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Crisis in the Middle East: Talks Continue in Bid to End Israeli-Palestinian Violence

Aired October 16, 2000 - 6:00 p.m. ET

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

JUDY WOODRUFF. CNN ANCHOR: No deal yet, but international talks continue in a bid to end the violence and the killing between Israelis and Palestinians.

Kicking off the emergency summit more than 12 hours ago, U.S. President Bill Clinton warned the six other leaders present, we must not fail.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WILLIAM J. CLINTON, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think it's very important that we all be quite honest and blunt with each other, but we be sober and serious about this. We're here because we would like to achieve three objective: We want to end the violence and restore security cooperation. We hope to achieve agreement on objective and fair fact-finding process on what happened to bring us to this sad point, and how we can avoid having it ever happen again. And we want to get the peace process going.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERNARD SHAW, CNN ANCHOR: We have two reports from the summit, from our senior White House correspondent John King and beginning with our chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour -- Christiane.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Bernie, everybody was told to expect the minimum from the summit. The very best one could expect, they say, was a cessation of hostilities. Well even that has not been possible so far because of wrangling and arguing over outstanding issue.

According to the participants, the outstanding issues are the nature of that international fact-finding or international investigative inquiry, also the issue of Israel lifting its blockade of Palestinian towns and villages, and the whole issue of who's going to stop firing first?

They have been talking and talking and talking at the senior level and also at the foreign minister level, and still, we're told, no progress on the main outstanding issue, although we are told that they are still talking and discussing the whole issue of security cooperation. We're being told that talks may go on several hours more, that if there is any positive use for continuing those talks, they will continue. Otherwise, they will stop -- Bernie.

SHAW: OK, thank you, Christiane, please stand by -- Judy.

WOODRUFF: And CNN's senior White House correspondent, as Bernie mentioned, John King, is also at the site of those marathon talks, and he joins us now.

John, what you can tell us?

JOHN KING, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Judy, spoke to a senior U.S. official a short time ago who called this "gut-check time." And he said just like Camp David. A big distinction, though, of course Camp David was about a comprehensive peace deal. This summit, as Christiane mentioned, just about trying to reach an agreement to stop the fighting.

Mr. Clinton at this hour in his third meeting of the day with Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader. He's already had three meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. And we're told Mr. Barak on hold to come back and see the president after the Arafat meeting wraps up. So the U.S. president trying to put his powers of persuasion to work here, trying to reach agreement on that cease-fire. It's been more than 12 hours, as you mentioned, no agreement yet.

U.S. officials say the president now will stay indefinitely. He had been scheduled to leave at this hour to return to the United States. He will promise -- he promises to stay at least several more hours and perhaps through the night if necessary to strike the peace agreement.

He said earlier today, that obvious frustration in his voice, the Israelis and the Palestinians have worked closely for the past seven years, do not let the past two weeks destroy that partnership -- Judy.

WOODRUFF: Let's bring Christiane back in for a couple questions.

Christiane, why is it that Arafat wants an internationally led fact-finding commission rather than one led by the United States?

AMANPOUR: Because he thinks that one led by the United States and with only Israeli and Palestinian participation will be biased and against the Palestinian cause. What he wants is to add many Europeans or various Europeans on to it, perhaps U.N. officials. He wants to get as many people who are sympathetic to the Palestinians, because he believes, as the Palestinians have said, that there's been an excessive use of Israeli military force, and they want to blame Israel for that.

SHAW: John King, what would be the basic elements of a cease- fire declaration?

KING: Well, a cease-fire declaration, both the Israeli and Palestinian leaders would have to agree to condemn violence and all hostilities. The Israeli troops would have to pull back from Palestinian areas. Mr. Barak looking for Palestinians to arrest what he calls Hamas guerrillas set free in the past week by Mr. Arafat.

Those would be the basic outlines there, and they're also working on security mechanisms. The U.S. CIA chief, George Tenet, among those here, security arrangements so that this would not happen again, communication back and forth so that if there was any provocation in the making, the two sides would quickly get together and try to head it off before the bloody scenes we've seen in the past several days.

WOODRUFF: Christiane, no matter what they're able to come up with there, how much discussion is there about the fact that whatever it is they may have a hard time getting their constituents back home to go along with it, to honor it?

