Perry said the country is "going in the direction of decline, nearly a catastrophe" in almost every area -- economic, political, social and security. "If something doesn't happen here, we will continue to live by the sword, we will continue to wallow in the mud and we will continue to destroy ourselves," he said.
The four men said Israel should be prepared to initiate a peace process unilaterally rather than wait for the Palestinians to bring a halt to terrorism, which is Sharon's overriding prerequisite for negotiations.
Palestinians examine part of the concrete barrier separating the West Bank town of Abu Dis from East Jerusalem.
(Andrea Comas -- Reuters)
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"As of today, we are preoccupied with preventing terror," Gillon said. "Why? Because this is the condition for making political progress. And this is a mistake."
"You are wrong if you think that this is a mistake," interjected Shalom. "It is not a mistake. It is an excuse -- an excuse for doing nothing."
The group was particularly critical of Sharon's attempt to sideline Arafat and declare him "irrelevant" -- also a key tenet of President Bush's Middle East policy.
"It was the mother of all errors with regard to Arafat," said Shalom, who has worked as an international business consultant since leaving the government. "We cannot determine who will have the greatest influence over there. So let us look at the Palestinians' political map, and it is a fact that nothing can happen without Arafat."
Israel should "stop talking about a partner already and do what is good for us," said Perry, now a bank chairman and businessman. "What is good for us is to be able to protect ourselves in the most effective manner . . . to waste fewer troops on guarding hilltops and settlements and three goats and eight cowboys."
The former security chiefs said the Jewish settlements that have proliferated across the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are among the greatest obstacles to peace. "Sharon has often talked about the fact that we will be required to make painful compromises," Perry said, "and there are no painful compromises except for evacuating settlements."
Several of the chiefs also condemned the 400-mile fence and barrier complex Israel is erecting around the heart of the West Bank. Sharon has said the fence is needed to stop terrorists from infiltrating Israel. However, its path veers deep into the West Bank in several places.
"It creates hatred, it expropriates land and annexes hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to the state of Israel," Shalom said. "The result is that the fence achieves the exact opposite of what was intended."
Alluding to South Africa's former system of racial separation known as apartheid, he added: "The Palestinians are arguing, 'You wanted two states, and instead you are closing us up in a South African reality.' Therefore, the more we support the fence, they lose their dream and hope for an independent Palestinian state."
Ayalon, who is chairman of an irrigation systems company, said he considered much of Israeli policy in the Palestinian territories "immoral, some of it patently immoral."
"Terror is not thwarted with bombs or helicopters," said Shalom, who asked rhetorically: "Why does this increase terror? Because it is overt, because it carries an element of vindictiveness."
"The problem, as of today, is that the political agenda has become solely a security agenda," said Gillon, who has also served as an ambassador. "It only deals with the question of how to prevent the next terror attack, not the question of how it is at all possible to pull ourselves out of the mess that we are in today."
