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CNN Saturday Morning News

Interviews With Mark Perry, Marc Ginsberg

Aired April 13, 2002 - 08:32   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 CORRESPONDENT: All right, we're continuing to talk about the Middle East and we've had two excellent guests providing insight for us all morning, Mssrs. Mark Perry and Marc Ginsberg.

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: That's right. Marc Ginsberg, former U.S. Ambassador to Morocco, and Mark Perry, author of "A Fire In Zion."

You can call us also now with our questions concerning the Mideast. The number is 404-221-1855. But first we want to get our guests' reaction to a televised telethon sponsored by Saudi Arabia. The telethon was one of several in which Gulf Arabs raised millions of dollars to help Palestinians. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We can take part in jihad by either donating money or self-sacrifice. Even if financially you can only contribute a little, god will multiply your contribution.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I just opened this envelope and inside there was this little ring from a widowed mother with children. She said, "That's all I could offer my Palestinian brothers to help."

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We said at the beginning of this telethon that all contributions will reach the families of every martyrs, every injured and everyone whose house was destroyed to fix every damaged road, hospital and school.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let's close this telethon with a general prayer to curse the Israelis, the oppressors, and Zionism. And we pray for the Muslims, the Palestinians and the Mujahedeen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Wow. Pretty, Marc and -- Ginsberg, and Mark Perry, is this normal? I saw this and I was just so blown away. Is this a typical reaction to something like this? Do they do these telethons on a regular basis?

MARC GINSBERG, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO MOROCCO: No, is the answer. This is clearly unprecedented and the fact remains is that it's a pretty distorted view of what is actually supposed to happen in terms of Arab support for a moderate approach to the region.

Look, if on the one hand this telethon could take some of the pressure off the Arab streets and have people open up their envelopes, I'm all in favor of that. But when they start using this as blood money to pay off terrorist families and encourage further suicide bombing, then they become accomplices to the very process that we're trying to stop from occurring.

And so you can't really just say this has been very altruistic. I just can't see, given what I heard in Arabic just now and what I've just heard in English, that this is just a very humanitarian enterprise.

PHILLIPS: Mark Perry, you wonder, is this for humanitarian efforts or you can't help but think is this going to go for weapons and support of suicide bombings?

MARK PERRY, AUTHOR, "A FIRE IN ZION": That seems to be the operative question in the United States. I don't think it's the operative question in the Middle East. We might not like this. We might not react well to it. We can condemn it all we want. But we have to face the reality. The widespread view in the Middle East is that the Israelis are the oppressors and the fact of the matter is they have been occupying Palestinian territory now for 35 years. And what we're seeing on TV in the Arab world and here in the United States are military incursions that are very brutal in some cases.

The word massacre is used not just in the Arab world. The foreign minister of Israel used the word massacre to refer to the operation in Jenin just three days ago. And whether we like it or not, and we don't have to like it, we can condemn it, the reality of the situation is there is deep, deep bitter feelings towards Israel in the Middle East and that's why the Powell mission is going on.

GINSBERG: Kyra, can I just add a point?

PHILLIPS: Absolutely.

GINSBERG: I wish that the Saudi people felt as strongly about the 3,000 Americans who were killed in the World Trade Center and the families that were left homeless by 15 Saudi hijackers and it sponsored a telethon. I'd feel a lot better about this one if they had done something similar for the American victims of people who came from their own country.

O'BRIEN: Thank you very much. That was well put.

All right, let's go to some e-mail, shall we? And perhaps in the course of this both of you gentlemen could remind us what exactly is this potential meeting all about? This is the question. And then throw that in. "Why would America want Arafat to condemn the suicide bombing yesterday? After all, Arafat was the one who was responsible for it. The more we deal with the situation in the Middle East, the more wimpish America becomes. Don't meet with Arafat, condemn him." That comes from Emmett Worick in Orange, Virginia. But give us the basics, first of all. Mark Perry, who do you -- what is -- why -- what are they going to be talking about? What is the possibility? Are we talking about a cease-fire or are we just talking about beginning a dialogue.

PERRY: Well, I think we're talking about much more than a cease- fire. We have to remember that Secretary Powell visited Spain and Morocco prior to his arrival in Jerusalem. He met with European diplomats and he met with the crown prince of Saudi Arabia. I think it's very clear from his statements that what he's arriving with in Jerusalem and what he is going to be talking to Arafat about is not only a condemnation of the terrorist bombings and not only a cease- fire, but also a political program.

