While an ex-Israeli military official focused on the possibility of peace between Israelis and Palestinians, his speech sparked its own conflict on the ISU campus.

Israeli Reserve Major-General Shlomo Gazit said in a speech Sunday that the conflict between Israel and Palestine should soon come to an end.

“We are at the very, very last phases of the Arab-Israeli conflict,” said Gazit, ex-chief of Israeli military intelligence. “We are very close to reaching an agreement that will be accepted by both sides.”

Gazit, senior research associate at Tel Aviv University in Israel, said he was not representing the Israeli government by speaking about the situation and also emphasized that no agreement can be implemented unless it is viable for both sides.

“It will have to be an agreement that will be a bitter medicine for both sides,” he said. “It will have to be an agreement that is not enforced, not by force of arms or force of politics.”

During his speech, Gazit said he is not as concerned about the level of violence between Israeli and Palestinian citizens because it is part of meeting an agreement.

“I’m not worried because instead of the process of negotiation, this is part of the process of negotiation,” he said. “The violence today is the continuation of making peace by any means.”

Gazit said it is possible for an agreement to be reached within the next two months, and if not, within the next two years. He also said it is in the Palestinian leaders’ interest to want violence.

“For a conflict that has been going on for the last 100 years, two years is nothing,” he said. “Yassir Arafat is very unhappy with the current process.”

Gazit said some of the issues on the agenda include the border between the two countries and the borders of Jerusalem.

He said he believed the border between the countries has been almost agreed upon, with the 1967 line as the border with some minor changes.

“I want Jerusalem to be redivided with a clear border separating Palestinian Jerusalem and Israeli Jerusalem … according to the new reality,” he said.

Palestinian student Thaer Al-Nimer, freshman in industrial engineering, said people think the Palestinians are against Jews, but they are really against violence. He added that Palestinians are not contesting Jews’ right to live in Palestine.

“There should be rights for Palestinians,” he said. “They should not be forgotten.”

Joe Shinar, professor of physics and astronomy, said he thought the speech was well-done.

“I thought it was very admirable the way he stood up to the provocations,” he said. “He didn’t just shoot from the hip. It’s easy to get into a never-ending cycle.”

Gazit’s speech was sponsored by the Committee on Lectures and ISU Hillel, a Jewish student group.