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| TROUBLED LAND | |
 November 1, 2000  |
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In the latest in our series of conversations about the crisis in the Middle East, Ray Suarez speaks with Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami.
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SHLOMO BEN-AMI: Good evening. RAY SUAREZ: In the last few months we were told that Israel had made some of its most far-reaching offers for a comprehensive peace to the Palestinian people, and just the these few weeks and months later we're seeing some of the worst turmoil in this part of the world that we've seen in years. How did this happen? |
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| Navigating through waves of violence | ||||||||||||||||||||
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SHLOMO BEN-AMI: Well, many of us are at a loss in trying to understand
how and why the response to such far-reaching, indeed, proposals should
have been countered by such a wave of violence. My understanding is
this: that Arafat felt that he was being portrayed by President Clinton,
indeed by international opinion, in the wake of the Camp David summit
as a peace rejectionist. And he saw how Israel was gaining ground thanks
to its peace policy in the international arena. He felt his international
legitimacy was being seriously undermined by Israel's peace proposals,
proposals which he thought he could not accept for whatever reason.
And in a way these RAY SUAREZ: The months following Camp David had been tense, but you didn't see that sudden spasm of violence that you saw after the visit of General Sharon to the Temple Mount. Was this a crystallizing moment? Did the confrontation turn a corner at this time? SHLOMO BEN-AMI: Not at that precise time, because...you may remember that the visit of Ariel Sharon to Temple Mount went peacefully. Nothing happened. During that day nothing at all happened. I myself - I was in Washington then in peace talks, incidentally - and I happened to exchange a few words over the telephone with one of the chief security personnel guys in the Palestinian system. And he told me, if Ariel Sharon doesn't go into the mosques but just visits the surface, nothing will happen. So that day, that precise day was of no special significance. What happened was that a day or a couple of days later, groups of people were organized to come on the mount and stage these outbursts of violence. So I think that the whole thing was prepared in advance.
SHLOMO BEN-AMI: Well, you see, Arafat... the answer needs to be elaborated not in terms of yes or no. You see, what happened here is this: In 1993, through the Oslo Agreement, Arafat got a series of advantages. He got a quasi-Palestinian state-- Palestinian Authority is a quasi-Palestinian state-- a government, a parliament, an enormous amount of international aide. He got money from the European Union, from this country, and a military sort of establishment. He has his own kind of military power. And all this was supposed to lead gradually to negotiations on the final status, but negotiations, which... whose result is not known in advance, because this is an open- ended negotiation. Now what we see is that the moment Arafat doesn't reach the exact and precise result of the negotiations that he wants, he breaks the rules of the game. He got international aid. He got a dramatic shift in his strategic position, thanks to the Oslo Agreement. Seven years ago he could not get a visa to America.
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| Is the peace process still alive? | ||||||||||||||||||||
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RAY SUAREZ: Has, in your view, the action on the ground in Israel proper, in the occupied territory, gone so far that now it's difficult to discuss an ongoing peace process, one that really exists? SHLOMO BEN-AMI: Well, it is indeed very difficult in such a state of affairs to move immediately and abruptly to peace talks. This is why we went to Sharm el-Sheikh, and President Clinton came there, and the Europeans, and the U.N., and we subscribed to a memorandum that those who should know, namely the Americans, the Egyptians, those who should know, know very well that Arafat does not abide by the understandings of Sharm el-Sheikh. So what we need now is to impress upon Arafat, because he has humiliated all those who were witnesses to the memorandum-- the Americans, the Europeans, the U.N., the Egyptians-- to impress upon him the necessity to abide by the memorandum, bring an end to violence. And then after a short period of healing, we need to sort of understand, where do we stand now after seven years of peace process, because to some of us it means the collapse of the work of a lifetime. The peace camp in Israel is shattered to pieces.
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| Can the violence stop? | ||||||||||||||||||||
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SHLOMO BEN-AMI: Can stop now, immediately. In an hour it can stop if Arafat gives to his people clear-cut instructions. And to tell you the truth, I don't really know if he is unwilling to give instructions, or if he is unable to control the situation. In either case, we have a problem with his partnership in the peace process. What will be the future if we strike a peace deal with him? What guarantees do we have that he can fulfill, meet his commitments, if he's unable to control the situation of armed militias, that by the way, the Tanzim, the armed militia of the Tanzim, which is the main military force in the West Bank operating against Israel today, and in the last three, four days they assassinated four or five citizens in the streets of Jerusalem. These people are armed contrary to their agreement of Oslo. RAY SUAREZ: Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami, thanks for being with us. SHLOMO BEN-AMI: You are welcome. |
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RAY
SUAREZ: And joining me now is Shlomo Ben-Ami, Israel's foreign minister.
Welcome to the program. 
waves
of violence, he used it, continues to use it, in order to sort of navigate
through it, on it, to improve his international standing and sort of
corner Israel and put Israel under pressure, internationalize the conflict,
that is undermine the centrality of the American role. He doesn't want
to see America leading the process, being the honest broker, and he
wants to internationalize it, to bring in the Russians, the Europeans,
the U.N. on the understanding that if such an internationalization is
brought about, he will have the kind of deal that we he wants, because
in such an international forum, Israel will be isolated. This is the
strategy of Arafat. And this is why, indeed, he's, in fact, trading
with the blood of his people in order to reach this political objective,
which I just described. 
RAY
SUAREZ: In your previous answer you appeared to question chairman Arafat's
commitment to peace with Israel. Is he still a partner that you can
continue to do business with? Can there be a peace process with Yasser
Arafat? 
Now
he's a frequent flier to the White House, only thanks to Oslo. Now,
he breaks the rules of the game just because he did not get the deal
he thinks he should get, which means that Israel should accept all his
terms. And once he doesn't get it he breaks the rules of the game. So
the question of whether or not he is a partner needs to be answered
in terms of whether or not he is ready to accept the open negotiations
leading to a reasonable deal. Camp David was a reasonable deal. Two
days after the visit of Ariel Sharon-- two, three days, maybe even a
week-- we were supposed to come to America once again to discuss an
American peace package, which the Palestinians knew was about to be
presented. We knew it was about to be presented. So my suspicion is
that Arafat orchestrated these waves of violence, rather surfed on it,
because he wanted to avoid the American peace package and be exposed
by the President once again as a peace rejectionist. And this is why
you see now aspiring, driving, the whole process, the whole situation,
to internationalization so that he can get a deal, in his view, better
than the deal that he presumed was inherent in the package that the
Americans were about to put a week after the visit of Sharon. 
Those
who believe that generosity, flexibility, the creation of a Palestinian
state, what is due to the Palestinians -- because the Arab world, when
they occupied this territory, they never gave to the Palestinians any
rights, let alone self determination. Israel is ready for the creation
of a Palestinian state -- friendly to Israel, not hostile. And now we
feel that the work of our life is under question. So we say bring an
end to violence, abide by the Sharm el-Sheikh agreement, and then we
can proceed to the resumption of peace talks, because we Israelis know
very well, and I hope this is the case with the Palestinians also, that
there is no alternative to the peace process. We do not want to conceive
a military solution to the problem, because we don't believe there is
a military solution. We believe only in a political solution. At the
end of the day we need to go back to the table of negotiations. It is
very, very sad that we should go back to the table of negotiations only
after having crossed rivers of blood. That is totally unnecessary. 
RAY
SUAREZ: Can Israel disengage at this point so that, for its part, the
fighting and the dying can slow down, can stop?