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American Morning

Interview With Baria Alamuddin, Tom Rose

Aired June 05, 2003 - 08:35   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.


DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: President Bush calls it a good beginning. Now comes the hard part, implementing the road map for Middle East peace. Yesterday's summit in Jordan produced a promise from Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to scrap illegal settlements in the West Bank.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ARIEL SHARON, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: We can also reassure our Palestinian partners that we understand the importance of territorial contiguity in the West Bank for a viable Palestinian state.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAGAN: And Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas vowed to end terrorist violence.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAHMOUD ABBAS, PALESTINIAN PRIME MINISTER (through translator): The armed intifada must end, and we must use and resort to peaceful means in our quest to end the occupation and the suffering of Palestinians and Israelis, and to establish the Palestinian state.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAGAN: So what are the chances that these partners in peace can succeed where others have failed? Analysis now for you from two journalists. In London, Baria Alamuddin, foreign editor of "Al- Hayat," and in Jerusalem, Tom Rose, publisher of the "Jerusalem Post." Good morning and good afternoon to each of you.

BARIA ALAMUDDIN, FOREIGN EDITOR, "AL-HAYAT": Good afternoon and good morning.

KAGAN: Want to go ahead and look at some of the statements from each of these leaders, starting with Mr. Abbas, and Baria, I'm going to start with you. How significant is it in the Arab world that he made this mention of calling for an end to attacks wherever they may be?

ALAMUDDIN: Well, I mean it is a clear indication that Mr. Abbas intends, actually, to fight what we call, in our part of the world, freedom fighters' work, in a sense -- in a military way, and what is called in the rest of the world a terrorist activity. I hope and pray that Mr. Abbas can deliver. I hope and pray that these groups of people like Hamas, Jihad Islami (ph), will give Mr. Abbas a chance, because it is greatly needed in the area. People are tired of fighting. People are tired of killing, of bombardment, of house destruction. So yes, this is the hope, and I think Mr. Abbas, if he is given the chance, maybe will be able to deliver. There is a great hope there.

KAGAN: I think the key word in there is deliver. And can he deliver? Tom, we heard Mr. Abbas say yesterday -- and also the king of Jordan, King Abdullah come out and say this is going to take at least a few weeks for Mr. Abbas to get a handle on these groups. Do you think that's reasonable to give him that breathing room?

(CROSSTALK)

KAGAN: Tom, you go ahead. We have heard from you, Baria. Tom, go ahead.

TOM ROSE, EDITOR, "JERUSALEM POST": Well, I think that certainly it is going to take time, but action begins with the first step. Mahmoud Abbas has been power about a month, hasn't arrested a single member of Islamic Jihad. Hasn't confiscated a single illegal weapon. And it may not be, Daryn, because he doesn't want to. I frankly think it's a question of what kind of power he has. It is -- I mean, no one denies, certainly not Abu Mazen himself, that the man in charge remains Yasser Arafat.

Yasser Arafat can appoint or veto any member of the Palestinian cabinet, and has the power right now to fire Mahmoud Abbas whenever he wants. And Mahmoud Abbas, of course, has been a loyal servant, deputy to Yasser Arafat for 40 years. So this is not a new revolutionary on the stage. This is a guy who is tied at the hip to Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Authority, and we'll see whether or not he moves. And we can begin to judge that very quickly, almost immediately.

KAGAN: And yet he does have an international acceptance that clearly Yasser Arafat doesn't have at this point.

Baria, I'm wondering from you, inside the Arab world, how was it taken that Yasser Arafat clearly was excluded from this summit in Jordan?

ALAMUDDIN: Well, it wasn't very -- received gracefully. Indeed, because he's an elected member -- he's an elected leader, and he has been there for a long time. Don't forget, Yasser Arafat is the man who actually recognized Israel, and I don't believe this is a matter of people. This is not talking about personalities. This issue is much bigger than Sharon and than Arafat and than Abu Mazen, and unless we look at this issue in this dimension, I think we're going to find it very difficult to move on.

