Editor’s Note: Jay Nordlinger attended the World Economic Forum on the Middle East the week before last. It took place by the Dead Sea in Jordan. Below is the sixth and final installment of his journal. Links to the previous parts are as follows: I, II, III, IV, and V.

In Part V, I mentioned Ephraim Sneh, the erstwhile negotiator for Israel — negotiator with the Palestinians, that is. He has held many other positions too: health minister, transportation minister, deputy defense minister. He is a doctor-warrior-politician-diplomat-writer. One could throw some other nouns in there, too. In any case, Sneh has agreed to sit down with me for a talk on the “sidelines” of the conference, as they say. He was born in 1944, in Tel Aviv — in other words, four years before the state was. He had a famous father: Moshe Sneh, a leader of Israeli Communism. Back in Poland, the name had been Kleinbaum, or Bush. Now it was Sneh — Bush in Hebrew, as in Burning Bush. So Moshe Sneh’s name might be thought of as Moses Burning Bush. The son, Ephraim, was a member of the Communist party himself, until age 27. Then he went into the military (or back into the military). And he emerged a staunch Laborite. Last year, he bolted his longtime party, to found his own: Yisrael Hazaka, or Strong Israel. But a little more about his medical-military career: He was a commander of “medical units,” including at Entebbe. That was no simple operation. When you read about Sneh’s life, you read about the history of modern Israel, really. Of course, that is true of other senior statesmen, too. Through the years, Sneh has had a specialty of dealing with Palestinians: He was governor of the West Bank, in the ’80s, and he was tabbed to begin secret talks with the PLO. Of course, those talks in time became open. I ask why he left the Labor party. Labor, he says, “lost its way. It lost the passion and the desire to lead the country. The leadership was eager to be a part of the government — but not to lead the country. There was no personal or ideological glue to keep the party together.” Sneh says that he tried to change the party from within. But, “because I had no partners for change, I decided the right thing to do was have a new beginning, based on clear ideology, transparency,” and so on. Broadly speaking, Sneh considers himself a social democrat, and, when it comes to national security, he is “on the sane middle ground”: not left or right. “Being in favor of the two-state solution does not mean you’re on the left,” Sneh points out. (He means, as you know, a two-state solution between Israelis and Palestinians.) In fact, he has a reputation for being quite hawkish, where threats to Israel are concerned. I tell him that his position reminds me somewhat of the late Scoop Jackson’s. He smiles and says, “You know, Americans often tell me that. Is it a compliment? I am not familiar enough with American politics to know.” I assure Dr. Sneh that there are worse comparisons. And if he wants to know about Jackson, he can go to his colleague Natan Sharansky, who prizes him. Sneh also says that a comparison with a contemporary figure is made: Joe Lieberman. Down the hall from where we’re talking, Saeb Erekat — the PLO negotiator and spokesman — is giving a TV interview. Sneh lights up at the sight of him. He obviously gets a kick out of him. “You can trust him,” says Sneh. “He is faithful, and committed to the idea of peace.” And how, exactly, is he different from his old boss, Arafat? “Oh, come on,” scoffs Sneh. “He is different by ideology and by credibility.” With Arafat, you could make peace only entirely on his terms (if then). Erekat is far more flexible, says Sneh. He says, “When I was governor of the West Bank, I hated his big mouth. But many things have changed since then.” Sneh tells me a story, about the time he and Erekat were huddled together in the American Colony Hotel (Jerusalem). Spotting them, Tony Blair said, “Are you two sharing secrets?” What they were sharing were photos of their granddaughters, on their cellphones. “With you two,” I note, “everything seems easy” — peace seems easily achievable. Sneh responds, “Yes: because all the gaps are bridgeable.” “Even the refugees?” “Even the refugees. All the gaps are bridgeable.” Sneh says you handle the refugee issue as follows: They give up the “right of return,” but you don’t tell them they must give it up. You must not make them say they are giving it up. In all of the negotiations, you speak about practicalities, about what can happen here and now. You must forget about history, and “comparative victimology,” as Sneh calls it: who did what to whom, when. You must start afresh: Where do we go from this day forward? The Palestinians, says Sneh, understand that refugees will not come back to Jaffa or Haifa. “I have the right to go back to Hebron,” says Sneh — but he knows that that will not happen. The settlers in Hebron will have to go, says Sneh — and that, of course, will be extremely painful. Quick change of subject: I ask Sneh what he thinks of Amr Moussa, who is always prominent, if not dominant, at these conferences: “A standard-bearer