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American Morning

Jeff Greenfield Analyzes Middle East Situation

Aired March 29, 2002 - 08:21   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: And we're back now at 21 minutes after the hour with my colleague, Jeff Greenfield, who was going to come on and talk about Billy Wilder and Dudley Moore. And instead I think we need to turn our attention to the Middle East.

You've heard some of the interviews we've had on today with Benjamin Netanyahu and Saeb Erakat. Give us the best broad view you can of what we're looking at here. Is this war?

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN ANALYST: We're looking at the possible descent of an already troubled region into something close to all out war. We're looking at the situation that reminds us again that when you have -- disagreements is hardly the right word -- when you have the kind of forces that have been at work by some measurements for 60 years, by some measurement for 2,000, the notion that the United States or any other force can come in and kind of try to paper over these differences with the hundredth diplomatic solution or peace plan or proposal is frankly an illusion.

And one of the things that's being blown up, I think, is our own sense that we somehow, because we're the world's superpower, can come in and figure out how to make peace in a region where the groundwork for peace isn't done.

I mean things change in this world when people fundamentally change their minds, at a deep level. When Sadat changes his mind that, OK, he has to live with Israel. When DeKlerk and Mandela say, or when DeKlerk says the whites can no longer rule South Africa.

But we're not in that situation now and I think it's very tough for Americans, we're such a pragmatic people, to believe that there's nothing that we can do, and I think that's where we're at.

ZAHN: If you could, cut through what both sides are telling us this morning. You have the Palestinians saying they believe Israel is trying to kill Yasser Arafat. You have the Israelis saying all we're trying to do is isolate him. The killing continues. Yet another suicide bombing this morning that left more than two dozen Israelis injured, one of them critically. And Palestinians saying hey, wait a minute, this all comes at the time when we were getting very close to a cease-fire.

GREENFIELD: Well, look, what you -- there were two statements that have been on our air and I assume others all morning that tell you almost everything you need to know. Sharon has declared Arafat to be an enemy and the Palestinian Authority has said that Sharon's statement is a declaration of war. Now, you know, if Israel's trying to kill Yasser Arafat, we're going to know that pretty soon, right?

ZAHN: Right.

GREENFIELD: OK. But the fundamental point for me is people have been proposing peace plans probably since the creation of the state of Israel, and that fundamentally you have a Palestinian Authority that still, on its maps, doesn't call Israel, Israel. And you've got an Israeli political situation where you have 200,000 settlers on the West Bank and Gaza who believe they are there by divine right and pretty much everyone knows that the ultimate peace plan is going to mean that those folks have to be removed by force if necessary.

ZAHN: Sure.

GREENFIELD: So how do you square that circle? And I keep coming back to this point, we may be in a situation where all you can do is to hope, based on, as far as I can tell, nothing realistic, that these folks do not want to see this descend downward into a situation that makes what's going on now look like a tea party. Because the prospect of massively more deaths in the Middle East is now, I think, very real. And I don't think there's a solution in that sense, in the sense that we've come to think of it.

ZAHN: We're going to try to take a break from that madness to allow you to reflect on -- and we'll take these pictures off there because it has nothing to do with what we're going to talk about -- Billy Wilder.

GREENFIELD: First.

ZAHN: Who just passed away.

GREENFIELD: When people say they ain't making movies like that anymore, Billy Wilder is what they're talking about. Brilliant dialogue, wonderfully complex situations. He could go as dark as "Double Indemnity," the classic murder for hire thriller, and as far as, as light as "Some Like It Hot."

But for my money, the movie he made that I'm most impressed with is not one of his hits. It's called "Ace In the Hole." It was made in 1951. And it's about what happens when a cynical malicious newspaper reporter gets a scoop on a man trapped in a cave and out in the desert. And it anticipates by decades the worst of our business, the exploitation of human suffering and misery for a great story and sensationalism. You can rent it. It's called "The Big Carnival" now. And I think for all the great movies Billy Wilder made, you know, "Some Like It Hot," "The Apartment" we've talked about, this movie, "Ace In the Hole" should be something required for every journalist so that he or she knows why so many people think we lack any sense of decency...

(CROSSTALK)

ZAHN: I'm going to rent it this weekend under a different name, right?

GREENFIELD: "Big Carnival."

ZAHN: "Big Carnival." All right.

GREENFIELD: It's a great movie.

ZAHN: Thanks, Jeff.

GREENFIELD: OK.

ZAHN: Appreciate your spending some time with us this morning.

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