeking peace in the Middle East, 
     but a peaceful Middle East founded in the new realities of 
     economic interdependence and the open flow of information.
       We have seen in Israel that territorial security means 
     little without peace; we are vulnerable both to long-range 
     missiles from afar and to the knife of an angry Palestinian 
     in the alley behind our house. To prosper economically, we 
     need to consume and trade with the neighbors in our region. 
     Peace is the only route to security and prosperity.
       A peaceful Middle East can only be built in the minds of 
     peoples that must live with each other side by side. That 
     trust will be built or destroyed in public opinion and 
     communicated by the media.
       The hunting season in history is over. It is no longer 
     important how many generals killed how many people. In the 
     age we live in, what armies can achieve is no longer 
     important. What is important is that which armies can no 
     longer achieve.

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