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CNN Live Sunday

Israeli Mulls Retaliation for Terrorist Attack

Aired June 03, 2001 - 16:01   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.
STEPHEN FRAZIER, CNN ANCHOR: In Israel today, a day of morning and rage following Friday's bombing attack outside a Tel Aviv discotheque. Fourteen victims were buried today. Funerals for five others are scheduled for tomorrow, and a teenage woman who has been in the hospital died overnight.

On Friday, a 22-year-old man identified today as Mohammed Saeed al-Hotary got in the line of a disco in Tel Aviv, and then detonated a bomb strapped to his body. We now know a total of 20 are dead, another 114 were injured. Today, mourners gathered in Tel Aviv to light candles and to say prayers for the injured and the dead. And in Jerusalem, the Israeli leadership said it will do whatever is necessary to protect its citizens, but even so, Israel has not retaliated.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, FRM. ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: We are facing a terrorist regime committed to the destruction of Israel through the use of terror. And in fact, that's what Arafat wants. He wants Israel to simply disappear. Now, he has launched a slew of terrorist attacks, culminating in this attack on a Tel Aviv discotheque where these 19 -- I think it's actually 20 by now. Twenty teenagers were murdered in cold blood.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FRAZIER: In response to these events, many Israeli hard-liners are calling for war, but so far, leaders from both sides are showing restraint. Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has called for an immediate cease-fire, and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon says he will wait for a diplomatic solution.

CNN chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour is in Jerusalem with more on the attack and the potential for a counterstrike. Christiane, good evening to you.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good evening, Stephen. In fact, the Israelis say that they are testing Yasser Arafat's commitment to implementing a cease-fire. In the meantime, as you mentioned, there has been identification of the suicide bomber. Israeli sources and Palestinian sources say that he is the 22-year-old Mohammed Saeed al-Hotary. Confusion still remains, though, over exactly who he was working for. At One point, it was suggested that he was working for Islamic Jihad, and then today, Hamas, the other suspected terrorist organization, claimed responsibility. So, there is still some confusion as to who exactly the suicide bomber was working for.

In the meantime, the Israeli families who lost their teenage children have laid many of them to rest today. Most of them were from the Russian community.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR (voice-over): Israel's Russian immigrant community has been hit hard. Mothers and fathers bury their teenage children and friends bid emotional farewells.

As one young boy's funeral was ending, a few plots away another began. Ella Nelimov (ph) is burying her two daughters. Yelena and Yuli (ph) were 18 and 16 years old. In his eulogy, their uncle remembered how so many Soviet Jews had emigrated to Israel to escape persecution, to feel at home.

"We brought our children to this country so that they could live and flourish. We didn't know something like this could happen," he says.

In his hospital bed, Alexander Plotkin (ph) relived the moment that shattered so many lives.

"I was waiting by the disco entrance when I heard the explosion," he said. "There was blood and limbs everywhere. Total panic."

What happened on Friday night to teenagers trying to have a good time has prompted much soul-searching among Israel's Russians. The nightclub was used mostly by Russians, and so was this school. But this one act makes them Israelis, like all the rest, their futures tied up in the politics that mire this region.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I feel the pain that comes from the other people. I see how they're suffering, and it's painful to see my people suffering.

AMANPOUR: There are about one million Russians here in a total population of six million. They helped sweep Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to power, and now some want him to avenge their loss.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They're not adhering rules of life, they do not think of us as human beings. They think we deserve to die.

AMANPOUR: But Yelana and Yuli's uncle says that he is not blaming anyone.

"I don't want to blame Arabs or Jews," he says, "But why are our children being killed?"

As Israel considers its next move, perhaps it knows that these pictures have already won the latest battle in the war for international public opinion.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: A senior Palestinian minister tells CNN that Yasser Arafat, chairman of the Palestinian Authority, is doing all he can to implement cease-fire. Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister, says that he doesn't know whether Yasser Arafat is doing that as a tactic because he fears international pressure and Israeli retaliation.

CNN's Rula Amin has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RULA AMIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The Israeli prime minister, who has the reputation of being a hard-liner, says he's giving diplomacy a chance. Mr. Sharon has refrained, so far, from retaliating for the deadliest attack by a Palestinian against Israelis in eight months. He says this may provide a chance to reach a cease- fire with the Palestinians.

ARIEL SHARON, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER (through translator): The situation is not simple. You have to see the overall picture. That responsibility is on my shoulders. I want to tell you, restraint is a element of strength.

