Return to Transcripts main page

American Morning

Interview With Fawaz Gerges

Aired September 15, 2003 - 07:14   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.


SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Well, Palestinians are again rallying around Yasser Arafat, after a senior Israeli official said killing Arafat is one option to remove him from power. Crowds gathered yesterday outside of Arafat's Ramallah compound to show support for their confined leader.
Joining us this morning to talk about rising tensions in the Middle East, Fawaz Gerges. He is a professor of Middle East studies at Sarah Lawrence College.

Nice to see you. Thanks for joining us again.

FAWAZ GERGES, SARAH LAWRENCE COLLEGE: My pleasure as always.

O'BRIEN: If Yasser Arafat is killed, give me a sense of the immediate fallout.

GERGES: Well, I think the implications would likely be very serious. Such a decision will likely radicalize and militarize the Palestinian society further. It will play into the hands of the militants, Hamas and Jihad, and supply them with more recruits in their jihad against Israel.

And finally, I think if the purpose of this particular action is to break the will power of the Palestinians and provide security for Israel, I fear that this decision will produce the opposite results from the intended consequences.

O'BRIEN: So, when you say "very serious," you're really to some degree downplaying it. Do you think this would be exactly the wrong move?

GERGES: Absolutely. And I think this is -- it seems to me there is an international consensus that the United States, the European Union, Arab and Muslim states, everyone believes that if Arafat is expelled or killed, I think Israel, far from having security, Israeli- Palestinian society will be radicalized, militarized. You'll have chaos. And far from having security, Israel will have more insecurity and more bloodshed.

O'BRIEN: Give me a sense of what the Israeli cabinet looks like right now, how they're divided on this issue. Some want him expelled. Some want him killed. Is there any third option?

GERGES: Yes. It seems to me I think what we need to understand is that the decision has made in principle to either expel or kill Arafat. But yet, obviously, the Israeli government has made it very clear that it does not intend to really act on this particular decision.

But the Israeli cabinet is divided between those who believe that Israel should expel Arafat and others who believe that he should be killed, because if he is killed, the reverberations will be there for two or three weeks. But, of course, you have other alternatives, such as the Labor Party, which believes that either to expel Arafat or kill him will do a great deal of damage to Israeli security and the peace process.

O'BRIEN: At the same time, the people who support having him killed say you cannot build the house, so to speak, of the peace process on a foundation that's falling apart and crumbling and won't -- you cannot build on the foundation of Arafat bringing along the peace process. They say they've tried do it for the last 10 years; obviously it's not working, and now is the time for a radical step. Why do you disagree with that?

GERGES: Well, I mean, let's make one point very clear: Yes, Arafat has flirted with violence. Yes, Arafat has undermined the prime minister, his former prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas, and has rejected calls to unify the Palestinian Security Services. But I think it's really very simplistic and misleading to argue that somehow that the stalemate in the Palestinian-Israel peace process can be reduced to one man -- that is Yasser Arafat.

There are structural constraints, structural conditions, such as the presence of 200,000 settlers, such as Israeli military occupation, that must be tackled head-on before any peace process can be reached. And even if Arafat is removed tomorrow, even today, you're going to have the structural constraints in place.

What do you do with the settlements? What do you do with the Israeli military occupation with? What do you do with the difficult conditions that remain between the two sides?

O'BRIEN: When you hear this debate going on in the Israeli cabinet, does this give you the sense that this is the worst that it is? Are we seeing an escalation, and that we are further from the peace process than we have been for a long time?

GERGES: You know, some of us who really have observed the situation very closely, for the last 36 months since the outbreak of the armed intifada, the Israeli government has experimented with many military options to break the will power of the Palestinians and have security: reoccupying Palestinian towns and cities and the cracking down against Palestinians, now targeting the political leaders and militants of Hamas and jihad, and taking the decision to expel and principle or kill Arafat.

And one point should have been made very clear by now: There is no military solution to this conflict. Neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians can cancel the other party out. The alternative is a settlement based on the humanity or legitimacy, on recognizing the humanity of each other. This is the alternative.

O'BRIEN: Fawaz Gerges, it's nice to see you. Thanks for joining us this morning. appreciate your insight.

