Israeli official tries to predict the future of country locked in bitter, tense conflict

In the eyes of that country's critics, the term Israeli moderate might seem like a contradiction in terms, but if anyone fits the description it has to be Dan Meridor, former cabinet minister and current chairman of the Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee of the Knesset, the Israeli parliament. His genial manner and status as an experienced and respected figure in the middle ground meant he was a good choice to visit Ireland this week for meetings with Brian Cowen and other senior politicians.

Meridor is also the leader of the Centre Party which is not part of the Israeli government, although he points out it supports the ruling coalition of Ariel Sharon in many ways.

A lawyer by profession, he was a tank commander in the 1967 Six-Day War and the 1973 Yom Kippur War. His parents came to Palestine from St Petersburg and Vienna in the 1930s. They met when they were taking part in the underground movement to establish the state of Israel. His father, Eleyahu, was imprisoned during the British mandate, for about four years.

Dan Meridor was cabinet secretary in the governments of Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir before being elected to the Knesset in 1984. He was minister of justice for four years from 1988 and minister for finance in 1996-97 before resigning over a policy disagreement with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

Referring to the current situation developing, he replies: "It's to a large extent held in the hands of Mr Arafat." In July last year he attended the Camp David Summit with then prime minister Ehud Barak, Chairman Arafat and former president Clinton which he describes as "an abortive heroic effort to put an end once and for all to this bitter conflict".

Given what he regarded as the generosity of the settlement offered to Mr Arafat, he was surprised that it was rejected. He clearly finds the Palestinian leader difficult to fathom: "Does he have in mind an end to the conflict, or to continue it in another form?"

He says, unlike Anwar Sadat, King Hussein and other Arab leaders, Arafat has violated a basic commitment to the Israelis. "He was given a status; respectability; territory; jurisdiction; soldiers, or policemen; 30,000 guns. All of that, and he was required by [late Israeli prime minister] Mr Rabin to give only one thing in return . . . a commitment that if there is disagreement he will never use violence, only talks." As far as Meridor is concerned, this undertaking was fundamentally breached: "And it's being breached again and again for the last nine months."

He says this makes it very hard for him to predict the future trend of events: "If Mr Arafat breaks the only tool existing to resolve international conflicts - agreements - then I have a very difficult time answering the question, because I don't see a way out if not by agreement."

As he sees it Prime Minister Sharon, despite his tough guy image, has wisely refrained from using all-out military might and retaking the land given to the Palestinians, despite the urgings of the Israeli right wing. But this restraint is less obvious to the outside world, which wonders why the death toll among Palestinian demonstrators, especially young people, is so high and why Israel cannot use less lethal methods to keep order.

Meridor says he is sorry for every young person who is killed but, as far as he is concerned, it is always the Palestinians who initiate the violence with an adult leadership directing their youthful forces from behind the scenes. "In a very cynical decision, understanding the media effect of today, they decided to send children to the battlefield. They stayed behind - it's safer."

But how come when young people in the West demonstrate at global summits the casualty rate is very low and that, by comparison, the Israeli response seems heavy-handed?

"If there has been a civil demonstration, even a violent one, I would be always against using guns, even rubber bullets," he replies. But it is different when an element among the rioters is shooting or throwing hand grenades: "It's not a demonstration, it's an attack."

Palestinian strategy has changed, with less emphasis on mass demonstrations and more on terror tactics including suicide bombings such as the June attack in Tel Aviv which killed 19 young people. Meridor does not share the widespread doubts about the Palestinian leader's ability to prevent these attacks. "If Arafat wants, he can do it," he says.

"He is the leader. I saw it at Camp David very clearly. Everybody might have had their opinions [but] they look up to him, he makes the decisions, he is the one who calls the shots for everybody. Second, he was given 30,000 guns by Mr Rabin. He holds the guns and the ability to use them, and the reason given to us for his request was to assert his control and his jurisdiction over his people."

I put it to him that the plague of suicide bombings was almost impossible to stamp out. "Impossible is a word I hesitate to use, but very difficult. Even if you stop a guy who has a bomb on him, what do you do to him? You threaten, `I will shoot you', so shoot him, he will explode."

He is aware his country's image has suffered in the media in recent times: "Israel is now learning the changes in the world that are very dramatic in recent years: the ways in which wars are being conducted now must be different, not only in the battlefield but on the screen and if you lose it on the screen you may be close to losing the war, so one has to take it into account, in waging the war - how it is seen."

He is proud that moral standards are expected of Israel which are not applied to other countries. He mentions the response to Russian activities in Chechnya as an example. "You could think of names of people who were killed in Gibraltar by somebody, but not being called a war crime."

But it is very difficult to wage a war that looks good: "Wars don't look good, ever. How to do it is a new school of war that you need to develop so that you fight a war that is seen in real time on television, never in the past. In the past, Napoleon and [Russian commander] Kutuzov fought a war for several months or years and people at home waited to see the results. Now you see every night on television."

He denies there is an Israeli policy of assassination of Palestinian militants. However, there is a moral obligation to prevent an attack you know is being planned. Because of Palestinian violence he says: "The ceasefire is not a real ceasefire." Every two or three days, Israelis are being killed: "It cannot go on like this."