Ami Ayalon, former head of the Israel Security Service, and one of the leaders of the Labor party, said that he does not object to negotiating with Hamas movement if it becomes part of the Palestinian Authority, saying that he “killed Arabs more than Hamas fighters killed Jews” during his service.
Ayalon said that that for 38 years, he was part of the Israeli security services, killed Arabs, and saw colleagues get killed by Arabs, “therefore, if someone kills somebody from my nation, this cannot be a reason for not negotiating with him, but I will not negotiate with those who say they will continue the killing”.
Referring to Sharon, Ayalon said that he does not agree with his policies, and attitudes, “He does not represent my beliefs, my visions, and my social, ideological and economical standards”.
The statements of Ayalon came as he was responding to resent rumors which spoke about uniting the Labor party with the Kadima party formed recently by Sharon, especially since the two have similar opinions regarding pullout, retaining large settlements bloc, implementing the E.J 1 settlement project of linking Maali Adumim settlement with the east of Jerusalem, and other issues.
Ayalon said that there is one significant difference in the ideology of the Labor party; “We call for arriving to a permanent solution, with two states for the two peoples, in order to guarantee Israel as a state of the Jews and Palestinian as the state of the Palestinians”.
He added that the Palestinian state should enjoy geographical contiguity which should be achieved by real control over the land, and not through bridges.
Also, Ayalon stated that Sharon never spoke about withdrawing to the borders of 1967, therefore “when Sharon talks about a Palestinian State you can’t know what exactly he is talking about”.
Ayalon believes that random illegal settlement outposts should be evacuated now without waiting an agreement with the Palestinians, especially since this issue resembles imposing and implementing the law.
He slammed the Labor party for remaining with Sharon in his government after it completed the implementation of the pullout plan.
Ayalon supports retaining the large settlement blocs in the West Bank and expanding them, such as Maali Adumim, and Gush Azion, and annexing them to be part of Israel.
He added, “I disagree with Sharon in one thing; I believe that the Road Map Plan is a means not an aim, it demands the Palestinians to dismantle the resistance factions”.
Also, Ayalon said that the Palestinian State should be a state for the refugees to return there, instead of returning to Israel, “this means that the settlers living outside the agreed borders should be moved into Israel”.
Ayalon added that the Palestinian leadership is weak, and reiterated the statements of Sharon when he said that Israel has no Palestinian peace partner.
“The Palestinian leadership should start dismantling terror infrastructure”, he said, “It should start uniting its security devices, and disarming the armed groups”.
As for the construction of the Separation Wall, Ayalon said that Israeli should continue the construction “until the Palestinians implement their obligations”, and added that he does not believe that the Wall will become an international border.
“Even the Berlin Wall was demolished, but in our case we have to continue and construct this Wall to protect our people”, he claimed, “But I can declare clearly that what is on the eastern side of the Wall will never be in the future part of Israel”.
Ayalon added that the State of Israel should not be a state for all of its residents, saying that Israel is the state of the Jews, with Jewish majority, “equality for Arabs and non-Jews is considered an internal issue, it is hard to implement, but I believe that it would be easier after we disengage from the Palestinians”.
Ayalon stated that he presented his ideas to the Labor Party head, Amir Peretz, and added that currently the party is rephrasing its “security concepts”.
“I cannot say that all of my ideas were accepted by Peretz, but I hope I can convince him, and convince the members of the party”.
