ISRAEL AT WAR - DAY 491

Ofer Bronchtein in Paris, August 2024. (Hally Pancer)
Main image: Ofer Bronchtein in Paris, August 2024. (Hally Pancer)
Interview'It’s terrible what both sides are experiencing since Oct. 7'

Macron’s point man on Israel-Palestine says ‘it’s not the right time to think about peace’

French-Israeli Ofer Bronchtein believes that conditions conducive to peace will eventually return, despite a deteriorating relationship between the French and Israeli leaders

Main image: Ofer Bronchtein in Paris, August 2024. (Hally Pancer)

PARIS — In recent weeks, tensions between French President Emmanuel Macron and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu have reached a boiling point as Israel continues its ground offensive to clear Hezbollah infrastructure in southern Lebanon and France calls for an embargo on rearming Israel.

To make sense of any Mideast fracas, French media often calls on Macron’s longtime special adviser on Israeli-Palestinian affairs Ofer Bronchtein. This time, he is uniquely positioned to offer perspective on the dynamic between the Israeli and French leaders.

Bronchtein holds Israeli, French and Palestinian passports — the latter conferred by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in 2011. He is fluent in French, Hebrew, English and Spanish — and served in the IDF.

“Their relations are getting worse,” Bronchtein told The Times of Israel recently. “Macron asks himself why he’s asked to defend Israel’s interests and security — which he does — given how Jerusalem responds. He’s very respectful of Israel but he asks to be heard and respected in return. At this point, he doesn’t understand Israel’s goals and strategy in pursuing the Gaza war. Netanyahu promised to be more realistic but didn’t deliver.”

An avowed peacenik, Bronchtein heads the International Forum for Peace, which he co-founded in 2001. His outspoken views anger some in France’s Jewish community who consider him overly sympathetic to the Palestinians and unfairly critical of Israel. Physical and verbal attacks by far-right Jewish activists, along with death threats, haven’t changed his ways.

Amid recent friction between the two countries due, in part, to comments by Macron ill-received in Israel, Bronchtein insists his boss is often misunderstood.

“The Macron bashing is counterproductive for the relationship between France and Israel,” says Bronchtein. “The dispute over his recent remarks about Israel is stupid. It’s surreal how things can be misinterpreted. Macron never said the word ‘boycott,’ he never said France won’t sell weapons to Israel. He simply said it would be contradictory for him to call for a ceasefire [as he’s done] and at the same time sell weapons to Israel that might be used in Gaza.”

Ofer Bronchtein is seated next to Israeli President Isaac Herzog during a meeting with French Jewish leaders in Paris, July 26, 2024. (Courtesy)

Bronchtein claims Macron genuinely cares about Israel.

“His intentions are excellent,” says Bronchtein, 67. “Macron really invests time and energy on matters pertaining to Israel but unfortunately he’s not always supported by certain people in his administration. He’s always been clear about the right of Israel to defend itself and demonstrated his commitment to Israel. Let’s not forget France was one of the few countries that helped protect Israel from Iranian missiles in April and again on October 1.”

Ofer Bronchtein with French President Emmanuel Macron during their trip to Israel in October 2023. (Courtesy)

Bronchtein’s work for Macron frequently brings him to Israel, including several times in recent months, but he’s taciturn when asked to elaborate.

“I can only tell you Macron devotes considerable time to the release of hostages and a ceasefire,” says Bronchtein, during an interview in his second-floor apartment in Paris’s 11th arrondissement.

“We’re working all channels possible. I can’t go into details apart from saying Macron spends hours meeting all players, Israelis, Palestinians [not Hamas], Qataris, Egyptians, Americans, Emiratis and more. He does so on an almost daily basis. We’re working on projects and initiatives at all levels — infrastructure, education for peace, rebuilding Gaza, humanitarian relief and of course political and security actions to create a responsible Palestinian leadership,” he says.

No peace on the horizon

Speaking regularly with his well-placed, long-cultivated connections in both the Israeli and Palestinian camps, Bronchtein brings to the table what few others can in connection with the conflict. While living in Israel, he was closely involved in the Oslo peace process, for which he took on secret missions for prime minister Yitzhak Rabin in the early 1990s and attended the 1991 Madrid Peace Conference.

His work for Rabin came after a 1989 jailing in Israel for meeting in Europe with Abbas, then part of the PLO’s Executive Committee, violating a now-defunct law that forbade contact between Israelis and the PLO.

