Maof

       Prof. Amusia holds professorship for physics at the Hebrew University as well as the position of the Principal Scientist of the A. F. Ioffe Physical-Technical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg (Russia). He is well known for a lot of publications regarding problems of physics, but also about Israeli society and Middle East problems. Prof. Amusia is a member of several international organisations of physicists, including fellowship of the American Physical Society; membership of the Russian Academy of the Natural Sciences. He is author and co-author of 8 books, about 400 articles, many political papers in press and numerous letters on political subject on the Internet.

When was your first stay in Israel, and how did it come?

       The first time I was invited and came to Israel in 1994 (for two weeks), then again in 1996 (received the Lady Davies fellowship for one semester). It was a remarkable beginning of the new spiral of the Terror War in our presence, because there have been three simultaneous bus attacks (in Jerusalem) and one big explosion in Tel Aviv at that time almost without an intermission, one after another. In the Tel Aviv attack the wife of my nephew   became a victim: her lungs were severely burned. She was literally one step from her death. All these events were a sort of introduction to the situation in Israel. While being here at that time we instinctively tried to avoid buses. On the other hand, by foot is healthier.
       Then I was invited for another period, in 1998, to the Hebrew University. This is a position for high-level well-known former USSR scientists, not younger (amazing, is not it?) than 58 years. It is at a level of full professor with 20 years seniority.
       Scientifically, the Hebrew University is a very good university; although relatively young - it is about only fifty years. It has a very international spirit with a number of people from America, Russia, Canada, Germany, let’s say: from all over the world. And most of the people, despite of their age, are deeply engaged in science. Until last year the number of visitors was huge. Now it went down due to obvious reasons.

How came your politization concerning the Middle East conflict?

       Very important for my own politization were the numerous discussions during working breaks in the coffee room at the Racah Institute. In this coffee room I received first political lessons. Traditionally the academics in Israel are, or, better to say, were, on the left side of political spectrum, but I came in contradictions with these views. I will explain later, why. But you know, realities of life interfere with my teachers' lessons and brought me to conclusions opposite to that of my coffee room teachers.

Let’s talk about positions and non- scientific views…

       At the Hebrew University I got the leftists' lessons about the so-called Peace proccess and the Oslo agreements. There were a lot of strong believes, which I step by step began seriously question. One of them is the believe that you can buy peace in the Middle East by territorial compromises, or, better to say, pure concessions i.e. by the so-called exchange "land for peace". Another myth is the simple supposition that an improved education and social equality will former hostile people can prevent them from using violence as a weapon. I cannot share these views at all.
       I had enough chances to verify my own position listening long talks of the leftist activists and intellectuals and then participating in discussions with some of them. I am also acquainted with several prominent representatives from the right side of the political spectrum. So, it was possible to compare, but the main and real teacher was the real life. I participated in a couple of meetings with Baruch Kimmerling, Shlomo Avineri, Yuli Tamir. They are leftist university professors. Tamir is also one of the founders of the "Peace now" movement and is currently a member of Israeli parliament. I attended three lectures of S. Peres, where he spoke about his dream on "The new Middle East". Pure scientifically his ideas cannot endure serious criticism. During these lectures, meetings and discussions I concluded that the "King (of leftism as a movement or ideology) is naked". So, one simply needs a boy to say it openly and loudly. I asked them always one same question but of key importance: "How can you be sure that in case of Israel's territorial retreat to the 1967 borders peace, stillness and prosperity for both sides will come to this region of the world?" And my conclusion from all these debates was definite: they don’t have any answer or argument to this. I was also surprised by the desire of the leftists to blame the so-called settlers. But perhaps we will pay some more attention to this issue a little bit later.
       I acquire, meanwhile, plenty of evidences, that education alone cannot establish or save the peace. Israel organized ten universities at the Palestinian autonomy. Arabs are admitted also to the Israeli universities. So, more than a half of the suicide bombers have university education. For example, a student in computing from Hebron committed a recent suicidal attack in Haifa.  A student on the campus of Mount Scopus did the awful suicide attacks at the Hebrew university. Alas, education at first prominently improves the terrorists' skills.
       Again: may be education could help if to improve it in the early childhood, but giving somebody a study place, sending him to University does not automatically prevents him from using violence. All these problems became a subject of my writings and interviews.
       I feel pain of the losses, and I am trying to find ways out of this crisis, but, first of all, I try to inform as many people as I can on the real situation here in Israel. This is very important since the world mass media are so Anti-Israeli biased. I use every available mean and opportunity: public lectures, interviews by the radio here, in Russia, USA, interviews and articles in newspapers in these countries, articles and, last but not least, electronic messages to a net, which contains about 350 names, including many prominent physicists - my friends. This activity is not stopped during our, together with my wife, regular summer stays in St. Petersburg in Russia.

