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KALL: No?
LERNER: These are human beings, like human beings everywhere else. They have the same desires and needs as everyone else.
KALL: But the Middle East has more layers and more parties with interests, like you described, the religious right, the Christian right in the United States, corporations, Saudi Arabia has interests in keeping the conflict going, I think, Egypt has interests in keeping it going.
LERNER: That’s true; and it’s also true that there are counter-forces there. I don’t mean to say that it’s a cake walk or whatever; it’s going to take some serious negotiations and serious transformations of consciousness. The place to start that would be for Israel to accept the Saudi plan at least in its basic formulation. It’s been worked out in more detail by the Geneva Accord that had been worked out by [sounds like] Yesse Balin, who had been Israel’s top negotiator with the Palestinians under the previous Barak regime. To take that as its basis, and then for Israel to announce that it’s committed to a Marshall Plan for Gaza and the West Bank and to begin to implement that Marshall Plan, and to announce that it’s willing to bring in 20,000 to 30,000 Palestinian refugees each year for the next 30 years, which would not change the demographic balance, but would be a kind of gesture to show a whole different attitude on the part of Israel towards Palestinians. That would have a tremendous impact in changing the dynamics in the Middle East, those three steps.
So I don’t believe it’s intractable and I believe that a peace-oriented government, that was serious about peace, could take steps that would change the dynamics and the perceptions on both sides.
KALL: When my son was going to Sunday school at a Habad Sunday School, one of the things they taught him was that the Jews and the Arabs will never be at peace. I was outraged and I pulled him out of the school.
LERNER: Now you’re repeating the same thing to me on the phone.
KALL: No, I’m not at all. I believe there can be peace, but I think it’s really incredibly difficult because there are so many complicating factors and so many power games and the poor Palestinians are used by so many groups, it just… I guess my question, though, is who would attempt to stop this Marshall Plan for peace?
LERNER: Extremists on both sides. Certainly extremists in Israel, the kinds of people who assassinated Rabin, are the kinds of people who would try to stop this Marshall Plan from working from the Israeli side. Then you’d have many people from Hamas and Islamic Jihad and other groups…
KALL: Hezbollah?
LERNER: Hezbollah… who believe that it’s all just a ruse to continue Israel’s domination. But if a global Marshall Plan were actually made as part of a three-part solution, one part of which is the acceptance of the Saudi Peace Plan; a second part of which is a symbolic gesture of bringing 20,000 to 30,000 Palestinian refugees back each year for the next 30 years, I think you’d have, in a very short time, a tremendous change in consciousness - like the kind of change that took place in Israel when Sadat came to Israel, because, before Sadat came to Israel in 1978, the polls indicated that 80% of Israelis were opposed to giving back any of the land conquered in 1967 from Egypt. One week later, after Sadat had come and come with a magnanimous gesture and saying, “I want peace and I’m here to tell you I want peace,” and so forth, 80% of the Israeli public was in favor of giving up the land that had been conquered from Egypt. Those kinds of transformations of consciousness have happened and will happen again.
KALL: Is that why you want the 20,000 to 30,000 Palestinians to move to Israel?
LERNER: Yes. I think that’s part of a plan, not the sole component of it, but part of a plan to change the perception of who Israel is, from intransigent, caring only about Jews, to open and caring about the needs of Arabs and Palestinians, as well.
KALL: Another question I want to bring up - there’s a new lobbyist group, J Street. Where do you think they fit into the picture?
LERNER: I think that they’re a very good group and I’m hoping that they will be successful in challenging the perception that the only force out there that Congressional people have to deal with is the Israeli lobby, and J Street will eventually become a counter-force to that. I hope that that will happen.
KALL: And we’ve got a new president coming in very shortly. Do you have advice for Obama, or steps to take?
