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INSIGHT
Middle East Crisis Escalates
Aired April 2, 2002 - 17:00:00 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.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COLLEEN MCEDWARDS, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Ticket to ride. The Israeli prime minister suggests that Yasser Arafat can leave his besieged headquarters at a price.
ARIEL SHARON, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: It's going to be a one-way ticket. He will not be able to return.
MCEDWARDS: Arafat says he's not going anywhere. "Nor are the Palestinians," says his chief negotiator. Though both sides want the same thing.
SAEB ERAKAT, PALESTINIAN CHIEF NEGOTIATOR: As long as the sun will shine, Palestinians and Israelis need peace more than any people on this earth.
MCEDWARDS: Top officials take a hard line in a land where, proverbially speaking, the sun hasn't shone for some time.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(on camera): Hello and welcome to INSIGHT. I'm Colleen McEdwards sitting in for Jonathan Mann.
(WORLD HEADLINES)
Now to our INSIGHT program on the situation in the Middle East. Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has been trapped in his compound for five days now surrounded by Israeli troops. Prime Minister Sharon says the aim is isolate his old nemesis, though he's now offering a way out with a proviso.
CNN Jerusalem Bureau Chief Mike Hanna explains.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MIKE HANNA, CNN JERUSALEM BUREAU CHIEF (voice-over): Yasser Arafat remains pinned in a room in a compound in the West Bank city of Ramallah, and there have been several requests from international envoys that they be permitted to go through the Israeli military coordinates and speak to him. The response of the Israeli prime minister, unequivocal. "International representatives will only be access to Arafat to organize his departure from the region, and even then," says Ariel Sharon, "Arafat will only be allowed to leave on three conditions."
SHARON: One, I have first to bring it to the cabinet. It should be approved. Second, he cannot take anyone with him, because there are wanted murderers around him there. And the third thing is going to be a one-way ticket.
HANNA: The cabinet is still to discuss the issue. And Foreign Minister Shimon Peres has indicated that he's unlikely to back the proposal to exile Arafat.
SHIMON PERES, ISRAELI FOREIGN MINISTER: I don't think the cabinet has dealt with this issue. And if you ask me, it's a highly academic issue. I do not see Arafat agreeing to leave, I do not see us imposing upon him to be expelled. So this is just a speculation in my judgment.
HANNA: Palestinian leaders say Arafat will resist any attempt to send him into exile, and have reacted with fury to Sharon's proposal.
HANAN ASHRAWI, PALESTINIAN LEGISLATOR: Arafat is a person who has been elected by his people as president of the PA. It's not up to Sharon either to imprison him, to hold him hostage, to terrorize him, to try to humiliate him or to try to send him into exile.
HANNA: Israel has produced documents it says were found in Arafat's Ramallah compound that it alleges implicates the Palestinian Authority and terror activities. Displayed, the copy of a letter from members of the extremist Al Aqsa Brigades asking Fuad Shubaki for money to prepare bombs. Shubaki is described as the chief procurement and finance officer of the Palestinian Authority and a close adviser of Arafat.
Ringed by Israeli forces, neither Arafat nor Shubaki can be reached for comment. But Palestinian cabinet member Saeb Erakat vehemently denies the accusation. Earlier he had outlined to CNN's Christiane Amanpour the Palestinian Authority's position on suicide attacks.
ERAKAT: We condemn suicide bombing.
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Is this justified?
ERAKAT: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) father for four children. And it breaks my heart to see Israeli children killed, to see Palestinian children killed. Nothing justifies what goes on out there in terms of suicide bombings or in terms of Israelis killing Palestinians. We have an alternative. We do have an alternative.
Sharon, if he thinks that he can get us to capitulate, to sustain his occupation, to maintain his occupation, and if he continues to communicate with us with the bombs, with the bombardment, with the war crimes he's committing, that this will get an answer for him, this will not get an answer for him. The shortest way to peace and security for both is the resumption of a meaningful peace process that will lead to ending the Israeli occupation.
HANNA: But Israel clearly is no longer interested in Palestinian denials and condemnations. The military deployments continue. These, say Israel, are part of its war on terror.
(on camera): In Palestinian eyes, the military action is designed to crush the Palestinian Authority and to depose its leader, Yasser Arafat.
Mike Hanna, CNN, Jerusalem.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MCEDWARDS: And in Mike's report there we saw a clip from an interview with Chief Palestinian Negotiator Saeb Erakat. Here now is his full discussion with CNN's Christiane Amanpour, starting with assurances about Yasser Arafat's welfare.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ERAKAT: As a matter of fact, I was assured by the Americans, by the Europeans, by many others, that Mr. Sharon, Mr. Ben-Eliezer and the Chief of Staff (UNINTELLIGIBLE) have made a clear-cut commitment not to attack (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
AMANPOUR: They say that there are people holed up inside there who are on their suspect list, on their wanted list.
