Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Saturday Morning News
Interview With Marc Ginsberg, Mark Perry
Aired June 22, 2002 - 07:24 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: The White House is dismissing the latest statement from Yasser Arafat. The Palestinian leader says he is now ready to accept the Clinton peace plan. Arafat rejected that proposal during the closing days of the Clinton administration, and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is already on the record as saying those proposals are no longer on the table.
So where does that leave the Mideast peace process? To field that question and some others we turn to our regular Mideast analysts, Marc Ginsberg and Mark Perry. Marc Ginsberg served as U.S. ambassador to Morocco and as a White House Mideast policy adviser, and Mark Perry is a veteran Mideast analyst with close ties to the Palestinian leadership.
Gentlemen, good to see you both.
MARC GINSBERG, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO MOROCCO: Hey, Miles, good to see you.
MARK PERRY, AUTHOR, "A FIRE IN ZION": Morning, Miles.
O'BRIEN: All right. Mr. Ginsberg, let's begin with you. Yasser Arafat says, You know that meeting we had two years ago? That actually was a good deal. Is it a little too late?
GINSBERG: Not only is it too late, but, you know, when President Clinton put the first American proposals together at the very end of his administration, months after the breakdown at Camp David, it was quite clear that this represented what he thought was a very generous opportunity to bridge the differences between the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli government, led then by Prime Minister Barak.
But Mr. Arafat rejected them outright. He did not want to negotiate them, even after Taba, when the process of negotiations ended when Prime Minister Sharon became prime minister, Mr. Arafat did not want to condition his public to accept anything that constituted a reasonable offer.
So now the question is, why did he all of a sudden today, or yesterday, suggest that he's willing to accept them? It's because he sees the White House developing a proposal that would only give him a provisional Palestinian state at beset after he makes some major reforms and cleans up the nest of terrorism that he himself has birthed.
And he doesn't want that. So now he's trying to pretend that he's going to be a good boy all over again and accept something that was reasonable then but which is now not reasonable now.
O'BRIEN: Mark Perry, a lot of people would suggest as well that perhaps Yasser Arafat is desperate just to remain relevant in this whole discussion of the Middle East, and that bringing up the Clinton proposal is part of that effort. What would you say to that?
PERRY: Well, Mr. Arafat is relevant. I don't think this is a...
O'BRIEN: He is?
PERRY: ... political ploy...
O'BRIEN: He -- wait a minute, why, why is, why, how, how -- you, you say that almost dismissively. I think his relevancy is very much at issue, isn't it?
PERRY: Oh, I don't think so. He's the elected leader of the Palestinian people. The White House believe he's relevant. They might dismiss him, but he's a fact of life. And let's get what the Clinton proposals are real straight. This is not the Camp David agreement that was on the table, which was only 91 percent of the West Bank. No Arab leader, certainly no Palestinian leader, could ever accept that.
This was the Clinton proposals which were put on the table six weeks later. Mr. Arafat has consistently endorsed them, and the ambassador is wrong about this. They call for a Palestinian state, they're an implicit endorsement of 242 and 338, the U.N. resolutions. And that really is the resolution in this conflict. That has to be the resolution of the conflict.
It has nothing to do...
O'BRIEN: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) -- Mark, Mark, what you're saying is that Yasser Arafat hadn't changed his mind, and is accepting proposals he had previously rejected?
PERRY: The only thing that Yasser Arafat would ever accept is 242 and 338, that there would be a Palestinian state within the borders that existed in 1967. Anything less than that, he simply can't accept.
GINSBERG: Well, the -- Miles...
O'BRIEN: All right, go ahead.
GINSBERG: ... there's no way, then, that Arafat accepted, then, what Mr. Clinton proposed, because that is far less than 242 and 338. I don't want to, you know, get into the...
O'BRIEN: All right, (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...
GINSBERG: ... very technical issues...
O'BRIEN: ... we're getting technical here, we got to remind people what 242 and 338 are, we're talking about some U.N. resolutions here.
GINSBERG: Right. Well, 242 and 338 essentially would call for Israeli withdrawal from "the territories," and there's great legal debate over what that meant. But it's clear that that requirement is far more than what Mr. Clinton put on the table, and Arafat is basically saying that he wants it both ways. He wants to have a 242 and 338 complete withdrawal from all of the occupied territories.
And President Clinton's proposals represented the following, Miles, 92 percent of the West Bank, contiguous Palestinian state, control over Arab East Jerusalem to -- neighborhoods, as well as the holy places, and the return of Arab refugees to the -- this Palestinian state, which most people, most reasonable people, consider to be a reasonable proposal.
O'BRIEN: All right. But instead of that, what you're seeing is, in Israel, a move to reoccupy the West Bank. Mark Perry, what's this going to do?
PERRY: I think, unfortunately, it deepens the conflict, it broadens the conflict. We've seen over the last 24 hours an escalation of the conflict. I don't think reoccupation is a good idea. Lot of people in the Israeli cabinet, in Sharon's own cabinet, are very wary that this is the security solution.
It's clear now that security for Israelis is purely in Israeli hands. I think they're going to find that without a political resolution of this problem, their security situation is going to get much worse. They're going to have to call up reservists. That puts a lot of pressure on their economy. The Bush administration has to step in now and provide what even Ariel Sharon has called a political horizon, a political solution to this problem.
O'BRIEN: All right, Marc Ginsberg, final word on that.
GINSBERG: Well, I first of all don't believe that Mr. Arafat can be entrusted to be any reasonable partner any more with the Israelis. He is condoning terrorism and not doing enough to stop it, and he said, by the way, in his statement that he gave to "H'Aretz (ph)," that there are foreign forces at work in promoting this terrorism. And I frankly think that he's part of that foreign terrorist conspiracy with Hamas, Islamic Jihad...
O'BRIEN: All right...
GINSBERG: ... Iran and Iraq.
O'BRIEN: ... I got to give Mark Perry a response to that just to end it out here, because that was a provocative statement. Go ahead, Mark. Go ahead.
PERRY: Well, it's very provocative. Here is Yasser Arafat in Ramallah, which is surrounded by tanks, all major Palestinian towns are surrounded by tanks. And it's absolutely ridiculous to continue to point the finger at the Palestinian leadership and say, They're responsible.
They're not responsible. There are outside forces at work here. Israel has made the decision that security is in their own hands. Let's see if that'll work. This is a major escalation. I think it's going to lead to even more tragic situations than we've seen over the last three days.
O'BRIEN: All right, gentlemen, we're going to have to leave it at that. Lots more questions, of course, but time does not permit them. Mark Perry, Marc Ginsberg, as always, we appreciate your insights.
PERRY: Thank you.
GINSBERG: You're welcome.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
