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CNN Saturday Morning News
Reporter's Notebook
Aired May 11, 2002 - 09:34 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: More on the Mideast conflict now in our Reporter's Notebook. Joining us today, as promised, John Parker of "The Economist," Tony Karon of "Time" magazine, and about 30 meters for the Church of the Nativity, our own Walter Rodgers in Bethlehem.
Good to see you all.
Walter, we're going to begin with you. We got a phone call, Serge from Miami. Good morning, Serge.
CALLER: Yes, good morning. I think I have a problem with the fact that the 26 Palestinian who are called terrorists and the 13 (UNINTELLIGIBLE) right now let it free in a beach, one in Cyprus and one in Gaza, and I think it send a very wrong to the world saying that the U.K. and the U.S. were supposed to put them in jail, let them free.
O'BRIEN: All right, Walt, did you understand that question?
WALTER RODGERS, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Very clearly, and the answer is just as simple as the question was. Here it was Israel who agreed to it. Israel cut the deal that said the 13, what Israel called senior terrorists from Hamas, the Al Aqsa Brigade, and Islamic Jihad, were to be deported. They were to go to Cyprus, go to Italy. It was Israel who let them go under the terms of the agreement.
What Israel wanted -- what Israel agreed to and what Israel said it would do is deport them. If you don't like it, complain to Ariel Sharon.
O'BRIEN: All right. Let's go to an e-mail, shall we? John Wendt in Noblesville, Indiana, has this. "Mark Ginsberg," one of our analysts, "said at about 7:15 a.m. Eastern time that Israel has to deal with Hamas. How can they do that without creating a whole new generation of terrorists? Tomorrow's suicide bombers are today's 10- year-olds throwing rocks at Israeli tanks."
Tony Karon, you want to take that one?
TONY KARON, TIME.COM: Well, I think there's certainly a point to saying that Israel has to deal with the problem of terrorism and suicide bombings, and what's creating them, in the sense of military solutions are by nature in this sort of situation short term. You can make tactical gains, as they have made on the West Bank in recent weeks. Gaza, obviously, is a lot more difficult. But at the end of the day, the fuel for -- the real infrastructure of terrorism is the situation of occupation, the unresolved political dynamic between Israelis and Palestinians.
And until that -- there's something in play that really sorts that out, the next generations of suicide bombers are always been cultivated by the real situation on the ground.
JOHN PARKER, THE ECONOMIST: Can I just cut in very briefly there?
O'BRIEN: Oh, please.
PARKER: It also -- it kind of depends on what you mean by dealing with Hamas. If you narrow it closely to Hamas itself, it's a little bit like asking the question, you know, How do we deal with al Qaeda? We dealt with al Qaeda by attacking them militarily. If you think that Hamas is an organization, a terrorist organization something like al Qaeda, then the only way of dealing with Hamas is to, is to attack it militarily and defeat it.
And then there's a separate question for how do we deal with those -- the sort of broader popular support for terrorist actions? And that's an entirely separate question, not related specifically to Hamas.
O'BRIEN: Ah, good point of clarification.
Evelyn is in Alabama. she has this for us on the e-mail. "I hear all the time that the Palestinians could have had their own state from the 2000 conference at Camp David and they refused in order to fight more. Is it not true that the deal offered there at Camp David did not include removal of the settlers" -- Walt.
RODGERS: Well, there is that perception out there that what was offered the Palestinians at Camp David was essentially a state, and that the Palestinians could have accepted it.
What's interesting to note is that there were subsequent negotiations at Taba along the Egyptian-Israeli border at which the Israelis actually gave the Palestinians even more, and according to even some Arab writers, Arafat was simply not prepared to accept it because he hadn't prepared to accept his own people for compromises that the Palestinians would have to accept, simply the fact that all of the 2 to 3 million Palestinians in the Diaspora in Jordan, in Syria, in Lebanon, and all over the world, simply couldn't come back home, the Palestinian state couldn't accommodate them.
So it's very clear that Arafat didn't prepare his own people for the compromises which were necessary. He tried to create the impression that they could have it all, and that was just out of the question -- Miles.