of anti-Israeli sentiments.” Different question: Is Mahmoud Abbas in any position to make deals? “He won 62 percent in a general democratic election. Yes, he can make deals.” Like his friend Erekat, Sneh believes that Israel’s 2005 withdrawal from Gaza was a big mistake. “It was a mistake to withdraw unilaterally,” he says. “We should have gotten out, we should not have remained, but that should have been done through negotiations, through cooperation with Abbas — we should not have made a gift to Hamas.” Sneh believes that Israel is “paying the price” of unilateral withdrawal from both Gaza and South Lebanon. Again, the PLO spokesman’s position is identical — an interesting fact. According to Sneh, the time to strike a deal with the Palestinians was right after Arafat’s “disappearance,” to use his word. You could have made a deal with the new crew — but they were not “cleverly dealt with” by the Israeli government. The Israelis “wasted the change in Palestinian leadership.” I ask the doctor’s view of Netanyahu: “He is surrounded by hardliners, which I’m afraid will make it difficult for him to take the right steps.” But he by himself is “pragmatic enough” to do the necessary — meaning, go for a two-state solution. There is also the question of the Knesset: In its current makeup, it is not exactly disposed to this two-state solution. And George W. Bush? What does Sneh think of him? “He came to the right conclusions too late. During his second term, the efforts of Condoleezza Rice were genuine. She was sincere and intelligent.” But people around the president undermined peacemaking efforts — and Sneh fingers specifically Elliott Abrams (the sainted and invaluable Elliott Abrams, I should say). Sneh tells me that he has praised Condi Rice around American Democrats. And they are so loath to give credit to anything having to do with George Bush, they will not hear it. What does he think about Bush generally? “He had the balls to stand up to evil when it mattered. He was clumsy, and he made mistakes. But he had the balls to stand up to Islamic fascism.” What distresses Sneh is that “4,000 American boys and girls died in Iraq so that Ahmadinejad could take it over.” (May this never come to pass, one must quickly say.) I can’t help asking what Sneh thinks of Begin: “He made mistakes. He led by the ideology of Greater Israel — the idea that Israel should govern the entire territory from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean. But he did two great things, which will ever be in his favor in history: one, the peace with Egypt; two, the destruction of the Iraqi nuclear facility.” Sneh continues: “The ideology that Begin represented was the opposite of my own. But think of these two great merits: peace with the greatest Arab country; and the destruction of this existential threat to Israel.” Which leads us to Iran: “I hope we will not be compelled to do it” — to attack Iran. “I strongly advocate real sanctions, because this can spare us military action against Iran. But if we have no choice . . . Look, there is no government in Jerusalem — no government — that can take the historic risk of exposing Israel to a nuclear Iran.” And “when I say Iran,” adds Sneh, “I don’t mean the state of Iran, but the regime of the ayatollahs.” Back to peace with the Palestinians. I tell him, “When I see Palestinian kids taught to hate, through books and TV shows and so on, I find it hard to have hope. They are given no chance right out of the womb: They are soaked in hate immediately.” Sneh answers, “You are totally right.” That’s why he says that a peace deal would be (relatively) easy to sign, but very hard to implement. It would take “four or five years,” he says. The most difficult thing would be “the relocation of the settlers.” And it could not be done in “a brutal, harsh way, as in Gaza.” It would have to be done more humanely. And “the longer process is the changing of minds, the eroding of hatred between the two sides.” Both sides? “Look, on our side, the youngsters, the teenagers, are full of hatred against the Arabs. Don’t be mistaken. When you are losing, in the second intifada, a thousand Israelis in three years, in suicide bombings, terror attacks, it creates something” — namely, hatred. “But I believe that the reality of peace, cooperation, and prosperity will easily wash that away — clean it out.” One more question — I have asked it of many people, and it is the most unfair and brutal question of all: Will Israel survive? Sneh: “I’m going to write a book about that, answering your question. I am going to start next month. And because I don’t believe your magazine will publish my entire book, I will give you a brief, brief answer: “The survival of Israel is not to be taken for granted. In order to survive, we must do three things.” And here are the three: 1. “We must become and remain the strongest military power in the region, from the Caspian to the Atlantic. Israel must be the strongest military power — without dependence on anybody.” Sneh fairly shouts this word. “This is indigenous military strength, period.” 