Skip to main content
CNN.com /TRANSCRIPTS
CNN TV
EDITIONS
SERVICES
CNN TV
EDITIONS


CNN LIVE EVENT/SPECIAL

Israeli-Palestinian Tensions Heating Up Again

Aired October 23, 2001 - 05:45   ET

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


THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Let's get the latest on Israel, as we were talking about the tensions increasing severely between Israelis and the Palestinians.

LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: That's right. Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres are getting rather steamed at each other. Peres claims that Arafat is not making good on promises to arrest terrorists.

Jerrold Kessel joins us now. He's got the word on how the U.S. is reacting to all of this -- Jerrold, hello.

GERALD CASTLE: Good morning, Leon.

JERROLD KESSEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And it's a defiant Israel this morning -- a defiant Ariel Sharon in the wake of a stinging call from the United States for Israel to withdraw forthwith "immediately" -- was the word used -- the Israeli tanks and other forces that are being dispatched by Mr. Sharon into Palestinian towns -- there are six towns in all -- around the West Bank over the last five or six days, after the killing of a minister in Mr. Sharon's cabinet last Wednesday.

Now, the Israelis were really taken aback by this rebuke -- not too strong a word to use, I think perhaps even a mild word, the nature of the U.S. statement by the State Department spokesman -- because they believed that Washington understood the need for Israel to act in the wake of the killing of the minister.

And the purpose of the Israeli action, which was described as, A, to try to root out the people, who might have been responsible, and other militants or terrorists, as the Israelis say, on the Palestinian side, and to try to push Yasser Arafat to change his policy and to go after the militants. That was the declared objective of this very broad Israeli offensive of sending the tanks into the Palestinian towns.

Now, there are those who believe that Mr. Sharon had a broader strategic objective, and that in undertaking just such a vigorous objective, it was in line with the kind of message that went out from a rally in the heart of Jerusalem last night. Ultra Nationalists there, tens of thousands, indeed -- a very large rally, which was calling for Yasser Arafat to be expelled for the Palestinian authority to be eliminated completely. That was the message going out from what are hardcore supporters of Mr. Sharon.

And there (ph) 100 percent believed in the analogy that the Israeli prime minister, who is occasionally drawn between Yasser Arafat and Osama bin Laden, but even perhaps more importantly, between the Palestinian authority and the Taliban in Afghanistan. And there are not only those at that rally in Jerusalem, but of many in Israel who believe that there is a large part of Ariel Sharon, which would like to eradicate Yasser Arafat, perhaps not to eliminate and not necessarily to kill him, but to sideline him as an effective partner for Israel.

But now, given this U.S. position, Mr. Sharon is in a difficult position. He has to assimilate the fact that the United States simply doesn't buy that equation -- that Israel's battle against the Palestinian militants, or the terrorists if they couldn't (ph) be called that by Israel, is not equivalent to the U.S. global war on terror -- Leon.

HARRIS: All right. Thank you very much -- Jerrold Kessel reporting live for us this morning from Jerusalem.

KAGAN: No shortage of opinions there about what's taking place in the Middle East, and no shortage of opinions in U.S. newspapers. We're going to look at those just ahead.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.


 
 
 
 


 Search   

Back to the top