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« Back to Is Peace Plausible? main page    Transcript for: Is Peace Plausible?Israel Peace Process ANNOUNCER: Think Tank is madepossible by AMGEN, recipient of the Presidential National Medal ofTechnology. AMGEN, helping cancer patients through cellular andmolecular biology. Improving lives today and bringing hope fortomorrow. Additional funding is provided bythe John M. Olin Foundation, the Lilly Endowment, and the Lynde andHarry Bradley Foundation. MR. WATTENBERG: Hello, I'm BenWattenberg. Hope for peace in the Middle East has once again beenshaken by violence. Can peace still prevail or was the processdestined to collapse? Joining us to sort through the conflict andconsensus are Jeane Kirkpatrick, senior fellow at the AmericanEnterprise Institute, and author of The Withering Away of theTotalitarian State and Other Surprises; Robert Satloff, executivedirector of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and authorof from Abdullah to Hussein, Jordan in Transition; Peter Rodman,director of national security programs at the Nixon Center for Peaceand Freedom, and author of More Precious than Peace, the Cold War andthe Struggle for the Third World; and Jerome Segal, research scholarat the Center for International and Security Studies at theUniversity of Maryland, and co-author of the study, The Status ofJerusalem in the Eyes of Israeli Jews. The topic before this house: Ispeace plausible? This week on Think Tank. Four years ago on the lawn of theWhite House, Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization, PLO,signed an agreement negotiated in secret in Oslo. It was hailed asthe biggest breakthrough in the Middle East since Egypt and Israelmade peace 20 years earlier. The Oslo agreement, sealed with ahandshake, brought great hope, and then great disappointment. Theessence of the agreement was simple, land for peace. If the PLO endedits domestic war against Israel, the Intafada, Israel would yield theGaza Strip, and part of the West Bank to a new Palestinian Authorityheaded by Yasir Arafat. In theory, this agreement was toend a struggle that had lasted for generations. Has that happened? Inthe four years since Oslo, Israel has undergone vast politicalchange, but nonetheless has ceded some land. The Palestinianauthority has delivered some civil order. But, say observers, the PLOhas not yet removed from its charter the clause calling for thedestruction of Israel. This and recent violence, which we will get tolater, has led some to ask the haunting question, is peaceplausible? Lady and gentlemen, thank you forjoining us. Let's go around the room quickly with that simplehaunting question. In the Middle East is peace plausible?Jeane? MS. KIRKPATRICK: Well, I thinkpeace is possible, but not probable until there is democracy in thearea, more democracy in the surrounding states than nowexists. MR. WATTENBERG: PeterRodman? MR. RODMAN: Well, I think,paradoxically, despite all the fireworks, I think the two sides arecloser to a definitive negotiation and a final resolution than theyhave ever been. MR. WATTENBERG: Okay. RobertSatloff? MR. SATLOFF: I think peace is areasonable objective, but I think it's going to take a lot longerthan the original Oslo founders thought it would take. MR. WATTENBERG: Jerry Segal,University of Maryland? MR. SEGAL: I think we had a muchbetter shot at peace before the last Israeli elections with BinyaminNetanyahu now as prime minister of Israel, I think it hassignificantly diminished the likelihood of peace between Israel andthe Palestinians. MR. SATLOFF: I don't agree withJerry. I think that the Netanyahu election is just one piece of alandscape that we've seen over the last couple of years. I mean, wehad the huge series of terrorist attacks in February and March whenthere was a labor government. We had the break down in thenegotiations with Syria when there was a labor government. I don'tsee the Netanyahu election as being the pivotal event. It's a pieceof the landscape, but it isn't the one event that changedeverything. MR. RODMAN: I think Likud hasevolved in an extraordinary fashion over the last year. The primeminister has -- MR. WATTENBERG: BinyaminNetanyahu's party. MR. RODMAN: Netanyahu's party.Netanyahu is on record now, at least through his spokesman, as sayinghe concedes the idea of a Palestinian state, and the only issue leftis the extent of it, geographic extent, and some of its powers. Ithink any Israeli government would insist one some limitations of itspowers, particularly in the security area. So I think the Likud hasevolved. I think there is a national consensus in Israel, which isone of the basic preconditions of a serious negotiation on theultimate question. MS. KIRKPATRICK: I don't thinkthere's consensus anywhere, frankly. There's always this focus on,you know, is it Netanyahu, what have the Israelis not done? Let'slook at what the PLO hasn't done. Let's look at what you mentioned atthe beginning. The PLO, after having agree to renounce the covenantwhich calls for the destruction of Israel in no uncertain terms, andthe return of refugees and a variety of other such factors that areincompatible