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CNN Live Today

Interview With Chemi Shalev

Aired April 11, 2002 - 14:48   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.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Want to continue our discussion right now. Listening along with us with King Abdullah there, Chemi Shalev, a political analyst who's joining us live here in Jerusalem for more reaction to what we just heard from the king. And also, clearly, you know this region just about as well as anybody.

If you listen to King Abdullah, he says you need to get to a basis, essentially, a framework. When people talk about peace here starting again, they talk about meaningful cease-fire. I think that's what he was referring to.

A meaningful cease-fire is defined by most: stop the violence, stop the military activity, exclude all of the distractions, in order for people to sit down and talk with rationale and with logic. How far tonight, is this region away from that point?

CHEMI SHALEV, ISRAELI POLITICAL COLUMNIST: I think we're very, very far, because when you get down to details, with both sides you see that they're not really talking about the same things. The Israelis are saying one thing, the Palestinians are saying another.

Palestinians are not willing right now to have a cease-fire which does not have included in it some meaningful political process. The Israelis, on the other hand, Prime Minister Sharon, is not willing to start any meaningful political process until there is total quiet on the Palestinian side.

And it's also a question, in Israelis' minds and, I think in Powell's mind, whether Prime Minister Sharon is still willing to talk to Yasser Arafat at all. And there's no answer to that. I mean, the Arab leaders, King Abdullah, expect him to talk to Arafat, but I'm not sure he's willing to do that anymore.

HEMMER: You talk like a lot of people talk, when they say there does not appear to be a will on either side. Is that what you measure?

SHALEV: I don't think there is a will right now on the Palestinian side to affect a cease-fire without political concessions. I don't think there's a will on the Israeli side to give any political concessions before there is a total cease-fire. And that's the logjam that Secretary Powell will have to try to break.

HEMMER: And explain to me the logic that you gauge here in the region, when King Abdullah of Jordan sits there with Christiane Amanpour and says the root of the problem is how do we explain how a 16-year-old girl makes the decision to blow herself up, essentially, as a suicide bomber?

He says Israel looks at it as a security issue. The Palestinians look at it as a humanitarian issue, a civil rights issue. When people focus on the region, how are they able to bridge some sort of gap between those differences of opinion?

SHALEV: It's very difficult. There is a great psychological gap between Israelis and Palestinians on this very issue. Palestinians view terrorism as their means of resistance, the weak against the strong. The Israelis view terrorism not as a mean of some political manifestation, but rather as something that should be completely written off and should not be a part of the dialogue.

Israelis don't think that Palestinians are engaging in terrorism because of their situation under occupation, but rather because they're under a leadership which is encouraging them to engage in terrorism. And from Israel's point of view, as long as the Palestinians engage in terrorism, there is no willingness on the Israeli side to try to remedy the political situation.

HEMMER: No one has painted an optimistic picture for me in two weeks here. Do you see one?

SHALEV: That depends very much on the secretary. Since everybody here doesn't really know what the secretary is carrying with him, then it is very difficult to be optimistic. Based on everything that we've known until now, even when there have been little buds of optimism, they usually get stamped out by an act of terrorism on the one hand, or Israeli military activity on the other.

HEMMER: What do you think that military incursion has done to this process right now? The Israelis will tell you they've helped snuff out terrorists, essentially. The Palestinians will say you have just created more rage in us. From your position, how do you wage it?

SHALEV: I think the most significant thing, if we leave aside the military aspects, is the fact of Israeli's international position, which has been changed for the worst dramatically, and especially its critical relationship with the United States, with Washington.

We have here a serious confrontation between the two countries. And I think that when we look back at the operation from Israel's point of view, from the diplomatic point of view, that will probably be the most important thing.

HEMMER: Chemi Shalev, we'll talk again. A political analyst here in Jerusalem, thank you for your thoughts. We'll have more throughout the evening here in Jerusalem.

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