President Shimon Peres was interviewed today (Sunday), 11.12.11 by CNN senior economic correspondent Richard Quest at the Israel Business Conference in Tel Aviv. Following are transcribed excerpts of the President’s remarks from the interview:
On Iran
„Iran, today, is the center of all corruption. They kill, they threaten, they poison, they don’t have any rules and they are a real danger to everybody, not just to Israel…I heard what President Obama has said, that he will not permit to see an Iranian with a nuclear bomb. I heard from Mr. Medvedev, Mr. Putin, Mr. Sarkozy, Merkel, all of them think that this may be the greatest danger to the security of the whole entire world and I think they started to do. They see everything is on the table but I think the timetable must be a little bit quicker and more decisive…Economic pressures and political ones must be tightened fully and completely, not to wait with other countries who have different reasons…But Europe, the United States and other responsible countries can put enough pressure. You can do it clearly and urgently.”
On Israel-Palestinian relations
„I think the open window for Israel today is the Palestinian people, the Palestinian Authority…I think that we have to go ahead and open the negotiations with the Palestinians right away. I believe it is possible and I believe we have to act energetically and decidedly to start right now…One option is to try to solve all the problems right away. I’m not sure it is possible. The other is to start the negotiations right away and to have a bouquet of different things that will enable the two sides to start the negotiations. It won’t cover all the subjects. I am for the second option, namely to start right away the negotiations and I know that negotiations may take time but if you start it, you change already the whole area…It’s not a matter of prestige, it’s a matter of death and life…The opportunity is here and you should never lose your hope and determination. There is no other alternative, neither for the Palestinians nor for us, nor for the Arabs, nor for the world. We have to do it courageously without looking around at what somebody will say or what some paper will write.”
On Syria and President Assad
„Assad is a killer, my God. What the world decided, including the Arab world, to intervene when a leader is beginning to kill his own citizens. It happened in Libya. It’s happening in Yemen. It’s happening by the Arab League, for the first time in their experience; they decided to put pressure on an Arab state because the leader is killing his people.”
On the Israeli economy in light of the crisis in the Eurozone
„You know what is our greatest luck? That we have nothing. We came to a very small piece of land…No natural resources, nothing, and that’s what made us great. When we discovered that we don’t have natural resources, at the same time we discovered the most important thing, that we have human resources…The people here are wise. They are imaginative, decisive and flexible.”
On Israel-US relations
„Traditionally, our relations with the US are excellent.”
On anti-democratic legislation
„I don’t believe you can be Jewish and not democratic…The first democratic was given by the Lord in Heaven, saying that every person was born in My image. There are no superior people and no other people…Recently, unfortunately there were introduced some laws which are not necessarily exactly in the line of democracy. I don’t think they are helpful. I noticed even the Prime Minister is against it and the opposition to those laws crosses parties, right and left. I believe that the strength of democracy is inherent in our history, in our existence and we cannot be different…I don’t think they will win a majority. I think that many of those laws will not be approved by the parliament.”
