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DIPLOMATIC LICENSE

Will Arafat's Death Revitalize Mideast Peace Process?

Aired November 12, 2004 - 21:00:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The house is not burning. We have frozen the fronts. No war is going on now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And I'm angry that we find the United Nations proactively interfering with our investigation.

RICHARD ROTH, CNN ANCHOR: You obviously have read much that has been written about you over the years, all kinds of descriptions.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROTH: Welcome to DIPLOMATIC LICENSE. I'm Richard Roth.

Don't worry. You didn't miss our show last week. Let's just say because of the deteriorating condition of Yasser Arafat, circumstances beyond our control took over.

This week, after a mind-boggling series of wrong or misleading or maybe correct Arafat health updates, the Palestinian leader passed away.

Does Arafat's death revitalize the peace process? Are we too quick to bury his influence?

Joining us for some perspective, and anything else they'd like to say, is David Makovsky, senior fellow and director on the Middle East Peace Project at the Washington Institution for Near East Policy. He's also a lecturer and journalists.

Also in Washington, Nadia Hijab, executive director of the Palestinian Center, a think tank. She's also a journalist and author of a book, "Citizens Apart: A Portrait of Palestinians in Israel."

David Makovsky, is it times for fans of Middle East peace to be excited?

DAVID MAKOVSKY, WASHINGTON INSTITUTION FOR NEAR EAST POLICY: Well, I think it's been a very long hibernation of the last 4-plus years, and I think there is now a chance to revive and to begin to rebuild the trust that's been shattered during these years of terror and violence.

ROTH: Nadia, what do you think?

NADIA HIJAB, AUTHOR: Well, I think that it's time to focus on the principles, the core issues, that are at stake, which no matter who the leader is or who the leaders are, the issues aren't going to change, and that is if you're going to have land for peace, then Israel has got to withdraw to the '67 borders and there should be a Palestinian state alongside Israel.

ROTH: Nadia, do you think that everybody -- do you think that it's too celebratory in some circles, about Arafat's death, and our forgetting some of those core issues?

HIJAB: I think they're overlooking the fact that he did a lot to bring the Palestinian people to recognize that they couldn't liberate all of Palestinian, as was their aspiration and their dream after Israel was created in 1948, and he got them to accept a state alongside Israel in just 22 percent of mandate Palestinian.

But he couldn't sign away Palestinian rights, and that's why he's so revered. And if a leader of the Palestinians is seen to be signing away Palestinian rights, then they will no longer be seen as a leader by the Palestinians.

ROTH: Did Arafat, David Makovsky, blow it at Camp David with Ehud Barak? Or as I think Nadia believes, that offer shouldn't have been taken.

MAKOVSKY: Yes, there's no doubt in my mind that he missed an opportunity. He is seen too often like a revolutionary who couldn't live without a revolution.

Yes, he brought the Palestinian nationalism to the attention of the world stage. I don't think anybody could take that away from Yasser Arafat. But objectively he had an opportunity to end this conflict and bring peace, and I feel that, you know, he didn't live to see a state, and in many senses he practiced a kind of what I would say the politics of grievance not the politics of governance.

And not only that, but he didn't define the peace process as reconciliation and delegitimize suicide bombings. These sorts of things would have paved the way for ending this conflict, and I feel that this is a rough legacy that now his successors are going to have to grapple with. It will make it harder in the months to come.

ROTH: Nadia.

HIJAB: Well, I think the myth of the generous offer that Barak made at Camp David has been blown out of the water because now you have the accounts of others who were at that meeting, like Robert Malley, the American -- one of the American negotiators. In 2001, he said the offer wasn't generous. It was more generous than the Israelis had made, but it wasn't -- it didn't meet the minimum aspirations of the Palestinians.

Basically, you can't have peace on any terms. You have to have a peace that is seen as just by the majority on both sides, and no leader could sign away without giving his -- if you look at what was understood to be an offer at Camp David, it truncated the West Bank into three separate parts, and it kept Israeli control for an unlimited period on the borders of the West Bank.

