Uri Savir was one of the main negotiators during the secret negotiations leading up to the Oslo Accords.
This is from a lecture at Tel-Aviv university 24 of May 1995.
Lecture by Mr. Uri Savir, Director-General of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, at Seminar in Memory of General Aharon Yariv Tel Aviv University Dayan Center
May 24, 1995
Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. The other day I was invited to speak in New York, and the invitation said the following: that diplomats, experts and thinkers were invited to participate in the discussion, clearly distinguishing between the three and creating the greatest gap between the first and the latter category. I think that this occasion here, in memory of General Yariv, ought not only to memorialize Aharon Yariv and his great contribution to the thinking process in this country, but as a man who was an example of the integration of expertise and fresh thinking.
In recent years we have witnessed many events around the world, and very few of them were predicted by diplomats, experts, or thinkers, for example the fall of the Communist empire. I don't think there is a single major event in our region that was predicted by virtually anybody if it is in the intelligence community, in the academic community, the diplomatic community or in the media.
Few predicted that Yasser Arafat would move to Gaza in a "Gaza first" solution; few predicted the PLO-Israeli mutual recognition; no one predicted that King Hussein would normalize relations with Israel before Syria; no one predicted that King Hussein would sign a formal agreement with Israel before Assad would.
And you ask yourself: Why have so many people, with so much knowledge and expertise been wrong about predicting events in the Middle East?
(snip)
Speaking about the changes which have taken place since the DOP, let us look at some of the events of the past week: Yasser Arafat and Shimon Peres meeting in Gaza to discuss combat of terrorism; King Hussein of Jordan receiving Israeli pilots in Amman; Israel has an official delegation in Morocco; businessmen from Israel and Qatar meet on the development of energy relations; messages go back and forth between Damascus, Washington, Jerusalem, even this very day. If you would have seen these pictures three years ago, none of them would have been perceived as realistic or possible, and, if at all, they would have signified in everybody's mind a fundamental revolution in the Middle East. And yet, when you ask people today what the basic sense and feeling is, nothing much has changed.
There is an enormous gap, in my view, between what I would call the hypnosis of the present, or hypnosis towards the past, and a real understanding of the fundamental changes occurring today, in our lifetimes, which ultimately will find expression in the books written in academia or in history books, much more than in the day to day press.
I think we all suffer from political or psychological jet-lag, where we don't harmonize what we see, the new images and pictures and rhetoric and actions over the last 40 years, with what exists and doesn't exist in the Middle East. Therefore we are almost unimpressed by the changes and we cling to things, saying maybe it hasn't changed after all, and maybe they have never changed and will never change; nothing will ever change. Well it does, and it will. But it is a process that is evolutionary and doesn't happen overnight, because it's thanks to the very fundamental changes of what makes leaders and countries in this region and to some degree internationally change their views and change their opinions in relation to the past. And the right way in my view to analyze the process is by focusing on an evolutionary process and not a revolutionary one, that changes the fundamental events and elements in the Middle East.
(snip)
It was exactly two years ago, when I was at the first meeting between a PLO official and an Israeli official in Oslo, and after a first long night of debate, where we discussed political issues and strategic issues and security issues, and the Palestinian problem and Camp David and Gaza-Jericho and so on that we did come to the conclusion that what's mostly lacking is a recognition, not of the fact of each other's existence here we were, two people representing the two sides talking to each other but the legitimacy of the existence. Then, after the DOP, in Paris, we negotiated mutual recognition, where the PLO recognized Israel's right to exist in peace and security, and with that recognized the legitimacy of a Jewish state on this land, Israel recognized the PLO, and by doing so recognized the Palestinian National Movement.
Many people on both sides are skeptical about the mutual recognition, and I think there is a deep misunderstanding of what really happened here. The recognition is not just a rhetorical change, it is a profound change of attitude towards each other's legitimate interests. It stems from a perception of a self-interest of why is it good for each side. You cannot and could not run away from reality any more. Neither side can. In the two years of negotiations with the Palestinians, I think most of us around the negotiating table discovered one main thing, and that is: however much you read and however much you learn, and whatever expertise you develop about the Palestinians many of these perceptions crumble when you meet the people. The same is true for the Palestinians themselves. In these encounters, which by now have developed throughout the political spectrum of the government and the defense forces, you see a deepening of the mutual recognition and the recognition of a mutual interest.
The full lecture:
Lecture by Mr. Uri Savir, Director-General of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, at Seminar in Memory of General Aharon Yarivhttp://www.knesset.gov.il/mk/eng/mk_eng.asp?mk_individual_id_t=224
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