Replay of Avraham Burg Interview
AMANPOUR: Welcome back to the program. Earlier this week, I brought you the first part of my interview with Avraham Burg, the former Israeli political leader, now a dissident, activist and author, who's challenging the system from the outside. Burg is one of a number of current and former Israeli officials criticizing the Israeli government for what they call saber rattling on Iran. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called for early elections next year just as the situation in his own back yard becomes more complex, specifically with the Palestinians. For years, Israel has succeeded in isolating Gaza. But that may be changing. Earlier this week, the emir of Qatar paid a surprise visit to Gaza, a de facto endorsement, many say, of the Hamas regime that controls it. That infuriated not just Israel but the Palestinian Authority and many other secular Palestinians. Avraham Burg has been warning for some time that the stagnant status quo in the occupied territories is untenable. I asked him about what lies ahead for Israel during his recent visit to New York.</s>AMANPOUR: Avrum Burg, welcome to the program.</s>AVRAHAM BURG, FORMER SPEAKER, ISRAELI KNESSET: Thank you very much.</s>AMANPOUR: You've written that so much of modern-day Israel, its politics, its society is still within the frame of the Holocaust. And I would say yes, of course. But you say, well, actually, that's not the healthiest thing.</s>BURG: Yes, of course, it's very healthy, because if you are traumatized, go through it. Don't deny it; don't silence it. Open it up and talk about it. So we talk about it. And parts of our strategies are trauma-driven. When you listen to Prime Minister Netanyahu speaks about Iran as the new Hitler, or Iran is '38 again. So you understand how the Holocaust plays the role. And it's too much. It's not just a society which go through a therapy or a community that tries to heal itself. It is sometimes being overexploited by many political leaders. I see a day already in which the last Holocaust survivor will pass away. It will be in our lifetime. And we shall wake up one day, one morning, and the Holocaust will not be any more a personal experience, but it will be a kind of a collective memory. And I write about a different strategy for the future memory, a strategy of trust between us and the world rather than a one of permanent trauma.</s>AMANPOUR: One of the things that makes up the trauma for the world watching is the relationship and the unresolved conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. And you are very strong about that. You have very strong views that this is kind of eating up Israel from within.</s>BURG: There are two layers to what you describe here. The first one is we did an amazing transformation. We have a good total absolute reconciliation with the Germans. We drive German cars. And we have Braun shavers and Berlin is full of Israelis and Jews. And I even ran the Berlin marathon and enjoyed it tremendously. So with them, it's OK. We did all -- we took all the hatred and the animosity and the fears and the phobias and moved it with it to the Middle East. And all of a sudden, the Arab represent for us, especially the Palestinians, the current archenemy, so much so when Menachem Begin, the late prime minister, called the PLO as a Nazi organization and described as some of its leaders as active Nazis. So it is there. I believe it is a mistake to go for generalizations because when you look -- when I look 30 years ago, when I look today at the Muslim world, at the Arab world and, in particular, the Palestinian world, I will say some are bad news. But some of them are amazing people, educated, free spirits, liberties lovers, egalitarian people. They're like me. So for me, all of a sudden, it's not just the coalition of all the Jews versus all the Palestinians, but some of us and some of them versus some extremists and zealots of theirs and ours together. So it's a different coalition.</s>AMANPOUR: You describe individuals on the other side, and you talk about individuals on your side. But what about in the macro world? What happens to this idea that we've all been clinging to, especially in Israel, of a two-state solution? Is that still viable?</s>BURG: Rhetorically speaking, it is there. I mean, people are still paying lip service to the concept of the formula of the two-state solution. I'm not at all sure that it is there to stay forever. I mean, the days of the formula are numbered because there is a new generation in Israel and there is a new generation in Palestine who actually tells itself, listen. If the Israelis do not want to grant us the kinds of rights we're entitled to have through a political arrangement, which is two political entities, an Israeli one and a Palestinian one, living in peace with each other -- and mistakes were done by both sides, of course. And if Israel doesn't have the power to call back all these settlements, which are hundreds of thousands of people, so what about our rights as then the free Jews and as citizens? We want to vote. Just tell us where to vote. You want us to vote our own parliament? So be it. You want us to vote for the Knesset? Let us do it. The minute this demand -- and you hear it more and more in the intelligentsia and you hear it more and more with activists and the new generation, they say we want to vote.