|
|
 |
|
 |
 |
| MIDEAST PEACE UPDATE | |
 December 15, 1998 
|
||
 |
|
|
|
PHIL PONCE: Joining us now to look at what the trip accomplished Robert Satloff, executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He just returned from a trip to Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank, and Rashid Khalidi, Professor of Middle East History and the Center for International Studies at the University of Chicago. Gentlemen, welcome. PHIL PONCE: Mr. Satloff, today the president said that because of his trip that the peace process was back on track. Is it? |
|
||||||||||||
| The president's trip. | ||||||||||||||
|
PHIL PONCE: And when you say something happened yesterday, you're referring to the - ROBERT SATLOFF: I'm referring to the decision by members of the Palestine National Council to affirm the decision by Chairman Arafat to rescind elements of their charter that call for Israel's destruction. PHIL PONCE: Something that Benjamin Netanyahu pressed for in the - in the Wye agreement a couple of months ago in Maryland. ROBERT SATLOFF: That's right. It's a major demand of Israelis to have this very symbolic event in Arabic, in Gaza, finally and formally ending the issue of the PLO charter. PHIL PONCE: Professor Khalidi, your assessment of the impact of the president's trip.
PHIL PONCE: I'm sorry. When you refer to final status negotiations, you're talking about the big issues - borders, the status of Jerusalem, statehood for the Palestinians - RASHID KHALIDI: And refugees, precisely. PHIL PONCE: So in broad strokes - I mean, you refer to some of them - but in broad strokes what at this point, Professor, were the Palestinians expecting under the Wye agreement? |
 |
|||||||||||||
| Palestinian expectations. | ||||||||||||||
|
PHIL PONCE: And, Mr. Satloff, what were the Israelis expecting at this point under Wye? ROBERT SATLOFF: Well, just to add one very large item which the Palestinians did get, which was a pledging conference in Washington two weeks ago in which the Americans and the rest of the world promised several billion dollars of assistance.
ROBERT SATLOFF: A pledging conference - in which all the countries pledged money. The Israelis expected first and foremost a change of attitude symbolized by the PNC vote yesterday but also - PHIL PONCE: The Palestinian National - ROBERT SATLOFF: The Palestinian National Council vote on the charter. But also an end to incitement, an end to rioting, an end to conflict, and a commitment that only through negotiations would any issues - outstanding divisive issues be resolved. There was also a set of requirements in the Wye accord regarding confiscation of weapons, regarding lowering the number of Palestinian policemen to an agreed level, regarding cracking down on terrorists, Hamas and Islamic Jihad. I was in Gaza last week, and we met with the senior member of Hamas not in jail. And I was very disappointed to hear from him that not one Hamas institution had been closed down since Wye. I was hoping that he would complain about what Yasser Arafat was doing. I was disappointed that he wasn't complaining about Yasser Arafat. PHIL PONCE: And because - in your opinion because Yasser Arafat - he was not complaining about Yasser Arafat. That means Mr. Arafat, in your opinion, was not, what, doing his job under the agreement? ROBERT SATLOFF: Not fulfilling all of the sentiments that the Israelis had hoped and what was called for in terms of cracking down on what is called the infrastructure, the support networks for Hamas and Islamic Jihad. PHIL PONCE: Professor Khalidi, are the Palestinians doing their bit?
