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CNN Live Saturday

Interviews With Josh Hammer, Francine Kiefer

Aired April 13, 2002 - 12:17   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. I'm Wolf Blitzer reporting live from Jerusalem. The headline this hour, Secretary of State Colin Powell, after postponing a meeting with Yasser Arafat, will now go ahead and meet with the Palestinian leader tomorrow, Sunday in Ramallah on the West Bank.

Joining me now for some perspective on this and other developments in the Middle East crisis, Francine Kiefer. She joins us from her Washington bureau. She's a reporter with the "Christian Science Monitor" and here in Jerusalem Josh Hammer. He's the Jerusalem Bureau Chief for "Newsweek" magazine. Josh, Francine, thanks to both of you for joining us. First of all, Josh do you -- what do you make of this Palestinian statement that apparently -- that has obviously satisfied or at least enough of a satisfaction to justify Powell going ahead with the meeting in Ramallah tomorrow?

JOSH HAMMER, "NEWSWEEK": Well, I don't think it's that difficult for Yasser Arafat or unexpected for Yasser Arafat and Palestinian Authority to get up and say that they condemn suicide bombings against civilians. It's been done before.

I think the general reaction has been one of skepticism. It's been widely seen as a ploy to get a meeting with Powell, to begin some sort of dialogue in the hope that maybe there can be an initiation of a political process again. But I don't think anybody really expected Yasser Arafat standing up at this point and saying suicide bombings are wrong is going to stop the wave of terrorist attacks that we've been seeing and especially after Sharon's military incursion.

BLITZER: Francine back in Washington, what do you believe is the most that the secretary of state can elicit, can gain from Yasser Arafat during that meeting tomorrow?

FRANCINE KIEFER, "CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR": I think what the secretary of state is looking for tomorrow is for Yasser Arafat to put some deeds behind his words. We've had the condemnation now and he wants some assurances that this won't just be empty promises the way it has been every single time before.

BLITZER: Well, what kind of assurances can he get other than more words?

KIEFER: Right. Well that's exactly the question, Wolf. He is going to be looking to Yasser Arafat to put some muscle behind those words. And I think he's also going to be talking to Arafat about what the prospects look like for moving up the political talks very quickly so that we can talk about security issues and political issues moving toward a Palestinian state at the same time.

BLITZER: Let me bring back Josh Hammer, the "Newsweek" bureau chief here in Jerusalem. Given what's happened over these past few weeks, the passions, you've just come back from Jenin, the refugee camp on the West Bank. Are there specific deeds that Arafat can take right now, arresting terrorists for example that might satisfy the U.S.?

HAMMER: I just don't see how Arafat has the power at this point to arrest terrorists. There's no more Palestinian authority. There are no more jails. There's no more police. Policemen have been killed. Security forces have been destroyed. The jails have been destroyed. How is Arafat supposed to go out and arrest these terrorists?

BLITZER: So what deeds can Secretary Powell realistically hope to achieve?

HAMMER: Frankly, I don't think there's anything that Arafat can do other than at this point issue some sort of more -- perhaps more forthright statement directly to his Al Aqsa martyr brigades, which are nominally under Arafat's authority, to try to get some sort of agreement. Also bringing in Hamas, which from time to time does obey Arafat to just stop the violence for a little while. But beyond that -- really beyond the power of his words, there's nothing he can do.

BLITZER: Francine, if Arafat were, this is obviously a big if, if he were to make a public declaration saying to the Al Aqsa brigades, which is affiliated with his own Fatah movement, to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Hamas, don't support, don't undertake any more of these suicide bombings. Would that stop the suicide bombings?

KIEFER: I'm not sure that it would because there's so many different motives for the suicide bombings. Sometimes the motive is in direct response to what the Israelis are doing such as right now. Sometimes the motive is to stop the peace process from going forward and sometimes the motive is simply you know Israeli annihilation. So there are lots of different motives going on here and I think most analysts think that the suicide bombings actually will continue.

BLITZER: Josh, you're just back from Jenin. You didn't get into the refugee camp but you got pretty close to the refugee camp. There's been Palestinian allegations of an Israeli massacre inside that camp. What do you know firsthand?

HAMMER: Well, again, I was denied access. I made a few attempts to get in and every time tanks stop us or there's -- and once we got actually 100 yards close to the camp you could just see there was a ring of soldiers and tanks around it so we couldn't actually get in.

Yes, you are hearing these allegations of a (UNINTELLIGIBLE) type massacre. I don't believe it's true. Photographers I know who have made it into the camp have said that actually the streets are fairly clean of bodies. They see a burned corpse here or there. They don't smell very much. They see a lot of destruction but that feeling of post massacre that one has seen in other places, like (UNINTELLIGIBLE) or Rwanda, is just not there.

So I don't think the evidence, well, it may be that the Israelis have somehow managed to remove these bodies, as the Palestinians have also alleged, but I don't think the evidence is there really to support that allegation.

BLITZER: And the Israeli Supreme Court has just issued an edict, an order preventing the Israelis from actually removing bodies until they have a hearing tomorrow. Is that right?

HAMMER: That's correct? The Red Cross has also -- everybody is prevented from entering that camp and touching any of these bodies. But from what I hear from talking to journalists who've actually managed to make it into the center of this camp and traveled around quite a bit moving from house to house, there's just not much there. We also have heard these allegations by eyewitnesses, by survivors that I've talked to about steam -- bulldozed bodies, mass graves over the course of the last week, perhaps it's true but I just don't see how we're going to have evidence until we actually get access -- open access to this camp to see what went on.

BLITZER: Josh Hammer of "Newsweek" magazine, the Jerusalem Bureau Chief thank you very much and Francine Kiefer of the "Christian Science Monitor" in Washington thanks so much to you for your insight as well.

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