Transcripts For CSPAN2 Discussion On Middle East Peace Proce

Good afternoon, my name is yonah alexander, im the director by the Potomac Institute of International Studies as well as the Inter University Center Institute in cooperation with many academic institutions, universities around the world, specifically i would like to mention the center for National Security of the university of Virginia School of law. On behalf of ceo and chairman of the Potomac Institute, he extends his welcome to you. Unfortunately he is out of the country, as i understand. At any rate, our colleagues and the Vice President in the back is with us and, of course, general gray, the chairman of the board of regents and 29th commandant of the marines corpse corps. But at any rate, let me welcome the speakers. First right here professor Mohamed Dajani to my left with currently fellow, the Washington Institute and he obviously contributed a great deal to understand islam and served as professor of Political Science university in jerusalem and will make a presentation today and obviously many of you are familiar with the very distinction contribution and involvement of family in jerusalem. We do, of obviously, have the information about the speakers. I wont go into details. Our speaker from the Israeli Embassy in washington reuven azar will also participate and is well known to the audience here. He participated in a number of seminars and con strib outed to our report on this israeli and so forth. Basically our Mission Today to end with the question of jerusalem, whether the escalating tension and violence in the recent months at least in the three months ignite the war in the middle east and beyond and yet at the time of christmas that the world is celebrating peace on earth, the question arises whether the spirit of the sacred city of jerusalem thats honored christianity and islam will encourage building the foundations for peace in the middle east and the holy land and so on. And this and others issues will be included discussion, for example, Historical Context background of jerusalem, the political aspect as well as the various related issues, the role of religion, for example. So i would like to invite the speakers, they will take over in a few minutes. I would like to thank radio and television for bringing this seminar to the attention of wider audience in the United States and internationally. In addition to that, as always we like to mention anniversary dates related to violence that for us we can diffuse some of the negative aspects of the realization of conflict and try to advance the cause with justice. So number one, we remember the victims of violence and terrorism. Let me mention two specifically. One, in fact, related to date december 21, 1988 which is the 27th anniversary of the american one or three that destroyed cotland 259 passengers were killed, most of them, of course, americans and 11 on the ground and many of you will remember that libya was responsible for that tragedy. And also on Christmas Day 2009 the anniversary, nigh nigerian, attempted to destroy deontonate explosives over detroit. Of course, it was connected with alqaeda in the arabian pi anyone peninsula all the way from paris to california to jerusalem, sanie and so forth. One moderator, i feel that i am really that for 25 years i lived, studied and worked in gentlemen are you jerusalem, although my family came to palestine, the first group in 1921 and then the early 30s, i grew up in the city but i always considered myself a member of the population of jerusalem. On the academic level i was involved in finishing for some 25 years related to war and peace and terrorism. Now, i would like to mention specifically in june 1967i had the privilege and honor to open the campus specifically since we do have a few lawyers here at the law school, and i had a group of students, about 30 students that came from the United States and other countries. So the first assignment that i gave to the students was not to write a paper but to clean up the restroom that was not used about 19 years because of the separation of the city from the new city and western city in jerusalem and since that time we had scholars who came from all over the world to join us and to participate in our academic work, including some of the readers, paris, for example, clergy, christian, muslims and others who participated in our work. Again, academically, we focused on jerusalem for a very long time. I would just like to mention one particular study, which is related to our subject today not for publicity purpose but for back in 1973 we had a project at colombia university, the school of journalism, how can religion advance in the middle east and book of the middle east. Im mentioning this because theres no way that one can discuss the issue of jerusalem separates from the palestinian conflict, israeli conflict and the conflict between israel and the muslim world and the international issue. So let me just begin by reminding all of us, we are familiar with jerusalem with the same way we are familiar with has cue, berlin, again, to remind us, what are we talking about going back to the old testament, the new testament, the temple in jerusalem in other words, we are talking about the sacred side and, of course, the war, temple and their mosques and pope francis to jerusalem. So again, i think we have a big agenda, and again, i think the question that we are going to discuss today, what are the factors that encourage violence and terrorism and perhaps might trigger a third world war as some people predict, how can we diffuse some of the negative elements from a political conflict related to israel, palestine and so on and perhaps this can serve as a model for other conflicts around the world, so with this i would like to invite reuven azar to discuss some of the issues. Thank you, yonah. Good morning, everybody, its really a pleasure to appear before in the Potomac Institute again. I