AB Yehoshua - Author HARDtalk

until a new pope is elected. It is now time for HARDtalk.

The conflict between Israelis and Palestinians arouses passions like

few others. But on one thing most people can agree: that there's no

prospect of the struggle ending anytime soon. So given the failure

of the politicians and the diplomats, the militants and the

liberals, what should we take from the words of the writer? AB

Yehoshua is known as one of Israel's great men of letters. He

has come to London to talk about his latest novel, seen by some as a

powerful allegory of the journey that Israeli Jews must take. So can

he chart a way through the quagmire? And why does he have such

a low opinion of Jews outside AB Yehoshua, welcome to HARDtalk.

Thank you. It may begin with a quote from your latest novel, 'The

Retrospective'. Since you have realised that people try to seek a

symbol behind every detail, you have learned to be tolerant of even

allegorical speculation. In my allegorical speculation, is your

book, 'The Retrospective', an allegory of the Israeli state?

I do not think that this is the main subject of the book, the

question of the Palestinians and the Israelis. I think that the book

is dealing more with relationships between the West and the East in

Israel and in between the to communities that form the

population of Israel. Half that are coming from the Christian countries

1/2 per the coming from Islamic countries. -- that are coming. The

question is how to deal with the marriage between these two codes in

order to do something protective and something new. Is this

something that could have a resonance when it comes to the

Israelis? It cord when it comes to the Israelis and Palestinians but I

insist that this is not bat. In this society, there are many

fragments that you can stick about how you can do consideration and

how one, let us say class, fragment of the society joins to another. We

are still struggling about what it is that he's an Israeli identity

and how to shape it and how to make it work. It is a very good and

important question. It is a rich question and one that I hope to

explore with you. I'm just wondering, before we get on to that,

just the very fact that I am asking you these questions, whether you

feel as other great Israeli writers have spoken in the past, imprisoned

by this idea that every time you put pen to paper, we on the outside

ask what it has to do with the conflict. What are they saying,

what lessons are they trying to teach us? Is it a burden orate

privilege? E it is also a burden. You are putting us in a very narrow

pattern. A very narrow road. I always speaking of the conflict.

There are so many other problems. We're not the writers of problems

for the writers of human conditions, of people, a psychology, and of all

the other things. To push us almost all towards the corner of the

conflict is to do unjust us to all of us. You all the talk a lot about

the conflict. In his memoirs, another author talk about, with

some pride, how he was taking in to have one-on-one conversations and

heart hearts with Israeli PM's. There is a part of that must enjoy

that? Know. Really? Not enjoy but it is useless. We had nothing to

gain from speaking to the PM. It did not change him a bit. I can say

quite clearly that it is better to go to another group of simple

people and speak to them and to speak to journalists because the

media is more influential -- is more influenced by writers then bpm

and the power. Given the central role of literature in the history

of the Jews, what you have to say matters, doesn't it? Zionism was

created by writers. This is something very special. You cannot

see another national movement that was created by such a writer. What

is your profession? What is your identity? I say, a writer. You and

others are on the left, politically. You will boycott the settlements

and will not speak in the big settlements in the West Bank. How

far do you think that your voice, though it may be recognised and

even lionised abroad, is increasingly marginalised at home?

On the one hand it is marginal, on the other hand... You're doing and

are -- and unjust us too many others. You're talking about the

three big names. Yes because we are the big names but there are many

others who are important may have done very serious work. I think

that it is not that we have changed public opinion but I would describe

it in a metaphor. We were the drops of oil on the turning on the wheels

of reality, of the history and we had been doing this movement of the

difficult wheels of reality. say the wheels of reality but the

true fears that it is that the Right to is in power and it is

growing in power, not just politically but when you think of

the institutions in Israel, the army, the judiciary - why is the

left failing Israel? Not so much. First, the right wing has

recognised the solution and the majority of the right-wing was

repeating it just recently. The two-state solution. What progress

has been made? The first have to recognise the concept of a two-

state solution. This is by itself an advantage. 20 or 30 years ago,

we could not speak of a two-state solution. They may take you back to

the original question which is - why is the left so marginalised?

Speak to any Israeli and they will say that the Left has collapsed.

