 So, let us start immediately the next session with Itamar Rabinovich. Maybe to launch the conversation, Itamar, you would like to draw your knowledge on Syria because everybody, you are very well known among other capacities as a very knowledgeable expert on Syria. So could you share with us your analysis of the current situation in Syria? And since his Royal Highness ended his own intervention by mentioning his proposals towards a solution which involves Iran massively, would you agree with him and elaborate a little bit further on this issue? But with your permission, before I speak about Syria, I would like to compliment His Royal Highness on both the contents and the form. The Saudi royal house has been an immensely successful ruling family for more than a century and when we see a major representative of this house speaking with such command of the subject matter and with the most refined manifestation of the Arab, traditional Arab culture of being able to convey in subtle and indirect ways what we Israelis in particular sometimes tend to do too bluntly, I am full of admiration. So thank you very much, Your Royal Highness. Now with regard to Syria, I do agree the only solution has to be a political diplomatic solution. There is not going to be a military solution in the sense that the rebels who are in a very sorry state right now, the opposition, certainly what we call mistakenly the secular opposition or the Islamist non-Jihadi opposition as distinct from the Jihadi opposition is in opposition to defeat the regime what seemed in 2012 like an imminent collapse of the regime is definitely not the case. There has been actually a changing of the tide since June, since the Battle of Qusayr and other developments. But the regime is inching its way forward. It's not about to suppress the rebellion and I cannot see the regime re-establishing an effective rule over the whole of Syria any time soon. So clearly in order to stop the carnage in Syria, the humanitarian crisis and the spillover effect into the neighboring countries, there has to be a political diplomatic solution. Pretty much along these lines it's not going to be easy because the opposition and many others will insist that Assad has no legitimacy and he'll have to step down and obviously does not intend to do that. There is also I would say a primordial fear of the Alawite community that the removal of Assad could end to a bloodbath in Syria and of course it's a major, major investment for Iran. For Iran, the asset that acquired in Lebanon through Hezbollah and in Syria itself is a major asset in its quest for regional hegemony and they regard the removal of Assad as the first step in the destruction of their colony in Lebanon and Syria and they will oppose that. And I'm not sure that Russia will support the removal of Assad. So Geneva II is an important, potentially an important step, but only the first one. It will take more than that. But when we speak of the removal of Assad, are we talking about the removal of Assad or are we talking about the removal of the regime, which is not exactly the same? Exactly. I think the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, we all know certainly in retrospect was a very sorry event, but there are some lessons to be learned from it after all. And one of them is that if you do want to eliminate someone like Saddam Hussein, you better go for regime decapitation than for a total dismantling of the regime because if you totally dismantle the regime, the result is anarchy in the country and what happened in Iraq for several years following 2003. And I think the same applies to Syria. If you decide that not just the Assad family and the cronies, but the whole structure of the army and the intelligence apparatus, the government machinery have to go, there will be anarchy in Syria. And ideally, there should be a coalition put together of elements of the regime who, to borrow a phrase from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as we say, do not have blood on their hands and elements of the opposition, at least for a transitional period that would gradually enable Syria to move to a different political phase. So let's continue a little bit along this line. Suppose that there is a way to exit Assad himself, which would probably be more a symbol in many ways. So there would be elements of the regime who would be part of the new regime, but who would be the others? Because today it's not very clear who could join a government which would be composed of former Assad elements, and who else? Yeah, again, before I respond directly to the question, I want to say a word about Assad. See, his Highness, his Royal Highness, spoke a lot about John Kerry and his credibility in trying to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And we will be back at that, I suspect, in a few minutes. But John Kerry himself said a month ago that Assad has lost all legitimacy. He has to go. And if the United States does not stand by that policy in the Syrian context, how are Palestinians or Israelis going to cross the United States? Remember also that John Kerry gave a very powerful speech on the need to penalize Assad for the use of chemical weapons? And half an hour later, the policy was changed by the president. So there is linkage between