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Photo by Jane Scherr |
Beilin-Husseini Dialogue: Conversations with History; Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley
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Photo by Jane Scherr |
Page 2 of 5
Mr. Beilin, tell us a little about your background. You are a member of the Knesset. You are a professor, author of several books, and a member of the Labor Party. What, in your formative experience, put you on the path of being so actively involved in the peace process?
[Beilin]
Well, I was brought up to believe in equality between people, and I think people who believe in equality believe in peace. It is quite natural for me because once you believe in equality, you cannot believe that you should dominate somebody else or you cannot accept that somebody else will dominate you. You cannot believe that Jews are better than Palestinians, or that Muslims are better than Christians, or whatever. It is the human beings.
I think that the humanistic education which I got at home was good education that was conducive to it. I did not revolt against it, the other way around. I was raised in a very national home, national and humanist. Very proud of the new Jewish state. I was angry with the Palestinians as a kid. I could not understand how it happened that the survivors of the Holocaust who came to Israel in order to find an asylum there, when the whole world actually rejected them even after the Holocaust, and they were ready to have a very, very small part of the land of Israel, of Palestine, were happy to share it with the Palestinians and they [the Palestinians] rejected it, actually. They asked the other Arab countries to fight against small Israel. As a result, I think it was very difficult for me to sympathize with the [Palestinian] refugees. I saw them as kind of victims of what they, themselves, did to them[selves], not as a result of our deeds. That actually they forced upon us an unneeded war. They forced upon us a situation whereby they were expelled.
Of course when you grow up you try to understand the situation better, and you understand also that there is a difference between the origins of the problem and the solution. When you go to the origins it is endless. You will talk to the other side, and the other side sees things in a very, very different way. And you can argue endlessly and be more and more angry, and say, "well, with you I can never really find a solution." And I said to myself, actually it is very important to know the history, and knowing history meaning to read the books of the two sides and to see how it is seen by them. But then to put it aside and say, "Okay, now let us find a solution." I do not suggest to go to a solution from ignorance. I want to go to a solution from knowledge, but it doesn't mean that the history should dictate to me the kind of a solution for the future.
For me the kind of watershed was the war of '73. Until then I did not consider myself a dove, necessarily. I was not a hawk. I was a young journalist and a young teacher in the university. And only in 1973 I understood that the feeling in Israel, the myth that we were so strong that nobody could even think about launching a war against us, that these territories were kind of security belts between us and horrible disaster, were totally nonsense. And that the best way to find a solution, besides of course being strong enough to prevent a destruction of your country, is to make peace. And for me, 1973 is the year in which I began to become much more active in political activities, in political movements, in order to bring about peace with the Palestinians, and with the Egyptians and the others.
Next page: Initiation of the Bilateral Peace Process
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