Why is that? They will say that the left as Clerk of the problem is not

that the Left has collapsed but that the ideas of the Lapps are

collapsing. -- left. In the Vietnam War, you'll say and -- but the

right wing with the generals lips this the hippies were protesting

and were right and finally managed to convince the right. Do not

forget that the Palestinians did not make it easy for us. For about

30 years after the Six Days War, the Palestinians said that they

would never recognise Israel. Hamas said that they would never

recognise Israel. Only in 1988 did the first movement of the

Palestinians say that we are ready to have a two-state solution.

me ask you about her mask. A few years ago, you said, and it was not

a popular view, now is the time to talk to Hamas. Do you still believe

that? Yes. They are now a separate entity. They are not terrorists,

they are not enemies. We are doing a confusion by sticking terrorists

to the beginning of everything. They are enemies. They are

determined enemies. If they want to come to a ceasefire with us, an

honourable and respected that ceasefire between us and them, then

we have to negotiate. We have to do it. He may say that there is logic

behind it but in terms of where it is in the spectrum of Israeli

politics, it is outside the mainstream. One of the mainstream

views -- one of the views that you had which is directly in the

mainstream and a bit of a myth is that when Israel withdrew its

settlers back in 2005, it left Gaza as a sort of pristine, producing a

poor, a place that could become a territory of boundless

possibilities. -- proto-Singapore. But it was still a miserable and

occupied a place. The Israelis are still can -- retained control.

have an open border. That an open border to Egypt. A bad border was

sealed by Egypt -- that border. On all other sides, Israel controlled

movement. They were our enemies. You can argue the reasoning for it

but I'm just saying that it was a myth to say that it was no longer

occupied. This is an enemy. After they withdrew -- after we withdrew,

we withdrew from Gaza without any... That is not true. Take the UN

report from a few months ago. The blockade imposed by Israel

intensified the closure plight since the early 1990s. It is a

denial of basic human rights in contravention of international law

and amounts to collective punishment. That is the UN saying

that you have not withdrawn. Gaza there were that settlements so

there were Jews living there. This was a bad thing. One of the most

vicious of things that we have done. To put settlements there and

produce 1.5 million refugees. Israel was defeated. This is the

main thing. After they withdrew from Gaza, come the Governor said

that there would governing themselves and have you will become

like Singapore. Take money from companies and invest and built.

Instead they continued to hail missiles upon Israel and put one

million people in shelters. This is the situation. What we have to do

is say to them, now they have more sophisticated missiles from Iran in

order to hit a Tel Aviv. They had hit Tel Aviv. They are showing how

cities. One million people have no reason to do it. They are free.

There is not one Israeli soldier in Gaza. When we are in a state of war,

a total state of war, we do not have any responsibilities to our

enemy. And now for the first time, we see very clearly that they can

control the fire. For three months, they were not shooting any more.

Were they have shot, it was done by their own will and not become

How long does Israel have to continue its existence as a state?

It depends on many things. It depends on a piece with the

Palestinians. I do not say that by being in peace with the

Palestinians, to finish the occupation of the West Bank and

coming to terms with the Palestinians, I do not know if Iran

and Afghanistan and Iraq will cease to say we will have to keep the

Jews out of Palestine but at least, with the Palestinians we can come

to terms. Sorry to interrupt. If that does not happen, if there is

no two-state solution - how long do you think Israel has? I do not know

how long. You see, Zionism have to fight against the Jewish people.

They do not want a stake. Zionism was done by the very small minority

- 2%, 3%. If the Jewish people will come to his round, they could now

be a state of 10 million. From the Holocaust, at least 2 million

people that could have come before the Second World War. The Jewish

people did not believe in a Zionism and Zionism was saving at least on

the ground, and the 300,000 Jews they were living before the Second

World War and were saved by the gas chambers by are these scientists.

By Israel. It is interesting to hear talk about the Holocaust. It

is an area which has caused perhaps the greatest amount of controversy.

