"The quality of Israeli intelligence agencies and the Israeli army, which remain among the highest in the world, has, for more than 20 years, stifled the peace process."
This opinion was shared by Alexey Arestovich during the latest episode of "A Diary of War" on Yuriy Romanenko's YouTube channel.
"I would like to remind you of several peace agreements and so on. I also want to recall that as a result of these agreements, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was killed, assassinated for pursuing a peaceful resolution.
On November 4, 1995, after delivering a speech at a massive rally in support of the Oslo process at Kings of Israel Square in Tel Aviv, Rabin was walking towards his car when he was shot three times. Within 40 minutes, he succumbed to his injuries at Ichilov Hospital. His killer, Yigal Amir, a religious student, justified his crime by claiming he was "protecting the people of Israel from the Oslo agreements."
And so, three intifadas occurred, and the principle offered to Israel was peace in exchange for territory. Agreements were signed with the mediation of the United States. Now we can see where this has led.
Because Israel lacks a strategic answer to the question of what to do with the Palestinians. No, they are strong, mighty, extraordinary, but there is no answer to this question. However, the Palestinians do have a strategic answer, which is that Israel should not exist.
This once again shows us that despite the overwhelming military advantage in favour of Israel, given the vast military power, Israel loses in terms of the duration of the conflict. This transition of the Palestinians, the pro-Iranian Lebanese Shiite group, has brought them to a new level of confrontation, new possibilities.
Because there has never been anything like this in Israeli history. Yes, there have been incursions from Lebanese territory by militants, Palestinian terrorists hijacked buses in the 1970s, and so on. But there has been no such invasion since 1979, if I am not mistaken.
The peace process undermines the security forces. Why? Because their own politicians start pressuring them. They begin to select personnel who are in line with the decisions of politicians and cannot object from a security standpoint.
The same thing happened in Ukraine during the period from 2019 to 2022.
Because when the peace process began with us, it had a radical impact on personnel in the military. Commanders and personnel were needed who could support the idea of a ceasefire, not shoot back until the last moment, and so on.
This has both positive and negative aspects. On one hand, it follows the politicians' decision that "continuous fighting is ultimately impossible; at some point, we need to make peace." On the other hand, there are situations where continuous fighting is necessary. The same applies in Israel, the same applies in Ukraine, or simply prolonged fighting. This means that the illusions of peace processes must be implemented up to a certain point.
I can say that the peace process we had from 2019 to 2022, and the way we conducted it, and how the intermediaries "helped" us conduct it - this was one of the reasons why Putin decided on war.
Because of this, some weapon development programmes were cut, certain personnel reshuffles were made that did not contribute to the combat readiness of the armed forces and their authority, ceasefires were constantly being violated, which eroded the army, and so on. All of this weakened our readiness. And that's when Russia moved forward.
This is not the only reason. But this reason became a condition that Russia created."
