Why Not?

From an interview with Rafael Eitan in the 'Iton Tel Aviv' newspaper in January of this year:

'My opinion is that all these efforts [referring to Sharon's disengagement plan -- ed.] are for naught. With the Arabs, we will never be able to make peace... This is a struggle between civilizations. We are a foreign culture, and in my opinion, Islam will never make peace with our foreign entity, and with the fact that it has political independence and even defeats them in wars. They'll never agree...

'[President Moshe Katzav] is mistaken: Assad's hand is not outstretched in peace. He might be trying some tricks so that the Americans won't do to him what they did to Iraq. Nothing more. What, he'll make peace with us?... Does anyone really think that we should deposit our fate in the hands of a lone ruler, a dictator, who is alive today and tomorrow he's dead? ... I can prove that whoever thinks that concessions, compromises, 'Geneva,' Ami Ayalon's plan, are what will change the Middle East situation -- in my opinion is mistaken. The Arabs, very cleverly, bring our people to think that they have changed their ways... The Arabs wage negotiations with us in three ways: pretense, deception, and violence.'

Asked what would have to happen for him to change his mind, Raful said, 'If all the Arab leaders say, 'We're sick of you, we're taking some distance from you, we'll give you territories in exchange for peace, and leave us alone.' On that day, I'll admit that I was wrong [in saying that they would never make peace].'

'What, they should give us territories in exchange for peace?' he was asked.

"Why not?" Raful responded. "Why should we, who are so small, give land to those who are so big, for something uncertain? We should have said this from the outset. But did anyone ever think that this [Exile-like] leadership would make such a request?... A leadership that does not insist on its honor, and has no national honor. We should pay for having defeated them in wars that they started?! Where's the logic, the straight thinking?"