Diaries of Hope and Hate

(3 of 6)

We had to go back and forth from the conference center, where the meetings were held, to the hotel. Whenever we came back, always the Egyptian security people checked us in a very, very tight way. What caused me a lot of frustration was the fact that while they were checking us, I saw the Palestinians going back and forth without anyone checking them. I felt very bad about that, because I had a badge as a member of the delegation. It happened that I had to go with my briefcase, a brown leather case. I did not allow them to open it. "This is a briefcase with all the documents belonging to the Prime Minister of Israel, and I won't let you open it," I told them.

It took me some time to convince them. They had to go and find senior security officers, but finally they let me through. This was 4 a.m. I felt tired. For some hours, I felt very bad and very tired. But I overcame it. The result was that when we flew back in the afternoon, I don't remember even the takeoff. I fell asleep immediately on the plane, and they could barely wake me up when we landed at Ben Gurion [airport near Tel Aviv]. But it was only one hour.

Then we came to the Ministry of Defense at 5 p.m. The Prime Minister discussed how to implement the Sharm el-Sheikh agreement. I had to stay in the office until 11 p.m. I had to coordinate many things. We've done all this work, but it doesn't depend only on us. If the Palestinians don't implement their commitments the way we are implementing ours, then on Friday night we might find that the words were excellent but the implementation was a failure.

COLONEL NOAM TIBON, 38, IS COMMANDER OF THE ISRAELI ARMY'S HEBRON BRIGADE, 2,000 SOLDIERS BASED IN THE WEST BANK TOWN OF HEBRON.

Six a.m. Morning envelops Hebron. I hear the muezzin as on every morning with his call to prayer. The latest reports from the summit testify to a night full of crises, lack of confidence, as well as uncertainty, which directly influences what is happening in this city. Hebron is the only city in Judea and Samaria where Jews and Palestinians live together, where a city of contrasts and extremes arises to another day of confrontations. After the morning reports from the summit, I was preoccupied with the question of whether the Palestinians really want peace as well as whether they were capable of exerting control over the streets. I am thinking of Abu Ramzi, the Palestinian Brigade commander here, a proud and straight man. The instructions he received put him into an impossible situation, and he was compelled to allow gunfire by Tanzim activists in the direction of the Israeli Defense Forces position and the Jewish community. During our last meeting, he could not look me in the eyes. It is so hard to build trust between enemies and so easy to break it.

The morning began like every other morning, with a review of the night's events. While we were assessing the situation, my father phoned. My 70-year-old parents, who live on a kibbutz, are very worried and anxious about the situation in Israel. They went through all the wars here, but they don't stop dreaming of peace for my children, their grandchildren.

Dealing with the disturbances requires of our soldiers great professionalism and constant weighing of personal values. On the surface it looks like the confrontation between the soldier with his weaponry and the Palestinian youth who is throwing stones is in favor of the army. The dilemma for the soldier is between the orders he received, whose main principles are restraint and humanity, and the feeling of fear as a result of the thousands of rioters who are throwing stones and Molotov cocktails at him. All the while the soldier must keep his cool and see before him his values as a human being and as a soldier. Happily, thanks to the precise preparations and instructions for restraint during the events, not one Palestinian youth who was throwing stones has been killed in the sector.

In the afternoon I convened the company commanders. They are in their mid-20s, idealistic, intelligent, firm in their beliefs and happy to have this opportunity to meet. I have no doubt morale and readiness are high. At the end of the meeting, the commanders hurry back to their sectors since, as darkness descends, the Tanzim begin shooting at cars, army positions and houses.

At 9 p.m. I travel to Kiryat Arba, the largest [Jewish] city in my sector, to speak with new immigrants from Russia. The audience is made up of people who came to our country and found themselves in a reality that is strange to them. To dispel the tension, I open with a discussion about Tolstoy's War and Peace, which describes the war of the Russian people against the invading Napoleon. Here in our small country we do not have the wide spaces that would allow a retreat from Moscow. The tension is broken, the audience listens to what I say, which is translated into Russian.