AMANPOUR: Well, already you can see various instances of them playing to their constituents. Look, the Palestinian people on the street have shown over the last two weeks that they are in a very angry mood, they're very frustrated, they're very emotional. All of these injuries and killings have been mostly on the Palestinian side, and there's a lot of anger on the streets.

Many, many Palestinians did not want Yasser Arafat to come to the summit. They felt that he was strong-armed into coming here, that he would come here and come back with absolutely nothing. And they also thought that it was too close to the killings and the casualties. They thought there should be a decent interval before any kind of summit.

On the Israeli side, the population has been shaken by the last two weeks of violence. Ehud Barak is in a very, very precarious political position here, perhaps facing a national unity government in which he might find his Likud partners don't even want to pursue this peace that he's pursuing. Or indeed, if holds out, he might find that his whole -- his government is dissolved in a couple of weeks when the parliament comes back, because right now he's the head of a minority government.

So there's a great deal of internal pressure from their constituents on both people here.

SHAW: Christiane Amanpour, John King, thank you very much.

As world leaders try to bridge the great divide between the parties at Sharm El-Sheikh, CNN's Ben Wedeman reports that Israelis and Palestinians are finding common ground in one area: lack of faith in peace efforts.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The Arabs and Jews of Jerusalem don't agree on much, but the people of this ancient city do share one thing: pessimism.

In predominantly Jewish West Jerusalem, optimism, hope, seem to have evaporated. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I really believed in the peace process and everything. And it changed. I don't really believe now it is possible.

WEDEMAN: Attitudes have changed, hardened. Absolutist demands replace the language of compromise.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I want to see the Palestinians stop their violence and accept that this is our country. If they are ready to accept this, so peace can be. If not, we'll have to be in war with them and kill them until they understand.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just look around. See how many people are afraid to go out, see the lynch of the Arabs. It's not human. You can't do peace with beasts.

WEDEMAN: Anger and frustration is echoed in the streets of Arab East Jerusalem, where many see the Sharm El-Sheikh summit as another opportunity for Israel and the United States to shove an agreement down the Palestinians' throats.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Good for Palestinians, is not. But for Israel and America, it's good.

WEDEMAN: "I'm pessimistic about the summit," says this man. "It undermines the Palestinian intifada and it undermines the Palestinian position."

And following closing behind pessimism is extremism.

"If we don't get want we want," says this laborer, "we will launch a jihad, a holy way, to liberate the land."

Angry words the peacemakers at Sharm El-Sheikh cannot ignore.

(on camera): More than two weeks of violence have shattered faith in the peace process on both sides. And all of President Clinton's famous powers of persuasion and all of his men may not be able to put that faith together again.

Ben Wedeman, CNN, Jerusalem.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WOODRUFF: There were more protests and gun battles around the Palestinian territories Monday. Among the casualties, a 14-year-old Palestinian boy shot in the head during West Bank fighting.

CNN's Rula Amin reports on the reaction to the summit in Gaza.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RULA AMIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Almost every Palestinian faction was present, from the communists to Islamic fundamentalists from such groups as Hamas and the Islamic Jihad to Yasser Arafat's supporters. All were united by the principle their president must not compromise on basic Palestinian demands at the Sharm El-Sheikh summit.

Among Palestinians, there is deep skepticism that the peace process can be renewed. Many here say the only way left to bring change is to fight.

During the last few days, new militias have been established here, mostly by Yasser Arafat's Fatah organization. In this day, they brandish their weapons, a signal, they say, they're ready to do battle and if necessary even die for their cause.

Men and women of all ages at this demonstration. After an hour or so, many of the younger boys left the demonstration and marched about a half hour to the outskirts of town, to the edge of the territory controlled by the Palestinian authority to confront Israeli soldiers who man a checkpoint near a Jewish settlement.

And once again, the familiar pattern. The Palestinians throw stones. The Israelis respond with tear gas, rubber coated bullets and live ammunition.

(on camera): Yasser Arafat will come back to Gaza to face his people. Unless he has had a successful summit, it will be very difficult for the Palestinian leaders to convince them that it's better negotiate with Israel rather than fight it.

Rula Amin, CNN, on the Gaza Strip.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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