Amid tensions brought on by the recent war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip and the upcoming elections in Israel this week, Nadav Tamir, consul general at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Jerusalem, spoke yesterday about the possibility of a two-state solution from an Israeli perspective.
Tamir, who served as a policy assistant for three different Israeli foreign ministers, began his lecture by describing the Israeli perspective on the situation in Gaza. "For us, the way we see things is that we left Gaza in order not to go back to Gaza," he said. "It wasn't an easy thing to do, but we thought that it would be a great way to embark on an attempt to eventually reach the two-state solution."
However, Tamir said, even before the Israelis left Gaza, rockets were already being launched into Israel's southern cities, with the frequency of Qassam rocket-fire only increasing once Hamas took over Gaza. The rockets continued even as a cease-fire was reached between Hamas and Israel, Tamir said.
"Eventually, Hamas left us no choice, because the first responsibility of every government is to protect their citizens from external threat," Tamir said.
Tamir emphasized that the Israeli government did not target civilians during the military operation. "We did everything possible to make sure that the Palestinian people knew when we were going to attack an area that Hamas was in," he said.
But Tamir said Israel will not stop defending and protecting its people. "Israel will not succumb to terrorism," he said. "We will not have to apologize to protect our people."
Tamir said that 80 percent of the Israeli public now believes in a two-state solution. "If we keep controlling the Palestinians' life, we cannot remain a democracy," he said.
After the Six Day War in 1967, during which the Israeli government took over the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the government made a "tragic mistake" in allowing settlements in the West Bank, Tamir said, adding that Israelis are "now paying the price for this."
When multiple attempts at peace failed, former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon unilaterally moved to create a two-state solution, Tamir said, by giving the Gaza Strip and the West Bank to the Palestinians. But "instead of making Gaza a great model, it became a hub of terrorism," he said.
Still, Tamir said he remains hopeful that an agreement with the Palestinians and a long-term solution will be possible in the future. "With a new government in Jerusalem, we will be able to go back to negotiations," he said. "I believe that 'yes we can.'"
Tamir's lecture was protested by an ad-hoc group of students outside MacMillan Hall holding signs and pamphlets saying, "Shouldn't Israel be accountable to human rights standards?"
Other students, some dressed in keffiyehs - traditional Palestinian scarves - and signs reading "IDF Was Here," referring to the acronym for the Israeli military, protested inside the lecture.
Brown Students for Israel, which helped publicize the event, passed out flyers at the event describing "Hamas's illegal actions during recent escalation."
Students expressed a range of feelings about the lecture, which was sponsored by the Watson Institute for International Studies.
"The speaker did a good job respecting and fully responding to opinions of all perspectives," said Jimmy Rotenberg '09. "As always with an event on this issue it's very emotional."
Harry Reis '11, president of Brown Students for Israel, said that Tamir "really articulately represented the mainstream view of the Israeli public," a voice that is "extremely important" to hear on campus and that was "missing until now."
"The case for Israel in recent history is a very strong one and that is why he had such a strong presentation," Reis said.
"I thought it was a pack of lies," said Jesse Soodalter '94 MD'09, one of the anti-Israel protestors. "It was a very seamlessly orchestrated justification for Israeli policy."
"I thought the expressions of sympathy for the Palestinians killed was an unspeakable atrocity, presuming to call that a tragedy and wishing that we could have avoided it - naked hypocrisy," she said.