think that the key for peace if you want to avoid continuation of war is acceptance, acceptance of the other. I could speak here a whole hour and a whole day regarding the connection between the jewish people and jerusalem and talk about the history and establish the capital of the israeli kingdom and about the first and Second Temple and the fact that jews pray three times a day every day for going back to jerusalem to restore as the capital and place in which the temple is restored. The leaders have an ideology and they are educated. So the problem we have is the radicals are educated. And unless we defeated them it will be very difficult to promote the message of acceptance of the other into those religion to promote. One of the problems we have in jerusalem, i was raised there, is that religion is being manipulated. In the last spark of violence that we are suffering from now, before that there was a campaign, and well organized campaign actually by the Islamic Movement in israel, claimed that israel wants to change the status quo of the temple mount. Now, this is not the first time that religion is being manipulated in that way. It goes back to the beginning of the conflict. Even not only before 67 but before 48. In 1929, for example, when a terrible massacre happened in jerusalem, the very Old Community was erased from the map. People were killed. It was part by initiative of jews in the wailing wall to put the separation between men and women. So this sparked a rumor that the jews are going to take over the temple mount. And what happened is that before, it was well known, including in the publications of the wealth at that time, i think it was the Washington Institute which found this booklet in, actually and the library of congress or archives that mentioned the publication from 1923 that said that temple is the same location in which the temple of solomon was built. And actually the term is something that is well known. Actually in one of the isis related organizations, they exist in the sinai. So this trying to rejection, trying to rewrite history and disconnect the narrative of the jew, the connection to the holy land was part of a nationalistic, antinationalistic or antizionist movement, it was actually there for defeated, will we know today as the palestinian movement. Although the first, those rejections, the first ones, they were not necessary to fund themselves as palestinians. So how can we deal with rejectionists . Thats a very, very difficult challenge because, and i followed it when i served in jordan. We were dealing on a daytoday basis of trying to settle this, this problem that we have. The approach of reseal has been very interesting, just when we came to jerusalem back in 1967, after all these years, hundreds and thousands of years of praying for jerusalem, when came to the temple mount, to the haram, he sat on the floor, he called for the priest, and he gave them the key for the temple. The idea of the leaders at that time was that in order for us to solve the conflict, but we have to do at the end of the day is to separate between religion and religious rights, edition of religious tolerance, it did not take over the places are sacred for the other. Another very important event was in 1994 when Prime Minister rabin signed the peace agreement, the peace accord with jordanians. Because that was the first time that any leader in the world recognized the role of the hashemites. Now, why israel did that . Because israel wanted to maintain, to promote the idea that you can separate and solve religious issues separate from national issues. We have a national conflict, we have to solve it. But if we draw religion into the conflict we wont able to solve its we have to respect other religions to respect the role that also the religious role of the legitimate that was very interesting because at that point in time no other arab leader has declared that it respects the role of the hashemites family in the haram and israel was the first one. Last year, i think you should go, there was a second want to recognize the role of the hashemites have a Hashemite King in jerusalem. So in the last two years i think we are also having another phenomenon that is worrying for us, because although israel is a democracy and we respect religion and we are being, although we are being attacked for many years, there is radicalization process in israel itself as well. And we have jewish radicals. Of course, you cannot compare whats going on in the region that we have to deal with that. We have seen in the last year or two an increase in the number of victims of jewish care. And we have seen some people in israel that are trying to call for the change thats going in the couple not come into haram. Now, temple mount, into haram. We try to find radicalization fight radicalization. The president , Prime Minister of doing as much as they can then go to thwart those radicals. But also i think the government has come out and said very clearly, Prime Minister said very clearly that israel will not change the status quo in the temple mount. There is incitement around this, propaganda, and people around the arab world are completely sure that israel wants to take over the mosque but we are not going to do that because we believe that although jerusalem, and although that place which is the most sacred place for us, have a connection to us, we have to respect it. Also, the aspirations and the religion of others. So just to wrap it up, i would say that if we manage to find partners that will not only will join us in promoting moderation but also will recognize our narrative, then we have a chance of negotiating peace. You know, we have negotiated, even jerusalem in the last few years when, under the brock government, and the suggestions on the table where very, very revolutionary and very ambitious. I think that we can get to that point when we hear from the other side, from the leaders of the palestinians, the