Shlomo Gazit

Shlomo Gazit was director of Israeli military intelligence Aman from 1974 to 1978.

According to Donald Macintyre, Gazit is a longstanding advocate of Israeli withdrawal from the Wet bank and Gaza:

In the veteran's view, "conditions are very ripe to reach an agreement" with the Palestinians, but as he wrote last week on the joint Israeli-Palestinian Bitterlemons website, the problem is weak leadership on both sides of the conflict. "It will be sad and painful if... yet more confrontations and more sacrifices... are required before we can fully reap the fruits of [the 1967] war."

That said, Mr Gazit still believes that the Palestinian state he envisaged as the Six Day War continued to rage 40 years ago will happen. A man who has never bowed to the conventional wisdom of the moment, Mr Gazit declares that "ultimately, I'm very optimistic".

Affiliations

• Institute for National Security Studies