GERGES: My pleasure.

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 September 15, 2003 - 07:14   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Well, Palestinians are again rallying around Yasser Arafat, after a senior Israeli official said killing Arafat is one option to remove him from power. Crowds gathered yesterday outside of Arafat's Ramallah compound to show support for their confined leader.
Joining us this morning to talk about rising tensions in the Middle East, Fawaz Gerges. He is a professor of Middle East studies at Sarah Lawrence College.

Nice to see you. Thanks for joining us again.

FAWAZ GERGES, SARAH LAWRENCE COLLEGE: My pleasure as always.

O'BRIEN: If Yasser Arafat is killed, give me a sense of the immediate fallout.

GERGES: Well, I think the implications would likely be very serious. Such a decision will likely radicalize and militarize the Palestinian society further. It will play into the hands of the militants, Hamas and Jihad, and supply them with more recruits in their jihad against Israel.

And finally, I think if the purpose of this particular action is to break the will power of the Palestinians and provide security for Israel, I fear that this decision will produce the opposite results from the intended consequences.

O'BRIEN: So, when you say "very serious," you're really to some degree downplaying it. Do you think this would be exactly the wrong move?

GERGES: Absolutely. And I think this is -- it seems to me there is an international consensus that the United States, the European Union, Arab and Muslim states, everyone believes that if Arafat is expelled or killed, I think Israel, far from having security, Israeli- Palestinian society will be radicalized, militarized. You'll have chaos. And far from having security, Israel will have more insecurity and more bloodshed.

O'BRIEN: Give me a sense of what the Israeli cabinet looks like right now, how they're divided on this issue. Some want him expelled. Some want him killed. Is there any third option?

GERGES: Yes. It seems to me I think what we need to understand is that the decision has made in principle to either expel or kill Arafat. But yet, obviously, the Israeli government has made it very clear that it does not intend to really act on this particular decision.

But the Israeli cabinet is divided between those who believe that Israel should expel Arafat and others who believe that he should be killed, because if he is killed, the reverberations will be there for two or three weeks. But, of course, you have other alternatives, such as the Labor Party, which believes that either to expel Arafat or kill him will do a great deal of damage to Israeli security and the peace process.

O'BRIEN: At the same time, the people who support having him killed say you cannot build the house, so to speak, of the peace process on a foundation that's falling apart and crumbling and won't -- you cannot build on the foundation of Arafat bringing along the peace process. They say they've tried do it for the last 10 years; obviously it's not working, and now is the time for a radical step. Why do you disagree with that?

GERGES: Well, I mean, let's make one point very clear: Yes, Arafat has flirted with violence. Yes, Arafat has undermined the prime minister, his former prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas, and has rejected calls to unify the Palestinian Security Services. But I think it's really very simplistic and misleading to argue that somehow that the stalemate in the Palestinian-Israel peace process can be reduced to one man -- that is Yasser Arafat.

There are structural constraints, structural conditions, such as the presence of 200,000 settlers, such as Israeli military occupation, that must be tackled head-on before any peace process can be reached. And even if Arafat is removed tomorrow, even today, you're going to have the structural constraints in place.

What do you do with the settlements? What do you do with the Israeli military occupation with? What do you do with the difficult conditions that remain between the two sides?

O'BRIEN: When you hear this debate going on in the Israeli cabinet, does this give you the sense that this is the worst that it is? Are we seeing an escalation, and that we are further from the peace process than we have been for a long time?

GERGES: You know, some of us who really have observed the situation very closely, for the last 36 months since the outbreak of the armed intifada, the Israeli government has experimented with many military options to break the will power of the Palestinians and have security: reoccupying Palestinian towns and cities and the cracking down against Palestinians, now targeting the political leaders and militants of Hamas and jihad, and taking the decision to expel and principle or kill Arafat.

And one point should have been made very clear by now: There is no military solution to this conflict. Neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians can cancel the other party out. The alternative is a settlement based on the humanity or legitimacy, on recognizing the humanity of each other. This is the alternative.

O'BRIEN: Fawaz Gerges, it's nice to see you. Thanks for joining us this morning. appreciate your insight.

GERGES: My pleasure.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.