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CNN Live Saturday

Interview With Council on Foreign Relations' Richard Murphy

Aired June 22, 2002 - 12:24   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.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Well, now to the Middle East. President Bush may outline his vision for Palestinian statehood in the coming week. But he put that off last week, after suicide bombers hit twice in Israel.

The president says both sides must do everything they can to reject terror. All told, 33 Israelis, and 12 Palestinians met violent deaths last week.

An example, in Jenin, where there are more funerals today. A schoolteacher and three children were killed when Israeli tanks fired on them. The group apparently thought a curfew had been lifted. Israel admits it was a mistake, and says it's now investigating.

With the Middle East puzzle jumbled again this week by fresh terror attacks and reprisals, let's try and clear up that picture. Ambassador Richard Murphy is director of Middle East studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. He's also former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia and Syria.

Good to see you again, sir.

RICHARD MURPHY, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS: Thank you. Good to be here.

PHILLIPS: Well, let's talk about the postponement of President Bush's speech, obviously, due to the two terror attacks which took place day after day -- or last week. What's going to happen to this speech? What happens next?

MURPHY: Well, I think it's beyond just the two terrorist attacks of last week. I think the administration is very much divided within itself as to what should be done, and until they have resolved those differences, and given the president, perhaps, clearer options to follow, I don't think we'll hear a speech.

PHILLIPS: So this could be postponed -- who knows when he could come out and talk about this? You're thinking it could be postponed maybe for months.

MURPHY: Well, I don't think it's that long, but as he said just the other day, "I'll give the speech when I'm ready to give the speech." The date has slipped from, I think it was, last Tuesday until presumably this coming Monday, but even that deadline seems to be slipping away.

PHILLIPS: All right, a big part of the talk about his speech is that he is going to talk about a Palestinian statehood. Then there's been criticism saying: Talking about a Palestinian statehood, isn't that just rewarding these terrorists?

But when we're talking about these terrorists -- let's look at this other element here, the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, Islamic Jihad, Hamas. I mean, are these groups that are -- they're terrorists. They're not doing this to try to get a Palestinian statehood, are they?

I mean, it seems they just have no regard for anything: Politics, human life, themselves. They're doing this just because they're nuts.

MURPHY: Well, the ones you've named, particularly Hamas and Islamic Jihad are bound and determined to destroy the peace process as we've known it and as we've tried to foster it over the last several years. They don't want to see a state of Israel, a Jewish state. They would like to see a state of Palestine in which Jews and Arabs live together, but that would be an Arab majority, just the way demography is, and the Israelis, of course, aren't going to have anything to do with that.

PHILLIPS: Well, these extremists have to be addressed. There's been so much talk about Yasser Arafat and his closest advisers around him, and how pivotal he is in finding a peace plan.

But then you've got this whole other element, these extremists. Doesn't President Bush need to come out and address this more in- depth?

MURPHY: Well, I think he does and I think he will. I think personally, you don't find in the area today, either among the Israelis or the Palestinians enough energy to create a peace process to get back to the table.

That's what the Europeans are saying. They just had a conference in Spain and today they said: "Let's have an early conference so that we can get the political negotiations restarted." But that runs up against advisers in the Bush administration saying, as you said, "let us not reward violence." The answer to that is inaction rewards violence, inaction on America's part.

PHILLIPS: Finally, my final question before we let you go. Powell, Secretary of State Colin Powell expected to go back to that region. Do you think that will happen, and what will he say? What will he do that will be different from the last trip he took not long ago?

MURPHY: Well, the misery has deepened since the last trip. The control which was supposedly exercised by Yasser Arafat -- no one seriously argues that he's in control of the violence today. So the situation on the ground is changing and is further deteriorating. His job will be of a more rescue operation, presumably in company with the Europeans, the Russians and the U.N. PHILLIPS: Ambassador Richard Murphy, thanks again.

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