the different parts of the Middle East and what happens and does not happen in Syria affects the Israeli-Palestinian or the Gulf and other parts. Now let me go back to the issue. Unfortunately, from very early on, the Syrian opposition has been affected by divisiveness, reflecting to some extent the divided nature of the country. Let us also remember that the political history of Syria is a history of a very fragile country, a country that in 1958 actually gave up. Its independent existence and merged into the United Arab Republic with Egypt. It was, in a way, symbolic of the weakness of the countries that were put together by the French and the British after World War I, oftentimes along very artificial lines, reflecting imperial and colonial interest and not realities on the ground. So Syria has been a weak state and a divided society for decades. I would say to the credit of Bashar al-Assad's father, Hafiz al-Assad, that he was the first man who built a powerful Syrian state and a coherent political system at a terrible cost, but he did that. But this is a different era. And the opposition from day one has been very ineffective. There's a political group seated based in Europe and in Istanbul. The leader of the Syrian National Coalition has been replaced several times in the past three years. They don't necessarily have a great deal of impact on the people who are fighting on the ground. There is presumably the Free Syrian Army, but the real power is in the hands of the local coordination committees and the groups that fight on the ground. Again, I'm not saying all of this because of Israel Highness's presence here, but they have been the most successful recently in putting together a group called the Islamic Front that comprises several Islamists, but not jihadi groups that seems to be more effective than other groups. So the bottom line is that there will have to be a coalition in Syria, but with the realistic expectation that it would be a while before we see a coherent, stable political system in place in Syria, even if the Assad's leave. You remind us of the fact that the borders are to some extent artificial in the Middle East as they are, by the way, in other parts of the world in Africa, for instance, but at the same time we insist very much that borders should not be changed and that the integrity of Syria should be maintained. Is there not a contradiction? Well, of course, in Africa and the Middle East, borders are artificial and there is, in a way, a consensus of the existing states that you do not change borders because they realize that once you pull the first brick out of the wall, the whole wall might collapse, but there is a danger of partitions. We know that in Iraq, the Kurdish area is short of sovereignty, quite autonomous, that there is one of the, unfortunately, one of the most effective jihadi groups in Syria is called the ISIS in Arabic or ISIS, the Islamic state of Iraq and Syria. Let's say that group, which represents the radical Sunnis of Iraq, unhappy with the Shiite current domination, and saying the border between Syria and Iraq is meaningless. Ironically, the greatest danger to the integrity of the state of Syria comes from the regime, in the sense that if the regime reaches the 11th hour and they are afraid that they might be toppled and a bloodbath might follow, they might retreat to the Alawite mountains and either declare a state-led or, in practice, revive the Etada Zalawit of the 20s and 30s. In that case, the Kurdish area in the Northeast might not declare independence, but become autonomous. Turkey itself could be rattled by the fact that on two of its borders in Iraq and Syria, there would be autonomous Kurdish areas. There is a serious threat to the whole state system that is part of the calculus as to why at the core of all of this is the Syrian conflict and it needs to be terminated, not just for the sake of Syria, but for the sake of regional stability. So let us switch now to Israel. I'm going to start with a provocative question. To what extent is Israel the same country since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the massive inflow of Russian Jews in your country? You will correct the figure, but I think the proportion of the... 20%. 20%, yes, which is a huge number. And I understand that it has immense implications also in terms of networking of all kinds, including, by the way, some illegal channels of all kinds. So how has it changed the country itself? That's a provocative question I said, but maybe you will answer something. Yeah, sure, it's not difficult to say on the whole this has been a very successful way of immigration, a highly educated population in professional terms. People who put culture at a very high place in their level of ladder of values. The Israeli miracle of what we call startup nation to some extent was aided by this influx. Now, the change in the sense that the first Zionists who came to then Palestine eventually pre-state Israel came from Russia, Poland, Eastern Europe. So yes, in the meantime we have integrated into the Israeli system, Jews from the Middle East, Mr. Shittrit, I don't know if he's here, he's from Morocco. He's a... That we know. If I may say, he's one of the best examples of Moroccan or son of Moroccan immigrants who felt rejected