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Crisis in the Middle East: White House Struggles to Facilitate Emergency Palestinian-Israeli Peace Summit

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

NATALIE ALLEN, CNN ANCHOR: Today's clashes were, in fact, less numerous and less intense, and CNN's Jerrold Kessel joins us now with the latest -- Jerrold.

JERROLD KESSEL, CNN JERUSALEM BUREAU CHIEF: Natalie, indeed, less intense, somewhat petering out, the direct clashes between Israelis and Palestinians. But as if to underline those concerns, that fear that Yasser Arafat had expressed there, according to Kofi Annan, about the degree of Palestinian casualties in one of the clashes down in Gaza, the southern part of Gaza on the boarder with Egypt at Rafah, a nine-year-old boy took a bullet in the head and he is diagnosed by doctors at Gaza hospital as being brain-dead. And that, not the fiercest of clashes, but still another casualties in a mounting number of casualties.

Now, when he, Kofi Annan, spoke to Ehud Barak, the Israeli prime minister said it was still too early to ascertain whether, in fact, the violence had fallen off to a degree where he would expect Yasser Arafat to have reined it in. And Mr. Barak, also speaking to Kofi Annan, made a point of stressing that this was a double-barreled mission of the U.N. secretary general, because he's also come to try to stop the violence and the conflict spreading after that capture of three Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah guerrillas on the Lebanese border last -- on Saturday, late on Saturday.

And Mr. Barak took a very forceful line in spelling out what he expected to happen to make sure that Israel gets her three soldiers back well and safe.

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EHUD BARAK, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: We hold Syria as well as the Hezbollah and Lebanese government, but Syria as the dominant player in Lebanon, responsible for the overall quick resolution of this issue. We feel that this is a major violation of the agreement and the spirit and we, of course, keep to ourselves the right to respond at the time, place, and means that we will find appropriate.

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KESSEL: Tough talk there from Ehud Barak and Kofi Annan, the U.N. Secretary General, will be continuing his double-barreled mission, both to try to rein in the violence between Palestinians and Israelis and to prevent the conflicts from spreading when he takes on -- takes up this issue of the future of those three Israeli soldiers in Lebanon. He travels to Beirut tomorrow and what he'd said is even though neither his personnel nor Red Cross personnel had actually seen the three Israeli soldiers, he said he had had word that they were well. That another issue that will be taken up by the secretary general tomorrow.

ALLEN: And Jerrold, as far as the continued violence, you talk about a nine-year-old who was shot and killed. Are many of the people involved in the rock throwing and the fighting, are they the very young? not that young, but teenagers?

KESSEL: There have been an awful lot of the young -- of the Palestinian demonstrators have, in fact, been children, relatively small children. Now, the Palestinians say that this has been part of the welling up of emotions on their side. And it has increased every time there's a funeral and you get this wellspring of further antagonism and a desire to take out the pent-up emotions and vent them against the Israeli soldiers.

And it happened again today in the West Bank town of Ramallah, one of the few places, in fact, where there were direct, confrontational clashes on the streets between Palestinian demonstrators and Israeli soldiers. But there, again, you did see not as many of the young children. But they have been, and in that clash in Gaza, indeed, there were very, very, young -- relatively young children, teenagers, indeed.

Although, to point out, in fact, that eyewitnesses have said that this boy who took the bullet in his head was not taking part in the demonstration and he was standing on the sidelines with his -- in his school uniform, that according to eyewitness reports, not confirmed elsewhere, though.

ALLEN: All right, Jerrold Kessel, live from Jerusalem, now to Lou.

LOU WATERS, CNN ANCHOR: And again today, President Clinton plans to work the phones in pursuit of a cease-fire, and he hasn't given up on a Mideast summit.

CNN's Major Garrett is at the White House and, Major, yesterday we were talking about the possibility of a summit, dependent upon some agreement from the Middle East, from both sides, the Palestinians and the Israelis. Is that still a realistic possibility?

MAJOR GARRETT, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, administration officials certainly hope so, Lou. As we are speaking right now, the president of the United States is in the Oval Office, making calls to various leaders throughout the Middle East, also getting in touch by phone with Secretary General Kofi Annan to get his assessment of his conversations both with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

Essentially, and behind the scenes, there are two tracks to the president's phone calls right now. One, to try to find a way to quell the violence, to see if in his conversations also with Mr. Arafat and Mr. Barak, steps will be taken by both sides to reduce the violence, reduce the tension. And also to see if both sides are interested in convening a summit later on this week, somewhere in the region. Possibly in Egypt or another location possibly in Europe. Those ideas have also been kicked around here behind the scenes.

Those are the two top items for the president this afternoon. He has cleared aside about three hours to make these telephone calls. We expect to hear more from the administration as the day progresses and possibly get a final conclusion on whether or not a summit will, in fact, occur by later on today -- Lou.

WATERS: Major, this is -- I would imagine, there's a sense of frustration in the Oval Office, since this has been a long and, for the most part, sustained effort to achieve an agreement by both sides in the Middle East. Part of the legacy, yes, but, any president would want an agreement in the Middle East.

Is there, in fact, a sense of frustration over the lack of success in this matter?

GARRETT: Well, the White House has often said that this is going to be a long and grinding and, in some cases, frustrating process. And, certainly, administration officials and no less an official than the president himself has lived with the ups and downs through this process and there have been many.

But as far as the legacy issue is concerned, Lou, many administration officials tell CNN this is a far deeper crisis and affects far more than president's legacy. We're now talking about strategic U.S. interests throughout the region. When you have Israeli soldiers captured across an internationally recognized border, as has happened in Lebanon. You have Syria involved, possible destabilization of oil prices. This has echoes and ramifications far beyond a presidential legacy. Most administration officials concede that's why the president working on it so hard, trying to see if he can be helpful in any way, either on the front of organizing summit to end the violence or ending the violence even before then and convening a summit that could get the peace process itself back on track.

WATERS: Aside from the talk of the summit, are there any other ideas coming out of the White House on what to do about all of this to get the parties to take that last mile?

GARRETT: Well, that's one of the conversations the president hopes to have today and some of the things he hopes to learn from Secretary General Kofi Annan. The administration knows Mr. Annan has had these long conversations, both with Mr. Barak and Mr. Arafat. And they also know that he brought some ideas to the table about how to resolve this.

One key issue of dispute that we have been talking on our air throughout the day is the formation of a commission to study how the violence started, how may it be dealt with in the future. The Palestinians have asked that that be an international commission. The Israeli have said they would prefer that if it's an international commission, to be led, in fact, by the United States. There's ongoing dialog about that. The administration hopes that if there can be agreement from the Palestinians and Israelis about a commission: How it would be organized, what it would study and how it would try to resolve the issues, that might rebuild some confidence on both sides, reduce the tension, possibly reduce the violence. That might pave the way to the summit. That's the number one agenda item here at the White House -- Lou.

WATERS: All right, Major Garrett covering us at the White House.

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