PHIL PONCE: Rashid Khalidi, what would you say that the Palestinians got out of the president's visit? RASHID KHALIDI: I think they got an emotional boost, which will perhaps last for a few more days. I think they received further endorsement of their not quite equal but close to equal status with the nations of the world. I think the Arafat administration received a boost vis-à-vis its domestic rivals. And I think that they will probably have received something which in the end be rather disappointing, which is a sense that things might move forward. And I agree with Bob Satloff. I rarely do that, but I agree with him. I don't think there's going to be very much lasting effect of this visit, and they will, I think, be disappointed. The things that matter - economic - the economic situation - freedom of movement, freedom of prisoners, liberation of territory, those things are probably not going to happen in the near future. And I don't think the big issues are going to be negotiated very soon either - Jerusalem refugees, water, settlements, borders - those things are nowhere near being adjudicated. PHIL PONCE: Mr. Satloff, what did the Israelis get from the president's visit? |
 |
|||||||||||||
| From Israel's perspective. | ||||||||||||||
|
PHIL PONCE: And gentlemen, that's all the time we have. I thank you both for joining us. |
 |
|||||||||||||
| |||||
 | |||||
| |||||
|
|
| |||
| |||||
| |||||
| Support the kind of journalism done by the NewsHour...Become a member of your local PBS station. | |||||
ROBERT
SATLOFF, Washington Institute for Near East Policy: Well, I think the
president's trip was very important, but I doubt that it is any more
or any less on track than it was before he went. There were - there's
a process underway - timetables to be met - things that are supposed
to happen on certain dates. Something happened yesterday that was supposed
to happen yesterday. And that did happen. But that doesn't mean that
the process was off kilter the day before, or that it's completely fixed
today. The process has its defects, and it will remain with us until
it's through to its conclusion. 
RASHID
KHALIDI, University of Chicago: Well, I think that in the long run it's
very unlikely to have a great deal of importance inasmuch as this issue
of the charter was important to many Israelis. Hopefully, it's now behind
us, and I suppose that's a good thing, but I'm afraid that the kind
of problems that we had last week are going to face us next week once
the president has been and gone. The issues of closure, issues of movement
between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, issues of prisoners who were
supposed to have been released long ago under previous agreements to
Wye are still outstanding, as are many other issues. The Israelis have
other agreements as against the Palestinians and all of this ignores
the fact that five months hence at the beginning of May the interim
period was supposed to end and final status negotiations were supposed
to have been completed. They have not even begun. So serious issues
- 
RASHID
KHALIDI: I think they were hoping to get some things that they obtained,
one of them being an American endorsement of their aspirations generally
- generally stated - towards self-determination and statehood, and I
think there are a number of things that they were hoping for that they
are probably not going to get, such as implementation of the Wye plantation
accords, specifically a further Israeli withdrawal and redeployment
on Friday of this week. That is probably not going to happen; depending
on Israeli internal politics, it may or may not ever happen. There are
a number of other things that we're hoping to get, such as release of
prisoners and opening of a safe passage between the Gaza Strip and the
West Bank and lifting of innumerable other restrictions on movement,
which I doubt they're going to get in the near future. 
PHIL
PONCE: You call that a pledge - 
RASHID
KHALIDI: Well, two things that should be said. The support networks
include a lot of people who are, in fact, in jail, who are alleged to
be involved in violent activities but also include things that I would
be very unhappy to see shut down, like kindergartens and schools and
nurseries and so forth. Hamas is a - is an organization which has many
objectionable aims, but it does a number of very important social things,
and these are the things that many Israelis are demanding be shut down.
The other point that should be made is that the Wye agreement also calls
for no actions that would tend to change the status quo. Israel managed
to insert a number of - by its superior power at Wye, it managed to
insert a number of things into the agreement, but that-the terminology
not changing the status quo includes a number of things that the Israelis
have been roaring ahead with, like expansion of settlements, like confiscating
land and building so-called bypass roads, like doing things in Jerusalem,
which clearly prejudice the final status of Jerusalem, so Israelis are
complaining about Palestinian statements; the Palestinians are complaining
vainly so far about Israeli actions which have made massive changes
on the ground in the past six or seven years and, in fact, in the past
several months. 
ROBERT
SATLOFF: Well, the Israelis got a reminder that there is a president
who is able to empathize both with them and with Palestinians. Bill
Clinton has a unique role to do this. But I think Israeli politics today
is fixated first and foremost on domestic issues. Prime Minister Netanyahu
is now suffering for his move to the center in making an agreement at
the Wye Plantation. He tried to move to the center, and he suffered
on the right. He attacks right; he suffers on the left. The votes may
not be there much longer to maintain his very disparate coalition -
and it is a great irony of Israeli politics today that I think there
is the largest consensus in Israel's history about how to deal with
the Palestinian issue - Labor - Likud - the center parties. Yet, there's
also the deepest division in Israeli politics on who should lead Israel
and how that process should be led. 