It wasn't -- and it kept Israeli sovereignty over the holy places in Jerusalem.

ROTH: President Clinton, in his remarks on Arafat's death, said in effect that Arafat should have taken that chance -- David.

MAKOVSKY: Right. No. That's exactly right, Richard.

The point wasn't just the two weeks at Camp David. We're talking about the last six months of the Clinton presidency, and President Clinton came out with what is called the Clinton parameters, and he improved on some of the offers made by Israel at Camp David.

I would disagree, by the way, with Nadia's assessment of those offers, but I'll leave that aside for a moment. But I think what President Clinton said was that, you know, Arafat missed an opportunity that I had offered him in those final months.

ROTH: All right, Nadia, Sharon. Is he capable of doing a peace deal? Is President Bush said, he's a man of peace? Or does he have to step aside from the scene?

HIJAB: Well, I think he's clearly opted for the military solution. He's trying to impose his own version of what he would like on the Palestinians.

The evidence of the fact that Camp David was not a generous offer is that, as David said, Clinton went further in December of that year, and at Taba, in January of the following year, the Palestinians were actually much, much closer to an agreement with the Israelis that everyone could live with.

So I think that should be recognized. Then Sharon comes in, he reinvades the cities. He increases the number of roadblocks, he increases the settlements, and now he wants to impose his own vision, which is Gaza.

ROTH: David.

MAKOVSKY: Well, I disagree again with Nadia.

I spent months looking into the Taba negotiations. I saw no evidence that on the key issue, which is creating a quota on the refugee question -- everyone said the refugees should go to Palestinian in unlimited number, there was no doubt, but in terms of also being able to go to Israel, this was the key sticking point. And having tracked Arafat's statements, having talked to people who said to Arafat -- he said he wouldn't accept Taba.

So we were not on the verge of a deal by any chance. I'm hopeful now with the new leadership that things that were impossible over time will be possible. In terms of.

ROTH: Nadia.

MAKOVSKY: In terms of Sharon -- if I could just say one word about Sharon. I think somewhat like Nixon going to China, only Sharon could start this process, getting out of Gaza, pulling down settlements.

Of course, others will have to widen the path if he can't do it himself, dealing with the West Bank, but I think there's a justice here that Sharon.

ROTH: I want to get Nadia -- go ahead -- Nadia.

HIJAB: Yes, I don't think that Sharon has shown that he is a man of peace or a partner for peace. He's assassinated Palestinian leaders. There are about 10 Palestinians a day on average getting killed or wounded. Homes are getting demolished.

As far as the Palestinians see him, and his track record which dates back to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, they don't trust him. I don't think you can keep looking at the personalities. The Palestinian leadership, Sharon, whatever. If there is going to be peace between Palestine and Israel, the Israelis have got to simply withdraw from the West Bank and Gaza, dismantle the settlements, accept -- recognize the Palestinian rights of return and work towards a just solution of that. And accept Palestinian sovereignty over East Jerusalem.

Those have been the core issues of the conflict for decades now.

ROTH: Just a few minutes left. David, go ahead.

MAKOVSKY: All right. I was just going to say the following, that, I mean, the equation was always land for peace. The way I think Nadia put it is, here is a long laundry list for Israel to do and the Palestinians can sit back.

If this is not going to be a mutual relationship, where each side is going to have to compromise and give and create a new climate, a new discourse for their societies, there is just no hope.

HIJAB: Well, you know, there are two sides to this process, but only one side is living under occupation, and that's why I think the onus is on Israel to end its occupation, and then you can have peace and a settlement of the other outstanding issues.

ROTH: Who is the person who is going to forget a Middle East peace? The United States is talking about now, wow, surprise, surprise, a different special envoy, maybe. The United Nations is part of this Quartet.

David, in our final comments, who is going to be able to do it?