How do you see the cultural and political integration of the Russian Jews in Israel?
Which kinds of cultural offers are they using here?
 
       Let me answer with a concrete example. Every week my wife and I are attending a chamber music concert in the “Theatron”- main concert hall here in Jerusalem. Terrorists' attacks were unable to prevent people from visiting such places. Among the audience you can hear all different languages during the intermission – Hebrew, Russian, English. The "Voice of Israel" organizes these concerts free of charge. There is a plenty of other performances in the "Theatron" and in other places, both in Jerusalem and outside, but all this requires too much time. However visiting a great concert once a week – that makes me happy and satisfied.
       Russian culture and life can be seen in other spheres as well. The Russian book- and newspaper market in Israel is flourishing, as you know. People can write and publish, and some of them can make a living from this. I think, that’s quite OK.
       There are several prominent Israeli politicians that were born and grew up in former Soviet Union. Such names as Scharansky, Liberman are known very well even far outside Israel. One cannot say, however, that the representation of "Russians" in Knesset is the same as among the population, where "Russians" are about 25%. But this is absolutely natural.

And you don’t see any problems in this development, like a beginning segregation of the Russian community, or even a marginalization? Even sociologists say, this makes the Israeli “Melting pot” is not effective now…

       In real life the cultural prosperity of the Russian-language community will not split the society. I see different problems and dangers for the Israeli society. In my opinion the LOSS OF JEWISHNESS is a real problem now. For the loss of Jewishness not the immigrants have to be blamed at the first place. It is the guilt of the leftist intellectuals in Israel. For them it became more important to belong to the entire world than to be Jews. They feel a sort of a shame that Israel is not something like Holland. This was the psychological motivation for formulating the Oslo agreement. But the reality is such that to survive in the existing hostile surrounding the Jewish population needs to feel its deep roots to its past here and everywhere in the world. To sustain the massive attack upon Israel from the terrorist and their supporters all over the world one needs high moral spirit, which can be acquired from knowledge and understanding of the Jewish role in history, from the recognition of the Jewish contribution to the World Culture. To be proud of this has nothing to do with nationalism or racism. And this knowledge has to be included into school curricula.
       I am not and never was a racist at all. But in fact, this Jewish Nation contributed a lot to the World Culture –from the Book to about one half of Nobel Laureates. I can’t say this is bad. And to be proud of this is not a shame. Of course, to be proud of the achievement of your people does not mean the superiority of these people as compared to any other in the World. But it helps to be strong when suffering.
       As to religion, I do not see equality between Jewishness and Judaism. I don’t observe religion; do not go to a synagogue. I’m not saying this is good. I also don’t speak Hebrew – my wife speaks for us both. I speak Jiddisch. In spite of being formally non-religious, we both deeply feel our Jewish roots.
       For the liberal intellectuals the problem of Jewishness started long ago. For them the victory of Israel in the Six-Day-War became a headache and a sort of a shame – they expanded their country by war. For them it does not matters that this was done defending themselves from aggression. And this is how the world was developed even during recent time, including the WWII. The victory in the Six-Day-War generated a feeling of a shame and strong desire to be like other imaginary civilized nations. So, despite the victory and even because of it, the leftist started to erase, to make it short, the meaning of Jewishness and to uproot the Jewish connection with the past. Simultaneously, they tried to make equal Jewishness and religion, attacking the latter as something absolutely old-fashioned and incompatible with the modern world. All this is incorrect. People need to have and to feel their past. As to me, I want to keep my national roots.

 Don’t you think that the insisting on national roots is making the conflict with the Palestinians more complicated?

       I do not think so. On the contrary, I think that Jewish feelings of Israelis make them stronger. I believe that the recognition of this strength also by the local Arabs is very important in preventing their leaders from terrorist activity. They will understand sooner or later that this activity is not only criminal toward Israeli and their own people, but also useless and has no perspective. The Israeli government is trying hard to convince Palestinian leadership that terrorism is a deadlock even for them, particularly for Arafat himself. The response to terrorism must be by force. There is no point of discussing with the terrorist leaders. This view, as far as I know, is shared by the absolute majority of Russian speaking community, which in this sense agrees with the policy of Ariel Sharon and his government.

