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CNN Live Saturday

Palestinians Feel They Are Unfairly Blamed for Increased Violence

Aired December 15, 2001 - 15:20   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.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: U.S. Diplomat Anthony Zinni is leaving the Middle East, recalled to Washington for consultations. For three weeks, he's been trying to get the Israelis and Palestinians to stop fighting and start talking again, but he hasn't had any luck. Now in Gaza, CNN's Rula Amin finds that Palestinians feel they're being unfairly blamed for the increased violence.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RULA AMIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Palestinians woke up to the news of Israel's insurgence to this town on the Gaza Strip, to news of the U.S. veto of the U.N. Security Council resolution calling on Israel to halt its actions.

"No one cares about us, not the Arabs, not the Europeans and especially not the Americans," says this man. "They want us to fight terrorism, and we are the ones who are oppressed."

"The Americans are against us," says another. "Once the Americans side with Israel, we are left with only God on our side."

The U.S. says Yasser Arafat should stop Palestinian militants from attacking Israelis.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They are asking the occupied to defend the occupier.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is terrorism, they say we're killing innocent people. But when they do it it's different? Is Israeli life worth more than a Palestinian life?

AMIN: Palestinians worry more about tanks in their midst than any international talk.

"We understand that there is pressure on Yasser Arafat, but it does not mean that they can bomb us and we should sit quiet," says this man.

Israel says Arafat has become irrelevant. It rolled tanks into his territory and took matters in its own hands. In Ramallah, the tanks stood meters away from Arafat's office.

MUSTAFA BARGHOUTI, ANALYST: People don't understand how a man who is particularly imprisoned is expected to do as much as, I mean, as he is being asked. They read it as a betrayal to Mr. Arafat. That he, the one who advocated so many years the possibility of peaceful resolution with the Israelis, is now being betrayed by the same people who were his partners.

AMIN (on camera): Palestinians are puzzled by what they perceive as the West turning a blind eye to Israeli actions against them. The West is puzzled by what it perceives as the Palestinian Authority's lack of action despite international pressure.

Rula Amin, CNN, Ramallah, on the West Bank.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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