Dan Meridor, left, an Israeli cabinet minister, explains Israel's current policy to Deaglán de Bréadún in Jerusalem, and says world opinion is not always fair to his country
Dan Meridor is running late. He took part in a meeting with US Vice-President Dick Cheney earlier in the day and, as an Israeli cabinet minister with special responsibility for security strategy, his schedule is crowded to say the least.
But he manages to find time to talk to The Irish Times, understanding that the media is one of the battlegrounds in international politics today. A lawyer by profession, he was a tank commander in the 1967 Six-Day War. He was minister for justice for four years and later minister for finance. After a period in opposition he rejoined the cabinet last August. Originally with the right-wing Likud Party, he is now a member of the small Centre Party and, by Israeli standards, his politics are in the moderate middle spectrum.
He says the situation is at a crossroads with three parties involved, the Palestinians, the Israelis and, of course, the Americans. The US has "stepped in in a forceful way" lately by sending Mr Cheney and peace envoy Gen Anthony Zinni. He adds that Israel has changed its position, dropped the agreed provision that no talks could take place without seven days of quiet, and has now withdrawn from the Palestinian areas it had taken in the last month or two.
Despite what has been said previously on the Israeli side, Mr Meridor clearly does not see Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat as being "irrelevant" to the situation.
"The crux, the issue is the following: is Arafat willing, ready, able to control the use of weapons on the Palestinian side? If he is ready and able to do it, then you have a negotiator, a partner, somebody you can agree with and, once agreed, you can have a change on the ground, no fire. If on the other hand he's either not in control or doesn't want to control, then all the negotiations are futile, they will lead nowhere. Now, we believe, intelligence-wise, that Arafat can control the use of violence."
Specifically he cites the Tanzim element of Mr Arafat's Fatah organisation which, he says, is the main group responsible for attacks on Israeli civilians.
"The Hamas and Islamic Jihad are competing with Tanzim on who kills more Jews. But if he controls the Tanzim people, the Fatah people, his own organisation, and tells them to stop altogether, then he will be able to control the others. He did it in the past; he can do it." If the shooting and bombing came to a halt, then political issues could be addressed: "I am not kidding myself, it is not going to be over by 'no fire'. We need to go to political negotiations." That would be the second part: "We first need to stop the shooting."
But can Mr Arafat stop the suicide bombers? "Can the IRA stop all the shooting?" he responds. "Most of it, but sometimes something happens."
If Mr Arafat adhered to a "reasonable standard of behaviour" for a leader, then isolated incidents would not halt the process. "I would not say, 'I stop everything'. But yet, to this minute, we haven't seen anything in intelligence indicating that he told his people to stop shooting."
The Arab League summit takes place at the end of next week. "I suspect - I cannot prove it - he wants to go to the summit in Beirut while there is fighting here, while there is fire and terror, to swim on this wave of terror."
Mr Arafat has been under effective house arrest until recently. Would Israel allow him to attend the summit? "If everything is quiet and there is a ceasefire, I think that he will be able to go there." But, as Mr Arafat himself said to this correspondent last Sunday, would he be allowed back? "If there are no terror acts, yes."
The recent Saudi Arabian initiative indicated there would be Arab recognition of Israel if the Israelis withdrew to their 1967 borders. Mr Meridor queries the manner in which Crown Prince Abdullah decided to filter his proposal through a New York Times column by Thomas Friedman.
"The courage to say it out loud in his own voice was missing there. I didn't hear the words 'We will normalise relationships with Israel' from the Saudi prince. Tom Friedman has it and put it in his own words."
But he still finds it an encouraging move, especially coming from the country which is the keeper of the Muslim holy shrines, Mecca and Medina. It counteracts the influence of violent Islamic elements. "This is an important step forward."
The exact borders would have to be negotiated but most Israelis accepted the need for two states. However, one issue was "blurred", namely, what Palestinians described as their right of return to the places where their forebears lived inside Israel itself. "If they demand this, there is no peace, there is no plan, there is nothing."
Another positive move, though, was the recent UN Security Council resolution, sponsored by the US, which held out the prospect of a Palestinian state: "It was one of the carrots given to the Palestinians to say, 'You see, just behave yourself and you will get the support'."
What about the role of the European Union? "The EU is very important. First of all, we are in many ways part of Europe, culturally, economically, commercially, geographically." It was crucial for the EU to tell Mr Arafat: "Terror will not pay off, negotiations will." This kind of clarity was essential: "If Europe winks at him, saying 'All right, terror, but not so much, a little bit', then it's going to ruin the Americans' attempt to bring more peace here." He regrets to say that "not always have they been very clear".
He believes world opinion is not always fair to Israel: "In one way I am quite proud that they don't measure us the way they measure the Palestinians." He has strong views about this issue. "We never, ever, never, targeted civilians." He regretted that civilians had been hurt and killed but this was not done deliberately and it unfortunately occurred in all wars. "The Palestinians always target civilians." When he sees a Palestinian boy or girl hit by Israeli fire, he feels "awful".
Commenting on the arrival of Mr Cheney, who was visiting Israel as part of his 11-nation tour to build an alliance against the enemies of the US in the region, primarily Iraq, he says: "At the same time, of course, we have this conflict with the Palestinians. Like every human being, they [the US] would like to have no fire, no killing, no terror, and flames as low as possible in that area, because they want to concentrate somewhere else. Mr Meridor believes there is a "community of interest" here because Saddam Hussein has declared his intention of destroying Israel.
I PUT it to him that, in the event of a second war on Iraq, Saddam Hussein might once again launch missiles against Israel. "If there is war, the Americans will think of it in advance and understand that the war will not be crowned with victory if the end of the war is that Saddam sits on his chair and still rules Iraq." The Gulf War was perceived in the Arab world as a victory for Saddam "because they all wanted him and they couldn't get him".
If there was a prolonged war and "Saddam thinks the sword is bearing down on him", he might try to involve Israel. It was like the phrase from the film Casablanca when the police chief said: "Round up the usual suspects." Israel was the usual target. "Europe doesn't really care that much, the Arabs like it, so he may try this." If the US decided to go to war and failed to topple Saddam in short order, then Israel could be attacked. "Maybe. We need to prepare for this." Mr Meridor is currently in the middle of the most critical series of events for at least the last 10 years. But he visited Ireland briefly last July when he was in opposition and perhaps the most hopeful part of the interview was when he declared his intention to come back next summer on a family holiday for a week, and "have a trip all over the place". That at least doesn't sound like a man who is anticipating a cataclysm.
Deaglán de Bréadún is Foreign Affairs Correspondent of The Irish Times