The European, sometimes the whole Western media is considering the Jewish settlements in the West Bank and in the Gaza strip as one of the main obstacles for an ongoing peace process – and of course the suicide attacks by Palestinian terrorists…

       At first, I prefer to use "Judea" instead of "West Bank". Judea was the name of this area not only in the ancient times but also on the maps in the history textbooks for secondary school in USSR in those old days when I was a schoolboy.
       As to your question - I do not see a problem with the Jewish settlements, because the Arab towns and villages inside Israel are accepted by their Jewish neighbours and do not need special police or military protection. The same should be with the Jewish settlements.
       But if you mention the suicide bombers, so it is the best evidence not of a kind of Palestinian “uprising”, but of a “War of Terror”. Yes, I think Israel is in war, and I see the Palestinian leadership in full responsibility for this. There is no other way then to change this leadership completely. Of course, Israel has to use her military force to destroy the terrorist structure entirely. It seems to me, however, that the Israeli government is missing to large extent a better accompanying campaign of at first moral support towards that part of the Palestinian populations, which wants peace and cooperation. I cannot take polls and surveys among the Palestinians seriously, as long as they happen under a dictatorship. I believe, that the majority of the Palestinians is tired and has recognized that every act of terror against Israel will worse their life. With a few colleagues here at the Hebrew University we prepared a letter to Ariel Sharon, suggesting more efforts to reach Palestinian population by enlightening campaigns that would clarify the responsibility of the Autonomy criminal and corrupted leadership for the suffering of the Arab population..

So you think that a presence of Israeli military – in which form and intensity however – will be necessary in the territories?

       For sure. Leaving the territories would be an irresponsible step against the security of Israel. May be, by such a step you can buy a few years of peace or, better to say, relative stillness. But then the encouraged by the victory terrorist gangs will make the next step. You will have new demands, until complete self-liquidation of Israel. And who from the Western world or from Europe cares then that Israel has only 15 kilometres in the width of the territorial strip? Who from outside will give any guarantee of security? United Nations? They run away in 1967 immediately. Security Council? You see how "fast and coherent" it acts in the Iraq crises. So, Israel can relay only upon herself.

What do you think about the idea of a fence similar to the” iron curtain” in the former Europe?

       There are question in this conflict, which have to be answered with a clear “No”, and others with a clear “Yes”. In case of a fence I have mixed feelings, and the topic is not discussed until the end. One can reduce the number of terrorist attacks inside Israel with such a fence or wall. On the other hand – it does not give a complete protection. You can dig tunnels under it; you can shoot rockets over it. Note that there is no similarity between the aim of this fence and that, which protected the borders of USSR and divided Germany. Those fences were built to prevent from fugitives that tried to leave USSR or GDR. For this purpose they were effective, but not from terrorists, particularly those who are armed with missiles.

So, what do you think, can be set an end to the continuing war we are witnessing now?

       I think, the moment will come when the Palestinian leadership, the post-Arafat one, will recognize the reality. Policy has something to do with accepting realities. Look to the end of other wars. Adenauer, for instance, as the first German chancellor after World War II, had recognized the realities. He knew that it is unrealistic to demand East Prussia, Koenigsberg area or the Sudetenland back. And Germany became peaceful and prosperous. Otherwise, you would be on the level of 1945 until now.
       In our context it is not realistic if the Palestinians require the return to the territorial situation from before 1967. The realistic way is to begin building a modern technological society. Look, the density of population in Singapore is about twice as big as in the Gaza strip and there are no natural resources there. But Singapore is prosperous while Gaza is in misery.

Are there many Russian Jewish immigrants living in the territories?

       "Russians" are not the majority, but there are many of them there. Some of them came since housing are considerably cheaper there. Some due to religious feelings, since part of the settlements are deeply connected to places that are historically important to the Jewish people.  These former immigrants, or, better to say, repatriants from the FSU, built up their new lives in new community centres, even created a number of them - and they are not willing to give it up again. The danger, the Arabs attacks, the victims, even the hate from some other people in and outside Israel cemented them and make them more persistent in their desire to live where they are now - in spite of all ordeals connected to it. In my eyes, many of the settlers are heroes.

Thank you very much for the interview.

It was my pleasure

(This is one in the series of interviews on the subject ""Russians" in Israel", taken in March, 2003)