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CNN Live Today

Arafat's Address

Aired September 09, 2002 - 12:10   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat met with the legislative council today at his compound in Ramallah. He told the council that reforms have brought the Palestinian people to the threshold of statehood.
For more on today's meeting and Israeli reaction, we turn to CNN's Jerrold Kessel.

He is in Jerusalem -- Jerrold.

JERROLD KESSEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Kyra, Yasser Arafat may be under siege, but he is still smiling as he came to address the Palestinian parliament in an extraordinary session, extraordinary circumstances -- sandbags at the window, a makeshift parliament in makeshift premises, and Israeli troops just a hundred yards or so away from the compound.

And on this day, we heard Yasser Arafat with an extraordinary endorsement after the two years of fighting with Israel of the idea of the need, the absolute need, he said, to go back to negotiations and move toward peace. Enough is enough. It is time again to begin talking peace and to reach that peace.

But what was not extraordinary was what Mr. Arafat had to say about ending all violence now. He did speak out very strongly against suicide bombing, against other attacks on civilians. But he said that there needs to be distinction between terror attacks on civilian, and what he called appropriate response to the ongoing Israeli occupation, which he called terrorizing the Palestinian people.

And he didn't go nearly as far as his own security chief, General Ehlihe (ph), who's spoken out very strongly for ending all violence, in point of fact, for trying to reach a full and total cease-fire right away, generally he has been saying in recent weeks.

Now what could be extraordinary, although he did say it with a smile, was when Yasser Arafat said perhaps he would be ready to give up all executive powers, because that is what the council wanted of him. He did say, I wish you would do that, so it would give me some time for a rest. He said, as I say, with a smile.

Now, when the council was in session, Israeli troops moved some way off, as if they melted away from the streets of Ramallah, but they are entrenched pretty near his compound, although they did stay in base today.

As Yasser Arafat was making that statement, which seemed to be a very distinctive statement, to try to set himself back in the picture that he's very much back in the picture.

So what Yasser Arafat had to say today may not have been music to Israeli or American ears, but given the fact that it is a searing reality for most Palestinians on the streets of Ramallah and of other Palestinian towns, that there is that reoccupation basically of Israeli troops in that town, that what Yasser Arafat said, as far as he went today may be as far as he is able to go to keep in tune with his constituency -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Jerrold Kessel, thank you.

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