ERAKAT: Well, Christiane, last night was, in Ramallah, they burned my ministry and the minister of local government. All the planning and zoning and (UNINTELLIGIBLE) maps was burned. I'm sure that they will find the pretext that somebody was hiding there.
AMANPOUR: Palestinian officials get very angry when it's suggested to them that they need to arrest those who are wanted, those who are known to have committed terrorist or violent acts. Why are you so angry about that? Why can't you just arrest these people?
ERAKAT: It's not that we're angry because we don't want to arrest these people. We are angry because out there Sharon is destroying our communication centers or our command centers or our security headquarters. He's rounding up our security personnel. We don't -- I don't know if we have an authority anymore.
At the end of the day, either we are relevant and President Arafat is relevant and he's accountable, or Sharon says he's irrelevant. But he cannot hold him accountable.
AMANPOUR: Well, let's talk about that moment on Wednesday, when a lot of people were saying that progress was being made -- Americans were saying it, people in the region were saying it -- towards a cease-fire arrangement. And then many newspapers subsequently have said that it broke down because you, the Palestinians, insisted on a sentence (ph) linking cease-fire to a political track. Is that true?
ERAKAT: That's not true. I think President Arafat said it better than I, that he's willing to go to implement Tenet and a cease-fire unconditionally. And I was sitting with General Zinni on Wednesday. We had a very successful meeting. We said to him we are fully committed to the implementation of Tenet.
AMANPOUR: No wiggle room?
ERAKAT: We fully, 100 percent committed to the implementation of Tenet.
AMANPOUR: In its purest form?
ERAKAT: In the way it was written. In every thing and every obligation that is there for us.
AMANPOUR: Arrests...
ERAKAT: In all obligations. It's incitement, the arrests, the maintenance of the one authority, the no tolerance to the parallel authorities to us. The...
AMANPOUR: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) out weapons?
ERAKAT: ... (UNINTELLIGIBLE) -- collecting illegal weapons. All these obligations are there on Tenet, OK? At the same time, there are in Tenet, by the way, Israeli obligations like not conducting proactive -- what they call proactive attacks on our buildings and our city quarters and security quarters. Also, arresting Israelis who commit attacks or plan attacks against Palestinians. Stopping the incitement.
And I said to General Zinni, "On behalf of the Palestinian Authority, on behalf of President Arafat, sir, we are 100 percent committed to the implementation of Tenet with no additions, no omissions, no conditionality. And we hope that the other side will have the same commitment."
AMANPOUR: So just to be sure, you did not link implementation of Tenet to any concessions by the Israelis, any pledges to have political talks at that particular time?
ERAKAT: No. No. The whole thing -- Zinni said that he is coming to do Tenet, then Mitchell, then the political horizon. And he said "This is my mandate," and we agreed on this. That was agreed. It was no problem. It was never put this question of going from Tenet to Mitchell to -- it was never a problem in the negotiations.
AMANPOUR: There are many people who watch what's going on right now - - certainly many people in America and in the West -- who don't understand why Palestinian leaders, Arab leaders, have never been able to come out and just condemn suicide bombing.
ERAKAT: We condemn suicide bombing.
AMANPOUR: Is it justified?
ERAKAT: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) father of four children, and it breaks my heart to see Israeli children killed, to see Palestinian children get killed. Nothing justifies what goes on out there in terms of suicide bombings or in terms of Israelis killing Palestinians.
AMANPOUR: What is the shortest way out of what appears to see the deepest abyss that this region has seen in 50 years?
ERAKAT: I think the shortest way out is to have a sense of direction. And I will address myself to President Bush and to the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) members of the Security Council who passed resolution 1402 just two days ago. This resolution has all the ingredients that I require to de-escalate and to de-conflict. One, the element of a cease-fire, the Israeli withdrawal, the implementation of Tenet and Mitchell and a political resumption of negotiations.
And this resolution mentions Zinni's name. And I would say to President Bush, there are three American names that are mentioned in the Security Council resolution: General Zinni, George Tenet and George Mitchell. We need to see some action by President Bush. We need to see some sense of direction.
When President Bush says that the Sharon - what Sharon is doing on the ground, which in my opinion is dead terror and war crimes (UNINTELLIGIBLE). President Bush, you are wrong. There are 3.3 million Palestinians caged like animals in their villages, towns, refugee camps. Their home is taken up from them. Their life is being destroyed.
