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CNN Sunday Morning

Interview with Alon Pinkas, Hasan Abdel Rahman

Aired March 31, 2002 - 10:15   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: As we continue our coverage of this crisis in the Middle East and as it continues to escalate, we turn our attention now to someone who is familiar with the diplomatic channels in all of this. Alon Pinkas is the Consul General of Israel. He joins us from New York. Mr. Pinkas, good to have you with us.

ALON PINKAS, ISRAELI CONSUL GENERAL: Good morning Miles.

O'BRIEN: First of all just, if you'll just give us your general reaction to what we've been witnessing this morning.

PINKAS: What you've been witnessing this morning is a testament to what we've been talking about the last several weeks and several months. And it should explain -- I think it's almost self- explanatory, why we have initiated this military operation. You have this little note on the bottom of the screen saying four suicide bombs in five days. We've counted 62 since Camp David, since we were supposedly on the verge of a comprehensive peace agreement a year and a half ago.

There have been over 60 suicide bombers. Some have been initiated by the Hamas and the Islamic jihad, but some have been initiated by organizations and armed militias subordinate directly to Arafat, and what you saw, this carnage that you see in Haifa, there was another attack in Efrat, in Samaria (ph), should illustrate to you, in no unequivocal terms, why we went into Ramallah, why we will not stop until we do the utmost in terms of uprooting or dismantling this infrastructure.

O'BRIEN: But Mr. Pinkas, throughout the morning, we've been entertaining e-mails from our viewers , and one of the themes that comes up time and again -- I don't have one just isolated just this moment, but the general theme is that we tend to focus on the suicide bombings and the casualties to Israelis, at the expense of the Palestinian casualties at the hands of the Israeli forces. You know, you tallied up 62 suicide bombings. What about the casualties inflicted by the Israelis? And to what extent is that fomenting additional suicide bombings?

PINKAS: Let me follow this logic, Miles. You want to tell me that whatever we were doing in the West Bank or Gaza, in the last 18 months, justifies suicide bombings, even from a Palestinian point of view? Then that logic is alien to me. Everything that we are doing in the West Bank and Gaza is in order to prevent terror attacks, in order to prevent these kind of homicidal maniacs from carrying out their act.

We're facing a culture, a political culture, a general culture that looks at these homicidal maniacs as some kind of role models. Now, we have sought to end this -- or to untie this Gordian knot at Camp David. The Palestinians rejected it. We're talking about a totally bankrupt leadership that has brought nothing but misery and tragedy that is inciting these kind of suicide attacks.

Just one more sentence, if I may. We are not shooting civilians. We are not targeting children in pizza parlors. We are not blowing ourselves up in hospitals, in medical stations, in pizza parlors, in cafes, in weddings, or in holiday meals.

O'BRIEN: The Israeli statement is that Yasser Arafat has the ability to control these radicals, these people who will strap explosives onto them and go and kill innocents. But to the extent that he might have ever had this control, it perhaps has now stripped in the sense that he is holed up in -- not even a compound any more, just two rooms, with limited communication. How can it be expect for Arafat to do anything to stop this sort of violence that we've been witnessing this morning?

PINKAS: Well, Miles, if he has control and decided not to use it, meaning that he had the ability, but lacked the will, he's certainly not a political partner. If he does not have the power, then he's certainly not a political partner. So any way you look at it, we have a problem with this man and this corrupt regime that he has established.

Now, he could still stand up right now -- he has access to television, as you saw a few moments ago, he has access to his cell phone, as you saw a few moments ago, and you've been running this for the last few days. He could stand up and say something very clear, drop your weapons, cease fire, I will not tolerate, I will not accept any more -- any more terror attacks. I call upon all the Palestinians to cease fire.

Believe us, Miles, that the minute he says that we will cease our fire. This is not something that I am asking him to do. This is something that the United States of America has been asking him to do, that the European Union has been asking him to do, that the secretary general of the United Nations has been asking him to do. But he has failed to live by his commitments, never delivered on his promises, reneged on any and every written document that his name is signed on.

O'BRIEN: Is it the Israeli position now that events have overtaken Arafat and that he is not really relevant, and to the extent that we're focusing on him. We are sort of marching towards a red herring somewhat?