with the survival of the state of Israel, has taken noaction on the renunciation of the covenant. MR. SATLOFF: One of the ironies ofwhat's happening now is that Labor and Likud have had a vigorousnegotiation amongst themselves, and they're getting closer to eachother. But you don't have on the other side one public utterance,public utterance. And, for me, after studying the Arab world forquite a long time, what people say in public is much more importantthan what they say in private. Actually, it's the same in America andin Israel. There's not been one public utterance of a move toward aconsensus number. So we have -- MR. WATTENBERG: On the Palestinianside? MR. SATLOFF: On the Palestinianside. So, while Peter's point is right that you do have Labor andLikud reaching a sort of consensus, you don't have any public sign ofa consensus moving from the Palestinian side. So that's why, I mean,I think that peace is plausible, but it's going to take a lot longeruntil we have that movement on the Palestinian side. MR. RODMAN: Well, I agree withRob. I agree with Rob. I think, obviously, the Oslo deadlines arearbitrary, and they're wildly optimistic. What I'm seeing, I'm takinga long-term perspective. What I see is the pieces gradually fallinginto place, and I think it is interesting to me that you have Likudand the PLO as the interlocutors. I mean, five years ago, this wasinconceivable, and neither side really likes the other one, and thePLO would rather have Labor to talk to. And Likud would rather havesome tamer group of Palestinians. But these, in a sense, these arethe two core elements that need to be talking to each other, and theconstituencies that it can deliver on a deal. I think the pieces arestarting to fall into place. MR. WATTENBERG: Okay. That bringsus to some recent events. Last month, Israel began construction ofsettlements in Har Homa, a vacant stretch of land in South Jerusalem.The construction sparked Palestinian Protests and violence, includinga bombing in Tel Aviv. Israel maintains that Jerusalem, the historiccapital of Israel, was never part of earlier agreements, and so thereis nothing wrong with building there. Arafat claims the bombings wereacts of independent terrorists, and that Jerusalem is also theintended capital of an independent Palestine. Israel asserts thatArafat gave the terrorists a green light. So what is -- just to catchus up on this. Now, what -- MR. RODMAN: There are two separateissues of violence. I think two somewhat separate issues.s One iswhether the PLO -- can we hold the PLO accountable for Hamas. And Ithink it has to be accountable for Hamas. The second issue is the mobviolence. MR. WATTENBERG: Otherwise there'sno deal. Right. MR. RODMAN: The second issue ismob violence and whether the PLO or the Palestinian authority kind ofgives the green light to the crowd to stir up trouble and throw rocksand mob violence, whenever there's an impasse in the negotiations,and the Palestinians have some grievance about the Israelinegotiating position. I think both of those are unacceptable. And Ithink one of the obstacles now in the negotiation is clearly that thePalestinians are being indulged. They're being allowed to get awaywith I think what is totally unacceptable tactics, and this willbecome a habit. It will become a strategy if they get away with thetactics of using -- they're supposed to have renounced violenceunconditionally as part of Oslo. And if they're still using violenceone way or another as a tactic, as a weapon, then that is one of themost serious flaws or obstacles to the whole deal. MR. WATTENBERG: Did Arafat give agreen light? MR. SEGAL: First of all, on theissue of violence, I think we have to make a very importantdistinction between terrorism and other forms of violence. Terrorismhas always been -- not just morally unacceptable, it's also, in myjudgment, been among the stupider things that the Palestinians havedone, and it's held them back. On the other hand, what's going onwith Har Homa, it's true that the Oslo accord did not prohibit Israelexplicitly from building in Har Homa. It's also the case that theOslo accord agreed that Jerusalem would be up for negotiation as partof the final status negotiations, which haven't started yet. From aPalestinian point of view, if Israel starts constructing in some ofthe parts of Jerusalem that now remain open, such as the Har Homaarea, if it starts constructing massive Jewish neighborhoods inthere, what it's doing is, it's unilaterally foreclosing thepossibility that Israel agreed to in Oslo, which is to negotiateJerusalem. So, from a Palestinian point of view, what theconstruction of Har Homa is, is a violation of the spirit of theaccord. MS. KIRKPATRICK: This is justridiculous, I think. One thing that the Israelis and the Netanyahuproposed and very quickly after the withdrawal from Hebron was tomove to final status negotiations. One of the interestingcharacteristics of the Oslo accords is that they do not -- and of thepeace process, if you will, is that it proposes no ends. It proposesa series of Israeli withdrawals, and of Israel renunciations, and noend. The only end is one slice. It reminds me of Lenin's old