Shmuel Toledano, a former member of the Israeli Knesset and a former assistant to the director of Mossad — the Israeli intelligence agency — spoke to members of the Princeton community in an intimate lunch setting at the Center for Jewish Life and later more formally to a half full Betts Auditorium.
The official topic of Toledano's lecture was the status of Israeli Arabs – Arabs who have Israeli citizenship – within Israeli social and political life. However, both his talks primarily consisted of humorous anecdotes from Toledano's long career in Israeli public life, his opinions on the current violence in his country and his speculations for the future.
Although Toledano said he sees the economic and political gap dividing Israeli-Arabs and Israeli-Jews growing smaller, he expressed less optimism about bridging the divide between Palestinians and Israelis.
"If we continue killing and killing, it will never end," said Toledano during the luncheon. "The situation today is that we see no light at the end of the tunnel."
Toledano maintains that the position of the settlers in the West Bank and Gaza is the chief obstacle to peace. He said that no Israeli government will ever forcibly remove the 200,000 Jewish settlers in the occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza.
In an interview after the speech, Toledano discussed the violence that has racked Israel in the past 17 months. Toledano said he does not consider Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to be the ultimate cause of the Intifada, but only a catalyst. He believes that a Palestinian uprising was inevitable but that without Sharon's controversial visit to the Temple Mount, it might have come later and with less intensity.
Toledano said he sees a greater threat from surrounding countries than from the Palestinian Liberation Organization and its leader Yasir Arafat. In particular, Toledano cited the danger posed by Iraq, Syria and Iran – countries that seek to eliminate the Jewish state.
"I'm worried from Iran that they want to destroy the state of Israel and maybe they can do it," Toledano said, referring to the prediction that Iran will have nuclear weapons within three to four years.
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