Annual Nakba Commemoration Dinner Speech
I returned to Tel Aviv via Cyprus as usual. At the time, and still today, I was convinced that Peres wanted to meet secretly with Arafat, but it was a risk too far for him. Months previously when Peres had agreed to talk to Arafat through me, he had said that if word of what we were doing leaked, he would be destroyed and his party would be annihilated at the next election. But Peres wanted there to be a secret, face-to-face meeting with Arafat. He said he would nominate somebody to represent him. I asked who. Peres thought for a minute or so and then said “Aaron Yariv.” When Golda Meir was prime minister, General Yariv was Israel’s Director of Military Intelligence. I said to Peres: “I’m sure that Arafat knows as well as you do that a number of attempts to kill him were authorized by Yariv when he was DMI. Do you really expect Arafat to meet with him?” Peres replied: “It will be a good test of Arafat’s sincerity. If he agrees to meet with Yariv, I’ll know he is serious.”
Peres then commanded me to meet with Yariv and put the proposition to him. If he gave me a “Yes” in principle, Peres would talk with him and, subject to Arafat’s agreement, the secret meeting would be arranged. Yariv gave me a “Yes” in principle.
Back in Beirut, and somewhat to my astonishment, Arafat didn’t need even a few seconds to consider whether he should or should not meet secretly with the former Israeli DMI who had authorized a number of attempts to kill him. “I have only one condition,” Arafat said to me. “I must be assured that Yariv will be speaking FOR Peres“. What Arafat meant and went on to say was that if he made a deal with Yariv, it could only be on the basis of knowing that Peres would honour it. I said I understood that would be the case.
On my journey back to Tel Aviv I allowed myself to flirt for a few seconds with a fantasy. Was it possible, I wondered, that we were on our way to a Nobel Peace Prize?
As soon as I had checked into my room in the Dan Hotel on Tel Aviv’s beach front, I telephoned retired General Chaim Herzog. He was one of two men advising Peres. At the time Herzog was the Labour Party’s secretary general and running his own import/export business. As the founding father of Israel’s Directorate of Military Intelligence, Herzog was already an Israeli legend. He went on to become Israel’s ambassador to the UN and eventually the Zionist state’s president. We were good friends and the reason why I was well informed about what was happening in Israel in my television reporting days is that Herzog was my journalistic deep-throat. On the ‘phone I said to him: “My Arab friend WILL meet with Yariv.” Herzog was obviously excited. He said: “We’re cooking on gas. Go tell Yariv. I’ll brief Shimon.”
Yariv listened to my report of my last meeting with Arafat in complete silence. When I stopped talking, he said: “I’m sorry. I can’t meet with Arafat.” He was obviously very embarrassed.
At this point ladies and gentlemen, and because I want to tell you exactly what happened next, I must ask you, please, to forgive my language. I did an Arafat (and a Begin). I lost my temper. I shouted at Yariv: “We’re not playing fucking games! What the hell is going on?” And I demanded an explanation. His answer was pathetic to say the least. “I didn’t think you’d persuade Arafat to meet with me,” he said. What he meant but didn’t say is that while I was in Beirut getting Arafat’s “Yes”, he, Yariv, had changed his mind and was hoping that Arafat would say “No” so that I could blame Arafat and not him.
I asked Herzog to investigate why, really, Yariv had changed his mind. When he reported back to me, Herzog said I should have a little sympathy for Yariv. While I was away in Beirut, he had done some re-thinking and came to the conclusion that if he met with Arafat, and if word of the meeting leaked, Prime Minister Begin would make an example of him and, as Yariv had put it to Herzog, “He might even have me hanged as a traitor.”
That was not the end of the matter, but to find out how it ended you’ll have to read my book.
Back now to my favourite Arafat story.
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