HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_027858.jpg

Iraq, perhaps Iran and other Middle Eastern states, might get nuclear weapons. A violent form of fundamentalist Islam could, over time, erode existing Arab and Muslim states, threatening Israel of course, but also the stability of our neighbourhood and of the world. In those circumstances, even if an Israeli government was strong enough, wise enough, forward-looking enough to pursue avenues for negotiated peace with its immediate neighbours, getting the popular support required would be all but impossible. The window is still there. But it is only barely open. I fear that I was right, as well, in predicting that our failure to secure a final peace agreement with the Palestinians at Camp David might set back peacemaking not just for a few months, but for many years. I have persisted in trying, very hard, to make that particular prediction prove wrong. That was why, despite intense pressure from my own political allies not to do so, I decided to return to government in 2007 as Defence Minister. I remained in that role for six years: mostly in the current, right-wing Likud government of my onetime Sayeret Matkal charge, Bibi Netanyahu. Much of what I say in this book about war and peace, security and Israel’s future challenges, will make uncomfortable reading for Bibi. But very little of it will surprise him, or his own Likud rivals further to the right, like Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and the Economy Minister, Naftali Bennett. I have said almost all of it to them behind closed doors in the past few years, more than once. When I finally decided to leave the political arena last year, it was largely because I realized that they were guided by other imperatives. In the case of Bibi, the most gifted politician with whom I’ve worked except for Clinton, the priority was to stay in power. For Avigdor and Naftali, it was to supplant Bibi, when the opportunity was ripe, as Likud leader and as Prime Minister. And much too often — as with their hugely ill-advised recent proposal to amend Israel’s basic law to define it explicitly as a Jewish state, and deny “national rights” to non-Jews — the three of them have ended up competing for party political points rather than weighing the serious future implications for the country. Peacemaking, as I discovered first-hand, requires taking risks. Statesmanship requires risks. Politics, especially if defined simply as staying in power, is almost always about the avoidance of risk. 10 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_027858