PINKAS: I think there's a lot of truth in that -- in that assessment. I think that he's outlived his usefulness politically. I don't see anyone in Israel, and that cuts through left, right, pro- peace process, those who have reservations about the peace process the way we knew it, I don't think that anyone seriously trusts Arafat as a viable and credible partner any longer.

O'BRIEN: All right.

PINKAS: The fact you're focusing on him is because this is the nature of your business and it's good footage. I would concentrate on the victims of the -- of those suicide or homicide bombers that have done what they have done because they got their marching orders from this man and his insightful and hateful speeches.

O'BRIEN: All right, but if you -- accepting all that premise, where does that leave Israel? There really is no one to negotiate with. Negotiations maybe that's too much of a euphemism anyway at this juncture. But nevertheless, if the goal ultimately is some kind of peace, where do you go? Who do you talk to?

PINKAS: We hopefully will talk to the second tier of the Palestinian leadership at some point. I will not rule out the possibility that through mediation, American, international, we will end up even discussing some form of a cease-fire with Arafat himself, although that seems to be such a distant and remote possibility right now. As I said, no one seems to take him seriously as a political interlocker. We nevertheless want a political process to be restored. We want a political process to be resumed. We have no illusions that this is going to be solved militarily. We're doing what we have to do for self-defense.

Having said all that, it doesn't mean that we're not in the business of looking for partners, looking for some kind of political resolution. I don't even want to call it a peace process because I think that would be too ambitious and just inaccurate a term. But we are looking, we will never stop searching, for some kind of a partner, but without routing out the terrorists, without dismantling their infrastructure, without demolishing the -- this entire hot bed of terrorism. I can't see a meaningful and viable political process resuming in the upcoming weeks or months.

O'BRIEN: Alon Pinkas is Israel's Consul General joining us from New York. Thank you very much for your viewpoints. We appreciate it, sir.

PINKAS: Thank you Miles.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: All right, we just heard from the Israeli Consul General Alon Pinkas. Miles interviewed him with the Israeli side. Of course, we need to bring balance to what's been happening in the Middle East all this morning. Hasan Abdel Rahman is in D.C. He's the Palestinian representative to the United States. I know you listened to Mr. Pinkas, sir, and feel free to respond to what the consul general had to say.

HASAN ABDEL RAHMAN, PALESTINIAN REP TO THE U.S.: Yes, first of all, I mean it seems that Mr. Pinkas believes that if he repeats his lies often, they become truth, and they are not. First of all, let me say this, the original sin on this Easter holiday is the Israeli occupation that lasted for 35 years. It is illegal, it is immoral occupation of the Palestinian people, and the Palestinian territories.

In those 35 years, Israel brutalized the Palestinian people, sucked life out of them, and made their life a misery. That's what created hostility towards Israel. We had hoped that through the political process that we initiated in Oslo, will end this illegal, immoral occupation of our territory and our people.

But what the Israelis done that within seven years of peace negotiations, they have brought in 100 more Jewish Taliban settlers into the Palestinian territories and took over land that is Palestinian land. And the Israeli military brutalization of the Palestinians on checkpoints, on harassment, beating up people, humiliating people, continued. And that's why the secretary-general of the United Nations in his letter the other day to Mr. Sharon told him, please, Mr. Sharon, if you want the violence to end, and if you want the Palestinians to respond to you, stop your brutalization of the Palestinians.

You cannot have 3.5 million Palestinians under siege, 60 of their labor forces unemployed. They cannot move from one place to the other, and not react. I believe that what turns Palestinians to violence is this prolonged military brutal occupation, and Mr. Sharon does not believe in peace. He voted against Oslo, and he believes that he has to beat up the Palestinians. Mr. Sharon did not make a secret of his plan to inflict as much damage on the Palestinians as he can.

And now, in the city of Ramallah, which is a Christian city on an Easter day, you have 30,000 Israeli soldiers in a city of over 25,000 people, and the same thing is in Bethlehem and (UNINTELLIGBLE), two other Christian Palestinian cities. So what we have here is a brutalization of the Palestinians, and I blame Israel for turning our children into suicide bombers because they have sucked hope out of their lives and made them into a people who do not distinguish between life and death.

