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CNN Saturday Morning News

Reporter's Notebook: Violence in Bethlehem

Aired May 04, 2002 - 09:51   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: All right, time now for "Reporter's Notebook." Let's get right to our panel of experts. We've got your e-mails ready, hopefully you'll have some phone calls in just a minute.

Joining us to help us in our discussion, Matthew Chance in Ramallah, Tony Karon, world editor for time.com. And in Washington, the "Newsweek" magazine senior editor, Michael Hirsh. Good to have you all with us.

That number once again, 404-221-1855. But of course we all know you have it in your speed dial.

Let's get right to an e-mail, shall we? This one comes from Kathy in Staten Island. This one's for you, Matthew. "What is the religious significance of Bethlehem to the Muslims and the Jews? Jesus Christ was born there, but I don't know what the significance of Christ's birth had on these two faiths."

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, I mean, the fact is, is that Israel claims sovereignty over all the religious sites, says it's the best state in the area to provide security for it. The other important thing to remember about that is, of course, that many Palestinians in that area, they're not all Muslim over there, there are a lot -- a lot of them are actually Christians. So it's of immense significance for them.

And of course these sites, which are significant to Christianity, of course it's the place where Jesus Christ was born, are also significant in many other ways to the Jewish faith and the Muslim faith as well. It's all the same God that's being worshiped.

O'BRIEN: All right. Let's get a phone call in, and joining us is the dean of our phone callers, Joe McCutcheon from Elijay (ph), Georgia. Joe, good morning to you. Welcome to the program this morning.

CALLER: Oh, thank you very much, Miles. You do a great job. My question, my brief question, is, what is the economic impact with both Palestine and Israel on this terrible war? Isn't it terrific?

O'BRIEN: Let's go -- I tell you what, Tony Karon, why don't you take that? TONY KARON, TIME.COM: Well, obviously the economic impact has been absolutely devastating on Palestinian society. Most of their infrastructure has been wiped out. There really is no or very little economic activity happening right now, and the international community's focused very much on really restarting at pouring billions of dollars in there.

On the Israeli economy, they recently passed a massive -- a budget with a massive deficit, and clearly they're really struggling as well. They're having to commit a lot of troops to reserve duty, and that affects the labor market. But they're really having an investment in tourism crisis.

So all round, this war has been very bad for business on both sides.

O'BRIEN: All right. Let's go to the e-mail, shall we? C. Clark from Ramrod Key, Florida, has this. "We hear over and over that at Camp David in the summer of 2000, Yasser Arafat rejected the best deal he was ever offered. But no one explains exactly what was wrong with the deal from his point of view. Do your guests know?"

How about you, Mike Hirsh?

MICHAEL HIRSH, "NEWSWEEK" MAGAZINE: Well, from his point of view, it would have created what he called a Bantustan (ph) type setup for the Palestinian state, namely armed camps surrounded by Israeli soldiers, Gaza and the West Bank, the areas that would have formed the new Palestinian state, would have been essentially cut off each other and under Israeli control. And that was one of the things that he rejected.

Ultimately he also rejected the idea that the right of return of Palestinian refugees since 1948 would only be to the Palestinian state proper rather than to all of Israel, which was an impossibility as the Israelis saw it.

O'BRIEN: All right, let's get a phone caller in here, the phone caller is from where, now? Tell me the name again. Tell me the name, please. Hey, Mark from Miami. Mark, you're on the line. Your question, please, for one of our guests.

Mark?

All right, I think we lost Mark. Let's do an e-mail, shall we?

Mrs. Watson has this for us. "When we consider the Middle East, why don't we look at the psychology of the children, who have now grown to be suicide bombers on the Palestinian side and soldiers on the Israeli side?"

Matthew Chance, it's becoming a multigenerational thing, and that sort of makes it a much more difficult riddle, doesn't it?

CHANCE: It is, it's an extremely traumatic period in an extremely traumatic conflict, of course, for both sides. You mentioned the Israeli soldiers. Many Israeli soldiers are suffering with post-traumatic stress as a result of the combat they're placed into by the Israeli government.

On the Palestinian side, of course, as well, a lot of trauma. In fact, just the other day, I was with a bunch of children here in Ramallah, and they were having some art therapy classes, being made to draw pictures and to tell stories about what they'd witnessed. They were drawing pictures of tanks, people being killed, really not the kind of images you'd expect children of such a young age to have in their minds.

So it's an immensely traumatic situation here.

O'BRIEN: All right, with time expiring, Brian has this e-mail for us. "What happens now if some terrorist that Arafat does not control sends a suicide bomber into Israel? Is the assumption automatic that he controls every terrorist?"

Tony Karon?

KARON: I don't think the assumption is that he controls every terrorist, but I think we can be absolutely sure that with the pressure on both sides, on both Sharon and Arafat, to basically, if anything, retract some of what they've given away in recent weeks, that there will be an escalation. I think we're in a very dangerous period right now. There's a lot of danger for the situation to really escalate even beyond where it was a couple of weeks ago.

A lot is going to depend on the United States' ability to really marshal its way to -- marshal both sides towards a settlement.

O'BRIEN: All right. Unfortunately, we have run out of time, and I -- my apologies to Mike Hirsh, I had a great question for you, but it's going to have to wait, because they're telling me we're out of time. And, you know, we'll just have to invite back. I feel bad that we kind of gave you short shrift this morning, but things conspired against us.

Gentlemen, thank you very much, Matthew Chance, Mike Hirsh, and Tony Karon, as always, we appreciate your insights.

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