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CNN Live Sunday
Interviews With Hasan Abdel Rahman, Roni Milo
Aired April 07, 2002 - 18:08 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.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: And with us now for more on what might happen next in the Middle East are Hasan Abdel Rahman, the Palestinian representative to the U.S. and Roni Milo, a member of the Israeli cabinet. I welcome both of you to our show this evening. Thanks for joining us.
RONI MILO, ISRAELI CABINET MEMBER: Good evening.
HASAN ABDEL RAHMAN, PALESTINIAN REPRESENTATIVE TO U.S.: Thank you.
LIN: Let me start with you first, Mr. Milo. Was there any discussion at all at today's regular cabinet meeting with Ariel Sharon of a pullback, pullout strategy out of the West Bank.
MILO: The operation that we are now watching in Israel and we can see in the territories started not because of the Israeli wish. It started because we have to fight against terror. After the massacre of the Passover -
LIN: Mr. Milo, let me interrupt you there. My apologies. Let me interrupt you there because specifically I'm asking, as you just heard John King reiterated what President Bush has said, that when he made a personal request to Ariel Sharon to pull Israeli troops out of the West Bank without delay, that means now. You had a regular cabinet meeting and I'm wondering if the Prime Minister has given a timetable, a schedule to respect President Bush's concerns here?
MILO: The only timetable that we have is to fight against the terror by all means. These suicide bombers that killed so many people in Israel, these are the reason that we are there. We didn't want to be there. We didn't wish to be there.
We don't want to stay there, and we shall get out when we conclude this mission to stop the terror against Israel, and the timetable is according to this goal, which is to stop terror. This is the goal that we have and nothing else.
LIN: All right, Mr. Abdel Rahman, the suicide bombing have indeed stopped since the Israelis stepped up their incursions into the West Bank. Do you see a cause and effect here?
RAHMAN: I don't think so. What I see is the effect of the Israel out all war against the Palestinian people today, and you watch the footage and the images that are arriving from Bethlehem, Nablus, and other places.
Israelis, if they continue is going to continue to harden the Palestinians and push Palestinians to become much more desperate and much more extreme, because under the present circumstances, when you have all the Palestinian people under a state of siege, children can not and wounded can not be attended. You have helicopters attacking refugee camps. You have tanks that (UNINTELLIGIBLE) the cities. Journalists are shut out.
What you have here is really a brutalization of all the Palestinian communities. It's not a police action by Israel to arrest a few people. It's a war intended to inflict as many casualties as possible on the Palestinian people, with the intention of destroying the Palestinian national authority, and breaking the will of the Palestinian people, and imposing Mr. Sharon's agenda on the region as a whole, and this is not going to happen.
What it's going to do is really to have many more Palestinians who are willing to sacrifice their lives in order to defend themselves and their country.
LIN: Mr. Abdel Rahman, by making a statement like that, are you suggesting that there are kids lining up ready to strap explosives to themselves, and once again enter Israel and kill innocent civilians?
RAHMAN: What I'm saying is that when you leave no option for the people, when Israel uses brutal force against the Palestinians, which you are watching and everybody else in the world is watching, when you see that Israel is defying the international community, the resolution of the Security Council, it is defying the President of the United States, it is over the law, above the law, it is a lawless society and a lawless government, then what do you do? If United -
LIN: Mr. Rahman, let me get Mr. Milo in here.
MILO: It's really unbelievable to hear what Mr. Rahman says, because he forgets that all the proposals that were brought to Israel and the Palestinians were not accepted by the Palestinians, including the initiative of Clinton, President Clinton, including the Tenet plan.
LIN: But gentlemen, what is going to change the situation here on the ground? What is going to change the situation on the ground?
MILO: First of all is to stop the terror. When I hear Mr. Rahman talking about brutality -
LIN: Mr. Milo, the terror has stopped, at least for now. The suicide bombings have stopped. Why not pull back and allow Secretary of State Colin Powell to have a dialog with both sides?
MILO: The terror has stopped because we are there. You know, because before we were there, we had all this terror. During the last year, we had 400 Israelis, 400 killed by these horrible terrorists -
LIN: So, Mr. Milo, are you saying the troops are there to stay? The troops are there to stay because you are now saying that that military presence in the West Bank, Palestinian territory is what's keeping the State of Israel safe?
MILO: No. I said that the goal of this operation is to get the heads of the terror and to stop the terror and by being there, we already found those who made and planned the terror in Netanya, the killing of the 27 Israelis there, suicide bombers did it, and we found all of them, the five and they are killed already, after they fight against us.
So our goal is to stop terror and we should do everything that is needed to do it, as well as other people in other nations are doing everything that they can against terror, and I can assure you that if England or European countries would face the same problem of suicide bombers, they would react the same as Israel. No country can afford that 400 of their own civilians would be killed by such terror without any response to it.
LIN: Mr. -
MILO: And our response is to effectively root out terror.
LIN: Mr. Milo, I got to stop you there because I want to get Mr. Rahman in.
MILO: Thank you.
LIN: Abdel Rahman. Mr. Abdel Rahman, please allow me to end with you on this question.
RAHMAN: Yes.
LIN: Assuming it is inevitable that Israeli troops will have to pull back, at least from Yasser Arafat's compound, what do you expect Yasser Arafat to do once those troops pull back? Would you expect him to make a gesture on behalf of the Palestinian people to the Israelis that he is willing to do whatever it takes to get a cease-fire on the table and a peace plan in the works and to call in Arabic for a stop to these suicide bombings?
RAHMAN: Yes, I believe that President Arafat will do his utmost once Israel withdrew its tanks and forces from the Palestinian territories, once Israel heeds the demand of the International Security Council. But I want just to remind Mr. Milo of one thing.
LIN: but you're saying that Yasser Arafat will make that statement in Arabic to his people condemning the suicide bombings?
RAHMAN: He's willing -- you know, he's willing and ready and he has done it in the past and he will do it again.
LIN: But will he do it now.
(CROSSTALK)
MILO: He didn't do it in the past. He promised in the past and promised many times to do it.
RAHMAN: Mr. Milo, let me -
MILO: And he didn't do it. You know that very well.
RAHMAN: Let me -
MILO: He didn't do it. He promised to everyone and he didn't do it. He did nothing.
LIN: Mr. Abdel Rahman, very quickly, 10 seconds. Mr. Abdel Rahman gets the last word in the last few seconds I have here. Thank you.
RAHMAN: The problem is 36 years of Israel military occupation of the territories, the continued -
MILO: We left. We already left. We have also agreement.
RAHMAN: Let me -
MILO: We have already. Why you are going on fighting against us after we left already.
(CROSSTALK)
LIN: Gentlemen, I apologize to you that we don't have more time. I apologize to both of you that we don't have more time. Mr. Abdel Rahman my apologies to you and to Mr. Milo that we don't have more time. I do appreciate the time that you have given to us.
RAHMAN: But you know, Mr. Milo made a point --
LIN: And this is a story that is not going to end, obviously.
RAHMAN: He made the point that I could not make.
LIN: Gentlemen, I'm sorry. I've got to end it there or we could go all night, truly. We will, of course, be covering this issue throughout the week and I do expect e-mails now from both sides.
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