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American Morning

Sound Off: Should U.N. Handle Jenin Investigation?

Aired April 30, 2002 - 09:21   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.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Now on to this morning's "Sound Off" on the Middle East. Cleanup continues in the West Bank town of Jenin where large portions of refugee camp have been reduced to rubble. And this morning Israel's Security Cabinet says it will not cooperate for the time being with a U.N. fact-finding team that is supposed to find out what happened here. And U.S. - U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan says the international inspectors are needed to set the record straight.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KOFI ANNAN, SECRETARY-GENERAL, UNITED NATIONS: I think at this stage it is very urgent that we go in, find out what happened and put all the rumors and the accusations behind us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZAHN: Should the U.N. be investigating what happened in Jenin? Well the Israelis say the U.N. is stacked against it. Joining us now, from Washington, Bob Beckel, Democratic Political Strategist - oh, the sunglasses are gone today. I miss them, Bob.

BOB BECKEL, DEMOCRATIC POLITICAL STRATEGIST: Serious day. Serious day.

ZAHN: And Cliff May is here, Former Communications Director for the Republican National Committee. Good to see you as well.

CLIFF MAY, FORMER COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR, REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE: Good to see you.

ZAHN: All right, Bob, what do you say to the Israelis who basically are saying, if the U.N. is going to come here to investigate Jenin why aren't they not in Netanya, why aren't they in Haifa to investigate the suicide bombing?

BECKEL: Well I mean that's not a bad ploy. But I tell you. Israel's shown me the last couple of weeks, the worst sense of public relations I've ever seen. But they're the ones who have got problems around the world, particularly in Europe with criticism of what they've done. And, yes, I agree that the U.N. has been notoriously anti-Israel. But when you've got something like this and you say, no, then - and there's accusations civilians being killed, the conclusion is they've got something to hide. Maybe they don't. But the point is you've got to suck it up, let them in and get this over with because all they're doing is confirming fears people have that Israel has done something very bad there.

MAY: Yeah. Let me address this. First of all, Bob is right that the U.N. is sacked against Israel and has been for a very long time. Second, the team they've assembled has no military expertise, investigative expertise and includes people on it who have said things that are blatantly anti-Israel and maybe anti-Semitic, such as the one who compared the Star of David to the swastika.

Third and most important, the U.N. has a conflict of interest here. They should recuse themselves and they themselves should be investigated. Why? Because the camp at Jenin was run by a U.N. agency. Are you telling me that U.N. officials there didn't know that Hamas, Fatah, Tanzim, Al Aqsa Brigades were all setting up terrorist infrastructure in that camp. If they knew that was going on and that's a war crime to set up military facilities in a refugee camp, then they turned a blind eye to it and they are culpable. They should recuse themselves and there should be an investigation of what the U.N. knew, and when the U.N. knew it about the setting up of terrorist cells and infrastructure in the camp in Jenin. But in no way should they be investigating the Israelis on this.

ZAHN: Cliff, you've got Bob rolling his eyes this morning. Why, Bob?

BECKEL: Well, no - well, no, it's not that.

ZAHN: What about that point he just made? If there's, in fact, evidence that those terrorist cells were operating there why didn't the U.N. investigate it before?

BECKEL: Well, I mean - first of all let me say this is not chapter two in the World volume of Cliff May's works that he's going to produce on this show over the next several months.

MAY: Books could be your friend, Bob. Books can be your friend.

BECKEL: Yeah, I understand that, Cliff. But let me make a point. Should they have done it? Yeah, they should have done that but they didn't do it. But let's keep something else in mind. You want a little history, Cliff, even I know a little about that. Ariel Sharon is the one who sat on top of the massacres that Shila (ph) and Shatiba, the refugee camps in Lebanon, allowing the Christian Jews -- Druze to go in and murder thousands of people, and this is the same guy who's saying, oh no, don't come in and look because we don't trust you with what may find. Are you kidding me?

MAY: Bob, the question is not what happened 20 years ago. We could argue that for days. The question is ...

BECKEL: Hell, you go back 3,000 years on your show.

MAY: The question is should the - first of all, does the U.N. have standing to investigate that? Is the U.N. impartial? Do they have the expertise and do they have a conflict of interest? They have a conflict of interest. They have no standing. And they are not impartial.

ZAHN: But Cliff - Cliff - Cliff, wait a minute. What about the PR problem Bob's talking about? Just ...

MAY: The Israelis always have ...

ZAHN: ... all looking like Israel has something to hide no matter what everything you said is true or not, haven't the Israelis left a lot of folks in the world with the perception that there's something to hide?

MAY: Now you're exactly right. This is about PR. And what we have to recognize and not be naive about is constantly, unfortunately, on Arafat's side what they do is they create victims and then they use those victims to score PR victories. But we have to be able to see through that. When they use humans - innocent civilians as human shields, when they use ambulances to transport bombs and explosives and terrorists and then when the Israelis defend themselves they say, oh, look at what's happened, innocent victims. No, this is a PR stunt and we've got to be smart enough to see through it.

BECKEL: Cliff - Cliff, everybody ...

ZAHN: All right. Can I stop both of you for a second? Bob, I just want to move you on to issue of Libya. Moammar Gadhafi is expected to pay the victims of Pan Am Flight 103 some $3.5 billion in exchange for diplomatic relations with the United States in addition to lifting of oil sanctions. Should we be doing business with this guy, Bob and then Cliff you get the final word?

BECKEL: No. I don't think we should be doing business with him. The guy is one of the original terrorists. But this is buying off money so he doesn't get his rear-end blown off by the United States. That's all this is about. I mean he sat on this Pan Am Flight 103 for years now and hid the few people who did it. And now he's buying them off. What is he going to do? He's going to buy them off. The United States is going to say; well maybe we shouldn't go in there and take care of this guy either. He's basically covering his, you know what.

MAY: I don't like ...

BECKEL: And Cliff, by the way, not many people are members of the Mensa Society like you are, buddy. They don't quite see through all these details.

MAY: It's just a matter of seeing through PR and propaganda, which both of us had some experience in.

Look. I don't like Moammar Gadhafi any better than Bob does. However, if he's going to pay reparations, admit complicity, I think you have to recognize that. We have to have a carrot as well as a stick, and we have to allow people, even terrorists, to reform themselves. If they do -- now if he will help us with intelligence on al Qaeda, and he can do that, and if he'll admit complicity and pay reparations, you can't just ignore that of there is no incentive for others to come out from the cold and work with us instead of against us, be on our side instead of the terrorists' side. And we have that with Saudi Arabia and of a lot of other countries.

ZAHN: All right. Oh, Bob, just holding his tongue there. But guess what? You get to hold until your next appearance. I've got to break it off here. "Sound Off" team, thank you for ...

BECKEL: Come on.

MAY: Break off his tongue, I wish you would.

BECKEL: Come on. Patty Hearst owned up to her crimes years later. I mean, it's statute of limitations. Man, get out of here, Cliff.

ZAHN: All right. "Sound Off" news brothers, we've got to go. All right. See you a little bit later on in the week. Thank you gentlemen.

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