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CNN Saturday Morning News

Reporter's Notebook: Clashes in the Middle East

Aired August 18, 2001 - 09:29   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.
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN ANCHOR: In our "Reporter's Notebook" segment this morning, we focus on the seemingly unending violence in the Middle East, 10 months now of clashes, hundreds of people dead. And the two sides appear no closer to compromise.

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: And joining us live to take your questions are CNN's Ben Wedeman and Jerusalem and CNN's senior U.N. correspondent Richard Roth.

Hello, gentlemen.

SAVIDGE: Good morning to you both.

PHILLIPS: We're going to start with an e-mail. This one is directed to you, Mr. Roth. It comes from Fred Alletto. "It is time for the United Nations to send a multinational force to Jerusalem to keep the peace. I agree with Pope John Paul that Jerusalem be designated as an international city and have a multinational peacekeeping force to protect all holy sites of all faiths, open to all the free people of the world. Is this possible?"

RICHARD ROTH, CNN U.N. CORRESPONDENT: Not right now. Israel is vehement against accepting an international force. It has long not wanted to, quote, "internationalize" the Middle East dispute. It believes that this long-running fight can best be settled with direct talks between the parties, not to get too many outsiders involved.

SAVIDGE: You know, one of the questions, Ben, and I direct this to you, and actually it's a question that also I have and one of our -- those viewers watching had, which is, "Why is Israel opposed to the international observers or the peacekeepers?" That was from Robert Holliman of Orlando, Florida. Why is Israel opposed to this?

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Basically, their fear is that to internationalize the conflict, they've seen in the past where international forces have become involved, for instance, in the situation in South Lebanon. That's another complication in an already very complicated environment.

They believe, as Richard said, that what they would like is direct talks with the Palestinians to resolve the problem, obviously with U.S. participation. But they're very anxious not -- they're very hesitant to involve some sort of international peacekeeping or peace- maintaining force that might be open-ended. ROTH: Martin, if I could just jump in, one more quick note, the Security Council on Monday is once again going to discuss the idea of some type of observers or monitoring mechanism to go back into the Mideast there. But again, the U.S. and Israel not really in favor of that.

PHILLIPS: Richard, here's another question, sort of on the same lines. This comes from Ronald Morgan in Wilson, New York. "Why not send President Bill Clinton to the Middle East to possibly restart the peace process? What could be the harm in sending Mr. Clinton to finish the job that he's very familiar with?"

ROTH: Well, I don't think they're there yet, the Bush administration. They're not that desperate, I think, to call on the former president, a Democrat. I think they believe that Secretary of State Colin Powell should have a hand in this, and the Bush administration, and also they want to bring in more, quote, "friendly Arab nations in the region." They have yet, I think, really to swing their full weight into this issue.

George W. Bush, the president, has said he's been engaged since day one of his administration. Others say they haven't done enough.

SAVIDGE: Well, Ben, let me ask you that same question. How do you think Israelis would react if someone like former President Bill Clinton came there to try to broker a peace deal?

WEDEMAN: Well, the feeling among many Israelis was that President Clinton was somewhat more sympathetic to the Palestinians than he was with the Israelis, although we know from the Camp David talks last summer that he was very aware and very sensitive to Israeli concerns.

So on the Israeli side, he's not particularly popular in terms of his participation. The Palestinians would like to see, if it were to come to that, they probably would welcome the involvement of former president Clinton.

But certainly it's a question of what sort of mandate he would have, and the situation has changed in many ways since President Clinton was in office. And certainly it's far more complicated than it was even back in January when he left office.

PHILLIPS: Ben, you're right there on the front lines. Is there a U.S. leader that Israelis and Palestinians would respect? Have you heard a name tossed around, someone that could be pivotal, rather?

WEDEMAN: Well, the feeling is at the moment is that the level of U.S. involvement in this situation here has been somewhat less than they would desire. I was in Ramallah on the West Bank speaking to a Palestinian official today who expressed scorn at the level of State Department officials who are being sent out here. They're normally under secretaries of state for Middle Eastern affairs or even assistant under secretary of states for Middle Eastern affairs.