salamislices. You get one slice and then you get another slice. MR. WATTENBERG: Well, but therewas going to be a final status agreement. MS. KIRKPATRICK: Well, except thatit didn't say when the final status negotiations even would begin,and Netanyahu proposed that the final -- that they go immediately tofinal status negotiations. And Arafat has simply rejected thisproposal. If they went directly to final status negotiations, then itwould be possible to talk about what the final agreement would be,what percent. That's what Arafat has -- MR. SEGAL: It would be very usefulto go to final status negotiations. MR. WATTENBERG: Let Bob Satloffget in. MR. SATLOFF: I think what we'regetting at is a basic fundamental problem in the core of thenegotiating process that Oslo had. And it may not be insurmountable,but it's a basic problem. Israelis and Palestinians look at the samepiece of paper and saw different things. For Israelis, this was acommitment from the Palestinians to end violence, and a promise inreturn of a process that would not provide any clear outcome. It wasa promise of a process. The Palestinians looked at thispiece of paper and saw it as the unpalatable postponement of theinevitable creation of a Palestinian state in all of the West Bankand Gaza in Jerusalem. But now we're getting close to that end ofthat five-year period. And people are coming out with -- MR. WATTENBERG: Let me ask onequestion that kind of puzzled me. This panel has been artfullyconstructed to give a full range of views beneath the rubric of thelegitimacy of the state of Israel. Now, you can argue about, youknow, what it's borders are, and what kind of a Palestinian state orauthority there will be. But it does not include so-calledrejectionists, because we thought that would just be a foodfight. Now, what is to prevent thefollowing situation. When a, let's say a Palestinian state isestablished, Yasir Arafat is elected democratically as president,they have a place at the United Nations, everybody goes and sayshurray. And then, the rejectionists who are still within that newstate of Palestine start taking out the salami knife again and say,ah-ha, but we didn't get this, and we're going to drop a bomb. And wedidn't get this, and we're going to drop a bomb. And then theIsraelis give them a slice of salami, maybe, and maybe not, and thenthey say, but we -- I mean, ultimately, after all, there are, I don'tknow, a majority or not, but lots and lots of Palestinians who stillwould like to drive Israel into the sea. What is to give -- how doyou solve that? MR. SEGAL: I assume you're notsaying what's to prevent them from saying it. If they say it-- MR. WATTENBERG: No, I didn't say,say, doing though? MR. SEGAL: What you're saying is,if a Palestinian state comes into existence, and it serves as a basisfor further attacks on Israel, what Israel will do, and this is whatwill prevent it, is that Israel will respond militarily, and whenyou're dealing in a state-to-state situation, in fact, where Israeldoesn't have responsibility for a people that's under its occupation,in fact, Israel will have a much freer hand to do this. MR. WATTENBERG: Right. They wouldhave to reoccupy Palestine. Wouldn't that be a great solution. MR. SEGAL: Well, in fact, from aright wing point of view, in fact, it will be a war situation. A warsituation will be the one situation in which, just as Palestinians-- MR. WATTENBERG: But Arafat orwhoever the PLO is can say, gee, I was an independent actor, youknow, you didn't give us enough. MR. SEGAL: Oh, no. That won't cutany water when there is an independent Palestinian state, and itshouldn't. An independent Palestinian state will be brought toconform to the same norms that occur in the rest of the world. If youuse your state as a launching pad for -- MR. WATTENBERG: Peter, goahead. MR. RODMAN: Israel has a longtradition of responding militarily to cross-border attacks, I mean,going back to the '50s. If you get a state -- I mean, I'm willing toconcede this principle, that if there's a state, the state is goingto be very vulnerable, and Israel will have a lot of leverage over aPalestinian state. And, you know, there will be porous borders, andthis won't be all that manageable. But I think a Palestinian statethat makes peace with Israel and accepts certain borders, I think thepolitical context changes, too. I think it strengthens Israel'sposition if there's a serious violation of it. I mean, this is allkind of abstract now, because they're not at that point. MR. SEGAL: The Palestinians wereinterested for a long time in getting to final status. What they'renot interested in is going to final status without getting some ofthe things that they were promised as part of the interim agreement.Now, what they were promised as part of the interim agreement werethree withdrawals. They maybe led themselves to believe, maybe theywere led to believe that those withdrawals would cover most of theWest Bank and Gaza. The United States has talked about50 percent. Okay. If Netanyahu is prepared to withdraw from what itwould take, another 21 percent, to get to the 51 percent withdrawalfrom the West Bank, I would imagine that you could start final