Israeli ambassador living in the shadow of death

In the third of a series, the Herald's Australia correspondent, GREG ANSLEY, talks to Orna Sagiv, Israel's Ambassador to Australia and New Zealand, about life with the bombers and why her nation needs support


Some time ago, Orna Sagiv boarded an aircraft in Hamilton for a flight to Wellington. It was an unnerving experience for the diplomat, who is now Israel's acting ambassador to New Zealand and Australia.

"Nobody checked me with metal detectors," she says. "Nobody checked my bag. I could bring a huge knife with me.

"Then the pilot comes and he says, 'Hi, good afternoon,' and he sits in his pilot's seat and he doesn't even have a door. We Israelis live in an extreme situation, but that seemed to me like, 'Oh my God, if someone is a bit crazy and he comes with a knife or something, it's going down'.


"I'm so happy that there are still some places in the world where people trust each other and believe the worst cannot happen, but it is so different."

Sagiv's experience helps define the perceptions of the two countries - Israel's as a state under siege for almost all of its 56 years of existence, New Zealand's as a relative haven far distant from any potential enemy.

It is a difference that has caused some agonising among Israeli diplomats, who note a marked difference between Australia's broad support for Israel and a more qualified view among many New Zealanders.

Foreign Minister Phil Goff's decision to call on Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat during his visit to Israel last year raised eyebrows, and there is sense that New Zealanders are more willing to see the Palestinian point of view.

Sagiv chooses her words carefully on both points.

"We do see a difference in the position of the Australian Government, which is very supportive of Israel, and the New Zealand position," she says.

"[But] we do appreciate that New Zealand does care about Israel and wants to see Israel live in secure borders alongside a Palestinian state."

Sagiv believes there is understanding and sympathy for Israel's suffering at the hands of terrorists, and that Goff and officials in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and trade sincerely want a solution to the conflict.

"Sometimes we have differences of opinion, but I think that's legitimate. We have friendly relations. We don't need to agree all the time about everything."

On Goff's visit to Arafat: "I think people who visit Arafat today realise that he is no longer a partner. [Goff] wanted to meet him. We cannot prevent it. We don't want to prevent it. I think that he got his conclusion about the visit as well."

But Sagiv, a career diplomat and the mother of two young sons, has a deep professional and personal interest in promoting her country's case in New Zealand, with no apologies for her Government's actions.

"New Zealand is a small country with a population of four million. We are about six million. We lost in the past 3 1/2 years 935 people [to terrorism].

"Imagine for a country the size of New Zealand to lose in 3 1/2 years 620 people.

"What would you as New Zealanders demand your country do? Don't you think you would also demand, first of all, 'We want to live in peace'?

"New Zealand people speak about human rights. We're sympathetic, but don't we as Israelis have human rights as well?

"And when we speak about human rights, isn't the first and most important human right the right to live, to exist, to take a bus without being blown up, to go into a restaurant without having to have security people?"

Sagiv sees Israel's present distress as the product of a chain of events that began with great Israeli optimism after the 1993 Oslo Accord, under which Israel recognised Arafat's Palestinian Liberation Organisation and granted limited autonomy in exchange for peace and an end to Palestinian claims on Israeli territory.

She says the process soon began unravelling as terrorist attacks continued.

In 2000, then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak met Afarat at the US Presidential retreat of Camp David to propose a new peace plan.

Barak offered to return about 96 per cent of the occupied territories to the Palestinians and cover the rest by a land swap for Israeli settlements.

"I think the world is in agreement that this offer was at least fair," Sagiv says.

But Arafat did not want to negotiate.

"What he did was to start this wave of terrorism, this wave of violence. I don't want to use cliches, but the truth is we have stained both sides with blood until today because of this unacceptable strategic decision that Arafat made."

Sagiv believes Arafat may have misread Israeli resolve, believing that if its army could be forced from Lebanon by the anti-war movement's demands for withdrawal after the loss of 25 soldiers, "how can they live with hundreds of civilians dying every day in the streets of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, the main cities?"

In the intense violence unleashed about 3 1/2 years ago, Sagiv says, the Palestinian cause has suffered waning legitimacy internationally and at home, economic collapse, and suffering for ordinary Palestinians.


Sagiv says that even now, polls show that 60 per cent of Israelis are still ready for compromise, and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has said repeatedly that he is prepared to remove most Israeli settlements from Gaza and others from the West Bank, and to work towards a separate Palestinian state.

But she says Israel will not make concessions while terrorism continues.

Palestinian leaders need to root out radical Islamic groups such as Hammas and Islamic Jihad, and address deep corruption within their own ranks.

"We say, let's have peace but first of all let's stop terrorism. We will not have this double trick of in the morning we'll have peace negotiations, in the evenings our children will be blown up in discos, in coffee shops or in other places."

Hence the infamous "wall", the fortified barrier being built to separate Israel from the Palestinians.

Sagiv prefers to call it a security fence and says that only 5 per cent of the 640km barrier will be the high concrete barrier appearing on television.

"We understand there is criticism. It's quite ugly ... But if it's going to save the lives of two, or 10, or even of one Israeli, I think it's worth it.

"People like to support the underdog. I hear it quite a lot. 'In 1973 [the Yom Kippur war] Israel was the underdog. You were weak, we supported you. Now you are strong, and the Palestinians are the underdogs, we support them'.

"I say it is true that Israel is stronger today and I'm not going to apologise for that. We're not going to sit there waiting for another war with five or six Arab countries trying to destroy Israel to get international support."

Sagiv's life at home underscores her passion.

"In other places in the world, when you leave the house in the morning and you say goodbye, you are sure you will be there in the evening. But every time, in a way, when I said goodbye to my children or my husband I felt like, am I really going to see them again?

"Why should a mother feel like, 'What might happen to me on my way to Jerusalem? Is someone going to shoot the cars today or whatever?'

"Every small decision you make ... if you want to go to the park with your children you think, okay, I better not go to the park. Who knows, some sniper can come and shoot the kids.


"It's not that I want to be emotional, but that's the way you live."

This is why Sagiv believes it is necessary for New Zealand to think hard about the Middle East, and terrorism.

"If New Zealand cares about the stability of the world, it is impossible not to be involved. I think New Zealand understands that. New Zealand is involved"

Orna Sagiv

How she got the job.

Posted to Canberra as counsellor at the Israeli Embassy in 2002; became Acting Ambassador this year.

On relations with New Zealand.

"Sometimes we have differences of opinion, but I think that's legitimate. We don't need to agree all the time about everything."

Previous career.

Career diplomat since 1993, working in some of Israel's most sensitive areas - the embassies in Taiwan and Beijing, First Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' Palestinian Autonomy Division and, before Canberra, specialising in China and the two Koreas in the North East Asia Division.

Career highlights.

Working in China to strengthen ties during a period of rapid change and at times difficult relations, including tensions over the sale of the Phalcon spy plane to Beijing. In 2002 she accompanied Foreign Minister Shimon Peres to China after Israel agreed to compensate Beijing for the cancellation of the Phalcon sale, which was strongly opposed at the time by the United States.

Early life.

Not the usual diplomatic career path. Before completing a degree in political science and criminology, Sagiv spent her two years of military service as a tank instructor with the Israeli Defence Force.

Ambitions.

To see peace with a separate Palestinian state: "At the end of the day, these are our neighbours.

* Next Thursday: British High Commissioner Richard Fell