BY DAVID PARKER | KENT Israel and its Arab neighbors may finally be ready to take the decisive steps needed to negotiate real peace, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger told a crowd of 250 people here Sunday.
“I think we’re now at a moment when peace can be made and when peace will be made” said Kissinger, who worked to secure what he called “tiny steps towards peace between long-time Middle East enemies in the 1970s.
Kissinger made his comments in a brief talk and in response to questions from Arab and Israeli teenagers at Camp Kenmont a short distance from his Kent home. The young people are in the middle of a two-week program conducted by Seeds of Peace Foundation. The project is sponsored by the Woodbury-based Jewish Federation of Western Connecticut.
Despite all the setbacks and violence of the past 25 years, Kissinger said, “huge progress has been made” in bringing the nations and leaders of the area into realistic negotiation. “Now all that is needed are a few final steps,” he said.
Kissinger contrasted the current situation with that after the Israeli victory war of 1973. Then, he said, the Israeli Army was near the Suez Canal and close to Damascus, the capital of Syria. “And none of the heads of state would speak face to face,” making shuttle diplomacy by American, with all its potential from misunderstanding and delay, the only available course.
Today, Kissinger said, Israeli and Arab leaders can negotiate directly, with America in a facilitating role. “And I think there should be even more direct negotiation,” he said.
The key issues remaining are clear, though not easy, according to the former diplomat. “Israeli have to be certain of their security,” he said, because for such a geographically small nation, any mistake could have serious consequences. For the Arab nations, he said, “the issues have more to do with respect, with dignity,” with being treated as equals and having the right to move about freely.
One Palestinian youth asked Kissinger whether he supported an independent Palestinian state with its own army. An independent state is inevitable, he replied. The dignity of that state would require that it have its own army, but not one with the military capability to threaten Israel.
Kissinger saluted Seeds of Peace founder John Wallach on the success of his six-year-old program.