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CNN Live Today
New Measures to be Imposed in Some Palestinian Areas
Aired December 26, 2002 - 11:19 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.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Now, let's move on to the Middle East, the crisis there, where eight Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces today, according to Palestinian sources. Today's violence comes as Israel announces new measures to be imposed in some areas.
CNN's Jerrold Kessel joins us live from Jerusalem with that exclusive story -- Jerrold.
JERROLD KESSEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Not quite announcing, but certainly going ahead with those measures. The very interesting development as its evolving here.
We know for the past several months, the Israelis have been reoccupating most of the Palestinian towns in the West Bank and most Palestinian areas in the West Bank.
Now, as a result of a number of official working documents obtained by CNN, Israeli working documents, we've been able to discern a new series of measures, which Israel is about to put into effect, or is already putting into effect with regard to how it relates to the ordinary Palestinian civilian population in the West Bank and Gaza.
The idea, according to these Israeli documents, is that Israel will provide or help international organizations facilitate the provision of better services for ordinary Palestinians in health, education, in the provision of building licenses or travel permits. This, because of the ongoing battles between Israel and the Palestinians, the Palestinian Authority has gradually become unable to provide many of those services.
So it could be a very dramatic turning point, as low-keyed as the program is, according to the documents, as it's being instituted, it could be a dramatic turning point, one of those moments where we look back some time, some months down the road and say a-ha, that's when things changed, that's when they got really rooted in this particular direction.
Now, when we approached the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's spokesman Mr. Ra'anan Gissin and put it to him that these measures were going in place, undeclared, unannounced, but very effectively, according to the documents that we have, are going into place, he said yes, the measures are going into place, and he called it a kind of a contingency plan in the absence of peace moves.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) RA'ANAN GISSIN, ISRAELI GOVT. SPOKESMAN: With the, I would say, temporary and partial collapse, I would say, of some of the services that the Palestinian Authority was providing for citizens, it necessitates for us, particularly in areas where we are, to try and provide for the Palestinian people for living conditions, health care, medicine and so forth. And we're trying to do it without really reintroducing the civil administration or the kind of military rule that we had before.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KESSEL: Now, the Israelis have been getting an awful lot of flack internationally. President Bush has been saying time and again, what is the case for those ordinary Palestinians, the difficulties that they have of moving around the West Bank, of providing those regular services, acquiring those regular services for themselves.
And as the Israelis, as their military objectives of trying to curb the militants goes on, they found themselves in quite a dilemma, how to go on with their security measures while not harming ordinary Palestinians.
And this, it seems, is what the new program, according to the documents that we have, is about. That they're trying to change the agenda, and they will say, as you heard the prime minister's spokesman saying there, that they are providing the necessary help where it's really needed.
But others would say that this amounts really to a violation of the 1993 Oslo Peace Accords between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, and even more than that, amounting to undermining the Palestinian Authority, perhaps even challenging its very future.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SAEB ERAKAT, PALESTINIAN CABINET MEMBER: I think the endgame of this government is very obvious -- destroy the Palestinian Authority, resume occupation, and resume the old means.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KESSEL: The Israeli moves seem to be open to interpretation. The documents we have don't attest to whether they will be temporary, as the Israelis say. But one fact is clear: when Israel first introduced these kind of ad hoc administrative measures for its handling of the Palestinians when they occupied the West Bank and Gaza in 1967, they said it would be temporary. Those provisions lasted for 26 years. That's the only fact that the interpretation of what the Israelis have is the intent, something else -- Fredericka.
WHITFIELD: Thanks very much, Jerrold Kessel.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired December 26, 2002 - 11:19 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Now, let's move on to the Middle East, the crisis there, where eight Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces today, according to Palestinian sources. Today's violence comes as Israel announces new measures to be imposed in some areas.
CNN's Jerrold Kessel joins us live from Jerusalem with that exclusive story -- Jerrold.
JERROLD KESSEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Not quite announcing, but certainly going ahead with those measures. The very interesting development as its evolving here.
We know for the past several months, the Israelis have been reoccupating most of the Palestinian towns in the West Bank and most Palestinian areas in the West Bank.
Now, as a result of a number of official working documents obtained by CNN, Israeli working documents, we've been able to discern a new series of measures, which Israel is about to put into effect, or is already putting into effect with regard to how it relates to the ordinary Palestinian civilian population in the West Bank and Gaza.
The idea, according to these Israeli documents, is that Israel will provide or help international organizations facilitate the provision of better services for ordinary Palestinians in health, education, in the provision of building licenses or travel permits. This, because of the ongoing battles between Israel and the Palestinians, the Palestinian Authority has gradually become unable to provide many of those services.
So it could be a very dramatic turning point, as low-keyed as the program is, according to the documents, as it's being instituted, it could be a dramatic turning point, one of those moments where we look back some time, some months down the road and say a-ha, that's when things changed, that's when they got really rooted in this particular direction.
Now, when we approached the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's spokesman Mr. Ra'anan Gissin and put it to him that these measures were going in place, undeclared, unannounced, but very effectively, according to the documents that we have, are going into place, he said yes, the measures are going into place, and he called it a kind of a contingency plan in the absence of peace moves.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) RA'ANAN GISSIN, ISRAELI GOVT. SPOKESMAN: With the, I would say, temporary and partial collapse, I would say, of some of the services that the Palestinian Authority was providing for citizens, it necessitates for us, particularly in areas where we are, to try and provide for the Palestinian people for living conditions, health care, medicine and so forth. And we're trying to do it without really reintroducing the civil administration or the kind of military rule that we had before.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KESSEL: Now, the Israelis have been getting an awful lot of flack internationally. President Bush has been saying time and again, what is the case for those ordinary Palestinians, the difficulties that they have of moving around the West Bank, of providing those regular services, acquiring those regular services for themselves.
And as the Israelis, as their military objectives of trying to curb the militants goes on, they found themselves in quite a dilemma, how to go on with their security measures while not harming ordinary Palestinians.
And this, it seems, is what the new program, according to the documents that we have, is about. That they're trying to change the agenda, and they will say, as you heard the prime minister's spokesman saying there, that they are providing the necessary help where it's really needed.
But others would say that this amounts really to a violation of the 1993 Oslo Peace Accords between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, and even more than that, amounting to undermining the Palestinian Authority, perhaps even challenging its very future.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SAEB ERAKAT, PALESTINIAN CABINET MEMBER: I think the endgame of this government is very obvious -- destroy the Palestinian Authority, resume occupation, and resume the old means.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KESSEL: The Israeli moves seem to be open to interpretation. The documents we have don't attest to whether they will be temporary, as the Israelis say. But one fact is clear: when Israel first introduced these kind of ad hoc administrative measures for its handling of the Palestinians when they occupied the West Bank and Gaza in 1967, they said it would be temporary. Those provisions lasted for 26 years. That's the only fact that the interpretation of what the Israelis have is the intent, something else -- Fredericka.
WHITFIELD: Thanks very much, Jerrold Kessel.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
