Benjamin Netanyahu: Arafat prevents peace

Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

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(CNN) -- Israel's incursion into the Palestinian territories in response to a string of suicide bombings has intensified despite international criticism.

Israeli forces heavily damaged the Palestinian security complex in Ramallah on Tuesday, and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon suggested that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat could leave his besieged West Bank compound but not return.

Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke Tuesday with CNN anchor Paula Zahn about the situation.

ZAHN: First of all, Mr. Netanyahu, your reaction to what U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell told me earlier that he has no plans to go to the region any time soon. Is that a mistake?

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NETANYAHU: No, I don't think diplomacy is going to help at this point. I think Yasser Arafat has declared a terror war on Israel. He's nightly and daily calling for ... a million suicide bombers in Jerusalem. He's not getting a million, but he's getting quite a few. And with that kind of implacability and with that kind of terror from a terrorist regime par excellence, it simply has to go.

I think it's inexorable. It's no secret I've been calling for the removal of his regime and the removal of Arafat from the region because he is really the generator of this constant renewal of terrorist cells. Unless he goes, new forces can't come to the fore, and a new Palestinian leadership will not arise. He simply will kill anybody who will challenge him. Away, I think we have a chance.

ZAHN: But if you would, could you come back to the question of what role you think U.S. involvement should play? You have the Palestinians saying, or [chief Palestinian negotiator] Saeb Erakat in particular ,telling me [Monday], that they very much want Colin Powell to come to even further bolster [U.S. envoy] Anthony Zinni's efforts.

NETANYAHU: Well, you know, the Taliban, when the U.S. was finally going to wipe out that terror regime, were ready to negotiate. They wanted not only a cease-fire, they wanted various intermediaries and interlocutors. And that reminds me pretty much of what you have here.

Arafat is putting on a brave show. He's got his spokesmen speaking in English, speaking moderation and sense to the Western media. But while they're doing that, in Arabic Arafat calls for Israel's destruction and for these endless suicide bombers. So I think the only difference between him and Hamas is that Hamas calls for Israel's destruction in Arabic and in English, whereas Arafat only does it in Arabic.

As long as he's here, you're not going to see a change. You're not going to see a stop because he's poisoning the minds of millions and millions of young people.

ZAHN: All right, I understand all the points you're making about Yasser Arafat, but I'm not clear on what you think the U.S. needs to do, because there are many countries out there that believe that the United States is the only country that could get both of these parties back to the peace table.

NETANYAHU: You're not going to get anything out of the peace table with Arafat because he received the peace offer for everything that he says he wants, turned it down and started this campaign of terror because he's out to destroy Israel. He's not out to have peace with us. He's out to replace us [with] greater Palestine.

So I think as far as the U.S. is concerned, I think they're actually doing the right thing. I think President Bush outlined two principles: one, that all terror is illegitimate. That includes Palestinian terror, which is now becoming the worst terror in history. And second, that all terror regimes are illegitimate and have to be removed.

I think that from the U.S. point of view, they're doing that part, their part of this war in Afghanistan and probably very soon in the [Persian] Gulf with other terrorist regimes, and I think understandably they know that Israel has to follow the exact same principles if terrorists are to be removed.

If we start compromising with Arafat, if we start rewarding him for the awful hourly terror that he's waging against us, unlike any that's been waged against any country and any people in history, then I would say that you're going to get more terror, not less of it. And I think many in Washington apparently understand it.

ZAHN: Henry Kissinger was a guest on our show a little bit earlier, and he told me he believes the Israeli government is too obsessed with Yasser Arafat and suggested -- and these aren't his words -- but that Israel's gone too far in holding Yasser Arafat up in his compound. The guy doesn't have much electricity; he doesn't have much water; he doesn't have much food. What else can the government yield from him from this current situation?

NETANYAHU: Well, frankly, I wouldn't have isolated him there. I would have taken him, put him on the Karine-A ship, the terror ship that he got from his friends in Iran, and put him on the high seas and let him go to his friends in Iran or his friends in Baghdad. I would not have holed him up and given him an unbelievable stage, which I know this wasn't the intention, but this became the result.

I do believe that Arafat can be made irrelevant, as Dr. Kissinger suggests, by simply removing him, not killing him, not physically hurting him, but simply taking him, putting him elsewhere so that people realize that he has ruled himself out -- his turn is over -- and other forces can come to the fore.

Of course, they won't as long as he's there. They might not even come out right after he's out. They might wait. They might wait to see that he's not coming back, you know, because there'll always be the fear that he would be reimplanted.

But I think once it's clear that he's not coming back, there are more moderate and more sane and more realistic elements in the Palestinian community, and they will have a shot at assuming leadership, I hope through a genuine democratic process, which Arafat has prevented so far.