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CNN Sunday Morning

Perspective on Israeli Pullout in Parts of West Bank

Aired April 21, 2002 - 07:20   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.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: All right, lets' get some perspective now on the Israeli pullout in parts of the West Bank. Two guests join me from Washington to talk about it. They're our regulars here on the weekends. Marc Ginsberg is former U.S. ambassador to Morocco. He also served as Mideast policy adviser to President Clinton. And Mark Perry, author and long-time Mid East analyst with close ties with Palestinian leadership.

Once again, good morning, gentlemen.

MARC GINSBERG, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO MOROCCO: Good morning, Kyra.

MARK PERRY, AUTHOR, "A FIRE IN ZION": Good morning, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Well, let's talk about what's happening right now in Israel and parts of the occupied territories and Israeli troops pulling out. Is this a good sign? Mark Ginsberg, you want to start?

GINSBERG: The withdrawal is really more in name than in practice because the Israelis are essentially planning to establish buffer zones around each of the camps and cities that they've just withdrawn as a way of apparently trying to insulate themselves from further terrorist attacks, which I - no matter what this withdrawal means and with what destruction may have occurred, I'm sure that there are Palestinians who are planning to resume these attacks.

But the broader issue goes beyond the withdrawal. The question really inside Israel is - inside Ramallah is where do we go from here and this is obviously a big question within the Bush administration.

PHILLIPS: Mark Perry, do you agree with Marc Ginsberg that attacks will probably more than likely resume?

PERRY: I'm afraid so. I think that Ariel Sharon's plan to take apart the terrorist infrastructure; whatever that is, was really a plan to take apart the Palestinian Authority. And we have reports coming out of Ramallah now of major ministries being vandalized and destroyed, hard drives being taken. I think this pullout is only nominal to inoculate himself from criticism from the Americans and we're going to see the violence getting worse. I'm afraid that's what's going to happen.

PHILLIPS: So is security at stake? Are they jumping the gun here? Is this happening too quickly?

GINSBERG: Well, I - Kyra, I think that it's clear that under pressure, there is only so much that the Israeli forces could do. They clearly were aimed at trying to destroy the terrorist infrastructure and this is what the Israeli population wanted. They want an end to suicide bombing attacks that are instigating by Arafat's Al Aqsa brigades, Islamic Jihad and Hamas.

And I don't think the Israelis themselves are absolutely convinced that they'll be a total respite from suicide attacks. What they're trying to do is to buy some time. And also, I think the Israeli government clearly faces the challenge of facing not only the Palestinians but also the Americans to at least answer the question -- now that you've accomplished objective, what vision are you going to put forward not only to your population but to the Palestinians that lead everyone out of this quagmire. And I'm afraid that other than proposing it in some international conference, the Israelis don't have a clear road map yet as to where they're heading.

PHILLIPS: Well, and you talk about meetings and conference and that seems like the mature way to go forward. But there's so much damage done here and I see lots of desire for revenge. Do you agree Mark Perry?

PERRY: Well, I'm afraid I do agree. And I think the prestige has harmed. American prestige has been harmed. We had Secretary of State Colin Powell return from the region after what is clearly a failed mission, followed by a comment from President Bush that Ariel Sharon was a man of peace. I think embarrassing, almost shameful comment on the part of the president. Not even the Israeli people would agree with that. That's not why they elected him.

I'm afraid we're headed down a very dark path here. The Palestinian Authority cannot exert its control. We could have chaos or anarchy in the West Bank. That's certainly not good for Israel and it's certainly not good for the Palestinians. And it's not good for American diplomacy.

PHILLIPS: Marc...

GINSBERG: Kyra, I'm not...

PHILLIPS: Do you agree with that, Marc?

GINSBERG: No, I don't. I, actually, am not as pessimistic. Even in the rubble of the Powell mission lies a unique opportunity for the Bush administration to put forward a new vision that goes beyond a mere incrementalism that no longer is applicable because of the lack of confidence between both sides. And if this president finally gets his bearings right and adds clarity to what has been a confusing message, there's an opportunity to take the Arab League's initiative, plus the progress that had been made in Taba (ph) between the Palestinians and the Israelis and in effect, put forward to both people's a real settlement objective that goes into the meat and heart of what issues prevented them from reaching an agreement in the - at all. And this, also, I think, will straightjacket Mr. Arafat, who frankly, in my judgment, no longer is a true peace partner for Israel. It's the Israelis who are going to have to buy into a settlement process that perhaps the Americans can now put forward. And I'm looking forward to hearing what Mr. Powell has to say as to where we go from here because we do have that opportunity. So I'm not as pessimistic as Mark.

PHILLIPS: All right, on that thought, I'm going to ask you guys to just stand by for a moment. We're going to take a quick break, come back and continue our discussion.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Continuing our discussion now on the crisis in the Middle East. Once again, we're joined by Marc Ginsberg and Mark Perry.

Gentlemen, we were talking about Powell's trip, is it a failure, was it a failure, is it not a failure. Yesterday, I was speaking with Ambassador Richard Murphy and he agreed with you, Marc Ginsberg, that it wasn't a failure, that truly Secretary Powell had put down some markers that no U.S. official has ever done before.

Mark Perry, do you -- can you agree with that in any way that he did move forward in some respects that no other official has been able to do? And do you - can you give us an example of what you see as one of those steps?

PERRY: Sure. I think that Powell did make some progress on the northern border in dampening the tendencies towards conflict from Lebanon and Syria. And I think he sent out a marker for the Syrian government, saying that they couldn't - what they obviously know, they couldn't win a war against Israel, that they have to reign in air forces. And in that respect, I suppose the Powell mission was a plus.