arab world that theyre willing to recognize the historic connection of the jews to the holy land and to jerusalem. The religious connection a National Recognition for if we manage, if we have become if israelis we have become it is raise you the side i think there will be much more prone to compromise on the issue of jerusalem. So thats more or less wraps of the. Thank you very much. Before i let you go i know you have a schedule conflict here, but let me ask you two questions. Number one, to provide some clarity, you mentioned the role of jordan in particular, their unique role, and just for transparency, i invite also the diplomats of the embassy of jordan because of schedule conflicts, they couldnt make it. But clearly, by the way i intended a ceremony between jordan and israel. Now, the question is related to the status, number one, of jerusalem. The whole idea of the internationalization of jerusalem that was initially advanced in 1947, and later on. Secondly, the status of a sacred sites, not only in jerusalem, not elsewhere like bethlehem, nazareth and so forth. So in other words, said we do have a number of i thought it would be of great interest, thank you. I think we are two separate between National Rights and religious rights. We have a conflict with the palestinians. We think that jerusalem is the capital of israel because of our connections that were already mentioned with the city. And this is something you have to settle with the palestinians. And there were different stages in which we negotiated such as you such a solution. On the religious side i think that we have two state to the principle that we are not going to we have to stick to the principle that were not going to make religious rights National Rights. And its interesting because in our area of the world, unlike in the west, our model of democracy we dont separate religion and state. But even though we dont separate religion and state, because of many cultural reasons we can when it comes to rights, we can do the separation and i think this can help us in getting into the solution. And such solutions when it comes to control of religious sides, we are already almost there because the holy separate for is controlled by christians and the wailing wall is controlled by jews. So we can find when it comes to religion, as long as everybody has a right to exercise their religion, we can find the solutions. Maybe we can go, go deeper into this issue. The claim, for example, that israel is trying to change the status quo on the temple mount, and so forth, and again, this actually does encourage i think more sanctions environment. It reminds me very vividly going back to 1969 when i was, again, teaching in jerusalem, and there was an australian christian who set fire to a mosque in jerusalem, it is simply actually not only the people in jerusalem, the palestinians, the arabs, but muslims all over the world. So my question is, what is basically the israeli policy, visavis to preserve the status quo in jerusalem and elsewhere . Ill give you an example. When i was in jordan i saw that there is something going on in the jordanian press. The jordanian press was conflating the protocols of the meetings that the Israeli Knesset in which members of knesset of israel were asking, why cannot jews come to the mosques and pray . Because this would be their natural right, according to them. So the jordanian opposition was translating that, and that created a sort of series of attacks of the position in jordan against the jordanian government, against the king. And it played into the conspiracy theories that the leader of the Islamic Movement in israel, that incorporate with hamas, it played into this game. So it didnt help how many times israel said its not going to change the status quo, and it doesnt matter whether Israeli Police actually polices the place. And every jew that comes to the temple mount, or to the haram come is being watched by police we doesnt open his mouth and pray, okay . This is so delicate. That government is doing its work but the problem is that there is a lot of people around that are trying to play, playing this because they want to benefit from this politically. And our challenge is to cope with it. Fortunately, we are not engaged with security and government and were trying to advance this project of putting cameras on the temple mount so people have a chance to look directly, life, whats going on. Usually what needs to happen is that because of the fact that people that were called that are linked with Islamic Movement come you to go to the mosques, to the mosque, stay there for the night and then in the morning tried to disrupt either jews that were coming as a tourist to the mount or throw stones at the wailing wall. So before the last jewish feast day, beginning of the year, the world employed imploded. Using explosives. That was something we foiled and that generated this whole series of incitement and violence, et cetera. So we have a challenge. And as much as we have cooperation from the jordanians, and we wish wed corporation on the palestinian leadership that has do not promote incitement that you actually to condemn the incitement come if we had that we can take control of the situation. But if we dont we will continue to be a very serious problem for us. If i can ask a question before we opened up to questions from the audience, this will relate navy to experience in the mount, entire in the peace negotiations. Because many people are concerned that you cannot solve the problem of jerusalem without solving the palestinianisraeli conflict, with the Palestinian Authority and so forth. Are you pessimistic or optimistic that that particular conflict, not only between the palestinian and the israelis, but the israelis with some of the other arab countries such as saudi arabia and the modern world and our to be resolved, and thereby you can also resolve the issue with the jerusalem . Im optimistic, first of a