So therefore, it's not necessarily a person that they would like, but it's the level of involvement that they would like to see raised. At the moment, many on both sides, Israelis and Palestinians, feel that President Bush simply doesn't want to get involved in this very complicated conflict. But that's the level of participation they would like to see, the highest possible level.

SAVIDGE: Let's take a telephone call now, Bob from Virginia is on the line. Morning to you, Bob. What's your question?

CALLER: Good morning, Marty, Ben, and Richard. My question to you -- matter of fact, Marty, you can even answer this too if you want -- my question to all three of you is this. What would be the possibility of building a wall, say, south of Jerusalem, and giving the Palestinian Arabs their own state from the south of Jerusalem all the way down to, like, say, the Gaza Strip in Egypt, and having a -- the U.N. monitor the wall like they did in Berlin?

I would presume that that would reduce the suicide bombings and the terrorist activity, would that not? And not draw every other nation around there in it? Has that possibility been explored?

SAVIDGE: Richard, let me start with you in a response to that. How would the U.N. react to a wall dividing the two parties here?

ROTH: I don't think very favorably. I think the United Nations under Secretary General Annan and the message that goes out daily is, we shouldn't be building walls up, we should be encouraging relationships, that walls just divide in the end, and the Berlin Wall did eventually fall.

And coincidentally, a piece of the Berlin Wall, a big chunk, is coming to the U.N. shortly. They're going to put it on display, probably to hammer home that message.

Ben, what do you think?

WEDEMAN: Well, it's a proposal that the Israelis, for instance, have talked about building exactly that, some sort of wall along the '67 border between the West Bank and Israel. But in practical terms, just the geography of the West Bank, for instance, where you have Israeli settlements spotting the landscape, it would be very difficult to actual create -- actually create some sort of physical separation.

The people are so intertwined, so living close together, that you really just can't separate them. What is needed, obviously, is not a physical solution in terms of a wall, but some sort of political resolution of the conflict.

PHILLIPS: Ben, we're going to give this next question toward you also. Dale Friesen wants to know, "What are the challenges to a reporter's freedom of movement throughout the troubled areas? What kinds of danger specifically does a reporter face in the conflict?" And as we well know, you're the one that took a bullet not too long ago and survived the danger on the streets. Can you go a little bit more into detail?

WEDEMAN: Well, in terms of actually moving around on the ground, it's not too difficult in the sense that there's not really fighting going on everywhere. But if you want to move around, say, for instance, from Jerusalem to Ramallah, which is really just a -- under normal circumstances, maybe a 20-minute car ride away, now there's a huge roadblock in the middle with hundreds if not thousands of cars lining up.

So, for instance, when I went there this morning, we had to leave our car on the Israeli side, walk across with hundreds of other people, and pick up a taxi on the other side. And you have to do this from checkpoint to checkpoint.

And in terms of the danger, obviously, now, we're driving around, for instance, the West Bank in an armored car because of the possibility of snipers out there. Sometimes you find yourself in a situation which, when you arrived, looked calm and quiet, and all of a sudden gunfire breaks out, and all chaos breaks out. So you have to always think about what you're going into, look behind you, look ahead of you, see how the people around you are behaving to try to figure out if it's a volatile situation, it's a situation that could suddenly go out of control.

So your security is always quite high in your mind. And it's also worth mentioning, of course, that here in Jerusalem there've been a variety of suicide bombers. I know a reporter from "USA Today" who was just feet away from the pizzeria that was blown up by a suicide bomber Thursday before last.

So there are many dangers that you do face. But on the other hand, we have a job to do, and we have to get around those dangers to do our job.

SAVIDGE: That's exactly right, Ben Wedeman. Thanks for summarizing for us.

Richard, I'm afraid we've got to leave it there. Richard Roth, covering the U.N., and Ben Wedeman reporting to us from Jerusalem, thank you very much for joining us this Saturday morning.

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