World

Positive Case

Peace, When?

Jerusalem Post analyst eyes a
silver lining in Middle East clouds.

Cabinet minister
still urges talks.

Alan Hitsky

G

Associate Editor

it Hoffman is a self-
described optimist. Anyone
who lives in Israel right now
should fit that description, he says.
Middle East peace talks? A nuclear
Iran? 1967 borders? Hamas and
Hezbollah? Yes, these are major
issues, Hoffman told area journal-
ists last week at an annual news
media event sponsored by the Jewish
Community Relations Council of
Metropolitan Detroit and Linda and
Robert Finkel.
But Hoffman, chief political cor-
respondent and analyst for the
Jerusalem Post, sees factors in each
one of these issues that bode well for
Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu met for 7 1/2 hours on
Nov. 11 with U.S. Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton. "Bill Clinton:'
Hoffman quipped, "said he's never
been with her that much."
Netanyahu has a "messiah com-
plex," Hoffman said, believing he was
brought back into power in Israel to
save the world from Iran. That task
has four approaches: political, nucle-
ar, economic and military.

Iran Sanctions
"The economic sanctions are having
an effect:' Hoffman said, on Iran's
rising unemployment and inability
to refuel ships and planes. There are
now disputes between the ayatol-
lah and Iranian President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad over halting Iran's
nuclear program; but Netanyahu
argues that the economic sanctions
must be combined with a military
threat in order to work.
The Israel Defense Forces have been
holding drills in preparation for an
Iranian strike, Hoffman said.
When Barrack Obama was elected
U.S. president in 2008, his foreign
policy priorities were on Iraq and
Afghanistan. Last July, Obama said it
was Iran. "Now, he says all options are
on the table Hoffman said.
"Obama may have only two years
left to create his legacy and he doesn't
want Iran to go nuclear on his watch?'

24

November 25 • 2010

Journalist Gil Hoffman

Israelis and
Palestinians are not
obsessed with peace
negotiations.

Turning to Israeli-Palestinian
peace initiatives, the Chicago-
born Jerusalem Post analyst does
not believe that the Republican
victory "in the U.S. House of
Representatives" this month will
deter Obama's emphasis on the
Middle East.
Hoffman said the Israeli right will
never be happy with Obama, but now
the left is upset with him because
of the perception that Obama is
pressuring only Israel and not the
Palestinians. The left will accept
pressure if it leads Israel to do well.

Seeking Peace
Hoffman pointed to Israeli opinion
polls to show differences between
the Israelis and Palestinians: Some
70 percent of Israelis, but only 30
percent of Palestinians, believe peace
talks should resume. However, only
5 percent of Israelis and 6 percent
of Palestinians believe they will suc-
ceed.
"Even though Israelis are skeptical
of the outcome, they still want to be
at the peace table:' Hoffman said.

He scoffed at the idea that either
side cares about the 1948/1967 bor-
der. "Months ago, I bought a house
in Jerusalem and it was only recently
that I learned that I am sleeping on
one side of the border and going to
the bathroom on the other. I cringe
to think that I'm halting the peace
process?'
Hoffman is married to former
Detroiter Netanya Weiss. The couple
have two children. A gradute of
Northwestern University's journal-
ism school, he worked at the Miami
Herald and the Arizona Republic -
before making aliyah and meeting
Netanya at a Purim party.
Responding to questions after his
20-minute talk, Hoffman said his
optimism is based on Israel's thriv-
ing economy and world leadership in
recycling water and other resources.
He said, "Israel is well positioned for
the future?'
Asked what Americans get wrong
about Israel, he said it was the belief
that Israelis and Palestinians are
obsessed about peace.
Both groups "are obsessed with
our sports teams and with going to
the beach in December?'
Thomas Friedman recently wrote
in the New York Times that both
Israelis and Palestinians are enjoy-
ing a "peace dividend?' The only
economy in the Middle East doing
better than Israel's, Hoffman said,
was the West Bank's, which is grow-
ing at an 8 percent rate. "You're now
seeing immigration from Detroit to
Ramallah," he said.
Hoffman expects the Obama
administration to continue pressur-
ing Israel over the peace talks, but
"the polls have shown consistently
that Americans want their president
to be more pro-Israel, like previous
administrations?'
He said presidential adviser David
Axelrod advocated doing everything
in the Middle East "the opposite of
George Bush."
Rahm Emmanuel was much more
nuanced, but in the end it came
down to "squeezing Netanyahu."
Hoffman's own advice on the
region is EASY: education, advocacy,
solidarity and "your prayers?'

Don Cohen

Special to the Jewish News

T

he only way to make a chance for
peace — even a very, very low
chance — is to talk," said Israeli
Minister Without Portfolio Yossi Peled
about direct negotiations between Israel
and the Palestinian Authority (P.A.).
"We have to sit
and talk with them,
but there cannot
be preconditions:'
he said. "And once
we sign the peace
agreement, we don't
sign for just 5-10
years. We cannot
be sure that [P.A.
President] Abu Mazen
Yossi Peled
[Mahmoud Abbas]
can enforce an agreement. So in a crisis
time, we have to be able to protect our-
selves?'
Peled, a Likud Knesset member, suc-
cessful businessman and retired major
general in the Israel Defense Forces, was
in Metro Detroit Oct. 19-20 as a guest of
the Jewish Community Relations Council,
touring for the Israeli Foreign Ministry.
While here, he spoke to the Jewish
Federation of Metropolitan Detroit's
Board of Governors and Young Adult
Division as well members of the
Michigan-Israel Business Bridge and
community activists.
"We are far away from being a perfect
country; we have a lot of internal prob-
lems and we are a Jewish island living in
an Arab ocean:' he told the Jewish News.
"While the army is a big part of our life,
part of our power is being a moral coun-
try. We need to give rights to minorities,
but we also need to believe in our roots?'
As one of 30 ministers in the largest
Israel cabinet ever, he candidly admits
that the government and political system
need structural reform.
"Everyone works on it, but no one does
anything," Peled said. "Everyone makes
calculations about how it will affect their
own party and their chance in the next
elections. Maybe we will be able to vote
for something that takes effect in 8-10
years. The best thing would be to have a
strong, united, stable government?' E