We are pained. We ache. I, myself is horrified when I see a Palestinian committing suicide and killing others. We don't like it. Because we, the Palestinian people, not withstanding what Mr. Pinkas said about us, that we are a culture of violence. We pride ourselves of being the society that produced more engineers, more doctors, more poets, more artists in the Middle East as a whole, including, probably in Israel. So this racist description of our culture is absolutely unacceptable and uncalled for.

(CROSSTALK) RAHMAN: And this kind of behavior of Israel does not lead us to peace. Yes?

PHILLIPS: Five suicide bombings in five days. You have an Israeli operation that is becoming more intense also. Are things coming to a head here?

RAHMAN: Well, you know, believe me, we are opposed to those suicide bombers. As I said, who wants to see a young man or a young woman killing himself and killing some civilians in the process -- no one. But we have to understand the climate, not to justify it, but the climate and the environment that is created by Israel -- the climate of humiliation, the climate of hopelessness, of starvation.

Those are kids who have no hope, because Israel made a ceiling on their aspiration and their hopes.

And therefore, we want to live side by side with Israel. We want to make peace with Israel. But we cannot make peace with Israel when Israeli tanks are bulldozing our streets and our homes, and when the Israeli army is engaged in mafia style execution of our people.

Mr. Pinkus said that we do not target children. There are 400 ...

PHILLIPS: Mr. Pinkas also said just moments ago that Israel is more than happy to call for a cease-fire if Yasser Arafat stands up and does the same.

RAHMAN: We already, we cooperated. But the, but I think this statement is misleading.

Cease-fire while the Israeli army stays in the territories? Or cease-fire that will lead to withdrawal of the Israeli tanks?

Mr. Pinkas wants to have a cease-fire that maintains the status quo, have the Israeli army and the Jewish settlers in the Palestinian territories.

We want a cease-fire that leads to Israeli end of its illegal, immoral and brutal occupation of us.

We will accept it now. And that's what was proposed by Prince Abdullah and the whole Arab League in Beirut last week.

We propose Israeli end of its occupation of Arab territories, and whole Arab world, the whole Arab world, 22 states will sign normal peace with Israel.

That is the challenge.

I wanted Mr. Pinkas to say, yes, we accept this. But he does not say, cease-fire and we will continue to occupy the Palestinian territories and build exclusive Jewish settlements for the most extreme elements of the Israeli societies, who are really Jewish Taliban. PHILLIPS: So, as you can imagine, Mr. Rahman, we've been receiving numerous e-mails, and we've fielded them to a number of ...

RAHMAN: Yes.

PHILLIPS: ... folks for the Jewish perspective. We would -- or the Israeli perspective, excuse me.

We would like to -- we have a couple here that we'd like to read to you.

This one comes from Tom Davidson in Georgia.

"I do not get it. An insane person randomly picks out your house from all the ones on your street, walks in, stops in the middle of your living room when your children are watching TV and detonates a bomb that kills them all. What would you do?"

RAHMAN: Well, definitely we are opposed to that. But have he asked himself, what makes a young man do that? Why it happened, it is happening today? Why it did not happen before?

Why it happens since Mr. Sharon became a prime minister, and declared that the only way to deal with the Palestinians is through military violence.

When you have 435 little Palestinian killed -- children killed by Israel, when you have 1,400 Palestinians killed, when you have thousands and thousands of Palestinians detained -- you saw them on television yesterday, stripped naked in front of their children, beaten up, herded like cattle in buses and taken to Jewish settlements, humiliated.

When you see the president of the Palestinian people, who was elected by them, humiliated in the way he is today, wouldn't you be angry?

If you had a tank of a foreign army invading your town and your city, wouldn't you be angry?

PHILLIPS: Another e-mail ...

RAHMAN: Mr. Davidson, he should ask himself that question. Instead of just condemning the Palestinians, he should ask Mr. Sharon, for the sake of the Jewish people and the Israel people and the Palestinian people, to pull out so we can have equality between the two people

And to live peace, because Israeli security is not going to be at the expense of the Palestinian security, and vice versa.

We believe that Israeli tanks will not bring security for Israel. And the events of the last two days prove that.

What -- the only way to have security is to have justice.

PHILLIPS: Mr. Rahman, ...

RAHMAN: Between the two people.

PHILLIPS: Palestinian representative to the United States, Hasan Abdel Rahman, from Washington, D.C., we thank you, sir.

RAHMAN: Thank you very much.

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