by the European Ashkenazi establishment represented in the Labour Party. Join the Likud was a very important member of the Likud but eventually drifted back to the center, to Kadima and now to Tsipilivni's party. And you know, he's, so he and his community are fully integrated as our Russians. Now, the one negative byproduct of the Russian immigration was the term that the Russian immigrants tend to be on the right wing. In terms of Arab-Israeli relations, they do not support concessions. They have, call it the Russian legacy of hostile attitude to Islam and Muslims. They're used to live in a very large country. The idea of shrinking the country where they live is alien to them and they tend to vote, the older generation tends to vote for what we call right wing parties. From my point of view, that is a minus but in the biggest scheme of things it's been a wonderful addition to the country. Thank you very much. So now I would like to ask you the same question as I asked his Royal Highness about the worst case scenario for the Israeli-Palestinian deal before the end of Obama's term. Because if, and of course the fate of Obama in this respect might influence the next election in the United States. And if we have a right wing Republican to succeed Obama and right wing government in Israel, that could make everything more complicated in the next few years. If you allow me for 30 seconds to wear my hat as a former ambassador in Washington who knows something about American politics, I think the healthcare reform and other issues are going to be more important for the outcome of the next election. You know, Jimmy Carter, Jimmy Carter, was successful in Camdavid and was defeated. George Bush 41 had the Madrid conference and other huge achievements in foreign policy and did not see a second term. So I think Obama's future depends mostly on domestic issues even though Americans, I'm looking at Mr. Kaiser, I hope he will not disagree with me. Americans care more about domestic politics but they do want to see the president as a man capable of leading the free world. And if the president seems to falter on foreign policy it reflects badly on the president. In any event, I think it's important for us to see these negotiations succeed not because of Obama's political future but because of our own future. And I belong to that camp in Israel which, by the way, gets 70% in public opinion polls that wants to see the issue resolved. 70%? 70% yeah, there's been a recent poll that showed more than 60% on a hypothetical. And it is my strong belief that if it's not a hypothetical if there's a done deal that you put before the Israeli voter or people who participate in a referendum, you'll get more than 70% who will support that because people realize that the continuation of the status quo is first and foremost bad for us. Demographically speaking, we are risking the future of the state as a Jewish state. And in terms of Israel's international standing we see a creeping delegitimization and these are two very dangerous developments for us. So beyond the merits of the case and the promise of what the peaceful solution could mean for Israel and the region, I think there's a creeping danger to us and it's to our benefit to try to resolve it and take advantage of the fact that there is an American Secretary of State who has made it his mission to try to resolve it. And could we expect in Israel some miracle of the kind equivalent to the election of Rouhani in Iran? Well, the miracle does not require an election. It requires a decision on the part of the Prime Minister. And there have been three Israeli Prime Ministers, Menachem Begin, Itzhak Rabin and Ariel Sharon who showed that they could go against their grain at the crucial moment. Menachem Begin, when he made a piece with Sadat, Itzhak Rabin who I had the privilege of working for who in the 1990s decided to take the Madrid process and try to use it in order to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict, negotiated very seriously with both the Palestinians and Syria and made peace with Jordan. And Ariel Sharon who did not believe in negotiations but this man who used to be the leader of the radical right wing in Israel, the man who created most of the settlements decided that this became untenable, that his legacy should be different. And he was the man who took us out of Gaza and dismantled all the settlements in Gaza. So of course, the fourth person could be Netanyahu. He's been a Prime Minister for a very long time now. And I would hope that when he asked himself, how do I want to step out of my position at some point? How do I want to be remembered in history? He has an opportunity to be the man who settled the Arab-Israeli conflict. And it's a question that is between him and himself. None of us knows what the ultimate decision would be but you don't need an election for that. You can have a different, by the way, you can have a different coalition. This coalition is not suitable for that but there is an alternative. The Labour Party just elected Mr. Herzog who is a great believer in this approach. He would be very happy to replace some of the right-wing components of the coalition and Netanyahu can pull it off. So I suggest... But if I may. The question is not just Netanyahu. There's a