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| INTERIM AGREEMENT | |
 October 23, 1998 
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SAMUEL BERGER: Thank you, Elizabeth. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: After a year and a half of working on this, an agreement was reached today. What made it possible now and not before? SAMUEL BERGER: Well, I think first of all the parties I believe came to the United States at the invitation of the President with a determination to find an agreement to overcome the stalemate. I think as we move closer and closer to the deadline for the final status negotiations in May 1999. There's a sense of urgency that has crept into the process, and then I think by sheer determination in the leadership of President Clinton and the creativity and courage of the parties, we worked our way through over a nine-day period, the very difficult issues to producing agreement, which I believe is good for Israel, I believe it's good for the Palestinian people, and I believe it is good for the peace process. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: The issues were so often summarized as land for security. Were those, in fact, the most important issues and how were they resolved? We just heard some details. I know you didn't get to hear Margaret Warner's segment. We heard some of that, but I'd like to hear from you how that was resolved.
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CIA Involved |
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ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Could you go into some more detail about that. Dean Fischer and Hisham Melhem and Robert Satloff were just on with Margaret Warner talking about the CIA role in this. How will - for example - the infrastructure of the suspected terrorist groups is to be dealt with - how will that happen? What is the infrastructure? SAMUEL BERGER: Well, the principal responsibility here lies with the Palestinian Authority. They have undertaken a series of obligations, as spelled out in a detailed security plan involving weapons confiscation, involving arrests, involving people -- of terrorists, and other actions, which will go after the terrorist networks and the infrastructure of terrorist networks in that region. There is also created by this agreement a bilateral mechanism, which will bring the Israelis and the Palestinians in continuing cooperation. After all, they need to share information. They need to work together on this, and then finally there is a trilateral mechanism, which include the United States in which we will provide assistance; we will help, I think, give the Israelis confidence that the Palestinians are living up to their obligations, and the Palestinians confidence that they will get full credit for what they do with the Israeli people.
SAMUEL BERGER: Well, I'm not going to get into the very specific details of this because obviously a security plan is not - is not something that one wants to be a public document. There will be, as I say, a systematic effort to go at terrorists, go at terrorist networks. We will be there to provide assistance, not in every - not so much in an operational sense as really in an information sharing and verification sense. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: I know you can't give details, but this is an area that Americans will be very interested in since it does put the CIA in a perhaps unprecedented position on the ground in these - in the West Bank. Can you tell us anything else? SAMUEL BERGER: Our intelligence community for many years has had cooperative relationships with intelligence agencies around the world in which they provided technical assistance and other kinds of assistance in helping to develop the counter-terrorism capabilities of these organizations. Don't forget, the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian police are relatively new entities. The United States intelligence community is the most expert in the world in fighting terrorism. We have a great deal of expertise and knowledge, which we hope we can share with the Palestinians and again facilitate the cooperation between the - the essential cooperation really is between Israelis and Palestinians. |
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| President's
Role |
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ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Mr. Berger, give us a sense of the President's role in this. For example, today when the issue of convicted spy Jonathan Pollard seemed about to derail all of this. The Israelis want him released. Israeli TV reported that the President had some pretty harsh words with Prime Minister Netanyahu. Did he? And give us a sense of the role the President played.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: So you - SAMUEL BERGER: Not because - I should say not so much because in any way he imposed our ideas on them but because he understood their positions sufficiently well that he could explain and interpret each party's needs to the other and help them find and often offer suggestions which would meet both of their needs. And that's really truly the job of an honest broker, and I think the President performed that job magnificently. |
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| A High Price | ||||||||||||||
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SAMUEL BERGER: Prime Minister Netanyahu asked President Clinton, as he has on previous occasions, to examine the case of Mr. Pollard, who was convicted of spying against the United States. The President, in view of the prime minister's serious and intense interest in this, agreed that he would conduct a review. He made absolutely no commitments with respect to the outcome of that review, and he wants to hear from his intelligence advisers, his law enforcement advisers, and others and over some period of time he will make a judgment as to whether or not any change in disposition is justified. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: A few more details - if you could tell us or explain to us from the agreement - the Israelis wanted Palestinians to remove clauses from the Palestinian National Charter that called for the destruction of Israel. We understand that that agreement has been made. How will it work? SAMUEL BERGER: Well, back in 1994, Chairman Arafat sent a letter to President Clinton specifying those provisions of the Palestinian covenant which deal with the rejection of Israel's legitimacy and indicating that those provisions were no longer applicable; they were null and void. That position was ratified by the executive committee of the Palestinian Authority. But now we have established a process over a series of weeks whereby first the executive committee and then the Palestinian central committee and finally the Palestinian National Committee, together with other entities, other Palestinian entities, will meet. They will affirm their commitment to this agreement. They will affirm their commitment to the peace process, and to the agreements that previously have been made, as I described. President Clinton has indicated that he will travel to the region, he will address the group in mid December, and I think this is very important for Israel as a reflection of a true commitment on the part of the Palestinian people to live together in peace with the Israeli people. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Mr. Berger, the hard-to-define atmospherics and trust and confidence, the ceremony in the White House was very moving, very upbeat. One of the people in Margaret Warner's earlier segment said that that masks the continuing deep distrust among the parties. What do you have to say about that? SAMUEL BERGER: Well, there's no question that over the past 18 months there has been deep distrust. The parties really have not talked to each other directly until Sec. Albright brought them together in September in New York, but over the past nine days really literally sometimes 18, 19, 20 - the last day - 36 hours straight - the leaders of the Israeli government and the leaders of the Palestinian Authority, needless to say, spent countless hours together - I would venture to say more time together in the last nine days than ever before. And over that time I think they grew to understand each other better. I think they obviously grew to know each other better. That's not to say there are not still serious divisions, serious differences, serious differences of perspective, and even objective. But I think that some of the distrust melted over the past nine days. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: I was struck by President Clinton's comments -- I think twice in the ceremony - where he said that both leaders could pay a high price for what they've done here, and I think he said -- President Clinton said even a personal price - referring to their own personal safety - did I interpret that correctly? And could you explain that.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Samuel Berger, thank you very much for being with us. SAMUEL BERGER: Thank you very much. |
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ELIZABETH
FARNSWORTH: Now, the President's National Security Adviser, Samuel Berger.
He joins us from the White House lawn. Thank you very much for being
with us. Congratulations. 
SAMUEL
BERGER: Well, that is - those were the core issues, although I must
say there were dozens of other issues that were involved here, but the
core issue was land that is a further redeployment as required under
the Oslo Agreement from the West Bank by Israel. The Israelis agreed
to transfer 13 percent of land from areas now under their control to
areas that are under Palestinian authority, and 14.2 percent of land
that will go entirely under Palestinian authority in terms of all functions
such as security. So at the end of this process, which will go for 12
weeks, assuming implementation on the Israeli side, the Palestinians
will have roughly 40 percent of the area of the West Bank that will
be under their autonomy. On the security side, the Israelis have a legitimate
concern that the Palestinians totally fulfill their obligations under
Oslo to make a full and continuing and systematic effort to crack down
on terrorism. And what we were able to work out - in fact, what the
parties were able to work out - is a very detailed work plan over a
period of time, whereby the Palestinian Authority will in a range of
areas take serious and sustained action against the terrorist threats
in that region. 
ELIZABETH
FARNSWORTH: So, for example, if the Palestinians put somebody in prison,
the CIA would verify that, that they're in prison, that they weren't
let out before they were supposed to be? 
SAMUEL
BERGER: Well, I think the President in the early stages of the negotiations,
the first few days, listened very attentively to the parties, tried
to elicit from them what their real needs and interests were, so that
he understood what their particular needs and concerns were. Through
a second phase of negotiation I think he helped to conceptualize a larger
agreement whereby each side would benefit, and though these last several
days there's been just tough slogging and working through the issues.
There have been ups and downs. There have been good hours and bad hours,
good days and bad days. But in the end I think the parties wanted an
agreement and obviously that's reflected in the fact that they achieved
an agreement and the President's role, as each of the leaders attested
to today, was indispensable. 
ELIZABETH
FARNSWORTH: And what's the final deal on convicted spy Jonathan Pollard?
SAMUEL
BERGER: I think it's broader than that. I think both these leaders --
obviously Prime Minister Netanyahu is the prime minister of a very vigorous
and dynamic democracy in Israel with varying points of view within his
own coalition and within that government - some more or less committed
to the peace process. And I think he was - acted very courageously not
only in personal terms but in political terms in making this decision
to move forward and to move the peace process forward. With respect
to Chairman Arafat, obviously there are in the areas that he is - regions
of the West Bank and Gaza and the areas of the Middle East, there are
enemies of peace, who will seek to unquestionably destroy the peace
process, disrupt the peace process, but I think these leaders in the
region, King Hussein being in some ways the most exemplary example of
that, have a sense of mission and a sense of purpose. And I think they
have come to grips with the fact that they need to take risks in order
to move their people forward.