Text: Haaretz’s Ari Shavit Debates Chaim Ramon on Olmert’s Retreat Plan
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Excerpts;
Haim Ramon called. He really didn’t like the op-ed in which I severely criticized the Olmert plan. He was surprised – he thought we were on the same wavelength. He thought I understood that Yossi Beilin and Benjamin Netanyahu were wrong. And, of course, he didn’t agree with a single word in the piece. But perhaps it would be right to hold a serious debate on the pages of Haaretz. Perhaps it would be right to present each arguments, ahead of the elections, to the voting readers.
We sat across the table from each other and roared at the tops of our lungs. It’s a pleasure to quarrel with Ramon. He’s quick and sharp and driven by instinct. Neither refined, nor always methodical, he has a wild cat’s feel for reality. The man who formulated the concept of the big fence and predicted the big bang now wholly believes in the big disengagement. He has no doubt that he is right – not even the slightest shadow of a doubt.
Shavit: “These elections are important because they are about the division of the land. I want a division of the land. But I hold that Ehud Olmert’s and your unilateral division plan is dangerous. It will lead to the establishment of an armed and hostile Hamas state that will undercut the stability of Israel, Jordan and the Middle East. How am I wrong?”
Ramon: “The dangers you point to do exist. But the danger of continuing the status quo is greater still. We are sitting on a volcanic crater, and we know exactly when it will erupt. We know that within 5-10 years our time as a Jewish and democratic state will come to an end. As soon as the Palestinians become the majority between the sea and the river – within less than a decade – they will demand one man, one vote, one state. They will ask why what is good for South Africa is not good for us. This danger is terrible. We are talking about an end to the Jewish-democratic state. That’s why continued control of the West Bank is the immediate existential threat that Israel must attend to now. This threat is more dangerous than the dangers you’re talking about.
Ramon: … Ramon: “I will tell you about myself. A few months ago, when I had a heart attack, it took me half an hour to realize I had a problem. That is the most dangerous thing. People who ignore the fact that they have a problem cause a disaster for themselves.
“When I listen to you I say: You don’t understand that you have a problem. Like Beilin and Peretz and Netanyahu, you are demanding something in exchange that you will not receive, for territory that is a burden and not an asset. And so you too, like Beilin and Peretz and Netanyahu, are placing your fate in the hands of your enemy. And I am not prepared to do this anymore. I want to reach the stage where I will not be dependent on anyone. So I will go to the international community, and I will go to Abu Mazen. But in the end, I will act in accordance with my existential interest. And my existential interest requires me to free myself of this 90 percent of the West Bank that endangers me. Because unlike you, I understand that I have cancer. And I am not prepared to say that this cancerous growth is a gem.
So you can tell me that I don’t have an operating room here and I don’t have anesthesia and I don’t have a sterile scalpel. But I am telling you that if I don’t do the surgery I won’t live. That’s why I am getting the operation done. I am cutting. Because if I wait until all your demands are fulfilled, I will simply die.”