MAKOVSKY: I think the United States is the indispensable nation and I think this administration is going to have to seize this opportunity that exists to try to revive the trust and begin a new peace process again.

I think that the United States has got to be in the lead. The Quartet and others may join it, but if you talk to the other members of the Quartet, they all say the United States has to be first and foremost at the front of this.

ROTH: Nadia?

HIJAB: Well, I think the fact is that if the United States is going to support the process, then it has to ask Israel to live up to the obligation that it has undertaken.

Sharon promised Bush, for example, he would dismantle illegal outposts. He hasn't done so. The settlement process was supposed to be frozen. You have between 1993 and 1999 a doubling of settlers in the West Bank and Gaza. So those are the issues that the United States is going to have to address.

ROTH: All right. Yasser Arafat, father of the Palestinian people. Is there another Arafat? Does the Palestinian community need that one strong leader? Final comments, David first.

MAKOVSKY: No, I think there's going to be kind of an interim collective leadership. Abu Mazen might be the first among equals, but ultimately, as I was in Ramallah this week, I heard from them, we're in the same boat. We're going to have to either sink or swim together. There is no other Arafat out there, but that might not be such a bad thing.

ROTH: Nadia Hijab, final word.

HIJAB: I think back to the first intifada of 1989, sorry, end of '87, when there was a national leadership, very strong national leadership of all of the different groups. You didn't necessarily know who they were, but they were led by the principles of the issue and they knew exactly what to do, and that was a nonviolent resistance that put the Palestinian case on the map.

ROTH: Nadia Hijab is executive director of the Palestinian Center in Washington and David Makovsky is the senior fellow/director of Middle East Peace Process at the Middle Eastern Studies -- well, at the Washington Institute.

Thank you both for being with us.

We'll have more on Yasser Arafat later. Final word in this segment from Chile's U.N. Ambassador Jeraldo Munoz.

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JERALDO MUNOZ, CHILEAN AMB. TO U.N.: Nobody can ignore how much he fought, like he has fought for Palestinian rights, to have a state that is independent and represents the Palestinian people.

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BILL CLINTON, FMR. U.S. PRESIDENT: They're very important jobs, but I don't know. I mean, I don't know where the rumor gets started, because as far as I know there is no campaign underway or support, you know, for that. Neither does either one of them have a vacancy right now.

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ROTH: Millions of people starving in Africa, friends, don't send me any e-mails. A rumor that President Clinton wants to be United Nations secretary-general or the World Bank president and I'm flooded with messages.

As you heard there on ABC's "Primetime Live," President Clinton somewhat dismissed the rumors.

Welcome back to DIPLOMATIC LICENSE.

Our guest U.N. reporters don't print rumors. We welcome, from the "Washington Post," Colum Lynch and from the Radio France Internationale gang, Philippe Bolopion. He's got a new book coming out in France this week about Guantanamo and the prisoners there.

Gentlemen, I'm sure President Bush will be in favor of ex-President Clinton taking over from Kofi Annan in two years, but meanwhile, Colum, we've heard in the last few weeks -- I was somewhat surprised -- John Danforth, the current U.N. ambassador being named possibly in some people's minds as a replacement, possibly, for Colin Powell as secretary of state. What do you think?

COLUM LYNCH, "WASHINGTON POST": He's trying to play it down, and it was sort of saying that, you know, the job hasn't been offered to me. I wasn't going to rule it in or out, kind of always downplays the sort of degree of amount of experience he has in the diplomatic world. Always says he doesn't like being in government that much, but when you get the offer, you generally take it, particularly when it's a job like that.

ROTH: Colum speaking to him Friday morning. Go ahead, Philippe, what do you think?

PHILIPPE BOLOPION, RADIO FRANCE INTL.: Well, I think it's going to be interesting. He's been a very blunt diplomat up until now on the important matters like Sudan or the Middle East. He was never very diplomatic, but he seems to have strong principles, and I would be curious to see how he could stand up to the neo-conservatives who have been fighting with Colin Powell so much up to now.

