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CNN Live At Daybreak

Discussion with Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

Aired November 08, 2001 - 07:20   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.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: In the Middle East today, more violence despite the pullout of Israeli troops from the West Bank yesterday. This morning, a suicide bomber reportedly blew himself up when Israeli commandos raided a West Bank village. Israeli officials say two of the commandos were injured.

Controlling the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is an important piece of the U.S. effort to get Arab support for the war against terrorism, and joining us right now is former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has just written a new book called "Fighting Terrorism."

Good morning. Good to have you with us.

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, FORMER ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: Good morning.

ZAHN: How long will it be before the Israelis pull out of the two other West Bank towns?

NETANYAHU: I don't know. It's a question of security. But, you know, it's understandable, I think, for Americans that if the U.S. sends its troops thousands of miles away to defend American lives against terrorism that Israel would send its troops a few hundred yards away to defend Israeli lives from the daily bombings, suicide bombings that is conducted from Yasser Arafat's terror regime without letup. So it's a question of security.

But the principle that you can act across an international line to defend your citizens is one that I think the United States supports very well.

ZAHN: We had a Palestinian scholar, Edward Said, who is a professor at Columbia, on earlier this week, and he basically said Yasser Arafat is paralyzed, he can't move within the West Bank. And here's what he had to say about the state of life for the average Palestinian now in the occupied territories. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EDWARD SAID, PALESTINIAN SCHOLAR: Palestinians don't have an army. They don't have an air force. They don't have a state. They don't have any air defenses. They don't have any heavy weapons. They don't have a leadership. They're not allowed to move from one place to the other. Their condition is desperate.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZAHN: That's his explanation.

NETANYAHU: Crocodile tears. They do have an army. They have an army of terrorists that attacks Israel every day. We've had the equivalent of 20,000 American deaths from the terrorist army that Arafat harbors in the Palestinians. So 20,000 Israelis, it's a pro- rated number. It's four times the number of people who have been slaughtered in the World Trade Center from this army.

Israel is actually using its forces with great constraint because we do have a much more powerful army and we could, as you could imagine, we could apply enormous firepower and we don't. We try to surgically find the terrorists and hit them.

But I...

ZAHN: Of course, that's not what the Palestinians argue.

NETANYAHU: Yes, they can argue anything. But the fact is that they are blowing up bombs on buses full of children, schoolchildren. They're going to discotheques. The question is not, you know, the real issue here is not what people say. It's not what I say or what they say. It's what they do. And what they do is something that is unacceptable in civilized society. What they do is deliberately target civilians. There is a difference between deliberately targeting civilians, which is what the terrorists do, and the unintentional hurting of civilians, which is, for example, what is happening now in Afghanistan.

You are targeting terrorist targets. Accidentally, unintentionally, you are hitting civilians. This is what Israel occasionally does. But I think there's a world of difference. And what we have to do is wipe out terror, which crosses the line deliberately, bombs office buildings, bombs buses, bombs supermarkets. We cannot accept that as a norm for our societies.

ZAHN: Come back to the -- what the resolve or what the reconciliation will be in the Middle East. The Israelis, of course, have signed onto the Mitchell Accord, which calls for no more building of settlements. Yasser Arafat, there is word that he may travel to the United States and unilaterally call for the creation of a Palestinian state. Then what?

NETANYAHU: I think that as long as Arafat clings to the idea of destroying Israel -- and that's what he tells his people in Arabic. You may not hear it from Professor Said. You may not hear it from Arafat's spokespeople who appear here because they don't say that in English. But in Arabic day in day out, in the media that Arafat controls in his totalitarian state, he tells his people our goal is not peace with Israel, it's to throw the Jews into the sea.

And he tells them that the way to back up this goal is what he calls the armed struggle, which is terrorism. And, in fact, he's doing it. So we need a change in the policy of the Palestinians. How to induce that change?

In the three years that I was serving as prime minister, we brought the terror rate down to two percent. The reason we brought it down to such a small level is because I told Arafat early on surrender terrorism or surrender power. Exactly what Tony Blair is telling to the Taliban.

There is no terrorism against you, there is no terrorism against us without the support of regimes, because the terrorists don't, are not suspended in midair. In your case they were based in Afghanistan. In our case they're based in Arafat's domain and he encourages them and, in fact, operates half of them.

So I told him to stop. And I think we can stop the terror with that kind of clarity, with that kind of deterrence.

ZAHN: But can...

NETANYAHU: As far as the treatment...

ZAHN: I mean you guys don't trust each other.

NETANYAHU: Of course we don't.

ZAHN: So...

NETANYAHU: I mean do you trust the Taliban?

