Return to Transcripts main page

American Morning

Could Powell's Search For Peace Become Mission Impossible?

Aired April 11, 2002 - 09:25   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: To the Middle East now and Colin Powell's search for peace. When he arrives in Israel later today, the secretary of state could be stepping into a diplomatic mine field. On the heels of yesterday's suicide bombing in Haifa, Ariel Sharon says the West Bank military offensive will continue until Palestinian militias are crushed.

Could Powell's search for peace become a mission impossible? Yossi Beilin knows what it takes to brings Israelis and Palestinians together. He was instrumental in the 1993 Oslo peace accord. He joins us now from Tel Aviv and we should also say he's a member of the labor party, which is the major opposition party in Israel. Mr. Beilin, welcome. Nice to have you with us sir.

YOSSI BEILIN: Thank you - thank you for inviting me. The able (ph) parties (ph) start (ph) of the coalition, I think it is a big mistake that it is there but regretfully it is not part of the position yet.

ZAHN: All right. Let's talk to - a moment about what Mr. Powell is up against. He has set very low expectations. He said it's not entirely clear whether he will even come home with a ceasefire in place. What do you think Secretary Powell has to do to succeed?

BEILIN: Well I think that it is very important that there will be a referee, a judge in this conflict. I think that the mistake of Secretary Powell in his last visit was to say that one of the parties will be the judge of the other and that could not work.

Now what has to happen is that on the one hand there would be a very clear statement by the Palestinians that their leadership is committing itself not to be involved with any kind of terrorism and to fight against terrorism. Israel has to withdraw from the Palestinian cities. We don't have to remain there.

And then the most thing is to help restore the Palestinian address, the Palestinian authority, which has been crushed in the last week or two so that we, Israelis, will have an address on the other side in order to cooperate on security. This is, in my view, the key to a success of Powell's mission.

If it would be just an idea to commit both sides to end the fire, it won't work. And then, only then, I think that one should invite both sides to an international conference like the Madrid conference we had in 91, in Madrid two conference where both sides and other parties, the Syrians, the Lebanese and others would be invited in order to launch a new chapter of negotiations toward a comprehensive agreement perhaps in a year.

ZAHN: Well let's go back to what you were saying must be done on the Israeli side. And you said that those forces, Israeli forces don't need to remain where they are today. But there are no signs, other than these six cities that the forces retreated to, that - that incursion has completely stop. There was yet two new towns that Israeli forces went into today.

Do you see Ariel Sharon blinking at all when Colin Powell is in Israeli?

BEILIN: Well here there is a real question of what friendship means. In my view, friendship to Israel doesn't mean that the American administration has to agree with every Israeli idea of the - of our government. Mistakes were committed. I think that one has to understand that after the awful terrorist attacks on Israel it was very natural that the government would say we have to do something. But I believe that the most important thing would be to recreate the coalition of semity (ph) between the pragmatic forces on our side and the pragmatic forces on the Palestinian side. What really happened is that they Israeli government decided to launch a war, not against the infrastructure of terrorism because this infrastructure is in the minds and in the hearts of those people, but against the infrastructure of the Palestinian authority. That was a mistake because now when we don't have an address and when hatred is even bigger than before and the feelings of revenge on the Palestinian side are bigger than before, I believe that we are in a war situation and we are not in a situation whereby we can really say that the prospects for future terrorism have diminished or decreased. That is why I believe that it is our national interest to leave these cities, not to remain there.

It is not our role to manage the lives of the Palestinians. The biggest decision of the late Prime Minister Rabin was to leave these cities and it would be a big mistake not only to launch this war but also to remain there. And that is why if the American administration is asking us to put an end to this war and to get back to the negotiating table, first on ceasefire then on permanent solution, I think that it goes hand in hand with our own national interest.

ZAHN: Yossi Beilin, we're going to leave it there at this hour. Thank you very much for joining us on American Morning.

BEILIN: Thank you for inviting me.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com