(00:00:01) Dina Le Gall is a native of Israel. She began her academic career in Middle Eastern studies at Tel Aviv University. She came to the United States for her Graduate Studies and earned her master's and PhD at Princeton University. Currently. She's a visiting assistant professor in the history department at Macalester College in st. Paul and has been teaching and lecturing in the area of Middle Eastern studies for several years now Dina. Thank you for coming by this afternoon to talk about what is happening in the Middle East. Thank you. There is as always a lot of activity in in the Middle East. It is an ever changing historical political Geographic landscape the news that we have gotten this week, of course has to do with the building of Israeli settlements on the Gaza Strip and the West Bank it was of course part of the Israel PLO agreement that the Palestinians would have Some sort of autonomy in that part of the Middle East and this is causing some problems. As far as the PLO is concerned the building of settlements. Do you see this as a significant problem and one that could possibly stall the negotiations as they proceeded the (00:01:17) Israeli PLO peace process has been fraught with many many problems and I indeed see it as at the moment is effectively stole but not necessarily over the question of the settlements the major thing at the agenda in the Israeli PLO peace process is now the extension of the self rule for the Palestinians from its beginning in Gaza in Jericho to the West Bank and that involves should involve elections for a council that should be the center of the Palestinian National Authority. And before the elections for the council Israeli. Army should be redeployed outside of Centers in the major population centers in the West Bank and the Israelis lately have been having some cold feet with regard to this redeployment. They have started looking at the possible implementation of this redeployment and they realize that they won't be able to effectively protect their hundred and twenty or so settlements that they have in the in the in the area. So one of the major questions now is what kind of Israeli redeployment from the West Bank and Gaza from sin centers of population in the West Bank and Gaza would be affected and whether this will allow the extension of this self-rule to the West Bank protection, of course is a (00:02:44) prime consideration for the Israelis particularly in light of the bombing last weekend that killed 19 Israelis, as long as there continues to be terrorist attacks such as the one the suicide bombing last weekend, is that going To hold back any kind of progress in that (00:03:03) area. I think that the rubbing government government is very very committed to the peace process Robin's career political career is very much tied with the priest peace process and rubbing also has come to the conclusion that there's no other alternative therefore despite High emotions and Israel. Naturally High emotions in Israel after every bomb attack of the kind that that occurred several days ago. Robin has always said we are going to continue with the process. I don't think that there's going to be a renunciation of the process. I don't think Israel under a Labour government is going to decide that it doesn't want these process any longer and I think that Yasser Arafat very similarly has has has invested a lot in this sees his career is very much tied to this and he's not going to renounce the crosses. The question is not so much a renunciation of the process. But what kind of process we are going to Whether it's going to be a real real autonomy and self rule Palestinian self-rule in Gaza and the West Bank, they would later be developed into something Beyond autonomy or whether other whole process is going to come more or less today to some kind of a very limited autonomy in the next phase of the process which is supposed to deal with the permanent status of the of the territories the question of Jerusalem, the question of settlements the question of refugees Palestinian refugees, and so forth whether we are perhaps never going to get to these process because this stage because the whole thing would be stalled at an earlier stage at a very limited autonomy to the Palestinians now negotiations (00:04:47) about Jerusalem are supposed to take place in mid-1996. The Palestinian National Authority says that East Jerusalem is going to be its capital Israel says no we are never going to see it an inch of that Terror. Worry, if in fact it it ever does get to that point of negotiations about Jerusalem. (00:05:07) Do you foresee any kind of (00:05:10) compromise when it comes to that (00:05:12) because that has always been at the (00:05:14) center of the conflicts that have occurred in the Middle East. (00:05:20) It is very difficult to envisage. Now, what would possibly possibly happen about Jerusalem, obviously at the moment the two sides each has its position. The position is are very very part far apart. The Palestinians say that Jerusalem is going to be the the capital of a Palestinian State and the Israelis are saying that Jerusalem would be never divided again nobody knows but this is exactly why the peace process has been constructed in two phases. The first is the phase of creating some kind of a Palestinian autonomy in the West Bank and Gaza transferring or Authorities in a very very long list of areas to the Palestinians redeployment of the Israeli Army outside of the territories the creation of a Palestinian Council that would be the basis of a Palestinian National Authority. All these things are supposed to continue for the transitional period of five years and then three years into the transitional periods. There will the negotiations will start regarding the very hard questions. Not just of Jerusalem, but Jerusalem settlements the boundaries between the Palestinian and entity whatever is going to look like and Israel at the questions at the question of the refugees Palestinian refugees outside of the territories at the moment this whole process of autonomy does not at all touch upon the the question of Palestinians who are outside of the West Bank and Gaza. So obviously, these are the very very difficult questions and deliberately they have been Put off because everybody knows that it is impossible to discuss them now (00:07:04) and of course this involves much more than just the Palestinian National Authority and Israel. It also involves Jordan and Syria, we should mention here that banana strawberry has now (00:07:17) walked onto the stage here at Northrop Auditorium along with several of the members of the organizing committee for the Carlson lecture series. We (00:07:26) will have an introduction momentarily by University of Minnesota president. Neil's hasselmo. But before that D nagala would like to ask you about the role of Jordan Syria Egypt the various countries. Is it integral to any kind of agreement that the Palestines? And Israel, come to some extent the fact that the PLO went ahead. (00:07:56) Agreement between the PLO and Israel freed (00:07:59) other Arab countries to go to go ahead with their agendas (00:08:03) and to some extent that has allowed Jordan Israel to sign their peace (00:08:08) agreement to two months (00:08:10) ago. (00:08:12) I think that the Israelis in the syrians are very much (00:08:15) in the way of discussing and negotiating their own agreement, and obviously once Syrian (00:08:23) Israel sign an agreement, that would have a very important effect on the whole process. Well, do you know the god like to thank you very much for explaining to those of us who are frankly confused sometimes because it is such an ever-shifting landscape in the Middle East and it's important I think to of for everyone to keep in touch on a daily basis with the process that is occurring there. Thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you.