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CNN Sunday Morning

Interview with Yasser Abed Rabbo, Ron Giesen

Aired March 03, 2002 - 09:16   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.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: For more on the Middle East crisis we're joined by two key players now. Ron Giesen is the spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. We'll hear from him in just a moment.

But first, from Ramallah, we are joined by Yasser Abed Rabbo, who is the Palestinian Information Minister. Mr. Rabbo, good to have you with us.

YASSER ABED RABBO, PALESTINIAN INFORMATION MINISTER: Thank you.

O'BRIEN: All right. First of all, if you could just give us a sense as to why it seems impossible for Yasser Arafat and his apparatus to stop the violence that continues in the Middle East.

RABBO: Well, I don't think it's impossible, but I think needs a partner in order to discuss and negotiate how we can put an end to this vicious circle of violence. And that's why we have always called for political meetings, security meetings between the two sides and the Israeli side had put conditions and pre-conditions, which had led us into an impasse, and this is the basic thing.

We are now calling upon the Israeli government to sit and find a way out of this situation. The Israeli government has been putting conditions all through the past seven and eight months. When there was a Tenet plan or Mitchell's plan, they will ask that there should be seven days of not one single incident. Well, we can not guarantee this because we do not control the whole Palestinian occupied territories, and at the same time, we want the Israeli side not to take any action.

We had last December three weeks of not one single incident, and in spite of that the Israeli government, and Sharon personally, declared that he is going to continue the policy of assassinations, and this does not violate the ceasefire. This turned the whole situation into a hell once again.

O'BRIEN: Mr. Rabbo, you say that Mr. Arafat does not control the actions, but is he taking strong enough actions to discourage them in making it quite clear that he doesn't tolerate these activities?

RABBO: Well, look yesterday we had declared openly and clearly that we condemn the attack that took place in West Jerusalem. We are against any attacks by any Palestinian against an Israeli civilian. This is not our aim. This is not a war between two nations. This is a conflict with a foreign occupation, the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories. But it's not a war between the whole Palestinian nation and the whole Israeli nation. This is our policy.

In spite of this, the Israeli government declares and declared proudly that they are responsible for all the attacks that took place in the past days, especially the attacks against Palestinian refugee camps. These attacks that took the lives of 35 Palestinians in 72- hours and had injured over 300 Palestinians, and had resulted into the deflection of so many homes and infrastructures.

This is not the way to deal with the Palestinian people. We are a people under occupation, and there is no people on earth today who will accept to live under occupation at all. It's out right to resist occupation, but we condemn turning this resistance into attacks against Israeli civilians.

O'BRIEN: Mr. Rabbo, briefly, time is expiring here but I've got to ask you before we get away, if particularly in this environment, the Saudi peace proposal whether you hold much hope for it at all.

RABBO: Yes, we are very hopeful and we are trying to have a decision in the coming Arab Summit in order to adopt the Saudi initiative. The Saudi initiative says land for peace. The Israeli occupation should withdraw from all Palestinian and Arab-occupied territories in 1967, occupied in 1967 in exchange of normalizing the relations and total peace between all Arab states and Israel.

What does Israel want more than this? Why do not they declare that they accept this, and they are ready to make this deal, in order to put an end to this bloodshed that is taking daily more Palestinian and Israeli lives?

O'BRIEN: All right, Mr. Rabbo, we're going to leave it at that and we'll pose that question directly to the Israeli side. Thank you for being with us, sir. For the Israeli point of view, we're joined now by Raanan Gissen who is s a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Were you able to hear Mr. Rabbo?

RAANAN GISSEN, SHARON SPOKESMAN: Yes, I did.

O'BRIEN: All right, answer the question then.

GISSEN: There's nothing new about these claims. Well, if you can repeat the question, I'll be happy to answer it.

O'BRIEN: The basic question is the Saudi proposal and it's essence, it's essence of land for peace, and why - his point is why can't the Israelis accept the thrust of the Saudi proposal?