AMIN: The usually bustling (UNINTELLIGIBLE) market is relatively empty. Israelis are worried about more suicide bombings. But despite the climate of fear, the prime minister received praise here for his decision not to hit back.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The government tried this hard hand, and it's just getting worse and worse.

AMIN: "I am very happy he didn't retaliate," says this woman. "We were one step away from war."

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It can't be a military solution. It has to be a political solution.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Military action doesn't help. The poor Palestinian Authority. It's the Hamas and the Jihad we should be fighting. We should give them a chance, another chance.

AMIN: But this young Israelis, less than a year away from becoming soldiers in the Israeli army, say patience has its limits.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I prefer talking, but I think that a better solution is to hit not all of them -- I don't how to say -- the points, the points of the terror. Not their people, not their innocent people, but the ones who are coming and putting bombs and everything. We should hit them.

AMIN: Some were even more forceful. On Saturday and in Tel Aviv, where the suicide bombing took place, those young men demonstrated in front of the Defense Ministry, demanding war. EPHRAIM SNEH, ISRAELI CABINET MINISTER: If this wave of terrorism continue, our duty is to defend the Israeli people, and to do everything, everything which is possible and feasible to protect them.

AMIN: A threat of strong action against the Palestinian Authority and in Palestinian territories.

LESLIE SUSSER, POLITICAL ANALYST: They're not sure that this is a real attempt to bring a cease-fire about, and at the first sign of this cease-fire breaking down, the Israelis will go in very powerfully, and they will be supported by the Israeli people as a whole.

AMIN (on camera): A tense waiting game: will diplomacy prevail or will the two sides continue the dialogue of the past eight month, through the language of violence?

Rula Amin, CNN, Jerusalem.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: In the meantime, and Israeli cabinet minister tells us there are competing pressures on the prime minister, Ariel Sharon. The hard-line right wing Israelis want an immediate and swift retaliation, while the more moderate say that they should give a few days to see whether diplomacy will work and whether Yasser Arafat will be able to control all the elements in the Palestinian Territories and bring an end to this violence -- Steve.

FRAZIER: Christiane, let's go back to the motive for the attack. It's interesting, as you point out, that these were young Russian immigrants who were targeted for this. Could it be they were chosen because of their role historically, for about the last decades, in immigrating to help populate expansions of the settlements in Israeli- occupied territories?

AMANPOUR: Well, nobody has been drawing that analogy or analysis here. We haven't seen that in the Israeli newspapers or in the public debate. However, there are Israeli -- sorry Palestinians, in fact, a Hamas leader today saying that no Israeli is innocent he said, because these are immigrants who have come here and quote, "taken over our land."

So, there is a feeling, certainly being expressed from the Palestinians, that there is -- that they believe anybody is a fair target. On the other hand, Yasser Arafat has condemned the attack on civilians, and Israelis are not making that analogy with it being a deliberate attack an immigrants.

FRAZIER: Right, I'm just thinking back to about 12 years ago when the Israeli government's previous administrations were working so hard to help free Soviet Jews to help them come to their country and that was their intent.

But in the meantime now, walk us through the difficulties of understanding who is claiming responsibility and what the Israelis would likely do then to target for retaliation, because they hold Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Authority responsible for any attack, no matter who them claims responsibility, even as far away as Abu Dhabi?

AMANPOUR: Right, well, first of all, Ariel Sharon, in a government statement yesterday, went further than ever before, basically laying the entire blame at Yasser Arafat's doorstep, saying that Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Authority and involved in a coalition of terror, he called it, and are involved in inciting and encouraging this kind of violence.

On the other hand, there as been no credible claim of responsibility. It's not at all clear who this suicide bomber was working for, and certainly, Yasser Arafat and members of the Palestinian Authority are disavowing themselves from it.

In terms of retaliation, we've mentioned already, that there is a certain element of the Israeli officials and public who want swift retaliation, and another element that says, no, we don't need to do it right now. This event, these pictures are already gaining us some small victories in the court of public opinion. Let's wait and see there whether is a genuine attempt by Arafat to stop this violence.

However, we are told that if there is even the merest hint of another terrorist attack being planned or something happening that should be violent, then targets have been prepared and the reaction will be very swift and very heavy -- Stephen.

FRAZIER: Indeed, Christiane, thank you. We're glad you're there during these tense and complicated hours, and we look forward to updates. Christiane Amanpour in Israel.

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