ZAHN: So -- well, but let me ask you this then, what about Yasser Arafat? You've got Edward Said saying he's a completely paralyzed leader. Are you accepting the premise, then, that he will never be able to control the more extremist factions of...

NETANYAHU: No, I don't...

ZAHN: ... his population?

NETANYAHU: My government proved the contrary because when we told Arafat you have to choose, either terrorism or the survival of your own regime, he stopped the terrorism. How can we get a real peace? I don't think we can get a warm peace between democracies. I think we can get the kind of cold peace or the cold peace that characterized, for example, U.S.-Soviet relations or the cold peace that we had between -- we now have between North Korea and South Korea. It's not a perfect peace. We don't hug each other. But the power of deterrence of the democracies standing behind it stops the attacks.

Then we could probably work out some arrangements on the ground to enable the Palestinians to live better...

ZAHN: And would, among those arrangements, be a Palestinian state if the borders of security -- of Israel are protected, as you said?

NETANYAHU: If Arafat, if the Palestinian leadership abandons the goal of destroying Israel and communicates a message of peace to its people and stops terrorism and dismantles the terrorist infrastructure, then we have to, I believe, enter into negotiations that would leave the Palestinians with all the powers to govern themselves and none of the powers to destroy us.

For example, the part...

ZAHN: So you are accepting the possibility then, down the road, of a Palestinian state?

NETANYAHU: Well, I think that such a complete all encompassing term like state would mean that they have the right, for example, to make military treaties with Iraq, bringing the Iraqi tanks to the borders of Tel Aviv. Nobody in Israel could accept that. We won't let them control the air space because that's the end of the Israeli Air Force and the end of Israel. So nobody in Israel would want to give them that power.

However, we don't want to govern them at all in Ramallah and we don't. We don't govern them in Gaza and we don't. All we want is an arrangement where they in the territory that they have, they will not use it to -- as a base of terrorism to try to wipe Israel in the remaining territory that we hold. And I think that's an equitable peace. But we're not there yet for the simple reason that Yasser Arafat, Paula, is the only man on earth that I know who meets both the criteria of being a Taliban and being a bin Laden. He's the only one whose forces directly perform terrorism. His 4-17 bodyguard was caught in the act of terrorism. And he harbors terrorists like Islamic Jihad.

So I think the message that should be sent to him is first, stop terror, or you will face the consequences.

ZAHN: Before I let you go, very quickly, I want you to listen to what King Abdullah told me shortly after the September 11 attacks and the linkage he made between those attacks and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KING ABDULLAH II, JORDAN: If you had solved the problems of the Middle East, then obviously the core issue is that between the Israelis and Palestinians, I doubt very much that this incident would have taken place. And again, that was a reminder to all of us and why I think so many of us in the international community have been so -- working so hard to bring a stop to the violence and bring people back to the peace process.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZAHN: We did that interview exactly one day after the September 11 attacks.

NETANYAHU: Well, obviously we all pray that we could bring an end to this conflict. But the cause of the conflict is the persistent refusal, Palestinian refusal to accept the state of Israel at any border. And that's why they rejected all the offers that were made to them for an equitable compromise.

ZAHN: So you're saying that has nothing to do with what happened to America on September 11?

NETANYAHU: I'm saying that not only that it has nothing to do with it, this is a result of the hatred of the West and America. Bin Laden said in 1998 when he explained why he's waging the jihad, the holy war on America, he said number one reason, your occupation of the holiest place of Islam, Saudi Arabia. Not Israel. The second reason, your aggression against the Iraqi people. Not Israel. We came in a distant third. You know why? Because we're the small Satan, you're the big Satan.

They don't hate America because of Israel. They hate Israel because of America, because we are seen as an extension of those Western values that they so abominate and reject and they've rejected it, by the way, for a thousand -- well, at least several hundred years.

So Israel is merely a footnote, a prickly footnote for them, because we refuse to go away. But the real target is you and if you don't stop them and forget about the apologists of terror, forget about all the arguments they give you. Just forge ahead, do the job, dismantle the terror regimes, win the war, that's how you'll win the hearts of the Muslim masses who want to see who will win, the Moslem militants, the bin Ladens and the regimes that back him or the United States?

Forge ahead and win and you will win the day in the Middle East as well.

ZAHN: We have to leave it there on that note.

Benjamin Netanyahu, good of you to drop by.

NETANYAHU: Thank you.

ZAHN: Appreciate your joining us in our New York studios this morning.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat says the Palestinian Authority would reject a peace plan by Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres. We'll be talking with Mr. Erakat live tomorrow morning at 7:20 Eastern time

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