In Syria, the end of the Assad regime inches closer. Are you concerned about their arsenal of chemical weapons?
Assad knows that using chemical weapons will immediately invite an attack by outside elements. The whole world would mobilize against him. It would be a suicidal act. On the other hand, it’s obvious that his days are numbered. A situation in which, let’s say, his palace comes under fire, could put him in an irrational state and lead him to act out of despair. If the Syrians dare to touch their chemical weapons and aim them at us or at innocent civilians, I have no doubt that the world as well as Israel will take decisive and immediate action. No less important, Assad is liable to transfer the chemical weapons to Hezbollah, which from our point of view will constitute crossing a red line. It is incumbent upon Israel to prevent such a thing from happening, and it will take firm military action to do so.
During the several months
over which Peres and I spoke, the conflict between Israel and Hamas intensified. In response to rocket fire from Hamas forces in the Gaza Strip, Israel assassinated Hamas’s military commander and launched a bombing campaign that resulted in widespread international censure and ended in a cease-fire engineered by the United States and Morsi. In some cases in the past, Peres expressed opposition to Israel’s use of assassination as a weapon to achieve its goals. He opposed the killing of Khalil al-Wazir, the deputy of the P.L.O. leader Yasir Arafat, in Tunis in 1988, and the targeted elimination of the spiritual founder of Hamas, Sheik Ahmed Yassin, in Gaza in 2004. He also protected Arafat from plots to kill or deport him. This time, Peres expressed strong support for the Israeli operation. “This wasn’t a war or a military operation, but rather an educational lesson for Hamas,” he told me. “We acted in order to explain to Hamas that it has to decide on one or the other. You want to build houses? No problem. You want to build missile bases inside those houses? Then we’ll relate to those houses as targets for our aircraft.
But during the campaign, civilians were killed on both sides, many more in Gaza.
We made a supreme effort not to harm civilians in Gaza, although it was very difficult to distinguish between Hamas militiamen and innocent civilians. We have no desire to spill blood, not ours and not that of others. The operation was short, and the moment the lesson was conveyed and deterrence was established, it was stopped.
What lesson do you think Hamas learned?
Hamas will now start taking care. Even there, the understanding must penetrate that there’s no such thing as a cocktail of gunfire and peace.
The political leader of Hamas, Khaled Meshal, came to Gaza in December to celebrate the organization’s 25th anniversary. He delivered a blunt speech, indicating that it’s not at all clear that deterrence was achieved. Perhaps the time has come to conduct a dialogue with Hamas?
If Hamas accepts international demands, forsakes terror, stops firing missiles at us and recognizes the existence of the State of Israel, it will be possible to open negotiations. Where did this Khaled Meshal suddenly pop out of, with his words that come straight from the Middle Ages? Precisely now, when the whole world is tired of wars and violence, he arises out of the dark of night with these sadistic desires to strike and to murder? Does he really think that they will be able to destroy the State of Israel, with the I.D.F. and our intelligence services? That we are a bunch of turkeys that will march in formation to a Thanksgiving feast?
You didn’t think that Arafat should be assassinated.
No. I thought it was possible to do business with him. Without him, it was much more complicated. With who else could we have closed the Oslo deal? With who else could we have reached the Hebron agreement? On the other hand, I tried to explain to him, for hours on end, a complete educational course: how to be a true leader. We sat together, with me eating from his hand. It took courage. I told him he must be like Lincoln, like Ben-Gurion: one nation, one gun, not innumerable armed forces with each firing in a different direction. At first, Arafat refused, he said, “La, la, la” [Peres does a fairly convincing imitation of Arafat saying “no” in Arabic], but later he said, “O.K.” He lied right to my face, without any problem [regarding promises to fight Palestinian militias and insurgencies].
You were asked by many important people to run against Netanyahu and reunite the center-left. Do you regret not doing it?
They pressed me hard, but I concluded that I should not run, for reasons I do not wish to elaborate on. I was elected president for a seven-year term, and I will carry out this commitment. My record is the only way to judge me honestly. I do not think there are many people in the world who can say they managed to bring down a 600 percent inflation rate, create a nuclear option in a small country, oversee the Entebbe operation, set up an aerospace industry and an arms-development authority, form deep diplomatic relations with France, launch a Sinai campaign to open the Straits of Tiran and put an end to terror from Gaza. I do not, perish the thought, claim to have done all this alone. I just think that perhaps without me it would not have happened. Yitzhak Shamir was prime minister for seven years. So what? I don’t think my record is inferior to his.
You have never spoken much about your wife, Sonia, and for decades she was absent from your public life. Why?
Sonia always told me that she married a kibbutz cowman, not a politician. She didn’t like appearing in public, and she didn’t like titles. In family life, you need two things. Both love and compromise.
You didn’t seem to compromise so much, but she did.
She compromised, and so did I. I never, ever insisted, never asked her, if it wasn’t necessary, for her to come. I never said, “Come for appearance’ sake.” If I’d said it was for appearance’ sake, she would never have come.
Still, I imagine that over all those years, you had arguments about when she would go with you and when not.
There were arguments, but there was very deep love, both from my side and from hers. It was the only love in my life. She gave me the greatest gift a wife can give a husband — she brought up our children exemplarily. She knew that sometimes I couldn’t come to a child’s party, and she forgave me. And if it served the state, she came with me. If it served my career: “No, sir. A family’s life is at home,” she would tell me. “Don’t mix things up.” She came to the Nobel Prize ceremony because she thought the prize was being awarded to the state and not only to me.
Five years ago, when you became president, she wanted you to not take office. What happened?
Sonia told me: “It’s enough. You’ve done your share. Come, let’s live these years together.” I told her: “First of all, I don’t know what to do with free time. Second, I think that I can fulfill a duty here, too, serve the country, unite it.” She said to me: “Go your way. I’m staying here.” There was nothing to do about it. Women get edgy about things men will never understand. I packed a bag, and I left home.
Peres moved into the president’s official residence in Jerusalem. Sonia stayed on in their modest apartment in north Tel Aviv. In January 2011, one of their grandchildren found her dead in her home, apparently from cardiac arrest. Peres rushed to the apartment and kissed her on the forehead before she was taken away.
You have surrounded yourself with female aides. You told me once that you had many fine male assistants who later went on to betray you. Looking back, are you sorry that from the beginning it wasn’t only women?
I have always had women around me. Women have a clear-cut advantage in their ability to read people, and I trust their eye a lot more. Each woman is born a mother, and every man dies a baby. There’s no woman who thinks a man is fully grown up.
Here, his spokeswoman says, “Good, now give a nonchauvinistic reply.”
“I’ve been chauvinistic?” Peres asked.
“It’s even irritating me,” she said. “You are having such a good time with this man-talk. Excuse me, you didn’t pick women because they treat you like a baby.”
“Ask anyone,” he said. “I had the best bureaus in the country. I never boycotted men, but I found women with remarkable managerial talent.”
“You’ve corrected yourself a little bit,” she said.
You are nearly 90 years old. Does the idea of death bother you?
No. It is only logical. Without death, there wouldn’t be life. I was given my life, those two and a half billion seconds: Young man, decide what you want to do with it. I did some reckoning, and I decided to do something with those seconds, to make a difference, to affect the lives of millions of people. I think I decided correctly. I got my life as a gift. I’ll give it up without an overdraft.
Will you live to see peace in the Middle East?
I think and believe so. If I have another 10 years to live, I am sure that I will have the privilege of seeing peace come even to this dismal and wonderful and amazing part of the world.