Abu Mazen worked with Arafat, that is true. But as you have rightly said, he has been approved by the world community, and indeed, I don't think Arafat or anybody else at this juncture can tie him by the hip or anything else. The important thing is to have parallel steps going on. It is not good to have one step on this side and none on the other side. We need to move parallel to each other. Israel has to move, and then the Palestinians have to move. And I'm talking about Sharon and Abu Mazen moving together on steps.

KAGAN: All right. Let's go ahead and put Ariel Sharon in the spot light now, and Tom, we will bring you back in. We heard the Israeli prime minister promise to end unauthorized outposts. However, we didn't hear a specific number. We didn't hear specific settlements, and we also did not hear a commitment to end growth in other established settlements.

ROSE: Well, I don't think you're going to hear a commitment to end growth in other communities, and in parts of our region that are in dispute. The illegal outposts that have been established since the Camp David Accords -- or the Oslo peace process failed in the summer of 2000, there are about, depending on who you ask, anywhere from between 40 to 70 of those. Five or six, I think, have already been taken down.

It is a commitment of this government to remove settlements that don't conform to Israeli law. And I think, again, you'll be able to see progress on that measure almost immediately. I do think, and I think it's important to point out, I do think it's a very dangerous thing to equate housing activity with terrorism. Because it almost suggests, Daryn, that the building of a house on land that is in dispute, the building of a community on land that is in dispute, somehow justifies terrorism. I think that's a very dangerous step to take, and a very dangerous process to begin to exploit. Because then terrorism doesn't become an inexcusable, unjustifiable evil. Then it becomes a point of political grievance. And I think that's where this process will either succeed or fail. Internally on the Palestinian side, a recognition, and we heard it yesterday, let's give credit where credit is due. I was somewhat impressed with Abu Mazen's speech yesterday. Again, it is only words. But there has got to be a thorough and systemic crackdown on violence and terror, and I think we saw the beginnings of that yesterday. I hope there's action to follow up.

KAGAN: All right. Tom Rose, Baria Alamuddin. Different perspectives on the road map and what we saw yesterday. Thanks for your perspective. Appreciate both of you.

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







Aired June 5, 2003 - 08:35   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: President Bush calls it a good beginning. Now comes the hard part, implementing the road map for Middle East peace. Yesterday's summit in Jordan produced a promise from Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to scrap illegal settlements in the West Bank.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ARIEL SHARON, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: We can also reassure our Palestinian partners that we understand the importance of territorial contiguity in the West Bank for a viable Palestinian state.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAGAN: And Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas vowed to end terrorist violence.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAHMOUD ABBAS, PALESTINIAN PRIME MINISTER (through translator): The armed intifada must end, and we must use and resort to peaceful means in our quest to end the occupation and the suffering of Palestinians and Israelis, and to establish the Palestinian state.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAGAN: So what are the chances that these partners in peace can succeed where others have failed? Analysis now for you from two journalists. In London, Baria Alamuddin, foreign editor of "Al- Hayat," and in Jerusalem, Tom Rose, publisher of the "Jerusalem Post." Good morning and good afternoon to each of you.

BARIA ALAMUDDIN, FOREIGN EDITOR, "AL-HAYAT": Good afternoon and good morning.

KAGAN: Want to go ahead and look at some of the statements from each of these leaders, starting with Mr. Abbas, and Baria, I'm going to start with you. How significant is it in the Arab world that he made this mention of calling for an end to attacks wherever they may be?

ALAMUDDIN: Well, I mean it is a clear indication that Mr. Abbas intends, actually, to fight what we call, in our part of the world, freedom fighters' work, in a sense -- in a military way, and what is called in the rest of the world a terrorist activity. I hope and pray that Mr. Abbas can deliver. I hope and pray that these groups of people like Hamas, Jihad Islami (ph), will give Mr. Abbas a chance, because it is greatly needed in the area. People are tired of fighting. People are tired of killing, of bombardment, of house destruction. So yes, this is the hope, and I think Mr. Abbas, if he is given the chance, maybe will be able to deliver. There is a great hope there.