ROTH: He was a former senator. He will be leading, as president of the Security Council for this month, he'll be leading the Security Council to Africa, to Nairobi, in coming days. This is for a meeting on Sudan, the North-South dispute that he spent years negotiating.

Colum, tell us more about this trip and effort.

LYNCH: Well, essentially what they're doing is they're -- it's not focusing primarily on Darfur. That's a second order of business. What they're trying to do is get a peace settlement on a 20 year conflict between the government and some Christian backed rebels in the south.

So one of the interesting things about this meeting is the fact that Darfur isn't at the top of the agenda issue. Remember, the Americans have said that genocide is underway there. There have been reports that the situation on the ground has been deteriorating over the last couple of months. The United States has been pushing for tougher and tougher sanctions against Sudan. But the move now to sort of shift the focus a little bit to the other war in Sudan, to the other conflict in Sudan, sort of suggests that the Americans are not going to be able to convince the rest of the Security Council about sanctions.

BOLOPION: Which is very, very surprising, Colum, because for a while we have heard President Bush say a lot during the campaign. I mean what I am saying. And you know, when I say something I follow-up. And in July the United Nations Security Council, because of the United States, has been saying to the government of Sudan, we are going to sanction you if you don't do anything to stop these massacres, these human rights violations.

And the Sudan government has almost done nothing ever since, and still there is no sanctions, only more meetings, and we know that too often in Africa these peace agreements are not even worth the paper they are written on.

ROTH: Well, the Council will not even go to Darfur, right -- Colum.

LYNCH: The Council won't go to Darfur, and they also are trying -- I mean, a number of -- there's a sort of division of the Council as to how much attention to pay to Darfur in this meeting. A lot of the Europeans, the French, the Germans, the British, are pushing for tougher language about violations by the Sudanese government. A number of others, the Algerians, Pakistanis and Chinese, don't even want to deal with the issue of Darfur, so they'll split the differences, but it won't be the priority issue.

ROTH: All right. Also in Africa, Philippe, Ivory Coast, Cote d'Ivoire, France, your native country, big problems. Fighting, French troops there getting killed. What is the latest? The U.N. Security Council poised on Monday to issue what kind of resolution?

BOLOPION: It's still the same kind of problem. The French want to have sanctions imposed on Cote d'Ivoire, and up until now they didn't get it. They are saying that on Monday they are going to go to the Security Council and vote sanctions, two types of sanctions, an arms embargo and sanctions against all of the people in Cote d'Ivoire who are sort of hindering the peace process.

Up until now, the same, the Russians, the Chinese, have not been very willing to have these sanctions. And, again, we don't see much progress on that.

ROTH: All right. One other issue in our U.N. file here. Oil For Food. Colum, two U.S. senators joined in the pile of people from the U.S. Congress angry that the United Nations, and specifically the secretary- general, have declined to operate with other Oil For Food investigations.

LYNCH: Yes, I mean, essentially what they are doing is not only that, but they are kind of -- there's almost sort of half-threatening language to the United Nations, saying, you know, we've been trying to get all sorts of documentation from you, information, internal audits, and you won't turn it over to us.

They're saying that in the past, in similar cases where they were both working on investigations, you know, simultaneously, that the United Nations was more willing to provide that kind of information, and they're saying all that information is being blocked and it's preventing their ability to gain assurances that American taxpayers aren't seeing their money misused by the United Nations.

So, I think that they are trying to sort of ratchet up the pressure and to essentially intimidate the United Nations into turning over some of this documentation, documentation that we would all like to see ourselves, I think.

BOLOPION: I think the fight is going to go on for a long time still. Paul Volcker, you know, is having his own investigation, and I think until he comes up with something reliable, we'll have all these rumors about the Oil For Food Program and it's going to be an ongoing story which I find to be becoming a little bit boring, but I guess we have to hear the whole story.

