Jerrold Kessel: Miracle needed for Mideast peace deal before Clinton exit

Jerrold Kessel

Jerrold Kessel is a deputy bureau chief for CNN in Jerusalem and a correspondent based in the network's Jerusalem bureau.

CNN Moderator: Last night's marathon meeting between Israeli and Palestinian officials achieved no breakthrough. Was any progress made during this most recent effort?

Jerrold Kessel: The very fact that they're talking again seems to be the most encouraging development, but both sides say that the gaps remain enormous. The reservations each side had with President Clinton's attempted mediation by laying down the U.S. position are serious and both sides again acknowledge it's almost impossible to bridge those gaps with the short time that remains with President Clinton being in office. All that being said, both sides again say there needs to be a miracle for them to reach a deal within the next week. And if there's anything positive, this is the area where miracles do happen. But quite frankly the signs of a miracle are not good. However, the fact that they are talking means that possibly there will be a legacy left for the new U.S. administration to keep on pursuing the elusive comprehensive peace . . . if that is what it chooses to do.

CNN Moderator: How will the peace negotiations proceed from here now that President Clinton's official leadership time is quickly dwindling and after his statement saying that it will now be left to the next administration?

MESSAGE BOARD Mideast peace

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Jerrold Kessel: We really don't know if the new administration wants to engage the Middle East, both in the same way and at the same intensity with which Mr. Clinton did for the past eight years. He has been not only the taskmaster of detail (we can recall how he said at the time of Camp David summit in the summer that he dreamed about the map of the West Bank, and he could virtually cite any place on it). Now it could well be that not only will President Bush not choose to be involved personally in any ongoing peace effort, but that he probably (his whole administration probably) will not bring to bear the same passionate search for peace that Mr. Clinton and his administration became renowned for.

And let's not forget that it's very possible at this stage that not only will there be a new U.S. administration, there could be a new Israeli Prime Minister and government with a radically different attitude towards peacemaking with the Palestinians. And that could occur within a short time after the February 6th Israeli election.

Question from chat room: Jerrold, are you saying the Republicans don't care as much about peace in Israel?

Jerrold Kessel: No, that's not true. Clearly any US Administration would be delighted to preside over a serious peace effort. The Republicans after all, under Mr. Bush's father, started the whole shape of a peace direction with a Madrid Conference in the wake of the Gulf War in 1990.

But ideological approaches apart, there did seem to be something very special in terms of the passionate interest including the personal interest of Mr. Clinton himself, which has marked U.S. policy for the last two administrations. And there's also one other practical issue: Traditionally the Democrats regard their foreign policy in a less hard-nosed fashion than the Republicans in the sense that they regard foreign aid as an instrument of policy. So any Middle East deal, everyone knows, will require an awful lot of dollars and cents, yen, pounds, or franks to underwrite it. All sides in the Middle East believe Mr. Clinton's Democrats would have been willing to pursue such a policy with the necessary cash. There's less belief that a Republican administration would be guided by that same principle. And to pay for a peace deal, it would have to be convinced that it is also very much in U.S. interest to do so, not simply for the interest of the peace process in and of itself.

Question from chat room: Has either side contacted Bush?

Jerrold Kessel: It's been a curious interlude, clearly because of the uncertainty after the November U.S. election. All sides in the Middle East have been seeking to make advances to cultivate contacts with the new administration. Because that administration has only become a fact in the last few weeks, plus the determination of Mr. Clinton to use his last few weeks in office to try to get that elusive peace deal, the customary contacts with the new White House and State Department have been minimal. But I believe they have been taking place. Again, amidst the uncertainties of the Israeli political system, and nobody knowing who really needs to make the maximum effort to get favor with the new administration, all around this is a time of quite a lot of turmoil.

CNN Moderator: What are the possible scenarios for peace talks depending on the outcome of the Israeli election on Feb. 6, and is any real deal likely to be struck before that time?

Jerrold Kessel: All through last year there were so many dates bandied about as to when this peace process would have to end by or come to finale. But really there was only one critical date--January 20th, when Mr. Clinton leaves the White House. There may be some kind of legacy for the Bush administration, but by and large, this peace process as we've known it for the last 5-7 years, will have run its course if it doesn't end in a dramatic finale by tomorrow week. So any projection of what goes on beyond January 20th, but more importantly, after February 6th and that Israeli election, is really not predictable.

Clearly, Mr. Barak would like even right up until the election to nail down some kind of an accord, even if it is only a joint declaration of peace principles. But his opponents are challenging hard and saying he doesn't have the moral legitimacy to go on negotiating such fundamental issues. That question is even up before Israel's Supreme Court. But principles aside, the practicalities of the calendar and clock running out on this peace effort, are likely to be the issue whether than any principle as to whether he has any right to strike a deal under a shadow of the election.

CNN Moderator: Thank you for joining us today, Jerrold Kessel.

Jerrold Kessel: Thank you very much for having me.

Jerrold Kessel joined the chat room via telephone from Jerusalem. CNN provided a typist. The above is an edited transcript of the interview on Friday, January 12, 2001.

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Mideast peace

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