PEER PRESSURE November 5, 1997 NEWSHOUR TRANSCRIPT

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As Chairman of the Palestinian Authority, Yasser Arafat must balance his government between the political demands of Palestinian hard liners and those of the Israeli government. Charles Krause reports from Israel about the difficult political choices facing Chairman Arafat.

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A RealAudio version of of this segment is available. NEWSHOUR LINKS: November 3, 1997: Israel's Prime Minister on the latest round of Mideast peace talks. November 3, 1997: U.N. Ambassador Richardson discusses tensions between the U.S. and Iraq. October 7, 1997: An assassination attempt forces the peace process to take another turn. September 12, 1997: Albright admits failure to mediate peace in the Middle East. September 9, 1997: Jim Lehrer discusses former American secretaries of state in light of Madeleine Albright's trip to the Middle East. September 4, 1997: Suicide bombs in West Jerusalem put the peace process in jeopardy. May 14, 1997: A Newsmaker with Madeleine Albright. April 4, 1997: Middle East Forum: Mohammed Halaj and Amos Perlmutter answer your questions. Browse the NewsHour's coverage of the Middle-East. OUTSIDE LINKS The United States and the Search for Peace in the Middle East  Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs

CHARLES KRAUSE: Four years after Yasser Arafat's historic handshake with Israel's late prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin, the Oslo process continues. Israeli and Palestinian negotiators are meeting again this week in Washington. But here in the Middle East there's a growing sense that the Oslo process has run its course because of the security issue. The Israeli government no longer accepts Arafat's word that he's doing all he can to stop terrorism inside Israel. Yet, since 1993, when the Oslo Accords were signed, nearly 150 Israelis have been killed and more than 800 wounded by Palestinian suicide bombers. The most recent terrorist attack took place just two months ago in Jerusalem. Once again, the radical Islamic group, Hamas, claimed responsibility and once again Israel's government blamed Yasser Arafat. David Bar-Ilan is Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's director of communications.

CHARLES KRAUSE: Is Arafat unwilling or unable to stop the terrorists?

DAVID BAR-ILAN, Netanyahu Adviser: Frankly, it makes very little difference. If he's unable, then there is a very big question about whey we are negotiating with him. He's supposed to be the ruler of the Palestinian people and their representative. But we tend to believe more that he is unwilling for the simple reason that he has the largest police force per capita in the world to--for him not to be able to handle a terrorist problem is, I believe a little difficult to--to accept.

CHARLES KRAUSE: Marwan Kanafani denies Bar-Ilan's charge. An elected member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, Kanafani is Yasser Arafat's principal spokesman.

MARWAN KANAFANI, Arafat Adviser: President Arafat did everything humanly possible to stop violence, to put those people who constitute a threat not only to the Israelis but also to Palestinians in prison, to punish the people who were proven to be a part of violence, but Yasser Arafat cannot do the job alone. He needs help to help the Israelis.

CHARLES KRAUSE: As with so much else in the Middle East the questions that define the security issue are difficult, filled with anger and emotion on both sides. Is Yasser Arafat committed to non-violence? Can he control Hamas, and are the Israelis deliberately demanding a level of security cooperation they know he could never deliver? There is no better place to try to evaluate the security issue and to try to understand the pressures and the politics of pace from Arafat's perspective than Gaza City in the Gaza Strip.

The Gaza Strip.

Home to more than a million Palestinians, most of them still living in squalid refugee camps, this teeming sliver of territory was turned over to Arafat three years ago by the Israelis as part of the Oslo Agreement. But because of the continued terrorism and Netanyahu's general distrust of Arafat's intentions, Israel has not allowed the Palestinians to open a new airport that's already been built. The Israelis have also delayed implementation of a safe passage agreement, another part of the Oslo Accords that would allow Palestinians to travel freely between Gaza and the West Bank. Coupled with border closings every time there's a terrorist incident, the delays have contributed to a 1/3 drop in Gaza's per capita income since the peace process began, according to the United Nations. Today half-completed buildings provide tangible evidence that economic development has stagnated and with it support among Palestinians for the peace process. Aown Shawa, Gaza City's mayor, blames Netanyahu and his government.

