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 | SEEKING SOLUTIONS
OCTOBER 2, 1996TRANSCRIPT |
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America's Ambassador to Israel, Martin Indyk, gives his inside view of this round of Middle East peace talks between Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and Chairman Arafat of Palestine. Ambassador Indyk explains why this dialogue has been crucial to stopping the region from spiralling into greater violence. This follows excerpts from press conferences given by President Clinton and Prime Minister Netanyahu.JIM LEHRER: Now we go to an American official who is involved in these negotiations, Martin Indyk, U.S. Ambassador to Israel. Mr. Ambassador, welcome.
MARTIN INDYK, U.S. Ambassador to Israel: Thank you.
JIM LEHRER: The talks that begin on Sunday, they're about security and Hebron. What specifically are they going to talk about in the security area?
AMB. INDYK: Well, that remains to be seen. The--because of the breakdown in security and a situation in which Palestinian police were using their guns to fire on the Israeli army. The--there has to be some form of rebuilding of trust. The Israeli army makes a very strong point now of saying this is a new situation. An Israeli soldier having to get into a joint patrol car with a Palestinian policeman is going to wonder whether he's going to use his gun on, on the Israeli soldier, and so there's a real problem of trust on the ground at the moment and that has to be rebuilt. There are some ideas that the Israelis have about ways to do that in a kind of stabilization period, a transitional period of confidence building, and that's the kind of thing in the security area they want to discuss with the Palestinians.
JIM LEHRER: Based on your involvement in the negotiations, are they close on that, or are they a long way apart from resolving that?
AMB. INDYK: I think it's important to understand that, that when this process broke down last week and you had this kind of war process, instead of a peace process, that it created this very large gap, and it's a gap in trust more than in subject areas, themselves, even though they were difficult enough. And that--how you bridge that trust is the most difficult part. I mean, we spent, I think it was 12 hours out there after the first night, trying to--when the Prime Minister came back from Europe--trying to get Arafat and Netanyahu on the telephone.
JIM LEHRER: This was before they came here?
AMB. INDYK: Before they came here.
JIM LEHRER: Correct.
AMB. INDYK: I mean, it was so difficult just to get them talking--
JIM LEHRER: This was people on both sides dying, and they wouldn't talk on the telephone.
AMB. INDYK: Well, it was a question of how you did it or, what the terms were for the talk--
JIM LEHRER: And who placed the call?
AMB. INDYK: Who placed the call was a problem, when it was going to be taken. I mean, it was just incredibly difficult. Indeed, the reason that the President made the decision to bring them here was precisely because all the other ideas that we were trying simply couldn't work to get them together, get them talking again, and that's why the President invested his prestige to do this. What happened here at this summit was that the two leaders began to rebuild the trust, and that's the real achievement here.
JIM LEHRER: Now, the Palestinians said that the major--their major complaint was that Netanyahu was treating Arafat with contempt from the very beginning, the moment he was elected prime minister of Israel, and he did not see him as an equal negotiating partner. Is anything different as of this two days here in Washington?
AMB. INDYK: Yes, I think so. I think that, that the President and King Hussein, uh, played a very important role here in, in sensitizing the prime minister, and then the engagement with Arafat I think helped him to understand the needs of his partner. I think it's been an educational experience from day one that he came prime minister because you have to understand that he and, and the right wing constituency that he represents have for a very long time seen Arafat in the mode of terrorist and murderer and to actually be shaking his hand and sitting down and spending three hours talking about their families, their children, their future together was a, a very important breakthrough I think. But the combination of King Hussein playing a very important role there too, I think was very important in terms of making him come to appreciate that Arafat could be his partner and that the Palestinians have real needs that he has to find a way to address.
JIM LEHRER: His partner, is that a word you're using, or is it a word they used?
AMB. INDYK: That was a word that they used.
JIM LEHRER: After talking to--
AMB. INDYK: And they used the word “friend.”
JIM LEHRER: Friend?
AMB. INDYK: Friend, yes.
JIM LEHRER: Do you--what was the tone of the discussions? I mean, what--were they--did they--did they talk frankly about the tunnel and about the use of weapons by the Palestinian soldiers and the Palestinians' complaint about the Israelis shooting the rock throwing kids? I mean, was it all out there?
AMB. INDYK: Yes. They dealt with all of those issues. But, but they did it in a--if I can say it--in a friendly way. I mean, it was an honest and frank discussion, but it was a friendly discussion. I think that, that Chairman Arafat came away feeling that something important happened in terms of building the relationship with the prime minister of Israel, which after all--I mean, because the Palestinians and Israelis are so inextricably intertwined that that relationship between leaders is very important. Now I don't want to exaggerate it. That was--it was important but the substance is critical. The point is you couldn't get from where we were last week to actually dealing with the substance which we will do next week, and the very complicated substance, without this transition of getting to know each other.
JIM LEHRER: You're over there in the region. Let me ask you the same question that Prime Minister Netanyahu said he could not answer, which is: What do you think would have happened had they not come to Washington?
AMB. INDYK: I think it would have spiraled out of control. It, it's still a very tense situation that you've got--Israeli tanks surrounding some of the cities in the West Bank. You've got the settlers putting up berms around the settlements.
JIM LEHRER: And those are the cities that are technically under Palestinian control.
AMB. INDYK: They are completely--
JIM LEHRER: Technically, they are--
AMB. INDYK: --under Palestinian control..
JIM LEHRER: But Israelis tanks are there?
AMB. INDYK: They're on the perimeter.
JIM LEHRER: On the perimeter.
AMB. INDYK: And, and a very dangerous situation, and, and tempers are boiling, so you have to give both sides the sense that there's an alternative here, that there's still a process that can satisfy their grievances.
JIM LEHRER: Do you think that both of them leave here with enough to sell their own constituencies, each in their own way, hey, wait a minute, it's worth going to the meetings on Sunday, it's worth trying to sit down and talk, do you think they have?
AMB. INDYK: I think people on both sides have stared at the abyss and, and--
JIM LEHRER: What did they see?
AMB. INDYK: --recognized that--
JIM LEHRER: What did they see?
AMB. INDYK: --that--I mean, for the Israelis, for example--
JIM LEHRER: Mm-hmm.
JIM LEHRER: And you're going to be there, right?
AMB. INDYK: Yes, I'll be there.
JIM LEHRER: All right, Mr. Ambassador, thank you very much.
AMB. INDYK: Thank you.
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