It is still unclear what will be the final composition of Barak's cabinet. One thing, though, is already abundantly clear: The peace effort will be in the hands of retired army generals. Like Yitzhak Rabin before him, Barak does not trust anyone who has not lived his life in the army. And that is very worrisome to me. This is not because of some prejudice of mine against officers. On the contrary, I think that as a group, they are superior to politicians. Men like Ehud Barak, Amnon Lipkin-Shakhak, Matan Vilnai, Yitzhak Mordechai, Yossi Peled, Ori Or and Danni Yatom most certainly are not inferior in their level, quality and thinking ability to a comparable group of civilian officials and party functionaries. In Europe and in North America the military upper echelon tends to be a rightist, conservative and nationalistic group. Our generals, on the other hand, are primarily in the center, maybe somewhat left-of-center. (Rehabam Ze'evi and Raphael Eytan are exceptions.) On the whole, these are moderate people, people genuinely interested in peace and who understand its price. Example - Yitzhak Rabin. The real question is: Do they really know what peace is? Once, Abu-Mazen told me what had happened in Oslo: The Foreign

Ministry officials and the academicians came to an agreement. In the end, Rabin sent his officers. They went over each clause with a fine-tooth comb and in the end changed every one. Security won out and put a stranglehold on peace. The military profession, as any other, has its own unique pattern of thinking. It is very practical, exact, specific. A military person learns to think in quantitative concepts: This many divisions, that many troops, that many cannons, that many kilometers, that many hours. Things that can be measured with precision, that can be drawn on a map. (Maybe this is why this profession is so well-suited to the character of the Sabras, and particularly to that of the Kibbutzniks, who, by and large, have disdain for abstract and theoretical thought, preferring practical, action-oriented thinking.)

Ariel Sharon is a perfect example of this. He doesn't go anywhere without a pile of maps covered with transparent sheets full of colored arrows. Very impressive. In war, there is a clash of quantifiable manpower and weapons, within measurable territories. The officer trains, specializes and moves up the ranks within this world. But the work of peace is an entirely different world. In Israel's circumstances, there is a conceptual disproportion. We are requested to give back conquered territories -- territories measured in square kilometers, with strategic and material assets, such as water and land. We, on the other hand, demand from the other side things that are not quantifiable: To internalize the willingness to peacefully coexist with us, to accept us as belonging in the region, to welcome our state as a real partner in the overall fabric of the region. Were you to tell an officer to give up 100 square kilometers in return for good will, he would laugh at you. Are you nuts? What kind of nonsense is this? To give something for nothing? When they are ready to give something, they'll get something in return. And just what do they have to offer us anyway?

A classic example: Immediately following Oslo, we members of GushShalom, the peace bloc, proposed to Rabin that he should immediately free the 5,000 Palestinian "security" prisoners. They are enemy soldiers, and since we have just embarked on the road to peace, all prisoners of war must be freed. If we send them back to the 5,000 families scattered throughout the towns and villages, we would electrify the atmosphere and would create a new spirit. Rabin couldn't understand what we were talking about. Atmosphere? Spirit? Mere words, these were to him. Whereas prisoners are a concrete matter, merchandise to be traded piece by piece at a high price. And so was lost a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Making peace is complex work, one that has nothing in common with the mental world of a professional military person. It, of course, also has a security aspectc -- but it is only one of many components. If this one component takes over all the others, then peace suffocates from lack of oxygen. Both Egypt and

Jordan have proved that excellent agreements, prepared by officers, can be signed, but real peace is absent. In order to make a peace that sticks, one must understand the other side, its inner world, its fears and hopes, creating a solid basis for coexistence. The objective is not to bend its arm as far back as one can, but rather to create a life framework conducive to both sides wishing to coexist, not for a year or two but for centuries to come. Rabin began to understand this only just before his assassination. Forty years ago I proposed the creation of a "White General Staff." The Khaki General Staff is responsible for waging war, and we should have a parallel General Staff, also composed of experts, responsible for waging peace. Now we see the reverse: the Khaki General Staff has taken over the peace process. I fear that Barak will accelerate this trend.