My hunch is that Mr. Powell believes that there is great merit in the Saudi proposal of a full withdrawal of Israel for complete security and diplomatic relations. This political program has been gaining strength. It's not endorsed by 62 nations, including many in Europe, our allies. And I think that he's going to be working very hard to try to implement that political program.

PHILLIPS: All right, gentlemen, we're going to take a call. Bob's on the line from Virginia. Go ahead, Bob. What's your question?

BOB: Good morning, Kyra. Good morning to all four of you.

Mr. Ginsberg, I applaud your comment about the telethon thing. I think that was very admirable of you. I commend you for that. I really do. I think that's very commendable, sir.

My question is this, would the U.S. government under the Bush administration have the guts to appoint former President Clinton, who tried so hard and was so close to resolving this issue? After he left office all heck broke loose. Would the Bush administration have the guts to appoint him special envoy to go over and try again?

GINSBERG: Well, that's an excellent question and let me see if I can put this into context. There's no doubt that both peoples in the region need hope and the American government has worked over the last 50 years to try to bring some hope and relief to two peoples who desperately need some avenue out of the quagmire that they're in.

President Clinton made a terribly good effort here to help bring the parties together. It failed and I don't want to relive the history over why it didn't succeed. But what was left on the table were some very good ideas that conceptually were negotiated subsequently between reasonable moderate Palestinians and Israelis in Tabbah (ph), Egypt, just as the intifada was beginning during the Barak, Prime Minister Barak's administration.

Those principles essentially got to the core of very important issues. They were dealing with the settlements and the withdrawal of settlements, territorial adjustments that gave the Palestinians close to 96 percent of the West Bank and Gaza. It also began addressing and finally resolving the issue over demarcating two capitals in Jerusalem for the Palestinians and for the Israelis. It also began dealing with the very vexing problem of the right of return for 3.5 million refugees.

What I think is missing from the equation is that Secretary Powell is out in a region to do a salami tactic negotiation over a cease-fire which is doomed to fail because Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which are the terrorist organizations, will never accept an Israeli state, much less a cease-fire.

And so what we need to do is to have some longevity and people on the ground. If Mr. Powell wants to come back to Washington after he makes this effort, we should have, if it's not President Clinton, then former Ambassador Mitchell, former Senator Mitchell, as well as a very good negotiator for the Republicans, James Baker, out there helping General Zinni. Remember General Zinni? He's still out there trying to negotiate a cease-fire.

We need to put those people in place, to put this process in place, working off of the Tabbah agreements as well as the Arab League initiative.

O'BRIEN: All right, well put. One final e-mail, but we don't have too much time, but I've got to throw this out there because it's provocative as it can be. "When will people realize that Arafat is a shorter and uglier bin Laden and why do people insist that Jews should be victims and not aggressor?" Nancyann Curtis-Dubost of Adelaida, California.

Mark Perry?

PERRY: I'm very hesitant to turn this conflict into a religious conflict. I think it's bloody enough without that happening. The truth is that 20 percent of Israel is not Jewish, is about Israeli nationalism. Twenty percent of the Palestinian Authority is not about Muslim nationalism, it's about Palestinian nationalism. Arafat is not Osama bin Laden. We didn't occupy Afghanistan. We didn't build settlements in Afghanistan. We didn't rip up orchards in Afghanistan. We've had 35 years of occupation there.

I think as a final word what I would say is that it's very important right now to lower the temperature on a lot of the rhetoric we've been hearing in the Middle East and I hope that that is one of the messages that Mr. Powell will carry to Mr. Arafat and to Mr. Sharon.

O'BRIEN: All right, I think we're going to have to leave it at that. We are out of time. Unless, Marc Ginsberg, you have something quick to add there at the end.

GINSBERG: Just to add one point to the viewer's, Miles, and that is they should not invest so much in whether or not Mr. Powell succeeds or fails in this mission. The United States has broad interest at stake and we will stay the course and if he returns back without a firm agreement, that doesn't mean that the public should assume that we have failed completely. We have some, still some pretty good weapons in our arsenal to try to bring some order to this process and we have to keep trying.

O'BRIEN: All right, gentlemen, thank you very much for your time.

On two occasions you helped us learn a little bit more and understand better the Middle East. We appreciate all of your insights. Mark Ginsberg, Mark Perry.

PHILLIPS: Thanks, gentlemen.

PERRY: Thank you.

GINSBERG: Thank you.

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