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At AIPAC event, former IDF spokeswoman discusses disengagement

FEB 18, 2005 - WEST HARTFORD - Miri Eisin, a retired Israeli colonel, is cautious when talking about prospects for peace between the Israelis and Palestinians following the recent summit in Egypt.

"Don't think that tomorrow morning we'll wake up to peace," Eisin said at Beth El Temple in West Hartford during a lecture sponsored the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) Greater Hartford Council on Feb. 9, the day after Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon publicly shook hands with Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, and together announced an end to violence.

At the summit, Sharon restated his disengagement plan, announced plans to turn over security responsibility for West Bank cities to the PA, and pledged that Israel would carry out confidence-building measures.

"Disengagement is not about peace. Disengagement is about separation," Eisin said.

She added, "In the end, it's not reconciliation. It's not a happy time. Yesterday was amazing. But having said that, it's not that I'm happy. I'm relieved. I'm hopeful. I think that this is a big change. I'm willing to go very far for non-violence, but going very far for non-violence doesn't mean that we're suddenly going to have peace."

Although the Israeli and Palestinian leadership agree on a two-state solution, she noted that Israel and the PA still have to go through a series of difficult discussions on control of Jerusalem and the right of return.

Meanwhile, the Palestinians have elected a leader who supports non-violence. She said Abbas is against the violence because it did not help the Palestinians achieve their aim.

But, she warned, "There will be violence. There are people there who are going to try to undermine this process because they are against the basis of it: a two-state solution," said Eisin, who has spent the last two years on the forefront of Israel's public relations effort and has presented Israel's case to the international media.

In April 2002, she was assigned to speak on behalf of the Israel government during Operation Defensive Shield and accompanied Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to Washington in May following the completion of the operation. Prior to her work as a spokeswoman for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), she served in field posts at the brigade and division level. She was the deputy in command of the field intelligence corps and the assistant to the director of military intelligence.

Eisin, who was born in the United States and immigrated to Israel in 1971, has been living in Boston for the past seven months with her husband Gilad, an Israeli Wexner fellow at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, and their three children. She said she's noticed a change in Israeli society.

"What the Israelis are talking about openly are the ‘PS' word, the Palestinian state, the ‘O' word, occupation, out loud in a way that pretty much crosses the political perimeter," Eisin said, noting that this discussion stemmed from Sharon.

She continued, "Ariel Sharon stood in the Knesset and said occupation is wrong. We cannot continue to occupy another nation and consider ourselves a democracy."

Eisin said the debate continuing in Israel is whether Israel will be a Jewish state or a democracy, and opinions vary. She explained that some people have decided not to abide by what the government, which was elected by a majority, says, such as the government ruling to evacuate settlements. The petition has been signed by 10,000 soldiers who said that they if they are given such a command in Israel, they will disobey the command.

"If you disobey the command because you don't like it for political reasons even though it was the government decision of a democratically elected government, what's going to be left of the State of Israel?"

Eisin noted that Israel's national unity government is fragile.

The Ultra-Orthodox Party, which has joined the government to get funding, will vote for disengagement as long as they get the funds they want, she explained.

Soon the budget will be discussed in the Knesset, and she said, "We may find ourselves without a national unity government" [because of the budget], resulting in new elections.