You have said recently, I have never heard the Jews analyse the

Holocaust as a Jewish failure. course. When people here that, they

also here overtones of culpability. We're not responsible for the

Holocaust. The fate we were living for 2,000 years, without seeing the

pathological relationship between Jews and their environment, when

there were problems, when there were the Crusades, when there was

all the time anti-Semitism, the expulsion from Italy and France,

from Britain. All the red lights had been a glittering for years and

the Jews did not understand that they had to finish the diaspora. If

they would from the beginning had said enough of diaspora, try and be

in a man and territory, like all other people, if the Jews would

have believed in that, I believe far more many Jews would have

turned to another thing. You wrote in a book review about the

Holocaust, were Israel cease to exist, were a bomb dropped on it,

you would find scant consolation in Jews continuing their existence in

far flung pockets around the world. Israel is my identity. It is my

skin. It is my jacket. I cannot change it. Jews from Poland,

England, America... This is my skin. You compare the Jewish identity

among diaspora and Jews have to a Checa, a garment which they take on

and off whereas you say you're Jewish identity as an Israeli is

your skin. Listen, another quiet, partial Jews while I am a complete

due - Israel is the authentic did concept of a Jewish people. Do you

understand why that causes offence? They do not understand, after 2,000

years of one type of Jewish identity, sitting in the

environment of non-Jews. Those thousands of years of exile had

given birth to what we now know as Jewish religion, Jewish religion,

Jewish culture - that counts for nothing? For me the question is

identity. Of course it is part of the identity that this is not the

identity itself. Define a Jewish identity in Israel? The Jewish

identity today is the 10,000 more questions that we have to deal with

every day. The creation of a hospital, the creation of a prison,

the decision to go to war or not to go to war. Those a national

questions why is a Jewish? This is a Jewish question! Building a

hospital? This is a question of a human being dealing with all

aspects of life. The Daily questions of life but they're not

Jewish values per se? Bay are values! The fact that police are

going in the state without pistol, this is a British value and the way

in which you are beholden to each other, the way you are conducting

your foreign policy - this is Britain. You cannot say that

Britain is Sammy Shakespeare and Milton. Of course, the way you do

those things is the same thing for ours. The execution, the decision,

the foreign policy, the economic decisions. Juries and is not only

in a marginal way. This is the majority of life. And we are

returning to life. Why I find particularly interesting about your

view on this, and your relationship with the diaspora, is not that you

together that you almost the diaspora as a threat. The said in a

recent interview, at the name of up-country and the land of Israel

it is about a matter we must defend against a Jewish offensive.

Jewish offensive that when you ask me why you do not believe that

perhaps it will disappear, it will be disappearing because of diaspora.

It is an option for many Israelis to say, it is hard here, there is

the Palestinians, there is terrorism, there is at the threat

of Iran and Iraq, why can we not leave Israel and leave as a Jew in

a committee here - in Britain, in America - this is the reason why I

say a skin and not her jacket. Those in the diaspora, perhaps they

have to work harder in the Jewish identity because they're not taking

it for granted in North Tel Aviv for Jerusalem. They have to work

harder but this is not a Jewish complete an complete andentity by

going to the er Toro and doing some studies on the weekend. You cannot

take Israel as different from all other nations in the world. We are

like other nations. Except, Israel is the unique Jewish state. I'm

wondering... And the Norway it is a Norwegian state. The 20% of the

population... They are a national minority. In an interview with a

British economic -- academic, he said of ute, Tom if this is wrong,

he distinguishes between Israeli citizenship as opposed to Israeli

identity. Is that correct? They have their own identity. They are

Palestinian. If I said, as a Briton, that that Muslim, they drew, that

black man, I have British citizenship but they have no

British identity I would be called a racist. I have to heed them, how

they are defining their identity. You will not define their identity,

not by a - they will define their identity and when they say, we are

Palestinian Israelis, having Israeli citizenship and we have to

respect the citizenship in all sense of the word, and they are

part of the Israeli society but at the same time, this is a national

minority and I respect their identity. Can a return to your book,

where we began. You said in a recent interview that with this

book I tried to come to a conclusion of optimism, of

reconciliation of compromise - a cannot permit myself to be

pessimistic. Yes. Is that where you feel you are? Off course. I become

more and more violent in my optimism. But it is based on

emotion rather than reason? It is what you do. It is how you acted in

life. It is what I'm doing with my friends is to work very hard. So