</s>AMANPOUR: Palestinians, you're talking about.</s>BURG: Palestinians. So just tell us where to vote. The minute you heard, it's about -- you'll hear it's about voting, the minute it is about civil rights, it's about constitutional rights. If every individual is entitled to the same rights between the Jordan and the Mediterranean, that's the end of the two-state solution. It's a one-state formula. And these voices are being heard louder and louder recently.</s>AMANPOUR: So do you see any hope for a settlement, a peace settlement that will enshrine the two states?</s>BURG: If I say yes and I tell you yes, I hope you tell me you are an idealist; you are a utopian. You're a no-good pinko, whatever you are. So I'll tell you as a realist, I think that's the best formula for both nations --</s>AMANPOUR: Well, sure, but this has been going on for more than 20 years now, the Oslo (inaudible).</s>BURG: It goes -- let's give the numbers, OK? Sixty-four years for the independence, the independence of the state of Israel, which was the first round between us and the Palestinians. Eventually it is our independence and their Nakba. Then it is 45 years to '67. Whoever believed that this temporary situation will be 45 years old? And 20 years to Oslo. If we will not do a thing, if our leadership will not take a position, eventually it will happen by itself. Now today we have a one-state formula, but it's a one state and not very equal one, because one nation is very happy -- that's the Jewish Israeli one -- and one is very unhappy -- that's the Palestinian discriminated one. And you cannot, nowhere around the world, especially in the current Middle East, keep freedom in the bottle without letting it out. And people love to have freedoms. And without answering the Middle East call nowadays -- give us freedom; let us vote -- Israel will face a serious challenge. And if you ask me what is today the watershed between right and left within progressive and conservative, between all the camps in Israel, it's exactly this question. Do we go back to the agreed-upon international mind? Or do we stay in the West Bank and continue the ongoing annexation with the built-in discrimination?</s>AMANPOUR: And yet the Israeli people right now don't seem to be that focused on that. They don't seem to care so much. Life is fairly good. The wall, whatever you want to call it, has cut down on the -- of this terrorism. And it seems to be out of sight, out of mind. Gaza is over there; the West Bank is over there and Israel in the middle. How do the people feel? Are they energized? Are they just keep it -- keep it -- keep it like it is right now?</s>BURG: All of the above.</s>BURG: In -- we just made a survey about positions, not just political positions but deep (ph) positions. And we find something very interesting, something like 70 percent of the Israelis think that the country is going the wrong direction. And the -- 70 percent of the people are very happy with their personal status. So something is not working here. This corresponds with a different finding of an international survey done recently that the Israelis are 14th in the world in the measure of happiness. But the 14th happiest nation in the state, but the next question is how many of you think that Israel would be there within 50 years? But I know it goes the wrong direction. And the role of a leader is not just to satisfy the people here and now; it's to give a long-term strategic vision and tell the people, listen, difficult it will be. But once we take this road, we shall achieve and accomplish in so A, B and C. And my feeling is that today's patriotism in Israel is defined wrongly. You define a patriot as one who has -- who feel -- who introduce more fear to the people, who uses more weapons, who uses more language of power and language of violence and language of rhetoric that you just heard recently from all over the place. I think that a real patriot should be one who promises and guarantees the long-term sustainability of the state of Israel 50 years, 100 years down the road. This cannot be done -- cannot be done without resolving the issues of the Middle East.</s>AMANPOUR: Avrum Burg, thank you for joining me.</s>AMANPOUR: Next, we'll return to Afghanistan and the struggle of young women not merely to be heard, but to survive. A roadside bomb that turned out to be a baby named Happiness -- when we come back.