Veteran Israeli sceptical about peace

By Paul Reynolds BBC News Online world affairs correspondent

On the day that the "virtual" Middle East agreement was being signed in Geneva, a veteran Israeli general was pouring a large bucket of cold water over the idea that there would be peace with the Palestinians anytime soon.

Middle East war without end?

Reporters who crept through the London rain to the heavily guarded Israeli embassy for breakfast of coffee and cake found Major-General (retired) Amos Gilad, head of the Political-Military Bureau at the Ministry of Defence, in sceptical mood.

One suspects that it is his permanent mood.

One felt, too, that here was the authentic voice of the current Israeli political-military establishment, despite some rumblings of criticism.

The first thing he did was to dismiss Geneva. "Geneva is not important," he said. "Cairo is more important."

In Cairo this week, Palestinian militant factions are meeting to decide whether to call a ceasefire.

But the silver-haired Mr Gilad was also wearily dismissive of any ceasefire. "They all explode in the end," was how he put it.

War without end?

He spoke like a soldier fighting a war without end. Over the years, he has been one of Israel's main contact men with the Palestinians. He has met the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat many times and was in London because he had just attended a conference with Palestinians in the English countryside.

But not much had happened there, he said, and most of his talk over breakfast was about how impossible he felt it was to make peace with Yasser Arafat.

"We warned [former Israeli Prime Minister] Ehud Barak that his talks at Camp David in 2000 with Arafat would fail because Arafat insists on the right of return. We also predicted that terror would be the consequence of the failure of those talks," he said.

Right of return

Arafat will not give up the right of return and with the right of return Israel will cease one day to exist Amos Gilad, Israeli defence ministry

The "right of return" is the right claimed by tens of thousands of Palestinian refugees to return to the homes in what is now Israel which they either left or were ejected from in past wars.

The Geneva accord, according to its negotiators, does address this issue, but Amos Gilad said that Yasser Arafat was not really supporting Geneva.

"Arafat will not give up the right of return and with the right of return Israel will cease one day to exist. That is the idea," he stated.

It is this fundamental belief at the heart of the Israeli Government that fuels its hostility to the Palestinian leader.

Israel surprised

Mr Gilad admitted that the level of Palestinian violence had surprised the Israeli military.

"Arafat thought we would be broken by it, but we were not, though we underestimated the scope and impact of the terror," he said.

Such views explain why his talk was not about the "peace process" or the "roadmap to peace."

His talk was about building the fence or barrier between Israelis and Palestinians, about resisting the influence of Syria and Iran and about the tactics of fighting Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

"We could have killed the Hamas leadership," he said, referring to an air strike on an apartment building in Gaza in which Hamas was meeting.

"We decided to save civilian lives by not using a one-ton bomb. But they know we can get them."

Another approach

Mr Gilad's approach is in contrast to that put forward by four former heads of the Israeli internal security service Shin Bet recently.

In particular, they criticised the concentration on security favoured by Amos Gilad and his boss the Defence Minister, Shaul Mofaz

"It is dealing solely with the question of how to prevent the next terrorist attack," said Carmi Gilon, leader of Shin Bet chief in the 1990s.

Instead, he and his three colleagues called for a more political emphasis.

That, too, is the hope enshrined in the Geneva agreement.

The Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, has recently begun to talk of taking "unilateral measures" towards a settlement and is expected to meet the Palestinian prime minister soon.

But General Gilad did not seem to be holding his breath.