"Hamas is an arm of Iran and the aim of the attacks was to prevent the agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia"

Henrique Cymerman has been Middle East correspondent for La Vanguardia, Antena 3 and, since 2014, for Mediaset España. He has been covering current affairs for more than 25 years: he was the last journalist to interview Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, 24 hours before his assassination, and was the first Israeli journalist to broadcast from Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. 

A member of Aldeas Infantiles, decorated in Portugal (Commander of the Order of Infante Don Enrique) and Spain (Order of Civil Merit), he was a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2015. 

You described the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October as "the bloodiest day in Jewish history since the Holocaust" and have pointed to the crisis in the Israeli government as a sign of weakness exploited by Palestinian radicals and their patrons. Undoubtedly, we are at the most critical moment in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since the second intifada... 

Yes, without a doubt. I think what is happening here is different from anything we have seen. If we look at the history of Israel, when I said it was the bloodiest day since Auschwitz, since the Second World War, I think I can say it was the bloodiest day since the beginning of modern Zionism in 1882. There has not been a day with more than 1,200 dead and 250 kidnapped. It is something that has never happened before and I think it has had such a huge effect on Israeli society that the Israel that will be born after this war will be an Israeli 're-start', an Israel 2.0. 

Apart from the two-state formula, Israel and Palestine, what other reforms do you think are necessary to end Hamas's stranglehold on the Palestinians? 

It's very difficult, because if there were elections right now, Hamas would win them. The popularity of Hamas is huge, especially in the West Bank more than in Gaza, because people in Gaza know Hamas, they know what they are. I think it is necessary to demilitarise Gaza, that is the main objective. I don't think Hamas is going to disappear: it will still be there, maybe in a different form. But what cannot be allowed is that they continue to spend billions to attack.

They themselves say that their goal is more atrocities and to destroy the state of Israel which, according to them, does not have to exist. But they don't want a Palestinian state either: what they want is an Islamic state, between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, Isis-style. And that is something that nobody can accept, Israel is not going to commit suicide and it is not going to allow itself to be destroyed. If Hamas continues, it is condemning us to a chronic, eternal war. Therefore, Hamas will have to change and probably go back to what it was until its founding in 1987: a movement that educates, that does what it wants within the framework of the Muslim Brotherhood, but not threatening its neighbours 800 metres away in the kibbutz of southern Israel. 

In recent years, before this Hamas attack, the prospects for a solution to the conflict seemed much more optimistic, with milestones such as the signing of the Abraham Accords in 2020, or the meeting in 2019 in Abu Dhabi between Pope Francis and the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, which led to the Document on Human Brotherhood. How have we gone from this promising situation to a new wave of pessimism and concern for the future of the region? 

Hamas is an arm, but Iran is in charge. Hamas is a proxy for Iran and, moreover, not well respected by the Iranians, but used by them. Iran has not had any external wars for 250 years; they had a war in Iraq in the 1980s, but no more than that. They never fought directly, they always had arms in their war for hegemony in the Middle East. That is what Iran wants and it uses Hamas against Israel, which is its number one enemy, in parallel with the United States. The Iranians saw the Abraham Accords moving forward. I can tell you, as someone who had a small role in it, that there are a number of countries that are in line waiting to join these agreements, and Iranian intelligence knows that. And they know something that worries them even more: that Saudi Arabia and Israel were about to sign a normalisation agreement.

For them that is a coup de grâce, because Saudi Arabia guards the holy sites of Mecca and Medina, the holiest sites in Islam, and therefore has the authority not only economically but morally. The moment Saudi Arabia takes such a step, it opens the gateway of the Muslim and Arab world to Israel, it is like a green light. The Iranians knew this, so for them their big goal was to prevent this from happening. But it has backfired: next week I am going to Saudi Arabia, at the invitation of the Saudis, to talk precisely about the day after in Gaza and in the whole region. My impression is that Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries are already thinking about the next stage and that normalisation with Israel is part of the Saudi crown prince's Vision 2030. 

You have a special relationship with Pope Francis, whom you invited to visit Israel shortly after your election, and who has taken important steps towards fraternity and inter-religious dialogue. What role should the Catholic Church play as a mediator? 

I am not going to talk about the Vatican as such, but about Pope Francis. I define myself as a Bergoglian Jew: I share his values in relation to the world. He is probably the most impressive person I have met in my entire career, and I have interviewed many leaders; he is extraordinary. I think Pope Francis perhaps uses the fact that he is the pope and that he is at the head of 2 billion people, but he can actually bring people together in a very serious way because of his empathy. Unlike the United Nations or Borrell, who take one side, Pope Francis knows how to be empathetic: he received the 12 families of the hostages I brought him, mourned with them and, minutes later, met with the suffering Palestinian population of Gaza, not Hamas, who lost relatives in the Israeli retaliation against Hamas.

Only someone like Pope Francis, who has empathy for both sides, who really hurts every death on both sides, can contribute to dialogue and to bringing positions closer together, which for me is necessary. And I will add something else: Pope Francis understood one more issue and that is that the Arab world in the Gulf, and that is why he goes to Abu Dhabi a lot, is the only one that today can bring the positions of Palestinians and Israelis closer together. We have seen a failure since the Madrid Peace Conference and it is no coincidence. If Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the Emirates, Jordan and Morocco intervene, they can take the Palestinians and Israelis by the hand, pushed by the United States and perhaps the European Union, to reach some kind of agreement, which is very necessary and which I hope will happen in the next few years. 

What have Hamas and Palestinian radicals got to dominate the narrative and turn a vicious attack, with assassinations and kidnappings, into a wave of international sympathy, with mass mobilisations in many Western countries? What does Israel have to do to counter this narrative?

The fault lies partly with Israel, which never invested enough effort in the issue of public diplomacy, which is seen as a luxury. This is a mistake, because we live in an era where this is a weapon. I think we have to explain things and let everyone draw their own conclusions. What cannot be allowed is ignorance and stereotypes. As the British Prime Minister said, those who shout 'between the river and the sea', do not understand what they are saying: they are calling for the elimination of Israel. He called them 'useful idiots'. I think there is a lot of ignorance, a lot of stereotypes towards Jews. Right now we are experiencing the strongest wave of anti-Semitism since the Second World War and that is very dangerous for Europe and for the West, not only for Israel and the Jews.