serious question about Abu Mazen. I cannot forget that when Eudolmit in September 2008 put a very attractive offer on the table, 94% of the West Bank partitioning Jerusalem and so forth and so forth, Abu Mazen did not take it. If you read the memoirs of Condi Rice, she was bewildered why Abu Mazen did not take it. It's not simple for him, he's a refugee from 48 and for him to sign on the dotted line end of conflict, end of claims is not a simple issue. But I don't take it for granted that if Netanyahu rises to the occasion, so will he. I hope he does but I don't take it for granted. I don't know if Pierre Morel is in the room, Pierre. Tu es là? Okay, so I suggest you know he's the moderator of the session after lunch on politics and religions. So I ask you, Pierre, to have the religious authorities here to start by praying to inspire the concerned leaders to do the right things at the right moment. So now the discussion is open. I see Dominic Moisi, yes, the mic is coming, yeah. Thank you very much. On Israeli diplomacy, for years, Israel has lamented its growing isolation and the process of daily legitimization, which was going on. And last week, we've seen a prime minister of Israel deciding not to go to a moment of universal symbolic value which was the commemoration of the deaths of Mandela in South Africa. He said, sorry to interrupt, he said that it was for budgetary reason because it was too costly to travel to South Africa. I would not add insult to injury in that process, but would you, I mean, you have praised Israel's blindness for the subtleness of its diplomacy. Was it what you implied as a criticism of Israel's diplomacy, or do you see that gesture which has highly symbolic negative values as a good sign for Netanyahu changing gears on the peace process with the Palestinians? Okay, I think it was a mistake for Israel not to be represented at the highest level. It could be Netanyahu, it could be Shimon Peres who was not in best health, and I think he was prevented by bad health from going, but it was a mistake for us not to be represented at that particular event, in that particular country at that time. But since you asked me about subtlety and diplomacy, let me take advantage. You know, Israel has spoke a lot during the first part of the discussion about Israel and Palestine and the importance of the Palestinian issue, and less so about other regional concerns that Saudi Arabia has, and I think in the question answers when came the question of what Iran has been doing in Syria and Lebanon, more came up, but even more could be said directly. For instance, it may have been lost on some of the audience when we had the Iranian ambassador here speaking for his foreign minister, almost at the end of his speech when he said one man, one vote, in places like Bahrain. This was not a happenstance. You know, the Bahrain is a contested ground. It's a country with a sheer majority. There were riots in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia intervened, but the fact that the Iranian ambassador would choose to mention of all countries in the Middle East, Bahrain in this context I thought was very indicative. So I said sometimes direct speech is more helpful. The clash is there, and Saudi Arabia has become, I think, one of the important regional changes. The Saudis have become much more unspoken. The refusal to join the Security Council was a very powerful statement. Now, I don't expect, and of course, in Israel there was a lot of speculation, I think, I think that since we are not so happy, or our government is not so happy with the interim agreement, Saudi Arabia is not happy. Maybe the time has come for Saudi-Israeli collaboration. I fully agree. It's not going to happen anytime soon. We are not ripe for that. Saudis have traveled a long distance from calling us the Zionist entity to calling us Israel in full language, but it will be, even when we sign with the Palestinians, it will take time before Saudi Arabia and Israel could collaborate directly against common problems, but sometimes you can use sign language and be very effective. Thank you very much. Other question, yes? Micro here. Can you identify yourself, please? Hello, thank you for your remarks. My name is Brian Schill from Johns Hopkins University. Given your background in Washington, do you feel that new lobbying groups like J Street, which are pro-Israel and pro-peace process, are changing the nature of U.S. Congressional support for Israel? No, J Street has been a success story. They came out of nowhere and they now have several thousand participants in their conference, not as many as APAC does, but I think that J Street responds to a certain uncomfortable sentiment, particularly among younger Jews in America who are critical of the policy of the present government, still have a strong feeling for Israel but find it difficult to identify with government policy and J Street is one manifestation of that. So let the thousand flowers bloom and you know APAC is APAC and J Street is J Street. Other question? Yes, Steve Erlanga, yeah? Thank you, Itamar, Steve Erlanga from The New York Times. I wanted to press you a bit on Obama and Syria and the Saudi position because it wasn't clear to me that the Saudi disappointment with Obama, the real, had much substance in