AOWN SHAWA, Mayor, Gaza City: Their policy is just to keep the Palestinian people as poor and as weak as they could and also keeping the Palestinian Authority weakened. But this is not good for peace and not good for Israel.

CHARLES KRAUSE: Why not?

AOWN SHAWA: We believe in peace. We still do believe in peace. But if this pressure continues, I can't say when will we--just burst.

A look at Hamas.

CHARLES KRAUSE: What worries Shawa and other Palestinian moderates is that if the situation here continues to worsen, it will almost certainly be exploited by Hamas. Known throughout the world primarily for its terrorist attacks against Israel Hamas is also a fundamentalist Islamic charitable organization that runs kindergartens, medical clinics, orphanages, and sports clubs here in Gaza and on the West Bank. But according to Israeli intelligence the schools and sports clubs also serve a more sinister purpose: it's here, they say, that Hamas operatives identify and recruit potential suicide bombers.

MAJOR GEN. MEIR DAGAN (Ret.), Israeli Counter-Terrorism Bureau: This is the place that those terrorists are indoctrinated.

CHARLES KRAUSE: Gen. Meir Dagan is the head of Israel's Bureau of Counter-Terrorism.

MAJOR GEN. MEIR DAGAN: And they are recruited, and the money for the terrorist activities are coming from there to achieve what they are calling the Jihad.

CHARLES KRAUSE: It was to work and proselytize among Gaza's poor that Sheik Ahmed Yasin founded Hamas a decade ago. And it was here to Gaza that he returned last month, after spending eight years in an Israeli prison. Since his return to Gaza, Yasin has made any number of contradictory statements to the western media, talking about a truce with Israel one day, threatening renewed violence the next. But in front of the mosque several of the sheik's followers told us that for them the message is clear.

CHARLES KRAUSE: Do you think people here could accept that there is an Israeli state?

MAN ON STREET: For a small time, like this sheik said, for ten years it is possible but in the future we will--we will continue our fight to go to--to return to our land, all of our land.

CHARLES KRAUSE: Is that what the sheik is telling you?

MAN: Yes. All Palestinians say that and even the leader, Yasser Arafat, says this.

CHARLES KRAUSE: What Arafat says in Arabic and how it's interpreted is a matter of some dispute. According to the Israelis, Arafat has said publicly more than once that despite their differences over tactics, he and Hamas have the same goal; the return of all Palestinian lands and the eventual destruction of Israel.

DAVID BAR-ILAN: He wants to keep this terrorist option open. He wants to be able to threaten us with violence and he does. Terrorism and peace negotiations cannot coexist. It is one or the other.

Chairman Arafat and Hamas.

CHARLES KRAUSE: But other, less passionate observers believe Arafat has a far more complex and often ambivalent relationship with Hamas. On the one hand, he's fearful of appearing too close to the Israelis, especially now that the peace process has stalled. He's also said to be afraid that an all out attack on Hamas could result in a civil war he might not win. So recently Arafat has attempted to improve relations with Hamas, including a very public meeting with Sheik Yasin. For now the effort appears to be succeeding. Abdul Aziz Al-Rantisi helped found Hamas a decade ago and is Sheik Yasin's second in command.

CHARLES KRAUSE: Do you view Chairman Arafat as your enemy, as your ally, or how does he relate to Hamas?

ABDUL AZIZ AL-RANTISI, Hamas Leader: We just have one enemy. And We believe in spite of what he did against Hamas--we believe that they are our brothers in home and they would continue so in spite of everything. And we will not go with them in conflict by any way, and we will be patient all the time because we have a big goal, the liberation of our land and the continuation of Israel against our enemies, our enemies, the Israelis, who came from here and took our land.

CHARLES KRAUSE: Yet, despite their current good relations, Arafat has moved against Hamas when necessary. After the most recent suicide bombings in September, for example, he closed 16 Hamas-affiliated institutions in Gaza. One of them was the Al-Rasallah Newspaper. Ghaza Hamad, Al-Rasallah's editor, does not deny that he's a member of Hama. In fact, he says that's why his paper was closed and also why he's been arrested and tortured five times over the past two years by Arafat's secret police.

