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CNN Live Sunday

Palestinian Boy Killed in Gaza

Aired July 08, 2001 - 18:11   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: Renewed violence in the Middle East today following the death of a young Palestinian boy. And it could all escalate as the militant Islamic group Hamas threatens suicide bombings in retaliation. CNN's Jerusalem bureau chief Mike Hanna with the latest.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MIKE HANNA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The funeral of an 11-year-old Palestinian shot by Israeli forces. Palestinians say Khali Mughrabi was playing with other children near an Israeli military post in the Gaza strip when he was killed. The Israeli army says its soldiers at the post opened fire after being attacked by Palestinians with petrol bombs and hand grenades.

Sporadic clashes between Israelis and Palestinians occur night and day despite the fact that the leaders of both sides say they are still observing a U.S. brokered cease-fire. And Israel says it will not consider any form of political negotiation until the violence ends.

(on camera): Among the myriad of issues supposed to be decided by negotiation the question of boundaries between Israel and a Palestinian state, and while there are no formal political decisions apparently permanent boundaries are being defined on the ground.

(voice-over): In recent years this wall sprang up alongside the Israeli town of Matan, right on the green line that marked Israel's border before the 1967 war. Alongside it, an electric fence. Plans now to extend this barrier, effectively defining on a semipermanent basis what is Palestinian and what is Israeli.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right now I think that the government does not see the political opportunity to start with the peace as its supposed to be, and that's why they have built the wall to secure the people just in case something will happen.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I would prefer without it, but if that is what we need now, we have no other solution.

HANNA: After more than nine months, the conflict continues, and here in the last week a trench has been excavated to further control the movement of Palestinians across the green line, further isolating the Palestinian village of Hableh which is right next door. "We want to live together in peace," says Farid, who lives in Hableh, "Hableh is close to Matan and Matan is close to Hable. Neighbors should be good to each other."

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I still hope that we will have good relations with our neighbors and one day we can put down the wall like they did in Berlin. I'm not sure at the moment, because at the moment, the situation is not like that.

HANNA: An awareness on both sides that the wall may never come down, that this rigid separation of Israelis and Palestinians who say they want to be good neighbors is what the future holds.

Mike Hanna, CNN, Jerusalem.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FRAZIER: We are going to spend a little more time on this now, as we are joined by former U.S. envoy to the Middle East Dennis Ross, who is in Washington.

Ambassador, thank you for joining us tonight.

DENNIS ROSS, FORMER U.S. MIDEAST ENVOY: A pleasure.

FRAZIER: You have spent a lot of time in that part of the world. I've spent a lot of it chasing you. And I know that it's interesting now to hear you calling in such a stern voice for the United States "to take some names and kick some public relations butt."

ROSS: Well, I do believe one of the things lacking is accountability and I think one has to have a structure of accountability that everyone understands is fair, that holds each side accountable for every commitment they make. For too long in this process lots of commitments made, but there's been no accountability when the commitments have not been upheld. It is time for that to change.

FRAZIER: And you are outlining what shape that mechanism should take.

ROSS: I do believe in the current context, we have the basis to do it. The basis is, that the Tenet work plan. There were commitments that were made to us, this is a work plan that we hold, we have a three-way security committee that meets. I believe it should meet every night, I believe it should evaluate the performance of what is going on each day.

Whatever the gap that exists between performance and the commitments, that gap should be identified and those steps that can overcome that gap, to eliminate it, should be identified, and within a set period of time, I think the secretary of state should be in a position where in fact he would come out and say, who is living up to their commitments and who is not?

I believe that would create an enormous incentive to perform. And that incentive I do not believe is there today.

FRAZIER: Right. The security committee you mentioned meeting every night is comprised of Americans and Palestinian and Israel security forces.

ROSS: That's correct.

FRAZIER: And how are they acting or interacting with each other now?

ROSS: There is -- that three-way committee does meet. It does not meet on a daily basis; it probably meets two times a week, maybe sometimes three times a week. I think the character of the meetings right now, it's basically a character design to go over what is going on, but it is something that is less geared towards evaluation and more towards trying to fix problems.

I think fixing problems is appropriate, but I think it has to be tied to evaluation as well. If it's tied to evaluation, if it is clear that we will make public judgments as well, I do believe that will make it more likely you will see more performance than we have seen to date.

FRAZIER: Performance which would be prodding -- you call them public judgments, it's really public posting of who's not holding true to the cease fire. You're going to issue these reports and then share them with Europeans and Russians and others who care about the Middle East.

ROSS: Well, I would do it that way. Again, I would create a period of time where both sides know we are now working day by day; and after a period of time the secretary of state will make a judgment about who is performing from the time we get the daily reports and until he makes that public posture, I think we should be sharing the assessments with others because the others will also weigh in.

I think especially with the Palestinians, and that I think will improve chances that you will see performance.

FRAZIER: You are right that Chairman Arafat has spent a lifetime giving commitments that he assumes he will never have to make good on, so this will hold his feet to the fire.

ROSS: Very much. I'm also saying, it has to apply to both sides. And the structure has to be seen as being fair. But there's a certain reality here. There have been a lot of commitments that were made over time, but they were clearly not fulfilled, and I can tell you that Chairman Arafat used to always say to us, all he was asking for, was for the accurate implementation -- his words "accurate implementation" of the agreements -- and my view is, let's put it to the test.

FRAZIER: Hold him to his own words. But this is sort of an undiplomatic way to approach this with blame never apportioned, you were writing in your op-ed piece this weekend. This was a mistake. Obligations went unfulfilled, and there was no consequence for that. ROSS: I believe that was one of the mistakes we made in the past. I think we were focused on a process that held enormous promise. We became increasingly convinced you could solve all the problems in the end game. We thought we had two sides that were committed to trying to resolve the conflict once and for all.

And as a result, there were lots of commitments and lots of behaviors that were inconsistent with the letter and the spirit of all the agreements, that somehow we finessed. I think that we have now seen doesn't work; and we ought to learn the lessons from the past and apply them to the future.

FRAZIER: You have seen those lessons yourself on the ground there, and now you make this very public call. It will be interesting to see how it is received.

Mr. Ambassador, thank you for joining us tonight.

ROSS: A pleasure.

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