And, Christiane, I'm not scaring anyone. But I'm telling you, if this continues, we have yet to see the worst yet. We have not seen the worst yet. Palestinians and Israelis need help, and the international community must step up its intervention. And President Bush has the responsibility to take command, to show some sense of direction by beginning the implementation of resolution 1402.
AMANPOUR: President Bush and the administration appear to equate what's happening here with the war on terrorism. They're very clear when they talk about the Palestinian responsibility to curb the terrorism. As he says, to "reign in the violence." Do you -- do you buy that comparison?
ERAKAT: I don't buy this comparison, and I don't think -- first of all, I don't think the Americans are out there in Afghanistan destroying a nation. As a matter of fact, I see the Americans are rebuilding a nation in Afghanistan, building schools, sending girls back to school. Putting water pipes, electricity and so on.
What the Israelis are doing here is destroying a nation, destroying the infrastructure and rebuilding with American money, by the way. They build the water supplies, the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) supplies, the road supplies. Many with European, Japanese and American money and other donors. That's what Sharon is doing now. He's destroying it all.
And I don't think that President Bush does realize -- and he should realize -- that Palestinians will not live under occupation for the rest of their lives. I was 12 years old when the occupation came to my home town in Jericho. Now my daughters -- my twin daughters -- are 20 years old, born and raised under occupation. I need to show them some hope that one day they will live as normally as President Bush's daughters, free.
AMANPOUR: Are there still moderates on the Palestinian side? In other words, is there still any hope that there are moderates on each side that can reach out to each other?
ERAKAT: There will always be moderates. And I'm a person who lived all his life believing that all we need is a political solution; that a Palestinian state must exist next to the state of Israel. And there are moderates in Israel. And at the end of the game, we will prevail. I know that.
AMANPOUR: You said that you believe in a political solution for your future, but there are many who watch the suicide bombings and who've concluded now that the Palestinians believe that the only way to statehood is through blood, through death, through martyrdom, as they call it -- a violent cycle to victory.
ERAKAT: I'm not saying that the moderate Palestinian camp is not shattered. I'm not saying that we're not weakened. I'm not saying that hope is evaporating from Palestinians' minds. When they see Sharon in one year adding 34 new settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, when they see the confiscation of land, when they see Sharon's (UNINTELLIGIBLE) sustain and maintain and deepen the occupation, people like me and Palestinian moderate camp is really shattered.
But as long as the sun will shine, Palestinians and Israelis need peace more than any people on this earth. And the only way at the end of the game is a meaningful peace process that would lead to ending the Israeli occupation, to establish a Palestinian state next to the state of Israel. If we don't do it this year, it will be done the year after. It we don't do it the year after, maybe in 10 years time.
But the question to those out there, the Sharons and his like, how many lives of Palestinians and Israelis will it take to convince you that there is no (UNINTELLIGIBLE) solution to this problem?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TERJE ROED-LARSEN, U.N. MIDDLE EAST ENVOY: With the lack of confidence between the parties here, I think it's impossible to get out of the impasse without some sort of third party mechanism. And in this respect, the U.S., the United Nations, the secretary general's representative, myself, the Russian envoy and the European envoy are working very closely and in full coordination on the ground in order to make that happen.
But right now it's difficult -- maybe impossible -- to break this impasse as long as the violence is continuing and the military operations are ongoing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MCEDWARDS: There are so many third parties in the region right now, that Israeli and Palestinian officials could be forgiven for feeling a little bit outnumbered. The envoys all want the same thing, but as we just heard from the U.N. representative, there's not much they can do while the violence goes on.
The Mayor of Jerusalem, Ehud Olmert, has seen that violence in his own city and he joins us now.
Mayor Olmert, how is it for you in Jerusalem for you these days day by day? What's it like?
EHUD OLMERT, JERUSALEM MAYOR: It's very difficult. It's been very difficult in the last 16 months, particularly in the last few weeks with almost daily suicidal attacks in different parts of the city aiming at just regular citizens of the city, not soldiers. Just regular citizens sitting in a coffee shop or a restaurant or riding a bus or walking in the street or going to a store.
And so many of those people were killed, torn apart into pieces. It's been very difficult for me coming to pick up sometimes from the floor parts of bodies of citizens of my city. And perhaps the most the difficult part of it was when people asked me time and again, "What are you doing? Why do you believe the promises of Yasser Arafat, who said he would stop it? Time and again he promised it to the president, to the secretary of state, to General Zinni. Never kept a word. You must do something."
MCEDWARDS: Is it fair...
OLMERT: But what Israel is doing now really is just -- yes go ahead.
