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CNN Saturday Morning News

Arafat Running For Election

Aired June 29, 2002 - 07:36   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.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat have a long-running history of confrontation, and that threatens to block peace between their people. But, the two have shared experience rooted in their upbringing. Sharon Collins has more in "People in the News."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SHARON COLLINS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Yasser Arafat's life story is a reflection of the Palestinian movement. He was born in 1929, one of seven children. His birthplace, like other details of his life, is a source of some speculation. He claims to have been born in Jerusalem, but his birth certificate says Cairo. His mother died when he was four, and his father sent him to Jerusalem to live with his uncle for several years.

JOHN WALLACH, ARAFAT BIOGRAPHER: His childhood is very painful for him. He was shunted back and forth from one relative to another; he never really had a mother and father that he knew very well. He likes to say today that that homelessness, that sense of not having a parent, not having a mother and father, is parallel to the homelessness of the Palestinian people themselves.

COLLINS: In 1937, Arafat rejoined his father, three sisters, and three brothers in Cairo. They lived in a mixed neighborhood, Arab and Jewish.

LARRY KING, CNN HOST: Do you think we will see Jewish children and Palestinian children playing together, growing together, and being friends?

YASSER ARAFAT, PALESTINIAN LEADER: My very good, (sic) were doing the same.

KING: Your cousins.

ARAFAT: Yes, not to forget that we never say (UNINTELLIGIBLE), we wish to condemn our cousins. This is the history. Abraham is (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

KING: You never hated the Jews?

ARAFAT: Never. Otherwise, I would not be a real Muslim. COLLINS: In the tense Mideast landscape, on the other side of the stalemate, a warrior stands at Israel's helm. A soldier with roots in the Holy Land. Ariel Sharon was born in 1928, on a farm outside Tel Aviv, where he grew up with his parents and an older sister. The family had come to Israel from Russia seven years earlier to farm the Promised Land. They were part of a huge wave of Zionist immigrants who worked to turn desert and swamp into fertile ground.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sharon loves the land as a farmer does, and has always regarded the land as integral to Jewish identity in that place, that Biblical place. I think it's a very secular, but still rather mystical view of land. And it's importance.

COLLINS: Despite his love for the land, Sharon admits in his autobiography that he never felt the warmth of a family until he joined the army.

DAVID CHANOFF, CO-AUTHOR, "WARRIOR: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ARIEL SHARON": The military really became his family, and I think all of that kind of warmth, all of those kinds of relationships that you have with the people who suffered through things with you affected him profoundly.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: "People in the News," an in-depth look at Ariel Sharon and Yasser Arafat, airs today at 11:00 a.m. Eastern time and again at 8:00 p.m. on Sunday.

All right, joining me from Washington to talk more about these two leaders are our Mideast analysts Marc Ginsberg and Mark Perry.

Hello, gentlemen.

MARK PERRY, CNN MIDEAST ANALYST: Morning.

MARC GINSBERG, FMR. U.S. AMBASSADOR, MOROCCO: Hi, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: All right, let's talk about these elections that are set for mid-January. Yasser Arafat said, yes, it's going to happen, and he is going to run. What kind of candidate is he?

Marc Ginsberg, you want to start?

GINSBERG: Well, I think that he's a failed candidate. I think that he's a candidate who is not going to lead the Palestinian people to the promised land of a Palestinian state.

I think president Bush had it right: he is a person responsible for having lost so much for the Palestinian people since the great days of his Nobel Peace Prize. He's a man who has corrupted the Palestinian authority. He's a man who has lost the vast majority of the Israeli population's support for a Palestinian state. He has single-handedly orchestrated terrorism and he has caused great pain and suffering to people that he claims that he had never intended to do so. So, I think that his candidacy is a great tragedy for the Palestinian people.

PHILLIPS: Mark Perry.

MARK PERRY, AUTHOR, "A FIRE IN ZION": I disagree entirely. President Bush, this week and last week, did something that no other American president could possibly do. He made Yasser Arafat popular. In talking with Palestinian leaders over the last three or four days since the president's speech, no one will run against Arafat because now everyone looks at any opposition to Arafat as being pro-Sharon, pro-Israeli, and pro-Bush.

What we're going to have in January is a national election in which Yasser Arafat will be the major candidate. He'll win 85 percent of the vote; the Palestinian people now support him more than ever after two weeks ago. His popularity ratings were at an all time low. It's really an extraordinary turnaround, unfortunately.