GHAZA HAMAD, Hamas Newspaper Editor: I don't know how to describe it, but I think it is a painful way, and sometimes they use electric--to beat on all parts of your body.

CHARLES KRAUSE: And what kind of questions, do they--what do they want to know?

GHAZA HAMAD: There are no questions.

CHARLES KRAUSE: There are no questions?

GHAZA HAMAD: No, no, no, no, no.

CHARLES KRAUSE: They just torture you without asking you questions?

GHAZA HAMAD: See that you are members of Hamas, that's all. Sometimes they told me that we have to beat you because you are members of Hamas, but there is no charges, there is no accusing.

CHARLES KRAUSE: The Israelis say that what happened to Hamad is typical. When Arafat wants it to appear that he's cracking down on Hamas, he orders the arrest of relatively junior members of the political wing. They're beaten, then let go. Meanwhile, members of the military wing, many of them wanted by the Israelis, remain free, according to Bar-Ilan. What particularly angers the Israelis that as part of the Oslo Agreement they agreed to let Arafat create his own police and intelligence services. Today the Palestinian Authority, Arafat's government, reportedly has more than 30,000 men under arms.

At police headquarters in Gaza they set up the special training exercise for us to demonstrate their ability to carry out their mission to fight terrorists, but the Palestinians say the kind of security cooperation the Israelis are demanding and that's envisioned in the Oslo agreements is no longer possible. The reason, they say, is the series of decisions Netanyahu has taken since his election last year, opening a tunnel in the Arab part of East Jerusalem, for example, that led to rioting, and giving the go-ahead for a new housing project in an area called Har Homa that led to protests. The Palestinians say that Netanyahu continues to provoke them and complains about the security problems that result. Kanafani says since coming to office Netanyahu has deliberately undermined the peace process.

MARWAN KANAFANI: The peace process is dead, and if there was a chance for the peace process to work under the labor government, there is no chance now with this individual, the prime minister of Israel. He takes, you know, the issue, the important issue of security, as a pretext not to go ahead with the peace process.

CHARLES KRAUSE: But in Israel's parliament and among Israeli voters security is of primary concern. Bar-Ilan says it's not a pretext and that Arafat must deal with Hamas if the peace process is to continue.

DAVID BAR-ILAN:

MARWAN KANAFANI: takes, you know, the issue, the important issue of

DAVID BAR-ILAN: Obviously, what we want is for the Palestinian Authority not to endorse terrorism, to glorify and lionize the terrorists, to abet terrorism by calling for Jihad, and for the continuation of the struggle against Israel by every and all means, and above all not to engage in terrorism, themselves.

CHARLES KRAUSE: But by asking that Arafat eradicate Hamas, including alleged Hamas sympathizers in the Palestinian police force, it could be that the Israelis are demanding the impossible. Kanafani says Arafat will simply not risk political suicide or civil war to satisfy Netanyahu.

MARWAN KANAFANI: Let me tell you this thing very frankly. We are not going to go after Hamas. Hamas, in its majority, as a political party, is not connected to violence. We are not going to go against anybody because he does not believe in Oslo Agreement, because my belief in Oslo Agreement is shaky now. We are not going to go after anybody because he doesn't like Mr. Netanyahu or because doesn't like Mr. Bar-Ilan, or because he believes that the peace process is not good for us. And I'm telling you it's not only Hamas, a lot of the people who were for the Authority, including myself, is facing a new circumstances that is forcing him to rethink the peace process.

CHARLES KRAUSE: Clearly, the Israeli-Palestinian relationship is in crisis, and the peace process, if not dead, is today barely alive. At border checkpoints security remained tight, and Israel has tied any future withdrawals from the West Bank, as required by the Oslo Agreements, to an end of terrorism by the Palestinians. It's one of the issues being discussed this week by Israeli and Palestinian negotiators in Washington. But there's little optimism for peace or security here in the Middle East.

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