statusnegotiations right now, what the Palestinians don't want to do isabandon that. MR. RODMAN: They were neverpromised any of this. And I think the interim stuff is in the way. Ithink the problem is -- MR. SEGAL: They weren't promisedthree withdrawals? MR. RODMAN: The final status is --a Likud government is not going to show its cards in the interimsteps. So I'm an advocate of moving directly to final status, andalso disposing of these other incremental issues. A Labor governmentdesigned this Oslo procedure, because for a Labor government, thesmart thing to do was to sneak up on the final territorial partitionin the guise of interim steps, but for Likud the logic doesn't work.I mean, Oslo has come to a dead end. The problem now in thenegotiations is, Oslo has run out of -- MR. WATTENBERG: This whole process-- should the United States get more involved? MR. SATLOFF: The United States isinvolved. Bill Clinton, as you know, views this as a personalachievement, the Oslo process with Yitzak Rabin, and doesn't want tosee it collapse. The question right now is, should Madeleine Albrightgo out to the region and try to put piece back together or shouldBill Clinton invite them to Washington. I think, at the moment, right now,it's probably not the right idea. Things aren't particularly ripe fora huge American investment right now. Israel is dealing with thisdomestic political scandal, which hasn't played itself out yet fully,although it looks like Netanyahu has been cleared. With thePalestinians, I don't think there's yet clarity on whether they willhave security cooperation with Israel. These are all minute on theground tactical issues. When the moment is ripe, the United Statesshould get involved, because we have -- MR. WATTENBERG: Does somebody comeup with a big yellow R and say, ripe? MR. SATLOFF: Yeah, actually youdo. MR. WATTENBERG: How do you knowwhether it's ripe if you don't do it? MR. SATLOFF: You can tell. Whenthe parties have some basic things back in order -- I mean, we havean agreement on the ground about how the two police forces aresupposed to work with each other. We have an agreement on the groundabout economics. We have an agreement on movement of people. Whenthey begin to put some of the basic building blocks back together,and they're ready for a political overlay, then the United Statescomes in and we try to make the final status talks meaningful, and wetry to make them work. MR. SEGAL: I think it's far tosanguine for the discussion here. What nobody is really talkingabout, I guess, is what I would call the abyss. And I think we got asense of that when we saw what happened after the Temple Mount tunnelincident when there were not only a question of riots, but webasically saw Palestinian police, Palestinian soldiers turning theirguns against Israelis. And it was an inkling of what could happen ifthis breaks down. It's not just a question of the return of theIntafada that we're talking about. It's the return of a conflict at amuch higher level of violence, and much more violent -- MR. WATTENBERG: Thereforewhat? MR. SEGAL: Therefore, at leastfrom the point of view of the United States, we cannot sit around andlet things take their course. MR. RODMAN: The name of the gameis compromise, so we don't know what it's going to look like. MR. SATLOFF: This is unlike anyother previous Arab- Israeli negotiation. When you had the Egyptians,you had the Jordanians, you have a piece of land and a clear piece ofland, like the Sinai, in exchange you had clear peace, and what itwas going to be. Here you're talking about a piece of land that willbe divided. This has never happened before in the history ofArab-Israeli negotiations, asking Arabs and Israelis to figure outhow to divide a piece of land that they both want. MR. SEGAL: That's how Israel wascreated. MR. SATLOFF: But it was never doneby negotiations. It was done by war. So that's why this is sodifficult. MR. RODMAN: The partialdomestication of the PLO, a process which is not yet adequatelycompleted, that is where we are at this stage. MR. SEGAL: You don't meandomestication, though. This is a problem that -- look, there only isnegotiations because there was an Intafada. It's not the case that weended up with negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians out ofthe goodness of the heart of the Israelis. It was basically anindigenous revolt against the occupation, and a decision on the partof the Israeli government that it wasn't prepared to pay the pricefor continuing the occupation. MR. RODMAN: But also the collapseof the Soviet Union and the weakening of the PLO through a series ofother events. MS. KIRKPATRICK: That'sright. MR. SEGAL: Let me just finishthis. MS. KIRKPATRICK: The PLO has lostits whole basis of support with the collapse of the SovietUnion. MR. SEGAL: If, in fact, theprocess disappears or if we get into final status negotiations, andthose negotiations deadlock, within a context in which we're notdealing with a Labor government, in which we're dealing with a Likudgovernment that is perceived by the Palestinians as not being seriousabout a Palestinian state, not being serious about a real withdrawalfrom the West Bank, then