KAGAN: I think the key word in there is deliver. And can he deliver? Tom, we heard Mr. Abbas say yesterday -- and also the king of Jordan, King Abdullah come out and say this is going to take at least a few weeks for Mr. Abbas to get a handle on these groups. Do you think that's reasonable to give him that breathing room?

(CROSSTALK)

KAGAN: Tom, you go ahead. We have heard from you, Baria. Tom, go ahead.

TOM ROSE, EDITOR, "JERUSALEM POST": Well, I think that certainly it is going to take time, but action begins with the first step. Mahmoud Abbas has been power about a month, hasn't arrested a single member of Islamic Jihad. Hasn't confiscated a single illegal weapon. And it may not be, Daryn, because he doesn't want to. I frankly think it's a question of what kind of power he has. It is -- I mean, no one denies, certainly not Abu Mazen himself, that the man in charge remains Yasser Arafat.

Yasser Arafat can appoint or veto any member of the Palestinian cabinet, and has the power right now to fire Mahmoud Abbas whenever he wants. And Mahmoud Abbas, of course, has been a loyal servant, deputy to Yasser Arafat for 40 years. So this is not a new revolutionary on the stage. This is a guy who is tied at the hip to Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Authority, and we'll see whether or not he moves. And we can begin to judge that very quickly, almost immediately.

KAGAN: And yet he does have an international acceptance that clearly Yasser Arafat doesn't have at this point.

Baria, I'm wondering from you, inside the Arab world, how was it taken that Yasser Arafat clearly was excluded from this summit in Jordan?

ALAMUDDIN: Well, it wasn't very -- received gracefully. Indeed, because he's an elected member -- he's an elected leader, and he has been there for a long time. Don't forget, Yasser Arafat is the man who actually recognized Israel, and I don't believe this is a matter of people. This is not talking about personalities. This issue is much bigger than Sharon and than Arafat and than Abu Mazen, and unless we look at this issue in this dimension, I think we're going to find it very difficult to move on.

Abu Mazen worked with Arafat, that is true. But as you have rightly said, he has been approved by the world community, and indeed, I don't think Arafat or anybody else at this juncture can tie him by the hip or anything else. The important thing is to have parallel steps going on. It is not good to have one step on this side and none on the other side. We need to move parallel to each other. Israel has to move, and then the Palestinians have to move. And I'm talking about Sharon and Abu Mazen moving together on steps.

KAGAN: All right. Let's go ahead and put Ariel Sharon in the spot light now, and Tom, we will bring you back in. We heard the Israeli prime minister promise to end unauthorized outposts. However, we didn't hear a specific number. We didn't hear specific settlements, and we also did not hear a commitment to end growth in other established settlements.

ROSE: Well, I don't think you're going to hear a commitment to end growth in other communities, and in parts of our region that are in dispute. The illegal outposts that have been established since the Camp David Accords -- or the Oslo peace process failed in the summer of 2000, there are about, depending on who you ask, anywhere from between 40 to 70 of those. Five or six, I think, have already been taken down.

It is a commitment of this government to remove settlements that don't conform to Israeli law. And I think, again, you'll be able to see progress on that measure almost immediately. I do think, and I think it's important to point out, I do think it's a very dangerous thing to equate housing activity with terrorism. Because it almost suggests, Daryn, that the building of a house on land that is in dispute, the building of a community on land that is in dispute, somehow justifies terrorism. I think that's a very dangerous step to take, and a very dangerous process to begin to exploit. Because then terrorism doesn't become an inexcusable, unjustifiable evil. Then it becomes a point of political grievance. And I think that's where this process will either succeed or fail. Internally on the Palestinian side, a recognition, and we heard it yesterday, let's give credit where credit is due. I was somewhat impressed with Abu Mazen's speech yesterday. Again, it is only words. But there has got to be a thorough and systemic crackdown on violence and terror, and I think we saw the beginnings of that yesterday. I hope there's action to follow up.

KAGAN: All right. Tom Rose, Baria Alamuddin. Different perspectives on the road map and what we saw yesterday. Thanks for your perspective. Appreciate both of you.

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