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American Morning
Interview with Saeb Erakat
Aired August 09, 2002 - 07:06 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Back to what is going on in the Middle East now. Palestinian negotiators in Washington are continuing their talks with U.S. officials today.
The negotiators met with Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice yesterday. The talks described by some as "serious" and "in-depth."
Here now to tell us more about the meetings from Washington, chief Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erakat.
Good morning -- welcome, sir.
SAEB ERAKAT, CHIEF PALESTINIAN NEGOTIATOR: Good morning.
ZAHN: What is the most important thing you think the meetings accomplished yesterday?
ERAKAT: Well, the meetings are about to look in deep about the situation in order to see if we can reconnect Israelis and Palestinians, Palestinians and Americans, rehabilitate and rebuild the Palestinian capabilities that were destroyed by the Israelis, and then, you know, the reform and the reconstruction. And we focus so much on how to break this vicious cycle by the elements of the escalation and the confliction.
I believe that we will begin a series of steps with the Israelis in terms of meetings. I'm not going to raise anyone's expectations at this stage. This is going to be a process of -- a difficult process of rebuilding the trust and confidence between Palestinians and Israelis.
And at this stage, Paula, I can say that the trust level is below zero, and because this fact exists, we need the help of a third party. We need the Americans, we need the Europeans, we need others, not to negotiate for us or make decisions for us, but to facilitate and to help us in order to begin the difficult process of regaining the trust and confidence that's lost.
ZAHN: So if you deem what has happened so far as a complete failure on the negotiating front, why would you not need a third party to enhance those negotiations?
ERAKAT: Well, I don't think that Israelis or Palestinians would allow anybody to negotiate for them, and I don't think anybody is interested to make the difficult decisions or concessions that Palestinians and Israelis need to make. I think at this stage, there is a realization that we will never have military solutions to the problem. The problem isn't going to be achieved through violence or a military solution or reoccupation or more settlement activities in the West Bank and Gaza. The problem needs a determined effort.
And since President Bush had defined the end game of a Palestinian state, the question today, since everyone now speaks of a Palestinian state in three years, how do I get there? How do we get there? What are the way stations? What is the timeline and the mechanisms for implementation? Why can't we see an action plan?
Defining these stops in order to revive the hope in the minds of Palestinians and Israelis, and in order to say that we're going to get to that station, the end game of a Palestinian state by of this date (ph), but we have to go through these stations. That's what...
ZAHN: But, Mr. Erakat, hasn't President Bush made it quite clear that the only way you're going to get there is without Yasser Arafat? Back in June, he called for the replacement of Yasser Arafat. Was that addressed yesterday, and who might replace him?
ERAKAT: Actually, this subject never came up. The American administration knows, Paula, that we are not a freelance delegation. We are not a delegation of chieftains and tribal chiefs. We are a very developed society as Palestinians. And we represent President Arafat and the Palestinian Authority, and I think this issue, Arafat is the elected Palestinian leader and the democratic choice of the Palestinians must be respected.
The main issue here is how to break the vicious cycle? How to break this viscous, bloody cycle between Palestinians and Israelis? We need to see to it that a serious effort -- with the help with the Americans, the Europeans and others -- in order to reconnect -- to reconnect Palestinians and Israelis.
The other point that we addressed here is the human catastrophe that's facing the Palestinian people. Today, Paula, we have 50 percent of Palestinian children facing malnutrition, 48 percent of Palestinian women have anemia, one-third of the Palestinian population living on handouts. There is a serious threat of spread of diseases and of starvation to the continuing closure and seizures.
And I was happy to hear that Secretary Powell spoke to Secretary- General Kofi Annan, and that the secretary-general will be sending a mission immediately to the West Bank and Gaza to see how to alleviate the situation.
ZAHN: Well, let me ask you this. As you no doubt know, the Israelis say that the Palestinians are partly to blame for these -- what you're describing as bad humanitarian conditions. And let me just read to you a statistic that Israeli police have compiled. They say that between the first of this year and the middle of July, some 465 bombs have either been detonated or discovered.
What are the Palestinians prepared to do to break this cycle of violence that you say must be broken?
ERAKAT: That's precisely what I meant when I said we need to revive the hope in the minds of Palestinians. And that's precisely what I meant that we will not solve our problems through violence or through military solutions of the Israelis and the occupation. That's because of the situation...
ZAHN: But come back about the violence that the Israelis are...
ERAKAT: Now, who...
ZAHN: ... are exposed to. Well, and then for example, let me just show you a picture that -- and maybe you can help us interpret this -- that happened on the day or the night after the bombing at Hebrew University, where Palestinians came out in Gaza City celebrating what had happened. Why didn't the Palestinian Authority come out and condemn this?
ERAKAT: We did condemn the attack on the Hebrew University. We condemn all suicide bombings, and we condemn the killing of the civilian population, and this...
ZAHN: But how about the demonstration?
ERAKAT: What we see in the demonstration is absolutely unacceptable, and that's precisely what we need. Palestinians are not one name, one face. Palestinians are facing a difficult time. Palestinians are facing the -- they are now confined in the biggest prison in the history of mankind, the West Bank and Gaza.
This is why we need to revive hope. This is why we need to tell these children in the streets that we wanted to be the doctors, the teachers, the parents (ph), the poets, and not a suicide bomber. This is why we need help to revive hope, because now these kids on the streets have not been able to go to schools or to go to hospitals if they need to go to be treated, or to think that they will have any future whatsoever. And desperation will lead to desperate acts.
This of what we see on the streets is not acceptable. We condemn the killing of Israeli civilians under any circumstances when we condemned the killing of Palestinian civilians. And this is why our job should be to concentrate on the solution and not on the problem. The solution here is to have a meaningful peace process that will end the Israeli occupation.
ZAHN: And, sir, finally in closing, you are confident that this three-year timeline that the president is talking about is reasonable?
ERAKAT: I think it's reasonable. I think the most important element now is to see to it that we have an action plan that will define the way stations, the mechanics of implementation, and the timeline that will take us from now until the end of the three years. Because we need to define this, and by doing so, hope will be revived faster than anybody who thinks in the minds of Palestinians and Israelis. ZAHN: We're going to have to leave it there this morning. Saeb Erakat, good of you to join us this morning -- appreciate your bringing us up-to-date on these very important meetings that are taking place in Washington.
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