MCEDWARDS: Is it fair, Mr. Mayor, to blame the suicide bombings on Arafat?
OLMERT: Absolutely. I think you heard it from the president himself many times, Colleen. He said, "Arafat is the one who can stop it. He must order his people. He must take measures that he can." He has the authority, he has the power and he should do it.
MCEDWARDS: Well, what do you...
OLMERT: He never tried to do it.
MCEDWARDS: What do you think...
OLMERT: You have General Zinni here sitting maybe 50 meters in the same place where I am now, and you ask him. He didn't report to the president anything else. He said that Yasser Arafat is not doing anything in order to stop it.
MCEDWARDS: Well what do you think motivates the suicide bombings? As you see this happening around you and you stand back and you look, what do you think drives it on?
OLMERT: You know, Colleen, if you will look at the Palestinian textbooks in their schools, if you will hear their television and their reports in the papers, and you will see the incitement, the anti-Semitic cartoons, the equations to a Hitler and the Nazis being done every single day. When Ariel Sharon, the Prime Minister, the elected -- democratically elected prime minister of the only democracy in the Middle East is compared to Hitler every day, you can understand how this hatred and viciousness is injected into the hearts of people.
This, together with religious extremism and fundamentalism, is building up this hatred, which ultimately results in the suicidal attacks by many Palestinians.
MCEDWARDS: Mayor...
OLMERT: We heard Yasser Arafat himself...
MCEDWARDS: Mayor Olmert...
OLMERT: He said just the other day that he invites a million shahids (ph) -- a million suicidal attackers -- to go to Jerusalem and destroy Jerusalem.
MCEDWARDS: Mayor Olmert, I want to interrupt you here, because the Palestinians say that it is linked to Israeli occupation, that it's linked to the military action. And I'm wondering if you think that the military action by the Israeli government is helping here? Because it does appear from the outside like it could be egging it on.
OLMERT: Well listen, Colleen, just -- you know we can take this argument back into any point in time. We could start it at Camp David. There was a conference sponsored by the American president aimed at bringing peace. The Israeli prime minister then proposed more generous offers that by now would have settled the conflict between us and them and would have established a Palestinian state alongside Israel with 98 percent of the Palestinian demands fulfilled.
They rejected it. And let's not go as far as a year and a half ago, let's just go three weeks ago. General Zinni came to the area. He demanded from the prime minister of Israel that he will give up his demand for seven days of cease-fire before negotiations start. The prime minister of Israel agreed. At a cost of a break down in his coalition government and a serious conflict within his own (UNINTELLIGIBLE), he accepted it. He pulled out all the Israeli forces from Palestinian cities, and we said to General Zinni, "Go ahead and we will cooperate in fulfilling the Tenet and the Mitchell agreements."
Now you ask General Zinni, not Israel, the American (UNINTELLIGIBLE) who came here on behalf of the president. He never reported that Arafat made one single effort to stop the violence. We didn't volunteer to go to the Arab cities. I will remind you that we went to the Arab cities only after 22 Israelis sitting for a Passover ceremony -- a most important religious ceremony last Wednesday evening -- they were massacred in a city in Netanya in the middle of a religious ceremony. And since then there wasn't one day without suicidal attacks.
MCEDWARDS: Well speaking...
OLMERT: Now what do you expect the Israeli people to do?
MCEDWARDS: Mayor Olmert, we heard Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat express his frustration, saying that the Israeli military undermines the Palestinian Authority and then at the same time expects it to be able to reign in the militants. I'd like to hear your response to that.
OLMERT: To be very honest with you, we waited and waited and waited. President Bush waited, Secretary Powell waited, General Zinni waited, six million Israelis waited to no avail. So at some point we had to take a certain initiative to stop it. When Arafat didn't show the Israelis to do it, when every day we suffered more and more casualties and victims in the streets of our cities, we had to do something.
We didn't volunteer to do it. But I -- look, you know, your country, the United States of America is now in Afghanistan. One can ask a question, what does America have to do in Afghanistan? Is Afghanistan part of the United States? No. But you had to go to Afghanistan in order to stop terrorist actions against your citizens.
We have to do it not 10,000 miles away from our homes, but only a few hundred meters from our homes, to stop the suicidal attacks against Israelis, when the Palestinians are not doing it.
MCEDWARDS: Mayor...
OLMERT: It's very nice for Saeb Erakat to sit in the studio and to condemn the violence against Israeli citizens. But...
MCEDWARDS: All right. Mayor Olmert, I'm sorry, we're out of time, but we got your point. Thank you very much for joining us.
And that is all the time we have on INSIGHT. I'm Colleen McEdwards. Much more just ahead.
END
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