PHILLIPS: But, President Bush in no way, Mark Perry, has supported Yasser Arafat, saying that this is a good candidate. He may make him popular but he's definitely not supporting him.

PERRY: Well, no, he's not supporting him at all. And, that means that the Palestinian people will. This is the way politics are played in the Middle East. I think the president overplayed his hand. I think that he followed Sharon's lead instead of the other way around, and I was very disappointed. I don't think that this is an engagement on the part of the United States; it's a vast retreat. We're seeing the results of it now in the Palestinian authority.

PHILLIPS: All right, you've got the PLO, and then you've got these extremist groups: Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Al Aqsa Brigade, et cetera. Can individuals from these extremist groups run in these elections? And, if so, that's pretty frightening.

Marc Ginsberg.

GINSBERG: Well, there is that danger, Kyra, because frankly there are leaders of the Hamas militant wing in the political wing who assert that they do not sponsor or support terrorism, and that they represent what they call the political wing of Hamas and Islamic Jihad; they are centered in Gaza.

They may very well put themselves up for election. It would be one of the great ironies and tragedies that people who's hands are soaked with terrorist blood would put themselves up for election for proposes of running, once again, against Arafat. I don't think, frankly, that it'll happen.

I agree with Mark Perry on one particular point and that is that Mr. Arafat cannot seem to differentiate what is good for the Palestinian people and what is ultimately his objective of never differentiating himself from Palestinian aspirations.

And that is what ultimately are great challenges to the United States government. And that is to convince him that he has more to lose by putting himself up for election. And we have to do everything possible, in my judgment, as I've said before on the program, that as long as Hamas and Islamic Jihad play a role, whether politically or through terrorism, that the United States challenge on the ground is to eliminate them as a political, and a military and a terrorist force, because they ultimately spell doom for any effort to secure peace between Israel and those elements of the Palestinian people who truly desire peace.

PHILLIPS: Mark Perry, is calling for these elections enough for Ariel Sharon to accept Yasser Arafat in a peace process?

PERRY: Ariel Sharon will never accept Yasser Arafat in a peace process under any circumstances, and I find it difficult to believe that he would accept any legitimate Palestinian leader. I think we have to be realistic about this.

Ariel Sharon and George Bush are looking for a very moderate Palestinian leader who will agree to the map that Ariel Sharon has put down. And, that map put down in a Cabinet meeting last week called for the annexation of 22 percent of the West Bank.

I can't think of a legitimate Palestinian leader who would accept this, but until the United States and Israel, in particular, find such a leader, I don't think that we're going to have any kind of peace talks. I think we're going to have, unfortunately, tragically, a continuation of the violence. We are in for a very long siege, I'm afraid.

PHILLIPS: Marc Ginsberg, final thoughts. Other candidates who may run for president. Do you see any viable ones?

GINSBERG: There are some, there are viable Palestinian leaders, there are people who understand the importance of not letting Mr. Arafat continue to rule a Palestinian authority that has undemocratic, corrupt, and is blood-soaked with terrorism. They understand that their people and their populations yearn for economic prosperity and a peace with Israel and a two-state solution.

These people are what I would call a very younger, moderate Palestinians. I almost am reluctant to name them because you almost want to not put the sort of (UNINTELLIGIBLE) over their head.

But people like Soven Nasair (ph) in Jerusalem who are wonderfully gifted Palestinian leaders. There are people who are determined to bring about reform among the Palestinian authority. The military and security officials that continue to run some of the elements of the Palestinian security forces like General Dalan (ph) and Rajoub (ph), Mr. Rajoub in the West Bank, these are people who have lived and understood the importance of ultimately trying to bring reasonable compromises to the table and understand the importance of living side-by-side with Israelis with whom they deal with day in and day out.

PHILLIPS: All right, real quickly. We've got to go. Mark Perry, do you want Yasser Arafat as the next president?

PERRY: It's not up to me. It's up to the Palestinian people. That's going to sound like a cop out...

PHILLIPS: That's a safe answer, Mark Perry.

PERRY: That's a safe answer, but here's the other safe answer. He's the symbol of Palestinian nationalism. In talking with Palestinians this week, a lot of Palestinians, they said, well, unfortunately Bush criticized him and now we've got to stand behind him. And, that's the reality.

PHILLIPS: All right, Mark Perry and Marc Ginsberg. Gentlemen, I know we'll be talking again soon. Have a great morning.

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