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American Morning
Civilian-Drafted Mideast Peace Plan Not New Concept
Aired December 04, 2003 - 09:14 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.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Tomorrow in Washington, Secretary of State Colin Powell will meet with the architects of a Mideast peace plan. But this plan is far different from that of many that have preceded it. It was designed by private citizens. CNN's senior analyst Jeff Greenfield is here to help sort it all out.
Jeff, the whole idea of private citizens working out a peace treaty, I mean, is there any precedent for this?
JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SENIOR ANALYST: Actually there is. I mean governments a lot of times find it useful to have private citizens from opposing forces talk through issues with each other when it's difficult for formal meetings to take place.
Back in the mid '50s, in 1957, in fact, American and Soviet scientists began meeting in Pugwash, Nova Scotia. They began to talk about technical, scientific issues involving the threat of nuclear weapons. These meetings went on several times a year, all during the most dangerous Cold War periods. And they, in fact, helped lay the groundwork for the 1963 Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and Assault Accords.
But it's also often been a matter of government disapproval of -- the Reagan administration was not that happy with Jesse Jackson when he went to Syria in 1984. He got the release of a Naval pilot. He also went to Iraq in 1990 in the run-up to the first Gulf War and helped broker the release of hundreds of people who were more or less being held hostage.
In fact, in this country there's a 200-plus-year-old law on the books that's called the Logan Act that supposedly forbids unauthorized foreign policy negotiations. No one's ever been tried for it.
In this case you have something different. You have an American secretary of state saying, Look, why not listen to private citizens, former Palestinian and Israeli officials, who may have some ideas about peace? At the same time the U.S.'s principle ally, Israel is, saying this is just an awful, awful thing.
COOPER: Israelis across the board, Prime Minister Sharon's government, Barak, as well, basically condemning this thing, and militant groups among Palestinians condemning it.
GREENFIELD: Well, the problem for a lot of Israelis is that it calls for Israel to go back to its 1967 borders, it calls for the removal of virtually all the settlements.
But in the view of the Israelis, hawkish and dovish Israeli, it doesn't really offer any specific protection against say the importation of weapons into a new Palestinian state. It doesn't spell out specifically what's to be done about the Palestinian demand for the right of return of refugees. Nor does it spell out the exact status of Jerusalem.
So the view from Israel is that, look, this will just become the starting point with Israel conceding lots of stuff but not getting all that much apart from the same promises that were made ten years ago in Oslo. That agreement triggered Israel's recognition of the PLO and it triggered that famous White House meeting with Clinton and Arafat and Rabin.
PLO groups -- I'm sorry, the groups like Hamas, the militant Palestinians, A -- they want a right of return. They're saying if you were thrown out of Israel or left 50-plus years ago you have a right to go back. And the truth is a lot of those groups will never recognize Israel as a Jewish state. That's just...
COOPER: When Secretary of State Powell said that he would meet with this group to talk about this, this private accord, he came under a lot of criticism in Israel. Is he running a risk politically?
GREENFIELD: Well, you know, it's interesting. For years we've heard, and especially since the Iraq war, about this rift between Colin Powell's State Department and the more hawkish voices in Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and Vice President Cheney's office.
We've also seen an ongoing war of words, a kind of proxy war. You have neoconservative writers and commentators attacking Colin Powell and the State Department is the weak sisters. And you have Powell supporters attacking Rumsfeld and Cheney as arrogant and reckless.
It's interesting that Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy defense secretary who was often regarded as one of the more hawkish voices in the administration, one of Israel's strongest friends, has also agreed to meet with these former Palestinian and Israeli officials who drafted this peace plan.
And it sure looks to me like this was a way of a signal from within the Bush administration saying to their more hawkish, if you will, allies, don't go after Colin Powell on this issue, the president's behind him.
COOPER: Interesting. All right, Jeff Greenfield, thanks very much.
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 December 4, 2003 - 09:14 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Tomorrow in Washington, Secretary of State Colin Powell will meet with the architects of a Mideast peace plan. But this plan is far different from that of many that have preceded it. It was designed by private citizens. CNN's senior analyst Jeff Greenfield is here to help sort it all out.
Jeff, the whole idea of private citizens working out a peace treaty, I mean, is there any precedent for this?
JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SENIOR ANALYST: Actually there is. I mean governments a lot of times find it useful to have private citizens from opposing forces talk through issues with each other when it's difficult for formal meetings to take place.
Back in the mid '50s, in 1957, in fact, American and Soviet scientists began meeting in Pugwash, Nova Scotia. They began to talk about technical, scientific issues involving the threat of nuclear weapons. These meetings went on several times a year, all during the most dangerous Cold War periods. And they, in fact, helped lay the groundwork for the 1963 Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and Assault Accords.
But it's also often been a matter of government disapproval of -- the Reagan administration was not that happy with Jesse Jackson when he went to Syria in 1984. He got the release of a Naval pilot. He also went to Iraq in 1990 in the run-up to the first Gulf War and helped broker the release of hundreds of people who were more or less being held hostage.
In fact, in this country there's a 200-plus-year-old law on the books that's called the Logan Act that supposedly forbids unauthorized foreign policy negotiations. No one's ever been tried for it.
In this case you have something different. You have an American secretary of state saying, Look, why not listen to private citizens, former Palestinian and Israeli officials, who may have some ideas about peace? At the same time the U.S.'s principle ally, Israel is, saying this is just an awful, awful thing.
COOPER: Israelis across the board, Prime Minister Sharon's government, Barak, as well, basically condemning this thing, and militant groups among Palestinians condemning it.
GREENFIELD: Well, the problem for a lot of Israelis is that it calls for Israel to go back to its 1967 borders, it calls for the removal of virtually all the settlements.
But in the view of the Israelis, hawkish and dovish Israeli, it doesn't really offer any specific protection against say the importation of weapons into a new Palestinian state. It doesn't spell out specifically what's to be done about the Palestinian demand for the right of return of refugees. Nor does it spell out the exact status of Jerusalem.
So the view from Israel is that, look, this will just become the starting point with Israel conceding lots of stuff but not getting all that much apart from the same promises that were made ten years ago in Oslo. That agreement triggered Israel's recognition of the PLO and it triggered that famous White House meeting with Clinton and Arafat and Rabin.
PLO groups -- I'm sorry, the groups like Hamas, the militant Palestinians, A -- they want a right of return. They're saying if you were thrown out of Israel or left 50-plus years ago you have a right to go back. And the truth is a lot of those groups will never recognize Israel as a Jewish state. That's just...
COOPER: When Secretary of State Powell said that he would meet with this group to talk about this, this private accord, he came under a lot of criticism in Israel. Is he running a risk politically?
GREENFIELD: Well, you know, it's interesting. For years we've heard, and especially since the Iraq war, about this rift between Colin Powell's State Department and the more hawkish voices in Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and Vice President Cheney's office.
We've also seen an ongoing war of words, a kind of proxy war. You have neoconservative writers and commentators attacking Colin Powell and the State Department is the weak sisters. And you have Powell supporters attacking Rumsfeld and Cheney as arrogant and reckless.
It's interesting that Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy defense secretary who was often regarded as one of the more hawkish voices in the administration, one of Israel's strongest friends, has also agreed to meet with these former Palestinian and Israeli officials who drafted this peace plan.
And it sure looks to me like this was a way of a signal from within the Bush administration saying to their more hawkish, if you will, allies, don't go after Colin Powell on this issue, the president's behind him.
COOPER: Interesting. All right, Jeff Greenfield, thanks very much.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
