Online NewsHour: PM Netanyahu -- May 15, 1998



	PRIME MINISTER NETANYAHU

May 15, 1998

While in Washington this week, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu met with U.S. mediators to discuss the current state of the peace process. Elizabeth Farnsworth talks with Prime Minister Netanyahu about the ongoing search for peace in the Middle East.

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Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Israel Embassy

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Prime Minister Netanyahu has been in the United States addressing private groups and meeting with American officials who are trying to get the Israeli-Palestinian peace process back on track. And he had lunch today in New York with U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan. Mr. Prime Minister, welcome.

PRIME MINISTER NETANYAHU: Thank you.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Bring us up to date on the negotiations. Are the talks between the U.S. and Israel at an impasse?

The search for a creative solution.

PRIME MINISTER NETANYAHU: No. I don't think they are. We are trying to find a creative way to overcome the differences between our views on redeployment. I have to stress that we are looking at the entire package, not only what is called the second redeployment, but also the third redeployment. We want to know the full amount of territory that we would redeploy from and not just have it string along one after the other and, of course, we want to ensure that the Palestinians will carry out their part, which is fighting terrorism, annulling the PLO charter that still calls for our destruction. All these things have to be put together in a package and we are trying to do that. I cannot tell you right now if we'll succeed. We are certainly trying.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: But negotiators are meeting as we speak?
PRIME MINISTER NETANYAHU: Yes, they are, and I'll meet with Mr. Ross in Washington when I get there just before I leave for Israel on Sunday, so we are -- we are making a full court press to see if we can arrive at an agreement. I suppose if we do, that's one path. If we don't, there are always ways to back out of a dead end alley and try another way, but one way or another, we are going to engage and try to arrive at a solution that would advance a real peace, a secure peace for us. That's the key word for us. Security must be maintained both by having Israel redeploy only from areas that will -- that the withdrawal from them will not jeopardize their security and, of course, having the Palestinians fulfill their part of the equation that they haven't fulfilled so far. They must fight terrorism.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: You said in a speech last night to the American Jewish Committee in Washington, D.C. "we are prepared to make concessions and I gather we probably will, but not those that will endanger our security." Could you tell us what concessions?

PRIME MINISTER NETANYAHU: Well, you know that, we are talking about terrain or land that does not have any Palestinians living on it. The Palestinians now control 98 percent of the Palestinian population. Palestinian Authority has under its jurisdiction all the land where all the Palestinians live, so the areas that we are talking about are empty areas, empty of Palestinians. This is not now a negotiation about the human rights of Palestinians who are living under Israeli occupation. None of them are, except 2 percent. We are talking about something else. We are talking about, in fact, areas that are part of the ancestral Jewish homeland, Judea, that's where the word Jew comes from. That's where we have been for thousands of years. The same thing applies to Samaria. These are areas that are very, very precious to us from an historical and national point of view, but also there happen to be very important to us from a security point of view because Israel is such a tiny country. It's all of 40 miles wide it�s the widest point and if you were to take away all of the West Bank, just lop it off, we would be all of 10 miles -- 15 miles wide. So we are looking at those areas, open areas empty of Palestinians that are less important, less vital for our security and it is those areas that we are prepared to disengage from.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: So right now would it be right to say that the negotiations are about percentages, 9 percent, 10 percent, 11 percent, 13 percent of Palestinian lands or of lands in the West Bank that you would withdraw from?
PRIME MINISTER NETANYAHU: These are not Palestinian lands.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: I'm sorry. I meant lands in the West Bank.
PRIME MINISTER NETANYAHU: These were -- these are part of the ancestral land of the Jewish people, land of Israel. It was also land from which we were attacked. The reason we are in those lands now is because we were attacked from them when Israel was indeed 10 or 15 miles wide. It's too tempting, the high ground above our cities controlled by an Arab army was too tempting a situation that it prompted a war and we don't want to get back to a situation where we are back in invulneralbe and indefensible or rather indefensible or vulnerable boundaries that would not bring peace, but prompt another conflict, so in fact we are talking about, if you will, percentages or territory that we can redeploy from without creating such a temptation with maintaining security for our state and our people. But we are also looking at the other side of the equation, and that is, what have the Palestinians done? When are they going to do what they promised to do in the Oslo Accords and in the Hebron withdrawal accords that I signed, namely, fighting terrorism, dismantling the terrorist organizations, annulling that covenant, stopping this insightful propaganda that this incitement for violence that unfortunately produced the clashes that we had yesterday which tragically consumed the lives of innocent people. These are all the things that we have put on the table and we are trying to tie the knot, if you will, around the entire package.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And Mr. Prime Minister, what would be the consequences if an agreement isn't reached and the United States does withdraw from its mediating role? What would be the consequences for Israel?
PRIME MINISTER NETANYAHU: I don't think any of us can withdraw from the quest for peace any more than any of us can withdraw from breathing. We have to breathe and we have to continue to seek peace. It is our mandate. It's our responsibility, and I don't think anybody is about to walk away from that.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: What do you think the dangers are now of increased violence in the West Bank and in Gaza and in East Jerusalem? There was, there were shootings yesterday, Palestinian demonstrators, and there was a short amount of violence apparently today in East Jerusalem. Could that get worse now?

Recent clashes .

PRIME MINISTER NETANYAHU: Well, I hope not. And I hope matters come back to relative tranquility at the very least. There was a shooting in response to Molotov cocktails thrown at Israelis by the rioters. Now the rioters were incited by official callings, including by Mr. Arafat himself on a rather inflammatory speech a day earlier broadcast on Palestinian television. You have to ask yourself, what are they protesting about? Do you know what they are protesting about at this juncture? Why they held these riots? I bet you don't, but I'll tell you. They are protesting about what they call "the catastrophe", and the catastrophe occurred 50 years ago, and that is the founding of the Jewish state. They are not protesting about present disposition of lands or percentages or anything of the kind. They conducted these full-scale riots under the direction of the Palestinian authority to protest the creation of the Jewish state, and that is something that we find in the peace process with some people who are asking us to give them land right next to our cities, they are not even accepting the creation of the Jewish state, so I think there has to be a change of mind. This -- this is no way to educate the Palestinian people for peace. There really has to be a change of mind not only in fighting terrorism, and in stopping the fanning of violence, but also in a public education that says to people, you know, we are for peace. We are eschewing the path of war, and the simplest and most important thing that the Palestinians could do would be to convene the Palestine National Council, which is the governing body of the Palestinian authority which Mr. Arafat heads, and to have them ratify a letter that he sent President Clinton in which he said which items of the Palestinian charter that call for Israel destruction, which of them are null and void. I think we want to see that, and unless he can do that, we have to ask, what kind of peace is this? What kind of peace is it if you cannot say that the charter calling for Israel's liquidation is null and void.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Okay. Just very quickly before we go, what's your best guess? Do you think you will have an agreement before you go back to Israel?

"A peace without security is a sham."

PRIME MINISTER NETANYAHU: I hope that we have progress to that effect. I want to advance security for Israel because that is the foundation of a real peace. A peace without security is a sham. It won't hold. But a peace that meets the security requirements that I believe are necessary for Israel's future, and the compliance requirements that the Palestinians will fulfill their obligations, if I have, if we progress towards that and indeed conclude an agreement, I wouldn't hesitate even a second to bring it before the cabinet and before my coalition and I'm sure that they will pass it.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Mr. Prime Minister, thank you very much for being with us. PRIME MINISTER NETANYAHU: Thank you.