Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Live Sunday
Interview With Jon Alterman
Aired July 06, 2003 - 16:32 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.
SEAN CALLEBS, CNN ANCHOR: The Israeli Cabinet has approved criteria for releasing some Palestinian prisoners, a step militant groups are demanding to sustain a cease-fire. Now, under the guidelines, Israel will not release anyone who's charged with killing Israelis who presents a security threat or who belongs to a hard-line group. Still, the move could lead, could lead to freedom for several hundred Palestinian prisoners. A committee of cabinet ministers will choose them.
Today's Israeli Cabinet action may be a sign that Israel and Palestinians are inching toward peace. Jon Alterman directs the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and he joins us right now from our Washington bureau. Thanks very much for coming in. We appreciate it.
JON ALTERMAN, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES: It's good to see you.
CALLEBS: Do you think it's overstating it to say that this is a significant step? Because the two sides are so far apart. The Israelis are talking about releasing perhaps 400 prisoners. Palestinians want as many as 6,000 freed.
ALTERMAN: It's a necessary preliminary step. We've seen this happen before. The Israelis try to say, look, this is as much as we're able to do right now. The Palestinians say it's totally inadequate. I think both sides are really positioning themselves for future prisoner exchanges in the future, assuming this whole process goes well. It's part of the whole confidence-building process that each side is engaged in.
CALLEBS: We saw the prime minister, the Palestinian prime minister as well as Ariel Sharon, share a podium last week, also sharing the goal that they take some substantive steps toward peace. Do you think the fact that these two have come together is going to be very significant when they talk about releasing prisoners and moving forward?
ALTERMAN: What was most significant to me were the atmospherics of that event, that you really saw for the first time in many years an Israeli prime minister and a Palestinian leader coming together and seemed to have a common agenda, seemed to be willing to joke together. That really suggests to me that we're at the beginning of a new chapter. Whether the new chapter has a different plot than the previous chapters are going to have, we'll have to wait and see. But we are in a new chapter in this relationship. The intifadah isn't now what it was two months ago.
CALLEBS: Tell us about the U.S. role, always critical, always trying to push peace forward in the Middle East. How critical is it at this point?
ALTERMAN: The U.S. engagement is important. The U.S. engagement is important because the two sides don't really want to give things to each other totally. They'd rather give concessions to the U.S. They want the U.S. to protect them. I think it's very important, though, that the U.S. not get pushed out of position. Where I think the U.S. has to play an even more active role is in getting Israelis and Palestinians to speak to their own populations in their own language about where this process is heading. It's very easy to get caught up in facilitating prisoner exchanges and talking about where the Israeli built security fence can go and all sorts of little minutia, and forget that this is a process where the politics have to be right to have the people on each side want to make the concessions they have to make. Right now those politics aren't there.
CALLEBS: Well, Mr. Alterman, in that vain, today coming out, an Israeli Cabinet member saying he believes that for the first time that Palestinian leaders are willing to step forward and try and stop suicide attacks, things of that nature, what they call terrorism.
ALTERMAN: There certainly is an interest in Palestinian leadership, but what we have to take very seriously is the fact that if the Palestinians are really going to crack down on Palestinian militant groups, if they're really going to jump with both feet into the idea of a political process, they're going to have to take some very, very tough measures against internal groups which could set off a Palestinian civil war, and they don't want to do that. So how they judge the internal politics, whether they have what they need to make the moves the Israelis and the Americans want them to make, whether they have what they need politically, is going to be a key challenge for them in the coming days.
CALLEBS: OK, Jon Alterman with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, joining us from Washington. Thanks very much.
ALTERMAN: My pleasure, Sean.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired July 6, 2003 - 16:32 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SEAN CALLEBS, CNN ANCHOR: The Israeli Cabinet has approved criteria for releasing some Palestinian prisoners, a step militant groups are demanding to sustain a cease-fire. Now, under the guidelines, Israel will not release anyone who's charged with killing Israelis who presents a security threat or who belongs to a hard-line group. Still, the move could lead, could lead to freedom for several hundred Palestinian prisoners. A committee of cabinet ministers will choose them.
Today's Israeli Cabinet action may be a sign that Israel and Palestinians are inching toward peace. Jon Alterman directs the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and he joins us right now from our Washington bureau. Thanks very much for coming in. We appreciate it.
JON ALTERMAN, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES: It's good to see you.
CALLEBS: Do you think it's overstating it to say that this is a significant step? Because the two sides are so far apart. The Israelis are talking about releasing perhaps 400 prisoners. Palestinians want as many as 6,000 freed.
ALTERMAN: It's a necessary preliminary step. We've seen this happen before. The Israelis try to say, look, this is as much as we're able to do right now. The Palestinians say it's totally inadequate. I think both sides are really positioning themselves for future prisoner exchanges in the future, assuming this whole process goes well. It's part of the whole confidence-building process that each side is engaged in.
CALLEBS: We saw the prime minister, the Palestinian prime minister as well as Ariel Sharon, share a podium last week, also sharing the goal that they take some substantive steps toward peace. Do you think the fact that these two have come together is going to be very significant when they talk about releasing prisoners and moving forward?
ALTERMAN: What was most significant to me were the atmospherics of that event, that you really saw for the first time in many years an Israeli prime minister and a Palestinian leader coming together and seemed to have a common agenda, seemed to be willing to joke together. That really suggests to me that we're at the beginning of a new chapter. Whether the new chapter has a different plot than the previous chapters are going to have, we'll have to wait and see. But we are in a new chapter in this relationship. The intifadah isn't now what it was two months ago.
CALLEBS: Tell us about the U.S. role, always critical, always trying to push peace forward in the Middle East. How critical is it at this point?
ALTERMAN: The U.S. engagement is important. The U.S. engagement is important because the two sides don't really want to give things to each other totally. They'd rather give concessions to the U.S. They want the U.S. to protect them. I think it's very important, though, that the U.S. not get pushed out of position. Where I think the U.S. has to play an even more active role is in getting Israelis and Palestinians to speak to their own populations in their own language about where this process is heading. It's very easy to get caught up in facilitating prisoner exchanges and talking about where the Israeli built security fence can go and all sorts of little minutia, and forget that this is a process where the politics have to be right to have the people on each side want to make the concessions they have to make. Right now those politics aren't there.
CALLEBS: Well, Mr. Alterman, in that vain, today coming out, an Israeli Cabinet member saying he believes that for the first time that Palestinian leaders are willing to step forward and try and stop suicide attacks, things of that nature, what they call terrorism.
ALTERMAN: There certainly is an interest in Palestinian leadership, but what we have to take very seriously is the fact that if the Palestinians are really going to crack down on Palestinian militant groups, if they're really going to jump with both feet into the idea of a political process, they're going to have to take some very, very tough measures against internal groups which could set off a Palestinian civil war, and they don't want to do that. So how they judge the internal politics, whether they have what they need to make the moves the Israelis and the Americans want them to make, whether they have what they need politically, is going to be a key challenge for them in the coming days.
CALLEBS: OK, Jon Alterman with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, joining us from Washington. Thanks very much.
ALTERMAN: My pleasure, Sean.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
