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CNN Live Saturday

Interview with Lisa Beyer

Aired June 08, 2002 - 17:01   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: First up this hour, the priorities of the peace process in the Middle East. President Bush says he's ready to get peace talks back on track, but he can't sign off on a timetable for Palestinian statehood -- at least not yet.

CNN White House correspondent Kelly Wallace has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KELLY WALLACE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): After huddling together in the Maryland mountains, it was clear Egyptian President Mubarak failed to convince President Bush to set a timetable for the creation of a Palestinian state.

GEORGE W. BUSH, U.S. PRESIDENT: We're not ready to lay down a specific calendar, except for the fact we need to get started quickly, soon, so that we can seize the moment.

WALLACE: Mr. Bush stressed an immediate priority should be getting the Palestinians and the Israelis back to the negotiating table -- no easy task, because Israeli Prime Minister Sharon, who meets Monday with President Bush, is against any political discussions until the violence ends.

But that violence won't stop, Mr. Mubarak warns, unless the Palestinians believe a state will be created soon.

HOSNI MUBARAK, EGYPTIAN PRESIDENT: If they didn't feel that, they will not stop violence. It will continue forever.

WALLACE: The Egyptian leader made another appeal, urging Mr. Bush, who continues to criticize Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, not to give up on him.

MUBARAK: Look, we should give this man a chance. We are working very hard with cooperation with the United States for the reform in the Palestinian Authority.

Such a chance will prove that he is going to deliver or not.

WALLACE: A hint of some Arab frustration with Arafat, something Mr. Bush chose to highlight as the U.S. seeks out other Palestinian leaders it believes may be more likely than Arafat to embrace reform. BUSH: I also happen to believe that there is plenty of talent in -- amongst the Palestinians, and that if we develop the institutions necessary for the development of a state, that talent will emerge.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WALLACE: And Bush advisers are not ruling out the President committing to a timetable at some point for negotiations and a Palestinian state.

Aides say the president will have something to say sometime after this round of meetings. Look for Mr. Bush to define the rules of the game, said one senior U.S. official, as opposed to giving the parties a detailed playbook about how to achieve a final settlement -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: All right, Kelly Wallace at the White House, thank you very much.

Let's talk more about the issue of Palestinian statehood.

We're joined now by Lisa Beyer. She's a foreign editor and the former Jerusalem bureau chief for "Time" magazine. Thanks for joining us here.

Israeli Prime Minister Sharon says, no, not now. Arab states say a Palestinian state is really in immediate order.

Do you believe that there is a pretty strong possibility that we would see a Palestinian statehood in the near future?

LISA BEYER, FOREIGN EDITOR, "TIME" MAGAZINE: Well, I think it's all a question of what happens at the top of the leadership of the Palestinians right now.

It seems to me very obvious from President Bush's remarks and his handling of his visit with Mr. Mubarak, that the number one priority for both the Bush administration, and clearly for the Israelis as well, is to essentially get rid of Mr. Arafat -- to put him in a position where he is merely a figurehead and no longer calling the shots in terms of leadership of the Palestinians.

Once that happens, if it does happen -- and I think that Bush and Sharon both see that this is a moment of opportunity to make that happen -- then I think that there is a much greater possibility of seeing progress in the negotiations.

WHITFIELD: OK. We have to apologize to our viewers. We're having a bit of an audio problem. We're going to try and work that out, but we can hear you clearly. It's just a little extraneous noise going on there.

So, if the consensus becomes that Arafat really should not be the Palestinian leader, who, then, would be stepping in as potential contenders that everyone on all sides could actually deal with and would be happy with? BEYER: Well, this has been a very big question, and a very hard question for some time. For some time, Yasser Arafat, who is already pretty old -- he's in his mid-70s, early 70s and is ailing -- he's got some sort of nervous disorder, and many of his aides say that his health has really been on the decline.

So the succession has been a hot topic for some time.

Basically, there are four figures in the West Bank and Gaza Strip who are frequently talked about as potential successors.

Two of them come from the security sphere. One is named Mohammed Dahlan, and he's until recently been in charge of security in the Gaza Strip. The other is a name named Jibril Rajoub, who is in the West Bank.

And then there are two political figures -- Abu Ala and Abu Mazen -- both of whom were architects, co-architects, of the Oslo peace accords, who come more from the political end of things. They don't control armies, but they have a great deal of diplomatic and international credibility.

WHITFIELD: But do these lieutenants come with very different ideologies on their approaches to relations between Palestinians and Israelis?

BEYER: Some of it's hard to say, because as the talk of the succession has stepped up in the Palestinian areas over the last couple of years, you'll find that all of these figures will position themselves essentially on the right.

Everyone understands that if a time comes when Arafat is no longer leading the Palestinians, that in order to maintain credibility with the Palestinian people and look like a credible force, that you basically have to be very tough with Israel.

And so, all four of these figures have in the past been what you might call moderates vis-a-vis the peace process, but in recent years have taken more hard line positions.

WHITFIELD: And if, in any case, a green light is given to Palestinian statehood, then who would be responsible for drawing the lines?

That seems to be the grounds or the focal point of this contentious battle.

BEYER: That's right. Even Ariel Sharon, the prime minister of Israel, who is very much a right-winger, understands that the almost inevitable result of any kind of diplomatic process needs to be a Palestinian state.

And he may even think on some level that it's a good thing, not just an inevitable thing.

The question is, where do you draw the line, and the assumption has always been that that line would be negotiated between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

Of course, they don't agree. But there's a certain amount of horse trading that has to go on.

There is one line of thought that the Americans would best serve this process by drawing the lines themselves and basically telling each side, you know, this is the deal, and you're going to live with it.

WHITFIELD: All right. Perhaps we'll be hearing about that kind of idea or that kind of deal after Bush meets with Ariel Sharon on Monday.

Thanks very much, Lisa Beyer with "Time" magazine ...

BEYER: Sure.

WHITFIELD: ... for joining us.

BEYER: My pleasure.

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