Ofer Bronchtein, right, with his family and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abba, center, in Paris on April 21, 2011, when Abbas presented Bronchstein with a Palestinian passport. (Courtesy)

As someone for whom pursuing Israeli-Palestinian peace has been paramount since the 1980s, the Hamas-led massacre of October 7, 2023, and its aftermath are particularly heart-wrenching. Thousands of terrorists swarmed over the border and into southern Israel on that day, slaughtering 1,200 men, women and children, and kidnapping 251 to the Gaza Strip, touching off the ongoing military conflict in Gaza.

“I don’t have less hope, I have more pain,” says Bronchtein, seated in his living room with Leo, his friendly Labrador Retriever.

“It’s always more difficult to work on hope than to work on violence. Violence is something tangible that you can feel immediately, hope is something more difficult to believe in because it’s hypothetical. But we don’t have a choice. What’s the alternative — both sides condemned to destroy each other? I’ve always been committed to another alternative, based on mutual respect, generosity, understanding, humility and dialogue.”

Ofer Bronchtein, right, with chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat in Ramallah, 2019. (Hally Pancer)

He applies that attitude in his work with Macron, who appointed him to his current position in 2020 shortly after going to Israel with Bronchtein for the commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

“I’m fully aware now is not the right time for Israelis and Palestinians to speak or even think about peace,” says Bronchtein. “They’re in a war, they’re losing people dear to them, and they’re mourning. There’s no empathy on either side for the other.”

“It’s terrible what both sides are experiencing since October 7,” says Bronchtein, a father of three, one of whom lives in Israel. “Israeli society is still in trauma, people are still waiting for the hostages to return. They’re still grieving, with soldiers continuing to be killed. Israelis still don’t understand how October 7 happened. What they’re going through isn’t something they’ll overcome soon.”

“In Gaza, you have terrible destruction of housing and infrastructure, thousands and thousands of people killed,” adds Bronchtein, quick to also lament the Palestinian reality. “It’s very painful and there’s tremendous suffering there, too.”

He acknowledges any possible resolution isn’t imminent.

“We’ll first have to wait for this war to end, then it’ll require a long, difficult effort to remove all the poison injected in both societies,” says Bronchtein. “But ultimately, both sides know there’s no alternative to changing the reality. I’m aware nobody wants to hear about it today, but I’m also aware they’ll have to deal with it tomorrow.”

‘Not so much disillusioned as I’m disappointed’

Born in Beersheba, Bronchtein grew up there until age 9, when his parents, (both born in North Africa), moved the family to France where they lived in a Paris suburb. At age 17, he returned to Israel as part of the Habonim Dror youth movement, living in Kibbutz Beit Keshet in the Upper Galilee where he finished high school.

Ofer Bronchtein, right, with prime minister Yitzhak Rabin in the early 1990s. (Hally Pancer)

In 1992, Bronchtein became director of what was then the largest peace organization in Israel, the International Center for Peace in the Middle East, which led to involvement with Rabin, initially on social issues. In 1993, as part of the Oslo process, Rabin sent him on several secret trips to Tunis to meet with then-PLO leader Yasser Arafat to help prepare for a visit there of deputy prime minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer that eventually led to the Oslo Accords.

On September 13, 1993, when Israel and the PLO signed the agreement at a White House ceremony, Bronchtein was part of the Israeli delegation. Amid high hopes for a new era, he was involved in negotiations for the Oslo II Accords in 1995, signed shortly before Rabin’s assassination, which hit Bronchtein hard.

Ofer Bronchtein, center, flanked by Yasser Arafat, left, and then-head of Gaza’s public security forces Nasser Yousef, right, in 1994. (Courtesy)

Months later, after Netanyahu became prime minister in 1996, Bronchtein initially felt he would pursue peace.

“Netanyahu didn’t want to have this image of being an extremist and pushing people against the peace process,” says Bronchtein, who moved to Paris with his wife in 2001. “He wanted to be part of it and that’s why at the time I had a relationship with him. I was maybe naïve in believing he wanted to continue this path of peace seriously. For a few years, we did work together. I even organized for people on the right — settlers, Likud members and religious — to meet with Palestinians.”

Today, despite the many setbacks in Israeli-Palestinian relations over the years, Bronchtein remains undaunted, but not without frustration. For all the support he’s long demonstrated for the Palestinians, he’s publicly criticized their response to the October 7 atrocities.

“I’m not so much disillusioned as I’m disappointed by the lack of compassion of Palestinians and their inability to recognize Israel’s tragic reality and its suffering,” says Bronchtein. “It’s starting to change but unfortunately it’ll take more time than I had hoped.”

Still, Bronchtein remains positive. When asked if he’s an eternal optimist, he replies: “Yes, even if it’s very difficult to be an optimist today. It takes more effort now to think that way but pessimism isn’t an option.”

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