But I have to reiterate that when the president of Egypt - and I think it's very clear - refuses to meet with the secretary of state and when other Arab leaders show almost open distain for this mission and when the situation is actually worse now in the West Bank than it was even a week ago and we have a clear disaster, humanitarian disaster, looming there, the Bush administration is going to have to recast its strategy and reassert its leadership on this issue. And it might be a diversion from the war on terrorism, but it's a diversion they're going to have to - they're going to have to deal with.

PHILLIPS: All right, you're talking strategy and Marc Ginsberg; you were brining up, prior to our break, the Saudi view. Does this mean that the Mitchell and Tenet plans are just not - or are able to be applied here any longer?

GINSBERG: Empirically, Kyra, the Tenet Plan was meant to restore some sort of security cooperation between the parties. I'm not sure that that's frankly something that can happen because of the total breakdown of law and order in the West Bank among the - and no jurisdiction within the Palestinian Authority per se, but perhaps that can change.

The Mitchell Plan were confidence-building measures, but the problem with both of those plans is that events have largely superceded their utility.

And while Senator Mitchell is a very important and very thoughtful and well regarded man who may play a future role, I think what has to happen here is precisely what I said earlier, the importance of having this administration exercise moral clarity and leadership to lead both parties to make the tough choices that have to be made, to isolate Arafat from being able to veto what should be and could be a reasonably constructed formula. And for the Israeli public to finally have a government that is prepared to offer them a roadmap other than to, in effect, offer them nothing more than perhaps a temporary respite from the terrorism, which is bound to resume.

The United States has an opportunity here to finally force Arab moderate Arab leaders to do more than merely ridiculing Secretary Powell. They must get real. This new king of Morocco will be here this week. The crown of prince of Saudi Arabia will be visiting President Bush at the end of the week at the ranch. There is a formula and a framework that can be constructed here and I believe that Secretary Powell and his people - he has good people around him - they now have gotten to realize that the war on terrorism cannot be waged effectively without dealing with the Arab-Israeli conflict. This president wanted to quote "park" this issue aside. This issue is now double parked in front of an emergency zone and it's time for the administration to move ahead and to exercise some real global leadership here.

PHILLIPS: All right, let's get a couple of e-mails in here quickly, guys. This one comes from New Jersey. Leon wants to know if Saudis - and we were talking about Saudi Arabia - if Saudis are such good friends of Palestinians, how come they've expelled every Palestinian from their land? Mark Perry, do you agree with that?

PERRY: Well, they haven't expelled every Palestinian from their land and I'm not sure the Saudis were ever really great friends with the Palestinians. They certainly supported them financially.

Since we're talking about the Saudis, let's talk about this plan. Crown Prince Abdullah has put a plan on the table for a withdrawal of Israeli forces to the June 4, '67 borders in exchange for complete recognition and normalization of relations. Every country in the world except for Israel has accepted this as a plan that could go forward.

I agree with Ambassador Ginsberg. In a sense, Mitchell-Tenet has been eclipsed. It's time now, I think, for the United States to assert its leadership, to follow up on this Saudi plan, maybe even to call an international conference and see if this can be implemented. But in order for that to happen, the United States has to be willing to pressure Israel, something that we haven't been able to do during this administration.

PHILLIPS: One more e-mail here. This one also coming from New Jersey. "Why are there refugee camps in the middle of Palestinian towns? For 45 years, millions of dollars were given to support the Palestinian refugees and now, they still find themselves in the same predicament as they were then. What happened to all the money?"

And Marc Ginsberg, you were talking about the humanitarian crisis. Do you want to comment on this e-mail question?

GINSBERG: Let's put - yeah, let me put this in perspective. Of the approximately $600 million that is contributed annually to support refugee camps in the West Bank and Gaza and elsewhere in the Middle East, 600 million, about a 180 million of that is collectively given by Europe and the United States. Only $7 million is contributed collectively by each and every Arab state. So it shows how much really the Arab states have actually cared for the humanitarian suffering of Palestinian refugees.

The refugees have not been resettled largely because in prior years, most Arab states refused to permit them to become citizens of their countries except for Jordan. Lebanon has refused. The Syrians and others, they have used the refugees as a way of deflecting attention away form their own failures at home and trying to keep the issue of Palestinian nationalism on the front burner. They have been pawns in a very deadly game that has caused them an enormous humanitarian suffering.

I spent quite a bit of time when - in my younger years, in these camps. That is why I feel so strenuously that while Israel is entitled to security and safety and deserves to live free with out the fear of Palestinian militants, Palestinians deserve to live in dignity and to have a homeland of their own as well.

PHILLIPS: Mark Perry, real quickly, before we wrap things up, you're - or you're going to head to Israel possibly. Are you going to visit these areas?

PERRY: I hope that about a week from now, I'll be in Ramallah, certainly in Bethlehem, and in Israel. I have close friends in Tel Aviv and in Netanya, in Ramallah and in Bethlehem. It will depend of course on the security situation, whether I'll be able to get in. But I hope to be able to talk with some of the Palestinian leaders and assess our next steps, and maybe come back to CNN, I hope, the week after, and give you an update, but it'll be obviously a very interesting trip.

PHILLIPS: No doubt, we'll be looking forward to having you back after that trip.

Ambassador Marc Ginsberg and Mark Perry, gentlemen, thanks so much again.

PERRY: Thank you, Kyra.

GINSBERG: Thank you, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: All right.

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