the Palestinians have nowhere to go exceptback to violence. Either they can accept that or they'll go back toviolence. Anybody who thinks that they won't go back to violence iskidding themselves. The violence that will come next time, on bothsides, will be so much worse than anything that we've seen, and itwill spill over. It will spill over into Israeli-Egyptianrelationships. And that's -- MS. KIRKPATRICK: Look, it'salready spilled over. It's already spilled over because Yasir Arafat,the moment that he encountered a frustration in dealing with Israel,called on all the Arab states in the region, and leaders of the Arabstates in the region, you know, met to talk about unity in the faceof this challenge. And I think it's a very bad mistake to everdiscuss the Israeli-PLO relationship without taking into accountcontinually the attitudes and behavior of other of Israel'sneighbors. And I think, for example, Syria and Assad. I think ofSaddam Hussein and Iraq. I think of Iran and its various mullahs. Andthe fact that Israel has no ally in the region at all who -- on whomit could count not to become hostile in case hostilities brokeout. MR. WATTENBERG: I want to go totwo general questions, and we're rapidly running out of time. Firstone, why should America care about all this? MR. SATLOFF: In 1997, we care fortwo main reasons. One, we care about Israel, about Israel's securityand about Israel's survival, and about the relationship between thetwo parties. We also care because the Arab-Israeli conflict has a wayof infecting relations throughout the entire region. It has a way ofsouring or advancing America's interests in the Persian Gulf,interests with modern Arab allies. In the old days, we used to havethe big reason, because of the Soviets. MR. WATTENBERG: I understandthat. MR. SATLOFF: But that's gone now.So, you know, overall, there's less of a national security immediatethreat, but we care because the region matters to us strategically,politically and economically. MR. WATTENBERG: Do you get a sensethat in the near to intermediate term future we may end up talkingabout this problem in the past tense? We're really -- let's say fiveto 10 years, you may have a deal that sticks, and the thing will beover after a century? MR. RODMAN: I think five to 10years, yes. MR. SATLOFF: Five to 10 years, no,but my grandchildren will only read about this in historybooks. MR. SEGAL: We may have -- well, Ithink we will have a Palestinian state, we will have a peace treatywithin 10 years. The open issue, and it's going to remain permanentlyopen, is whether or not you have more than a peace treaty, whether ornot you have genuine and lasting peace. And that's a questionbasically of each generation continuing to struggle for it,especially here. MS. KIRKPATRICK: I'm a realoptimist. I think as Israel's neighbors, as the Palestinians, andSyrians, and Iraqis, and Iranians, become democratic, and pluralist,there will be, in fact, peace in the region. I believe that, much asthe Soviet Union was so determined to make war, making war,eliminating capitalism was its business, so are the people inIsrael's immediate neighborhood determined to eliminate the state ofIsrael. But I think those people are already sort of out of date, andthat they will be replaced by people who are, in fact, ready to liveat peace in democratic pluralist states, and then there will bepeace, prosperity, and a new Middle East. MR. WATTENBERG: Just to close thisout, let me say that I also am somewhat optimistic on perhapssomewhat other grounds, that Israel has really never been in asstrong a position as it is now. I mean, the Soviet Union is out ofbusiness. They've had a huge demographic immigration coming in fromthe Soviet Union. Saddam Hussein is out of business. The economy isdoing very well. There's global trade now. They really have the --for the first time in a long time, the price of oil is way down. Theyhave the ability to make a deal from a position of strength. That ismy view. Thank you, Jeane Kirkpatrick,Robert Satloff, Peter Rodman, Jerome Segal, and thank you. For ThinkTank, I'm Ben Wattenberg. ANNOUNCER: We at Think Tank dependon your views to make our show better. Please send your questions andcomments to: New River Media, 1150 Seventeenth Street, Northwest,Washington, D.C. 20036; or e-mail us at thinktank@pbs.org. To learnmore about Think Tank visit PBS On-line at www.pbs.org. And pleaselet us know where you watch Think Tank. This has been a production of BJW,Incorporated, in association with New River Media, which are solelyresponsible for its content. Think Tank is made possible byAMGEN, recipient of the Presidential National Medal of Technology.AMGEN, helping cancer patients through cellular and molecularbiology. Improving lives today and bringing hope for tomorrow. Additional funding is provided bythe John M. Olin Foundation, the Lilly Endowment, and the Lynde andHarry Bradley Foundation. Back to top  Think Tank is made possible by generous support from the Smith Richardson Foundation, the Bernard and Irene Schwartz Foundation, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the John M. 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