GISSEN: Look, we're studying the Saudi proposal, and we're ready to make peace, because peace is our first choice. It's the choice of the Jewish people, the Israelis and every government since the inception of Israel. However, we do not accept any dictates. We're willing to listen to the Saudi proposal. We'll present our proposal, and we'll sit down and negotiate faithfully, according to the agreement that we reached in the Madrid Conference, where we discard, we don't use violence anymore, and we use only face-to-face negotiations and peaceful means.

Now as long as there is fire, as long as there is shooting, as long as there is a Palestinian Authority that harbors, directs, and incites for violence, you can't reach peace. That's the first step to accept any initiative, whether it's the Saudi initiative or any other initiative that would come forth.

That's why we are committed to the Mitchell and Tenet reports, which put stages and phases how to reach that point, and the first phase, which goes without any question is that there has to be quiet. There has to be a cessation of violence, incitement and terrorism. And the Palestinian Authority, I regret to say, and its leader has not done anything to put an end to the violence. They make declarations but nothing on the ground.

O'BRIEN: Mr. Gissen, could you if possible, to the extent it is possible, take us inside the inside debate over how to retaliate? What sort of reprisals are appropriate from the Israeli perspective in the wake of further terrorist activity by Palestinians? It must be difficult to decide what is appropriate, what is measured. Would you say so far it has been measured, or has it gone too far?

GISSEN: Well, I could tell you one thing. We are not going to fulfill Arafat's dreams and hopes to ride on a wave of terror activity, as the current wave indicates, to the summit meeting in Beirut. That will not happen. We are taking all the necessary precautions and measures to prevent escalation.

We have gone into the camps because these have become not refugee camps, but armed camps, where the terrorists are producing weapons, explosive belts, and the assembly line of suicide bombers leaves Balata (ph) and Nurosham (ph) those two refugee camps almost every day.

We were left with no other choice but to go into those camps, exercising our right of self-defense, as the United States is doing in Afghanistan when it engages al Qaeda and the Taliban.

We are willing to go back to the negotiating table, but there has to be a full commitment and action taken by the Palestinian Authority to eradicate terrorism, to dismantle the terrorist infrastructure. We're not going to harm Arafat. We're not going to dismantle the Palestinian Authority, but we are going to take every measure to dismantle the terrorist infrastructure.

Terrorists, whether they are 417, the loyal forces to Arafat, or Taqzin (ph) which is today the leading force in conducting terrorist activity, have taken the life of over 50 percent of all our casualties that we have, men, women and children, indiscriminate killings. They have to take some action to stop it. If they won't do it, we will have to do it and we have no other choice, because we have a responsibility to defend our innocent men, women and children who have become like sitting ducks to terrorists and to sniper fire from the Palestinian Authority security personnel.

O'BRIEN: Mr. Gissen, I'm sorry once again time is expiring, but I would like to ask you one more question. If you could answer it fairly briefly, I'd appreciate it.

GISSEN: Sure.

O'BRIEN: The question, the point that Mr. Rabbo made was that we give essentially Yasser Arafat too much credit for his ability to control these actions of terrorists. He says they are beyond the control of Yasser Arafat and his apparatus. Would you contend with that?

GISSEN: Sure. Let me reiterate what the Prime Minister has said so many times, and according to the United States demand, let Mr. Arafat and the Palestinian Authority show 100 percent effort. I'm not saying that they can control everything, but if they dismantle the terrorist infrastructure, make real arrests, not house arrest or host arrest or televised arrest. Interrogate, collect the illegal weapons, start in those actions, and there will be let's say within that period one or two incidents, we may not like it, but we will accept it.

But we haven't seen even one step in that direction. This is what the Palestinian Authority must prove. They must prove that they're not a terrorist entity. We will not accept any independent Palestinian terrorist entity. We will accept an independent entity that wants to live in peace with us.

O'BRIEN: All right. Raanan Gissen, thank you very much.

GISSEN: Thank you.

O'BRIEN: Raanan Gissen is a spokesperson for the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. He was preceded by Yasser Abed Rabbo with the Palestinian Information Authority, the Palestinian Information Minister. Thank you both for sharing your views. They appeared consecutively, more for technical reasons than political reasons.

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