2. “We must reach peace with the Palestinians, and quickly.” 3. “We must restore the social fabric of Israeli society. We must minimize the social gaps. We must stop the alienation of the citizens from the state.” Sneh concludes, “These are the three conditions of our survival.” Grim and stark talk, as is customary from Israelis, of all political stripes. ‐On a shuttle bus one night from conference center to hotel, I sit next to a young imam, white-robed. Very friendly, cheerful guy, with an (appropriate) air of spirituality about him. “Where are you from?” I ask. Denmark, he says. “I am a well-disguised Dane,” he adds, with a warm smile. His parents came from Pakistan. We talk for some time about Denmark, and Pakistan. Then I make bold to ask him, “Do you feel . . .” “Danish?” he says. Actually, I was going to say Scandinavian. He says, “I feel like I am a citizen of the world and belong everywhere.” We later discuss the things Denmark is known for. He quips, “Welfare, butter, cartoons . . .” Again, that warm, easy, alive smile. ‐I overhear an American in discussion with another imam, also white-robed. The American is saying that diplomacy was absent from the Middle East during the eight years of George W. Bush. This is, of course, the Kerry line (as reported in an earlier part of this journal) — and false. More than false, demonstrably so, with very little effort. There is Bush-hatred, as everyone has remarked. But there is also Bush-stupidity — some companion to Bush Derangement Syndrome, that makes so many people so stupid about Bush and his presidency. I find it hard to get used to, though it is a well-established fact. Of course, high humidity is hard to get used to — even though you have experienced it and know it is coming. People aren’t merely deranged about Bush — they are lazy, unwilling even to think about his presidency, with its many achievements and shortcomings. As was once true about Reagan, there is simply a refusal to think about Bush. Strange, and vexing. ‐There is a newspaper called the Jordan Times. As you might expect, it is strongly supportive of the Jordanian government — almost as supportive of His Majesty King Abdullah as Newsweek is of President Obama. There is a man named Marc Otte, and he is the European Union’s special envoy to the Middle East. I open my Jordan Times to read comments by him. He says, “Things are changing. Look at Iraq, Lebanon, and other places in the region, [and] you will see that foreign occupation is not legitimate, whether it’s Israel, the U.S. in Iraq, or even NATO forces in Afghanistan.” Imagine that: “even NATO forces in Afghanistan.” It could be that Mr. Otte would prefer al-Qaeda, which the Afghan people were helpless to drive away. Would he have been opposed to international forces in France, circa 1944? And is it the EU’s official position that NATO in Afghanistan, to say nothing of America and its allies in Iraq, is illegitimate? He continues, “Israel wants Syria and Iran not to interfere in Lebanon. Fine, but we also want them to stop the occupation of Palestinian lands . . .” And who decided that the disputed territories were “Palestinian lands”? Marc Otte? Does he consider “Israel proper” a “Palestinian land”? A lot of people do. Furthermore, Israel found it necessary to occupy the West Bank and Gaza — which had been occupied by Jordan and Egypt (where were the Marc Ottes?) — when Arab countries waged wars of annihilation against Israel, repeatedly. And for what reason do Syria and Iran want Lebanon? If you think as Marc Otte does — you are perfect for EU special envoy to the Middle East. Perfect. Needless to say, he has warm words for the Obama administration: “They don’t speak about war and terror, but rather stress the importance of world peace.” Yes, and if you don’t speak about war and terror — maybe war and terror will go away. I say again, Marc Otte as EU special envoy to the Middle East represents a perfect marriage of man and job. ‐I should not end this journal on a bitter note, so let me say again what I have said before: The Westerners at Middle East conferences such as this one in Jordan tend to be very, very depressing. (I will get to the positive in a sec.) They blame the fall of almost every sparrow on Israel, America, and the West in general. They can’t help it, really: They were taught that way, in their universities. I was taught that way, too. But, so help me, some of us grow out of it. Arab participants themselves are far less depressing, and can be refreshing, or downright inspiring. They recognize Arab problems, and they are willing to tackle them. They do not make excuses. Of course, excuse-makers are present, too. And, sadly, they tend to occupy positions of authority. A prime sample of them is Moussa. Such people are incapable of speaking without the words “Israel” and “America” coming out of their mouths, in a negative way. (They sound like my professors.) But I dare say that most Arabs prefer to confront problems honestly, and do something about them. May they gain the upper hand, someday, soon. Thanks so much for joining me, as always. Will scribble “regular Impromptus” shortly.

#JAYBOOK#