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CNN Live Today

Interview With Dalia Rabin-Pelosoff

Aired April 04, 2002 - 14:06   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.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: We want to go now to Jerusalem, where our Christiane Amanpour is standing by live. Still no indication, Christiane, about any movement from the Israeli military occupation?

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Fredricka, the government spokesman here said that they would have to study President Bush's discussion earlier this evening and then issue a statement. But joining us now from Tel Aviv is Dalia Rabin-Pelosoff. She is Israel's deputy defense minister.

Ms. Rabin, thank you for joining us from Tel Aviv. Can you tell me, the president of the United States has just called for a halt to all Israeli military incursions and the beginning of a withdrawal from all Palestinian territories that it has taken over in the last week. Will that happen?

DALIA RABIN-PELOSOFF, ISRAELI DEP. DEFENSE MIN: Of course this will happen, when we see change in the attitude of the other side. Unfortunately, for the last year and a half -- and let's focus on the last two weeks. We have General Zinni here as a special messenger of the president of the United States with a suggestion, with the Tenet Plan, that the Palestinians, once and again, refused to accept. They said a total no and escalated violence, while we were restraining our forces, while we were seizing our fire, while we were accepting the American offer

(CROSSTALK)

AMANPOUR: Ms. Rabin, you appear to be putting some conditionality into what President Bush asked. He did not make any conditions in his speech. He asked for a halt to the incursions and a beginning of the withdrawal. Can you tell me, are you going to do that? When?

RABIN-PELOSOFF: He was also -- the president of the United States was also saying that he's sending his secretary of state to the Middle East. And we welcome the mission of Mr. Colin Powell. We will cooperate with him.

But our withdrawal won't be automatic, and won't be without any kind of agreement. We have a very bitter experience with one-sided withdrawal from southern Lebanon. And if you are talking about us being a conqueror, then withdrawing without an agreement doesn't bring, necessarily, peace to the region.

AMANPOUR: So, Ms. Rabin, you are saying that the Israeli government will not start any kind of withdrawal until Colin Powell comes here and reaches some kind of agreement. Is that what you're saying?

RABIN-PELOSOFF: We've just met with General Zinni at the Ministry of Defense. And we understand that he's going to see the Chairman Arafat tomorrow morning. We hope that he's going to come back with some kind of an answer from the chairman, and we'll have to consider our next move according to that.

AMANPOUR: So it's possible that comes out...

(CROSSTALK)

RABIN-PELOSOFF: Pardon?

AMANPOUR: It's possible that what comes out of the meeting between Zinni and Arafat tomorrow could prompt you to start the withdrawal -- is that correct? Am I reading you correctly?

RABIN-PELOSOFF: I'm not saying that we commit to start our withdrawal. This will depend on the other side's true intentions in starting to act against terror. And now the situation is very, very complicated. And we have to realize that the other side is starting to do actual things in the field.

The Israeli people's lives cannot be unsecured. We have to supply security to the people of Israel. And unless we have some kind of faith that the other side is starting to fight terror, we won't be able to start our withdrawal.

AMANPOUR: Earlier this week, your boss, the defense minister, said to us that he would need about a week -- that's about now -- to assess the success and the effectiveness of this military operation. You had a special security cabinet meeting last night. Can you tell us how you assess the success of this operation, and whether you think you can begin withdrawing?

RABIN-PELOSOFF: First of all, we found a lot of ammunition in the places that we entered. There were some very important arrests. And this thing with Jabril (ph) headquarters was successful. The people went out of the headquarters without fighting. Most of the places we entered and there was no fighting back. And so far, thank god, in spite of their threats, there was no -- there was no attack today in Israel on Israeli civilians.

AMANPOUR: So are you saying that your operation is successful?

RABIN-PELOSOFF: So far, the assessment is that the operation is successful and is going smoothly, relatively, in spite of us having some casualties. Only today we lost four of our soldiers, unfortunately.

AMANPOUR: It was reported in today's Israeli press that a senior intelligence, or rather, security official who was at your meeting, said that you, the Israeli government, realized that you only had a "couple of days," that was his quote, to finish this operation before pressure from the United States to pull out.

RABIN-PELOSOFF: There are some assessments about the time limits. And so far, we are acting, we are working in the territories, hopefully to achieve as much as possibility.

AMANPOUR: Can you tell me right now the strategy? I know the public strategy to root out infrastructure, to root out terrorism. But are you trying to smash, essentially, the Palestinian security apparatus, in order for you to sort of start again? Is that what you're trying to do?

RABIN-PELOSOFF: This was set as the achievement in this operation. The goal of this operation was to fight the terror infrastructure and try to arrest as much terrorists as possible. We don't want to eliminate the Palestinian Authority, because we still think that we would like to negotiate with it peace. And we hope that these days will come soon.

AMANPOUR: Again, I just want to ask you, finally, the president of the United States, who's loudly defended Israel's right to retaliate, has tonight called on Israel to halt the incursions -- that's very specific, and start withdrawing. That's also specific. It wasn't conditional on anything.

Can you give us any indication of when you will start to do that?

RABIN-PELOSOFF: I cannot give you an indication right now because the speech of the president of the United States is being dealt with right now. The official response of the prime minister's office was that we go on with the operation until we get some kind of an answer from the other side.

So far, because the other side refused to take care of terror, was active. Arafat himself was supporting the Tanzim, sending them to send suicidal bombers into Israel. He himself was signing the check, paying the money to the terrorists. Until he himself says, in his voice, that he is ready to say that Israel has the right to exist as a Jewish state, we cannot give up and we cannot withdraw our forces yet.

AMANPOUR: So, earlier this week Prime Minister Sharon denied a direct request from the United States to have Anthony Zinni meet with Yasser Arafat. Are you saying that again, the prime minister is going to deny a direct request from the United States to halt its incursions and begin withdrawing?

RABIN-PELOSOFF: I don't think Ariel Sharon so far -- he met with General Zinni this afternoon, and General Zinni is going to meet with Arafat. And I'm sure that Ariel Sharon will come to terms with the American president and they will discuss it between them. And they will come to some kind of an agreement.

AMANPOUR: On that note, thank you for joining us from Tel Aviv. Ms. Dalia Rabin-Pelosoff, the deputy defense minister of Israel. Back to you in Atlanta.

WHITFIELD: All right, thanks very much. Christiane Amanpour from Jerusalem.

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