Qantara: Two years on from Hamas’ attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, what is your view of Israeli society today?

Ami Ayalon: The massacre, the unimaginable violence, the rape of women and the murder of infants caused us shock and anger. Israeli society is still grappling with a complex mix of emotions: shock, trauma, confusion, humiliation and a desire for revenge. But Israeli politicians have not developed a plan for the future. Prime Minister Netanyahu has successfully avoided doing so until now.

One might have thought that 7 October would shake us up and reveal the blind spot in Israeli society and politics: the Palestinians. Over the past 16 years, Netanyahu has ensured that the Palestinian issue has almost completely disappeared from Israeli discourse.

Israelis believed that we could have stability, a thriving economy and security without addressing the issue of the Palestinians. The normalisation of relations with the Arab Emirates and Bahrain (in 2020) seemed to confirm this.

Then came 7 October. It sent Israel into shock, leaving Israelis in the confused state they find themselves in today. Yet we still refuse to accept that the first lesson of 7 October is that the Palestinians are here to stay, and that a secure, functioning state of Israel is only possible through cooperation with them.

Israel is now more isolated internationally than ever before.

Yes, and yet large sections of Israeli society still do not understand the consequences of further isolating ourselves. If we do not change our policies, there will be no peace. We will not be able to maintain peace with Egypt and Jordan. We can forget about normalizing relations with Saudi Arabia. And we are strengthening Iran.

Since August, parts of Gaza have officially been classified as being in a state of famine, and according to the UN, nearly 80 per cent of buildings have been destroyed. Do you think the war that Israel is waging in Gaza is justified?

The war is no longer justified today. Immediately after October 7, it was virtually by definition a just war, because we were attacked, and Hamas is an absolute enemy.

But we have long since achieved everything we can achieve with military force – and our generals confirm this. We have destroyed Hamas as a military organization. We have destroyed its entire military infrastructure. We have killed all its commanders.

Since then, the war has no longer been justified. It has continued because Netanyahu's coalition government would fall apart the moment it came to deciding what should happen the day after.

Despite this, you reject the term 'genocide' to describe Israel's actions in Gaza?

Yes, because the definition of genocide is largely about intention. Israel would have to have the intention of wiping the Palestinians out of history. But in my view, there is no such intention.

I cannot justify what we are doing in the Gaza Strip, but I can explain it: our actions are the result of fear. We are not seeking revenge, but we want to see the Palestinians suffer. But no Israeli, or let's say this is true for 90 per cent of the Israelis, dreams of wiping out the Palestinians.

Still, 10 per cent may want to do so – and these people hold positions that are crucial for waging the war. We remember Netanyahu's Amalek statement, in which he essentially called for the destruction of the Palestinians. Or former Defense Minister Yoav Galant, who said, 'We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly.' That points to intent. What about these 10 per cent?

They are a real enemy for our future and for our Jewish democracy. It was not for nothing that I chose the title of my book: “Friendly Fire – How Israel Became Its Own Enemy and Jewish Democracy Can Still Succeed”.

If the Zionist dream was to create Israel as a Jewish, democratic state, then we have become the greatest threat to that dream, because racist radicals, who have become increasingly influential, are following in the footsteps of Rabbi Kahane – that is, his idea of Judaism based on Jewish supremacy.

A not openly conducted debate in Israel revolves around a central question: What does Jewish democracy mean? What does Judaism mean? My idea of Judaism – and that of many others – is very different from Kahane's. Thousands of years ago, when kings believed they were gods or sons of God, the Jewish people said, “No, no, no one is God, we are all created in the image of God. We are all equal.” We are currently losing this understanding of Judaism, and very few people in Israel are aware of this.

Trump's 20-point plan is currently being negotiated. The day after could be drawing nearer. Do you think the plan will work? Would it be a step in the right direction?

The recognition of the Palestinian state by various countries has initially succeeded in putting pressure not only on Netanyahu, but above all on Trump. Just two weeks ago, in his speech to the UN General Assembly, Trump was completely opposed to the recognition of a Palestinian state.

Then he probably realised that he was losing his influence and his friends in the Middle East, above all Saudi Arabia and Egypt. But whether this plan really opens the door to greater stability and security in the Middle East depends primarily on three questions.

What are they?

First: What will happen in the West Bank? Will we be able to rein in the radical settlers who currently control several ministries?

Secondly: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was not allowed to travel to the UN General Assembly as he had not been granted a US visa. Netanyahu has repeatedly stated that Abbas and his Palestinian Authority are not partners. So who is a partner?

And the third question is: Will Trump, who has appointed himself chairman of the so-called 'Board of Peace,' be able to fullfill this role? The process would take years and would not be about shows and speeches. The parties involved would have to deal with details.

Trump would have to put pressure on both sides. To date, he has pressured the Palestinians, but not our prime minister. As a show element, yes, but not in reality. Will he use the stick when one of the parties involved does something completely wrong, for example, if we continue to build settlements and kill Palestinians? I don't know.

Speaking of peace and how to achieve it: You used to be a left-wing Labour Party member of the Knesset, yet you once said that only the right-wing Likud Party and Ariel Sharon could bring peace. Would you still say that today?

Of course not! The right wing in Israel today is completely different. To me, statesmanship means pragmatism. If you look at who has brought us the greatest successes, you will see that it was Menachem Begin of the Likud who signed the peace treaty with Egypt in 1979.

Years later, in 2005, Ariel Sharon demonstrated similar pragmatism when he withdrew 8,000 settlers from Gaza, even though he himself had helped to establish the settler ideology. That was pragmatism.

But Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres (both Labour Party Avoda, ed.) are also examples: until the first Intifada in 1987, they did not see the Palestinians as a people and did not advocate for negotiations. Yet Rabin as prime minister and Peres as his foreign minister started negotiations with the PLO that ended in the Oslo Accords. 

Are you ever concerned that Israel might one day cease to exist?

I don't believe that any actor will kill all the Jews in Israel. But I am concerned about Israel's identity, its Jewish-democratic identity. At the same time, I am optimistic because that is how I interpret human history: people only understand when they are confronted with a problem – like our 7 October. As Hegel and Marx said, history does not follow a linear path.

But didn’t you say at the beginning that most Israelis have not yet learned the central lesson of 7 October?

We are still close to the events, so we feel the pain, we seek revenge and see enemies everywhere. We urgently need the help and the pressure of the international community to lead the region to stability. Palestinians and Israelis will be the last to understand what is needed. As a sailor, I can tell you that if the target is too close, it cannot be detected by radar. At some point, understanding will come.