AT A time when Britain and France have fallen out over war in Iraq, there could be no better place to meet a dove of peace from the Middle East than on a train between London and Paris.
But even Shimon Peres, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize ten years ago, must travel as a security package, insulated from terror, destruction and death.
He arrives at Waterloo station in London surrounded by British Special Branch officers and leaves the Gare du Nord in Paris sandwiched in a convoy of French police cars packed with armed bodyguards.
Israel’s former Labour Prime Minister is not in Europe to negotiate peace between Britain and France but to make speeches to students and discuss book projects. Indeed, he says he has little desire to hold high office again, having last served under Ariel Sharon, the antithesis of his long quest for a way in which his Jewish country can live alongside its Arab and Muslim neighbours.
At 79 he is still optimistic that this can be achieved in his lifetime. More surprisingly, this man of peace thinks the conflict in Iraq might just be the key that opens the door.
It is a “war for modernity”, he says, that will finally give the people of Iraq and other Arabs a chance. “The past is written in red ink, in blood and hatred. None of us can change this. What everyone must do is think about the future. We are living in a revolutionary age. Twentieth century wars were about ideologies, flags and borders. The new age is a world where science and technology allow us to co-exist, no longer divided between east and west, north and south.”
China and Russia have “awakened” to the knowledge that, if they are to have innovation, prosperity and science, they must have truth to free their minds.
Mr Peres says: “The new age is knocking on the door of the Muslim world as well. They cannot live in the past, their traditions will not enable them to make a living. Islam needs a reformation.”
But this golden 21st-century vision is threatened by Islamic terrorists, perhaps one day armed with weapons of mass destruction, who are “afraid of modernity”.
He acknowledges that there are other countries in the Middle East, such as Iran, Syria and Libya, that have as strong, if not stronger, links to such terrorism than has Iraq. But they also have more potential to reform and he believes that America has made “the right choice” in deciding to oust Saddam Hussein “as a warning to the rest”. Those who cite the anti-American demonstrations on the streets of Gaza as evidence that this war is fuelling the fires of Arab extremism, are dismissed by Mr Peres. “This war will help the Middle East peace process. It will show that the world is not wild.”
Instead, he urges Abu Mazen, the new Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority, “to show he has the will and the teeth” to tackle the myriad paramilitary and terrorist organisations in his midst and appoint a “credible” internal security minister.
“If he cannot control Hamas and Islamic Jihad, what is the point in us talking to him? If you have five or six armies, you cannot be a proper state. We need a partner for a peace process because you cannot clap your hands if you only have one hand.”
But is Mr Sharon a partner for peace? “I cannot make any promises for him but I can say that every leader must relate to reality. If you get a proper Palestinian Authority government, then Sharon would have to react properly.
“A leader can wake up in the morning and order peace instead of coffee. If he wants coffee, that’s easy, he can have it. But if he wants peace, he must do more than wake up. He must have a partner.”
Tony Blair is taking much of the political capital he has earned in Washington on a gamble that he can persuade George Bush to force through the implementation of a road map for peace leading to Palestinian independence by 2005.
While Mr Peres says that Mr Sharon would undoubtedly be susceptible to American pressure, he is sceptical about the chances of Washington paying much more than lip service to the new initiative, not least because Bill Clinton’s previous efforts had proved to be in vain.
“Bush will not do it unless he can see the Palestinians are ready to be real partners. He does not want to embark on another failure. I don’t think the international community can bring peace, it can only help and encourage. Peace cannot be imposed, that is a contradiction in terms.”
Nor does Mr Peres appear particularly impressed by the road map itself, in which each stage of the journey would have to be completed before another could proceed. “This must not be like a train with wagons but like a fleet of ships. If one wagon gets stuck, the train becomes paralysed but a number of ships can sail in the right direction independently. We need to fight terrorism, negotiate, have economic reform and bring in aid — all these are separate ships.”
His advice to Mr Blair, a politician whose “courage and stamina” he admires, “is to do what he can to help the Palestinians reform and keep a trusting relationship with all the partners”.
Is this a reference to Tel Aviv’s anger over recent remarks by Jack Straw that implied a degree of moral equivalence between Israel and Iraq’s failure to obey UN resolutions? “Language is a tool of diplomacy,” he says and “that is why I prefer not to mention any names, you understand”.
At the end of his interview with The Times, the train emerges from the Channel Tunnel and Mr Peres can once again use his mobile telephone, into which he speaks Hebrew, impossible to understand except for his repeated references to “terrorism”.
His aide explains that Hebrew does not have such a word. This is a modern war against a new phenomenon involving ancient peoples.