the sense that a pinprick strike in the name of chemical weapons, one time only even if it lasted 10 hours because the United States doesn't do small, would have made any real difference on the ground. So one can criticize Obama for not having a plan to end the conflict in Syria, but this certainly wasn't it. And I'm curious whether Israel actually was in favor of that strike or not or whether in your view, Israel found it as pathetic as probably Obama himself did when he decided not to do it. Yeah, I'll answer you directly and briefly and then try to expand a bit. Israel was not as such for an American punitive raid as an isolated measure. As you know, President Obama did ask Israel and Israel's friends to give him support in Congress and Israel decided to do that because in the awkward or complex relationship between Netanyahu and Obama, the fact that the President requested Israeli support in Congress was exceptional and it was the right thing for the Prime Minister to say yes to that, but this was in response to a request by the US President, not as an Israeli-inspired policy. Now, on the, Israel saw the issue in larger terms. First of all, it was seen to some extent as a dress rehearsal or as an indicator for the larger Iranian issue because if Obama was seen as totally unwilling to launch a limited strike on Syria, what were the Iranians to draw from that with regard to the cliche that all options are on the table? In my view, all options were never on the table and what happened or did not happen in the Syrian context only reinforced the Iranian feeling that there was not an American military option which affected the outcome of the deal. Now, the whole chemical weapons issue is a fascinating event in called diplomatic history. Actually from day one, Obama did not want to be drawn into the Syrian crisis. I think he was, he went by the statement that Colin Powell made at the time, if you break it, you own it. And after Iraq and after Afghanistan, the feeling was that if the United States would become too directly involved in toppling Assad, it will find itself in no time with 50,000 troops on the ground and billions and trillions of dollars in expenditure. And so the United States has tried to avoid direct entanglement all along. Then in 2012, the president used the term red line and game changer. And lo and behold, a year later, Bashar al-Assad chose to stick a finger in his eye and use chemical weapons in a massive way and kill 1500 people. Not the first time, but the most massive time. What would the president do? At that point, the issue was no longer Bashar al-Assad, the issue was Obama. What was Obama's credibility now that his red line was crossed? And remember there was zigzagging and eventually the cooperation with the Soviets resulted in an agreement that put an end to the Syrian arsenal, maybe. Brought the Soviets back, the Russians back to the Middle East in a big way. And again, ironically, gave Assad an release on life because now he's a partner in eliminating the chemical arsenal. So he's needed from the illegitimate ruler. He's become an almost legitimate partner. This is part of the process that led me to say earlier on in this conversation that the tide has changed in the Syrian crisis. The man who used chemical weapons against his own population ended up in a strange way benefiting some from this. So all told, I don't think it was a great moment for US policy. Well, last question, Marie-Roger Billard. You have the last question and the micro is coming. Okay, thank you. Just wanted to ask a question concerning the African immigration. After welcoming the fallacious and rescuing them first and then welcoming them, Israel is facing an African immigration now, with which it is dealing in a way which has brought questions and concern. So what is your take on this? My take on this is this. You call it immigration, but this is a euphemism for actually a very ugly industry. You have people in Africa who have a network with Bedouins in the Sinai where Egyptian sovereignty is not complete, who have been pushing refugees and people who look for work from Africa. And we found ourselves flooded by a very large number of people who crossed the border from the Sinai. This has changed now. We built a fence in the Sinai, along the Egyptian-Israeli border that had not been there because there are also other problems of terrorism in the Sinai. So this immigration has actually come to an end. There is an issue of 50,000, 60,000 Africans who have arrived in Israel. And I think they should be treated as refugees, should be settled in the country. They are now both government, but mostly societal groups who help them. There are schools for the immigrants. They are given social services. And I hope that in this test of our humanism, we will score high. So thank you very much. I think we will stop here, but now listen to me. Again, there is no coffee break because the coffee break actually was taken before. And we have now a session on Africa with a few real shining stars. So please, we are going to start at 12 shop, assuming that all the speakers are present, which I hope. And Itamar, I want to thank you a lot. I think that was also an extremely constructive and interesting session. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.