BICOM

Israel’s President Shimon Peres yesterday conducted a live interview on an Arabic-language website, answering questions from across the Muslim world.

The interview on the Panet website, an Israeli site popular with the country’s Arab community proved to be so popular that the website’s servers briefly crashed. During the course of the broadcast, Peres answered a range of questions from viewers in Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt.

Responding to a question about the seizure on Wednesday by Israeli naval forces of what appeared to be an Iranian arms shipment destined for Palestinian groups in the Gaza Strip, Peres commented, “I don’t understand why the Iranians continue to do this …  more weapons and more bloodshed.” He continued, “The Iranian people are not our enemies and we have never threatened them … Why does an Iranian leader stand up and say he wants to destroy Israel? What has Israel done to Iran?”

Providing a regional perspective, Peres also said, “I think the Arab world understands that its main problem is not Israel. There is no country that wants to see a prosperous Arab world more than Israel. What Israel achieves through high-tech the Arab world can achieve as well.”

Turning to the attempts to broker a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, Peres said, “This isn’t a simple process” but that he believes peace “will come sooner than we think” and emphasised that, “The whole world is watching and expects a peace deal.” Summarising the way forward, he commented, “I believe we can solve the disputes over land and the dispute over recognition of Israel as a Jewish state by agreeing that the peace deal is signed between two states: a Jewish state, Israel and an Arab state, Palestine.” Reflecting on his long experience of public service, Peres said that there is reason for hope, recalling, “I remember the total lack of trust during the peace negotiations with Egypt and with Jordan.”