Uri Savir

Uri Savir is presented as the Director-General of the Israeli Foreign Ministry and as a negotiator whose authority changes shape as the Oslo Channel develops. He first enters the talks as the personal representative of Shimon Peres; later, he helps make the offer that the secret channel become the official channel, on behalf of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and the State of Israel. That shift gives Savir a central place in the drama’s account of how private contact might acquire governmental authority without ceasing to be a negotiation between people with opposing claims.

Identity and Position

The cast list identifies Savir as Director-General of the Foreign Ministry. The title locates him within Israel’s diplomatic apparatus, distinguishing him from the earlier, less formal network of participants who make the secret talks possible. The play does not treat his institutional position as a simple guarantee that the parties can reach agreement: his official standing gives him a voice in the room, but it does not dissolve the conflicts over territory, security, or recognition.

Savir’s authority is also shown through whom he represents. At one point he tells Ahmed Qurie and Hassan Asfour, “I am here at the personal request and as the voice of Shimon Peres.” Qurie answers in corresponding terms, saying that he is there at the personal request and as the voice of Yasser Arafat. The exchange makes the room a meeting of delegated voices, not merely a private conversation between individuals. Each negotiator carries a political principal into a setting where the principals themselves are absent.

Entry into the Secret Channel

The Oslo Channel is described as a clandestine diplomatic back channel that helped make the Accords possible. Its method contrasts with formal pronouncements between governments: the proposed second channel is to consist of intimate discussions between people, held in an isolated place where Israeli representatives and the Palestine Liberation Organization can meet alone. Savir is shown participating in this parallel process through an exchange staged as a remote conversation with Terje Rød-Larsen. The arrangement places him within a channel whose privacy is part of its design, while also emphasizing that its participants must communicate across distance and political boundaries.

The distinction between secret contact and official diplomacy matters to Savir’s trajectory. His later offer to move the back channel into the official one is not simply an administrative change. It proposes to transform the status of the negotiations: a process conducted out of public view would become the recognized channel for discussion. In the scene, Savir speaks on behalf of Yitzhak Rabin and the State of Israel, bringing a formal mandate to a process whose importance had grown through confidential talks.

Negotiating Positions and Limits

Savir’s negotiations with Qurie expose the distance between acknowledging that subjects can be discussed and accepting the other side’s terms. When he reviews the Declaration of Principles (DOP), Savir says that much of it is open for discussion but insists that Qurie first remove demands Savir considers impossible. Qurie rejects that characterization, calling the demands eminently possible. The disagreement is not resolved by the fact that both men are willing to talk; they disagree over which proposals can legitimately enter the negotiation.

Jerusalem is the clearest stated limit in this exchange. Savir declares that Israel will not negotiate over the city’s sovereignty, either in the room or in any document. The breadth of that refusal matters: he does not present it as a question that can be deferred to the wording of the draft. Yet the talks continue into concrete territorial proposals. Savir says, “Now, we are willing to relinquish control of Gaza—”; Qurie responds that the Palestinian side will accept this only if Israel relinquishes control of Jericho at the same time. The exchange turns a broad proposal into a conditional trade. Savir’s willingness to discuss relinquishing control of Gaza therefore coexists with a firm boundary on Jerusalem, while Qurie’s answer makes clear that a concession on one territory is linked to another.

From Representation to an Official Offer

The change in Savir’s representative role becomes especially visible when he makes the offer to formalize the channel. After Savir tells Joel Singer in Hebrew that the Palestinians have given enough for now and instructs him to make the offer, Singer closes his folder and addresses Qurie and Asfour. He thanks them for their clear and direct answers and, on behalf of Yitzhak Rabin and the State of Israel, proposes that the back channel become the official channel. Silence follows. Qurie’s immediate question—what will happen to the Washington-sponsored talks?—shows that formal recognition does not erase the other diplomatic process or settle how the new arrangement will relate to it.

The offer marks a consequential change in the channel’s standing, but the scene does not portray it as a completed settlement. It is an invitation that must be answered, made after difficult exchanges over the text and the terms of territorial control. Savir’s progression from carrying Peres’s personal voice to participating in an offer authorized in Rabin’s name gives the transition a political dimension: the confidential process is no longer merely an alternative way to talk, but a possible official route.

Dramatic Function

Savir’s scenes make the negotiation’s changing levels of authority visible. He can speak personally for Peres, state a categorical boundary over Jerusalem, discuss relinquishing control of Gaza, and take part in extending an official offer. These actions do not amount to a simple conversion from resistance to agreement. Instead, the play places conditional movement beside explicit limits, and shows that each statement of openness is tested against what the other side needs in return.

His role also clarifies the drama’s distinction between having a channel and reaching a mutually acceptable result. The private setting allows the parties to speak directly, but the dialogue remains shaped by representation, demands, and constraints. Savir’s final significance lies in standing at the threshold between those forms of diplomacy: he is both an official empowered to speak for Israeli leaders and a participant in a secret process being asked to become official. The proposed transition raises the stakes of the talks without making their disagreements disappear.