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CNN Sunday Morning
Is There Hope for Mideast Peace Process?
Aired June 22, 2003 - 11:05 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.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Is there hope for the Middle East road map to peace? U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell gets a better idea today as he meets in Jordan with Russian, U.N., and European union officials. That meeting is slated to get under way within the hour. Meanwhile, the bloodshed continues in the region.
CNN's Jerrold Kessel is in Jerusalem and brings us this live report. Hello, again, Jerrold.
JERROLD KESSEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Fredricka. And against the backdrop of those efforts to get this peace initiative, the so-called road map, on the road, there has been more violence.
Well, there's no dispute about the man whom the Palestinian -- who the Israelis killed in the heart of the West Bank town of Hebron last night. Abdullah Qawasmeh, a top man in Hamas, the militant Islamic group whose activities and actions against Israel is at the heart of this tussle about how to get the peace road activated. But there is very much a dispute about the circumstances of the killing.
The Palestinians are saying this was a premeditated assassination and is liable to interfere and to scuttle, even, those peace efforts. The Israelis are saying that their forces sent in to get Qawasmeh only meant to arrest him, and that he was killed after he tried to escape from them.
But the Israelis are also saying that he was someone who fits the category of what they call a ticking bomb. That is, the term that they use for Palestinians who set out to carry out suicide bombings in such attacks. But they broadened that definition to apply also to people who send out the suicide bombers, and that is the very man in question. Qawasmeh, they say, had sent out a number of suicide bombings including one who carried out that attack on an Israeli bus here in Jerusalem some ten days ago where 17 people were killed.
Be that as it may be, the dispute, Colin Powell, the U.S. Secretary of State, along with other international would-be peacemakers have been saying that this kind of action does not help to get that peace initiative up and running.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: With the liberation of Iraq behind us, the Middle East can be a region of peace. It can be a region where the Palestinian and Israeli people at last see a path, a path through to the end of the bitter conflict, which has wrecked their hopes far, far too long. It can be the region that President Bush described almost exactly one year ago now, a region where two democratic states, Israel and Palestine, live side by side in peace, security, and dignity.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KESSEL: Hopeful words from the U.S. secretary of state, but he's also been critical of this action that took place last night in Hebron. Not helpful was how Colin Powell described it, and it clearly is, with the Israelis brushing off such criticism and saying that as long as the Palestinian authority doesn't crack down on the militants, it has no option but to do so to protect its own citizens.
So more roadblocks on that road map to peace, a fragile situation continuing to exist with this violence, but ever present hope that those peacemakers can move the two sides along the peace road. Fredricka?
WHITFIELD: And, Jerrold, the world economic forum ending tomorrow. What about talks involving the Middle East quartet?
KESSEL: Well, those talks are designed to get the Israelis and Palestinians to move down that peace road in way where Israeli forces will begin to withdraw from areas they've reoccupied, and Palestinian forces come in there instead. But there's all that ever-present problem of are Hamas going to sign on to a truce and to stop their attacks against Israel? As long as they don't do that, the Israelis say they'll keep up their attacks on the militant groups, and as long as there isn't a truce, the Palestinian authority says it can't take over those vacated areas.
So still a logjam, and the question is, can the quartet open up that log jam by saying, maybe we need to send in international forces led by the United States? That could be on the table as those quartet leaders meet at that economic forum in Jordan -- Fredricka.
WHITFIELD: All right, Jerrold Kessel, 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 June 22, 2003 - 11:05 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Is there hope for the Middle East road map to peace? U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell gets a better idea today as he meets in Jordan with Russian, U.N., and European union officials. That meeting is slated to get under way within the hour. Meanwhile, the bloodshed continues in the region.
CNN's Jerrold Kessel is in Jerusalem and brings us this live report. Hello, again, Jerrold.
JERROLD KESSEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Fredricka. And against the backdrop of those efforts to get this peace initiative, the so-called road map, on the road, there has been more violence.
Well, there's no dispute about the man whom the Palestinian -- who the Israelis killed in the heart of the West Bank town of Hebron last night. Abdullah Qawasmeh, a top man in Hamas, the militant Islamic group whose activities and actions against Israel is at the heart of this tussle about how to get the peace road activated. But there is very much a dispute about the circumstances of the killing.
The Palestinians are saying this was a premeditated assassination and is liable to interfere and to scuttle, even, those peace efforts. The Israelis are saying that their forces sent in to get Qawasmeh only meant to arrest him, and that he was killed after he tried to escape from them.
But the Israelis are also saying that he was someone who fits the category of what they call a ticking bomb. That is, the term that they use for Palestinians who set out to carry out suicide bombings in such attacks. But they broadened that definition to apply also to people who send out the suicide bombers, and that is the very man in question. Qawasmeh, they say, had sent out a number of suicide bombings including one who carried out that attack on an Israeli bus here in Jerusalem some ten days ago where 17 people were killed.
Be that as it may be, the dispute, Colin Powell, the U.S. Secretary of State, along with other international would-be peacemakers have been saying that this kind of action does not help to get that peace initiative up and running.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: With the liberation of Iraq behind us, the Middle East can be a region of peace. It can be a region where the Palestinian and Israeli people at last see a path, a path through to the end of the bitter conflict, which has wrecked their hopes far, far too long. It can be the region that President Bush described almost exactly one year ago now, a region where two democratic states, Israel and Palestine, live side by side in peace, security, and dignity.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KESSEL: Hopeful words from the U.S. secretary of state, but he's also been critical of this action that took place last night in Hebron. Not helpful was how Colin Powell described it, and it clearly is, with the Israelis brushing off such criticism and saying that as long as the Palestinian authority doesn't crack down on the militants, it has no option but to do so to protect its own citizens.
So more roadblocks on that road map to peace, a fragile situation continuing to exist with this violence, but ever present hope that those peacemakers can move the two sides along the peace road. Fredricka?
WHITFIELD: And, Jerrold, the world economic forum ending tomorrow. What about talks involving the Middle East quartet?
KESSEL: Well, those talks are designed to get the Israelis and Palestinians to move down that peace road in way where Israeli forces will begin to withdraw from areas they've reoccupied, and Palestinian forces come in there instead. But there's all that ever-present problem of are Hamas going to sign on to a truce and to stop their attacks against Israel? As long as they don't do that, the Israelis say they'll keep up their attacks on the militant groups, and as long as there isn't a truce, the Palestinian authority says it can't take over those vacated areas.
So still a logjam, and the question is, can the quartet open up that log jam by saying, maybe we need to send in international forces led by the United States? That could be on the table as those quartet leaders meet at that economic forum in Jordan -- Fredricka.
WHITFIELD: All right, Jerrold Kessel, 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