O'BRIEN: Let's go back to the phone lines, as Eduardo is on the line from California, up early. And we do appreciate that, Eduardo. Good morning. Your question?
CALLER: Good morning. I have two questions. One is concerning who's the real problem for peace. Last year, Hamas, in what was reported widely in Europe but here in the United States, declared a cease-fire. I think it was last September, October. It was a major step towards peace at the behest of the Palestinian Authority. And the Israeli government responded within a week by assassinating Mahmoud Abu Hanood (ph) and several other leaders of Hamas.
Now, this was a clear action by Sharon to sabotage what was a major, major step towards peace by the Palestinian community, and yet American reporters only seem to question whether Arafat is, you know, a partner for peace.
O'BRIEN: All right, Eduardo. So I guess the question really, and the big question here is, Tony, is, is there some subtle bias in all of this, the way we've been reporting this?
KARON: Well, I think we shouldn't overestimate Hamas' declarations of cease-fires. At the end of the day, Hamas is very well aware that it stands to lose from any cease-fire or truce between the Palestinian Authority and the Israelis, which is why, I think, the timing, for example, of the bomb when Sharon was in Washington was very politically timed.
Hamas's traditional strategy has been to make attacks of this sort precisely when there's any movement towards any sort of dialogue or truce, precisely because Hamas knows at the end of the day, they're the ones who are going to be locked up in any sort of truce, because their program is different. They never accepted the Oslo terms, they never accepted the principle of a compromise in which the Israelis -- Palestinians settled for the West Bank and Gaza.
O'BRIEN: All right, let's do one more question. We are a little brief on time here. This one comes from Thomas Greschner, and we'll send it to John Parker in Washington. "When is our government going to learn that our involvement is not defusing the situation? I feel that it is about time we pull back and let these people, who are obviously evenly matched militarily" -- that's a point which you might want to elaborate on right there -- "settle things for themselves" -- John.
PARKER: The usual answer to that is, the Bush administration did try to do that. It's been widely accused and criticized for this in the region, of not being involved for the first year of its term and has only become involved rather reluctantly recently. The usual sort of charge in the Middle East is that -- or perhaps not charge, but hope in some ways -- is that the Bush administration is the only -- is the -- the American administration is the only force that can bring Israel and Palestine together.
Cheney went around the region a couple of months ago and came back and said, "There's no one there but us."
So it seems to me that if there is to be a peace negotiation, then it's probably true that the American administration is the only, is the only sort of force trusted enough by both sides to bring it together.
The question, and I think it's an open question which lies behind the questioner's suggestion, is that, you know, are they ready? You know, are the two sides actually prepared to come to the negotiating table? And my own view is that they're probably not at the moment, and therefore the best the administration can do is to do what they're -- it's doing at the moment, which is kind of tread water a lot, you know, keep talking but not push for any kind of final settlement, which, you know, people aren't prepared to go for yet.
O'BRIEN: All right. We're going to sneak in one more e-mail and send it off to Walt, who have last words. This one comes from Dale Friesen in Barnaby. "Are the peace activists still in the Church of the Nativity, and if so, why are they still there? And are they breaking any laws by maintaining a continued presence there" -- Walt.
RODGERS: No, Miles, what they did was stay another two or three hours after everyone else was evacuated from the church. No, they weren't breaking any laws. They were going to stay longer, but they were afraid to come out because they were concerned that the second they came out the door, the Israelis would deport them.
Now, what their mission was there, as best I was able to determine, and I was listening to them down on the street below as they were talking on their cell phones, some of them were still outside, it was, in many respects, a publicity stunt. Now, they say they wanted to show their solidarity with the Palestinians inside, but quite frankly, they were more interested in publicity, and the Palestinians, particularly in Yasser Arafat's headquarters, didn't appreciate these people.
Everyone associated with the negotiations said they were just mucking things up -- Miles.
O'BRIEN: All right, gentlemen, sorry we didn't have a little more time for this. We got a lot more e-mails, a lot more phone calls. We appreciate all your participation out there.
John Parker, Tony Karon, Walt Rodgers, excellent work, and we'll see you again some other time, maybe we'll have a little more time to talk about it.
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