LYNCH: I disagree. I don't think it's a boring story. I think it's an important story, and I think one of the -- I mean, if we all wait for Paul Volcker to finish his investigations, Kofi Annan will probably be out of office and we'll be waiting for a couple of years.

I mean, I think what is happening is that.

BOLOPION: Well, give me some facts, Colum, and I'd be interested.

LYNCH: No. I'm just telling you that there are a number of investigations that are increasing pressure on the United Nations to start to provide some more evidence and more information.

I mean, Paul Volcker, a little bit over a week ago, you know, for the first time, provided all the basic documents sort of laying out the names of the companies participating in the Oil For Food Program. He only did that because other information has been coming out from other investigations and people are asking what are we paying you for.

ROTH: All right. On that note, since we don't pay these guests, we're going to stop there. On the left, Philippe Bolopion of Radio France Internationale, and Colum Lynch, of the "Washington Post," at the United Nations. Thank you both.

LYNCH: Thanks, Richard.

BOLOPION: Thank you.

ROTH: Coming up, what you may not know about Yasser Arafat's dramatic debut on the world stage 30 years ago this weekend.

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YASSER ARAFAT, FMR. PALESTINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): I come bearing, Mr. President, an olive branch in my hand, and a freedom fighters gun. Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand. Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand.

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ROTH: That's how Yasser Arafat concluded his United Nations remarks November 13, 1974. Arafat, warning of his gun, may have prompted onlookers to think Arafat was actually packing a pistol. The legend lives on.

One of the coordinators of Arafat's U.N. visit then was the deputy ambassador from Lebanon at the time, Yaki Al-Mamasani (ph), who attended the General Assembly tribute to Arafat this past Thursday.

He set the record straight for DIPLOMATIC LICENSE.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There was no gun. I assure you. I was there. The holster -- the holster was empty. There was no gun. Lots of pictures were taken, even the TV. They looked at it. There was simply a holster. The gun was not with Arafat.

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ROTH: Arafat wasn't wearing a gun when he visited the United Nations in 1996, or at least I think he wasn't when I interviewed him there. There was still a dialogue going on at that time with Israel years before the second intifada.

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ROTH: You obviously have read much that has been written about you over the years, all kinds of descriptions. How did it feel to be back in the White House there on such a different level, where years ago you were branded all kinds of names -- terrorist -- was this something you never thought you would see?

ARAFAT: Mandela was a terrorist also, had been called a terrorist. (UNINTELLIGIBLE) had been called a terrorist. De Gaulle had been called a terrorist. All of the freedom fighters have been terrorists, and we now are repeating again that one of my titles is as a terrorist. I am a freedom fighter.

ROTH: How confident are you that there will be a Palestinian state, and what is the timetable as these weekend talks.

ARAFAT: This is the trend, the history, the current of the history, and no one can hide the sun with his fingers. It is coming, sooner or later, and don't forget the Labor Party had cancelled his reservation some days ago.

ROTH: Regarding a Palestinian state.

ARAFAT: Regarding the Palestinian state.

ROTH: The Middle East though does produce a lot of clouds, all of the sudden, speaking of the sun and your fingers there, but you've certainly weathered a lot of storms to get to that point.

ARAFAT: The clouds, I am speaking about fingers.

ROTH: Yes, I know. You were talking about the sun. Clouds can block the sun out there. But one never knows. I mean, it seems that all it takes is one incident, a bus bombing here, a raid there, something, things change quickly.

ARAFAT: No doubt we have to understand that enemies of peace are very active to destroy the peace process, but I am sure they will not succeed.

I am doing my best. Let's not forget I haven't a magic stick. But the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) that I am following in the footsteps of my masses, of the Palestinian people, who have (UNINTELLIGIBLE) for peace.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROTH: The U.N. special envoy for the Middle East, Terje Roed-Larsen, called Arafat Mr. Palestine. Larsen will update the Security Council Monday afternoon on the Middle East.

That's DIPLOMATIC LICENSE. I'm Richard Roth. Thanks for watching.

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