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CNN Live Saturday

Can Powell Achieve Peace?

Aired April 13, 2002 - 12:49   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.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back to our special coverage of the crisis in the Middle East. Jeff Greenfield, our senior analyst, is standing by. He's in New York with some thoughts on what's happening in the Middle East.

Jeff, first of all, are you at all hopeful that the secretary of state can achieve anything, even after this meeting goes forward tomorrow with Yasser Arafat?

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. ANALYST: No, and I think one of the reasons lies in the fact that we have all been so breathlessly trying to deconstruct this latest statement from the Palestinian Authority. This had a familiar sound, as Michael Holmes and many other people have said to you -- as you, yourself, have said, Wolf.

So let me read something Yasser Arafat said. This is a quote: "As for terrorism, I renounced it yesterday in no uncertain terms, and I repeat for the record we totally and absolutely renounce all forms of terrorism, including individual, group and state terrorism." If this were a quiz show, I'd ask you what year he said that. It was December of 1988, in Geneva, and those were the magic words worked out with then-Secretary of State George Shulz and some Swedish intermediaries that enabled the United States then to go forward and begin negotiations with the PLO.

Now, that's almost -- you know, that's 13 1/2 years ago, and the words seem almost the same. And you begin to wonder whether it's a kind almost of delusion to think that if the words are gotten out in the right order with the right incantation it creates a new reality. That's why I'm not very hopeful.

BLITZER: I have to tell you, I'm not very hopeful either, Jeff. And in part because of the passions, the anger on both sides. The Israelis so angry because of these suicide bombings, whether at a Passover seder or in a marketplace or a restaurant, and the Palestinians so angry because of what they say are Israeli atrocities being committed on the West Bank.

It seems that both sides have gone back to a feeling of hatred that I, having covered this part of the world for many, many years, I don't remember the depth of anger being as deep as it is right now. Give us your historic perspective.

GREENFIELD: Well, let's take history back seven months, because one of the interesting things after September 11, we had a lot of Israelis that we were talking to to try to find out what it was like to live in a state of siege. And as you say, you, yourself, know what that is like.

And back then, they were telling us, I'm sure they were telling you, well, you know, now you understand some of what we have been going through and you just get on with it, and you lead your life, and you go to the market and you go out and you don't let terrorism constrict you.

Well, now it's about six or seven months later, and in the wake of these latest suicide bombings, and you can report this, I'm giving this to you from what I've been told, that it has had the impact that terrorism is supposed to have, it has chilled the life of Israel.

And as you point out, the great irony of this to me is that Arafat's actions clearly have strengthened Sharon, and Sharon's actions have clearly strengthened Arafat, and we seem to be in a kind of regression back as though Oslo never happened -- I don't know how far back you have to go to find the historical analogy to where not only where the deaths and the injuries and the destruction has been at this level but the psychological feeling that there is no way out.

So...

BLITZER: You know, normally, on that point -- I was going to say, Jeff, normally on that point, you know, how divisive the Israeli body politic normally is, but even those Israelis -- and I spent time with them, who are very critical of Sharon under normal circumstances -- are now defending him saying Israelis have no alternative, and even Palestinians seem to be rallying around Yasser Arafat more than probably ever before. So you're absolutely right about how both sides have strengthened the other, which is going to make the situation even more complicated.

GREENFIELD: And, if you want to talk politics, you come back here to the United States and you find that this is -- this is not at a level of death and destruction and horror that is being visited upon the Israelis that is taking place in parts of the West Bank.

But just consider this for a moment. One of the things we knew about President George W. Bush when he came into office was that the last thing in the world he wanted to do was alienate the conservative base, because he had seen what happened to his father when his father broke the taxes pledge. One of the things that conservatives had been most insistent about is that you don't have any truck with terrorism. They were very critical of the Clinton administration for not doing enough. After September 11, they looked back on Clinton's time and said he didn't understand what he was dealing with.

So now, having entered the thicket of Middle East politics, it seems to some conservatives and they have been beginning to say this, that the president and his administration is kind of trying to cut some corners around their post-September 11 statement that we will have no truck with terrorism. So, it's almost -- you know, if you had a streak of black humor, you'd almost see some humor in this horrible situation where the president himself may well be under more political pressure than at any time in the last seven months because of his effort to answer critics who said, "you've got to do something in the Middle East," and trying to square the circle of no truck with terrorism, but we have to deal with Arafat -- I think it's producing probably the biggest headache for the Bush administration that it has had since they came into office -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Jeff Greenfield, our senior analyst, thanks as usual for your perspective.

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