From: MSN NicknameEagle_wng (Original Message) Sent: 2/23/2007 8:45 PM
Barak as a friend of Russia
Publication time: 23 February 2007, 21:08
A piteous blood drinker Barak says: ""Self-determination for the Chechen people is less important than good relations to Russia". Without comment...
Fighting terrorism is like fighting malaria, Ehud Barak says: You've got to kill the mosquitoes, but you also have to "drain the swamp."
That means investing time and money to solve the root causes of pov- erty and oppression - "to lift up other people's children as well as our own" - the former Israeli prime minister told a near-capacity crowd Thursday afternoon at the University of Utah's Kingsbury Hall.
Barak's talk was the first in a World Leaders Lecture Forum sponsored by the U.'s Tanner Humanities Center, and was co-sponsored by Congregation Kol Ami synagogue. That made it technically possible to call Kingsbury Hall a "house of worship" on Thursday, which meant that the U. could ban guns there for the day. Audience members passed through a metal detector before entering the auditorium.
The fear was that the former Israeli leader and army officer might be a target. Barak, identified in his biography as the most decorated soldier in Israeli history, was once head of Israel's anti-terrorism unit. In 1973, dressed as a woman, he took part in a surprise commando raid in Lebanon on the Palestinian Liberation Organization to avenge the deaths of Israeli athletes murdered at the Olympics the year before in Munich.
Three decades later, Israel has one hand stretched out in peace and the other hand "very close to the trigger," Barak said during a question-and-answer period following his talk. "That's the only way to survive in the Middle East, where there is no mercy for the weak.
"The Mideast is not the Midwest," he said in a lighter moment. "We would love to have the Canadians as our neighbors, but you got them."
The past year, which included renewed fighting in Lebanon, "was the end of illusions for Israel," he said. You'd have to go pretty far to the right in Israeli politics to find anyone who still thinks Israel can win its conflict "by sheer use of force" and pretty far to the left to find anyone who thinks "an angel will descend" to save Israel, he said. But he is confident that Israel will survive and flourish.
Barak's talk included several jokes, a quote from Woody Allen, and the observation that with a river named Jordan and a bank named Zion, Salt Lake City made him feel at home. But he spent most of his time on weightier matters, including nuclear proliferation.
The risk of Iran having nuclear weapons is not that it might drop a bomb on its neighbors but that other countries will follow suit, including Egypt, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. Ten years from now, the real risk is that nuclear devices will be in the hands of terrorist groups, which wouldn't hesitate to put a GPS-activated device on a tanker bound for an American port, he said.
America needs a partnership with China and Russia to help disarm volatile countries, he said, adding that the United States cannot make human rights in China or self-determination in Chechnya "the highest priority" if we want to enlist their help.
In Iraq, he said, the constitution needs to be modified to give Sunnis more power. "In the Middle East," he added, "the right to vote isn't the main issue. I'd prefer to look at the four freedoms" outlined by President Franklin D. Roosevelt: expression, worship, freedom from want and freedom from fear. "Americans would do better to insist on universal, mandatory education for women rather than the right to vote."
Barak, 65, was prime minister between 1999 and 2001, during which time he withdrew Israeli forces from southern Lebanon, began peace negotiations with Syria and took part in the failed Camp David Summit with President Bill Clinton and Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat.
Source: DN
http://www.kavkazcenter.com/eng/content/2007/02/23/7530.shtml
