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CNN Live At Daybreak

Bus Bombings Rock Israel

Aired December 03, 2001 - 06:01   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.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Israeli and Palestinian leaders are meeting today to deal with a horrific wave of weekend terrorist bombings. CNN's Jerrold Kessel joins us now from Jerusalem. He's been covering those bombings over the weekend, and he joins us now with the very latest -- Jerrold.

JERROLD KESSEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Leon, good morning again, and really as the Israelis count the terrible human cost of those attacks -- those three suicide bombings, two in Jerusalem on Saturday night, the other in Haifa yesterday in the -- in a -- bus there, the real question is what effect is the pressure -- enormous pressure that's being brought to bear internationally on Yasser Arafat to curb the militants is having on the Palestinians and how this might affect the Israeli policy.

I'd just like to show you the front page of the top selling Israeli newspaper -- that's a paper called Yediot Ahronot, and here you have underneath the row and row of some of the people who were killed -- the young people and not so young who were killed in those terrorist strikes in the heart of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, the headline is very instructive. It says "Yasser Arafat in the gun sights" and that's a question now of just where the Israelis are going with regard to how they see Yasser Arafat as a potential partner, even if he does go after the militants in the Palestinian community.

And there's some very strong pressure being applied by the Israelis too. Let's hear what one leading cabinet minister, a close confidant of Ariel Sharon's, Israel's Prime Minister, had to say about the need for extra pressure on Yasser Arafat.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

DAN MERIDOR: It's over a year now, after Arafat has been offered the end of occupation, the Palestinian state, unfortunately even a share of Jerusalem and said no. He wants to fight. He wants a war. If that's what he wants, that's what he's going to get.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

KESSEL: And during the night late yesterday, Palestinian police were indeed in action. So we're told they arrested anywhere between 90 and 120 activists of the Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the two radical Islamic groups, down in Gaza and on the West Bank, and the top Palestinian security official Colonel Rejub (ph), in the West Bank, telling CNN last night that they simply will brook no descent from the policy that's been laid out by Yasser Arafat and that is to stop such actions as happened in Jerusalem and Haifa and to play along with the United States effort to get a valid cease-fire in place and the Palestinian security official saying this time we mean business.

The Israelis don't really believe very much of that, and they still are saying, at least the official Israelis that this is -- these arrests are more or less sham. That's the Israeli position. Well Prime Minister Sharon returned from his brief visit to the United States when he met also briefly with President Bush at the White House yesterday. He met -- he arrived a couple of hours ago, went straight to a security meeting at a nearby military base to the international airport outside Tel Aviv, discussing the options that the military leaders were laying out of the possibilities of action. Mr. Sharon will put those possibilities and options before a full meeting of his broad and national unity coalition cabinet this evening.

Before that he'll be addressing the Israeli nation on television. We'll be watching all that closely. All this as the human cost of those -- of those strikes in Tel Aviv and Haifa are still being counted because not only are Israelis still burying the dead, they haven't -- they haven't identified all of the dead, especially from that horrific explosion in Haifa yesterday. So powerful was the explosion, that still not all the people who were killed have been identified -- Leon.

HARRIS: Well Jerrold, what is it -- the reaction in the Arab street, as -- to all of this with the crackdown that the Palestinian authority now is exercising against the Hamas and Islamic Jihad. You know we've seen in the past where maybe perhaps one or two arrests were made and there was quite vocal and sometimes violent reaction to that. In this case we're talking about hundreds being arrested.

KESSEL: It is a very good question. I think it's a little early to gauge exactly where the mood of the Palestinian population is. I was doing a whole survey even before these two horrendous attacks over the weekend, both within the Israeli, but in also in the Palestinian community and the impression seemed to be twofold. On the one hand, a lot of people and you saw this reflected in the polls. A lot of people were saying for the first time in a long time that perhaps the Intifada uprising should not go on in the way that it's going on.

You saw a falloff in support for that. On the other hand, for instance, down in funerals in Gaza last week when five young schoolboys were killed when they accidentally moved an Israeli booby- trap bomb, which had been intended for militants and were killed, at the funeral there were very interesting chants. People were saying we go for a cease-fire and look what we get -- what the Israelis do to us and there were cries to Yasser Arafat. They said Yasser Arafat understand resistance is our only way.

There are those diverging views now and they've all been more acutely -- put into a more acute focus in wake of the suicide bombing. Perhaps now in wake of the arrests, if they're genuine, it's a very tenuous time, not only for Yasser Arafat, but for the decisions of the Palestinian people. The next few days will be very critical for him and for the outlook on the Palestinian people with their regard to their future.

HARRIS: Indeed. Jerrold Kessel in Jerusalem. Thank you very much. We'll see you later on.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon met with President Bush for about an hour Sunday. The meeting was originally set for today, but it was moved up after this wave of terrorist bombings had rocked Israel. President Bush condemned those bombings, but says that the world will not allow terrorists to prevail.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Clearly there are some in the world who do not want us to achieve peace in the Middle East. Clearly there are some that every chance they have they will use violence and terror to disrupt any progress that's being made. We must not allow them to succeed. We must not allow terror to destroy the chance of peace in the Middle East.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

HARRIS: The president also demanded that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat take decisive action against militant groups. Now while the president condemned the weekend terrorist bombings, some Palestinian leaders said that Israel shared some of the blame.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

HASSAN ABDEL RAHMAN PALESTINIAN REPRESENTATIVE TO UNITED STATES: We are calling on Israel to stop treating the Palestinians as a security issue, because this is not a security issue. This is an issue that has to do with three million people living under foreign military occupation. You can not enslave three million people for 35 years and not expect them to react.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

HARRIS: However Senator Charles Schumer of New York had a different point of view.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

CHARLES SCHUMER, (D), NEW YORK: We should once and for all and I have not said this before, but we should once and for all stop the charade that Arafat can help limit terrorism. He helps cause it. The world and particularly America, should give Israel a green light to go forward and eradicate terrorism in its part of the world.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

HARRIS: Twenty-eight people including three suicide bombers died in the weekend terrorist attacks in Israel.

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