Roger Cohen | Charlie Rose

Tell me how you see, uh, the dilemma for Israel as a country today, looking at its best interest and its future.

Well, Israel's a small country surrounded by enemies, some of which talk openly about Israel's destruction, and so you have to get inside the Israeli psyche and understand that.

However, Charlie, when I listened to Prime Minister Netanyahu at the UN last month, uh, the first half of the speech was about the Holocaust, about the Nazis, comparing Iran to the Nazi regime.

And my feeling is that Israel lives in a changing Middle East.

There are threats to it, but let's try to be sober about this.

Let's look at Hamas, look at Hezbollah, look at Iran, and see if we can take the rhetoric down a notch or two, and let's set aside these, I think, very misleading comparisons and analogies with the Holocaust, and deal, for example, with an Iranian regime that is erratic, uh, and sometimes ruthless, but has also proved over the last 30 years that it can be pragmatic and prudent.

Indeed, that's one reason it survived.

Meridor says all they need is a bargaining partner on the other side, 'cause they know that the demographic thing is coming down on them, and they don't have much choice.

But then at the same time, you have Foreign Minister Lieberman saying the other day that he doesn't see any prospect of a settlement for years to come, and there is no opportunity for that.

And you have Israel saying that Hamas, uh, is an interlocutor with whom it cannot speak.

Now, the Hamas charter calls for the destruction of Israel, so you can see the problem there.

But I say-

So what's the problem for Israel? Do they say, "Look, well, these people don't want to recognize our right to exist, they want to, you know, remove us from the face of the earth, so therefore, let's hunker down"?

Yeah, but Israel has proceeded in a very pragmatic way since 1948.

It's acted in a de facto manner.

If Hamas is ready to talk, and there are lots of different strands to Hamas, if Hamas is ready to talk, what is the problem? What is the harm in trying that avenue? Because I think it's in Israel's interest to try and see a more united Palestinian interlocutor, and you're not gonna do that so long as you say that Hamas is simply, uh, untouchable.

Yeah, but see, I, I-

I think over time, Hamas can be coaxed to change, especially with a very pragmatic president like President Obama.

He can, he can help, as can the special envoy, George Mitchell.

But we have to, I think, take some rhetorical clutter out of our minds and just look in a hard-nosed way at the realities on the ground and see if we can move this forward.

Okay, but I mean-

Yeah

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I hear...

We all know that the Arab countries say one thing in public and then say different things in private.