June 1989, Page 12

What They Said

Yasser Arafat: The Palestinian State Is Only a Stone's Throw Away

This is an abridged text of a "newsmaker" interview on the MacNeil/Lehrer Newshour which aired on April 20, 1989.

James Lehrer: An interview with Yasser Arafat is first tonight. It is the first the chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization has granted since Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir offered his plan for elections in the occupied territories. We spoke with Arafat Tuesday [April 18] in Tunis, the capital city of Tunisia in North Africa...

Mr. Chairman, welcome. The uprising continues in the occupied territories. Seldom a day goes by that young Palestinians do not die. How long can it continue like this?

Yasser Arafat: Nobody can escape his destiny. We are facing the occupation. We are facing oppression, so we have no other alternative but to resist this occupation from the Israeli army, from the Israeli settlers. This is a decision...from the small children to the leadership.

Lehrer: Have the people in the territories said to you, please let us use arms, we must fight back?

Arafat: Yes. . .

Lehrer: And what do you say?

Arafat: We said no. We have decided ... from the beginning not to use arms in our intifada.

Lehrer: Prime Minister Shamir's proposal that he took to...

Arafat: No. Not Mr. Shamir. Mr. No ... It is not me who mentioned that name, but the French TV

Lehrer: They call him "Mr. No?" Look... he took a proposal to Washington. . . to stop the uprising in exchange for some elections. You have rejected that approach.

Arafat: Election for what? ... To form a delegation only for negotiations? Okay, we can accept it. . . But not under their auspices ... They are the oppressors ... We have done it. What was the result? All those who had been elected some of them have been killed ... Some of them have been deported from our homeland. Some of them have been dismissed from their posts. So we had a very bad experience in the past from these elections. In spite of that, if they are insisting to have this election, okay, but not under their auspices.

Lehrer: So if the United Nations or some international group came. . .

Arafat: Under United Nations auspices, why not? But definitely not under the occupiers' supervision and the Israeli auspices.

Lehrer: But what would the Israelis have to do? Pull out completely before you would agree to the election?

Arafat: We can have a schedule for the whole operation from A to Z.

Lehrer: Okay. What's Z?

Arafat: It is the end of the Israeli occupation ... The implementation of the United Nations resolutions... Let's have the whole process from A to Z a package deal.

Lehrer: And how long would that take?

Arafat: Okay. We can discuss all these details with the American administration and the United Nations, with the five permanent members...

Lehrer: You don't care as long as it's... multinational?

Arafat: No. I have complete confidence.

Lehrer: Mr. Shamir says that the problem is lack of trust. He doesn't trust you, you don't trust him.

Arafat: Definitely. We are enemies... But with whom am I going to make peace? With my friend or with my enemies? And with whom is he going to make peace—with his friends? No. With his enemies.

Lehrer: There are many Israelis, as well as Americans, who still do not believe you when you say that you favor a two-state solution, that you could live in peace next to Israel.

Arafat: It is not my personal proposal. This is a decision taken in our Palestinian National Council in a democratic way... I am committed to what has been accepted in our PNC.

Lehrer: Just so there's no misunderstanding again ... you no longer want to destroy Israel, is that correct?

Arafat: We said two-state solution ... But when we are speaking about two state solutions, this means an Arab Palestinian state and a Jewish state according to United Nations Resolution 181...

Lehrer: Where would you draw the boundaries for your new Palestinian state?

Arafat: This has been mentioned in the Fez peace project: the withdrawal of the Israelis from all Palestinian and Arab occupied territories since '67 and to establish the Palestinian independent state. Clear and obvious. And this has been accepted in our PNC last November.

Lehrer: That's the West Bank and Gaza.

Arafat: Not only West Bank and Gaza. There is part in Golan...

Lehrer: And Jerusalem.

Arafat: Arab Jerusalem.

Lehrer: That has to be part of the Palestinian state?

Arafat: What is the meaning of 242? The withdrawal of all the Palestinian and Arab occupied territories, and this, it is not me having to reply, it is Shamir that has to apply it ... He can't achieve peace and the land.

Lehrer: What kind of state would it be? What kind of government would you foresee? What's your dream of a government and of a country?

Arafat: Democratic, really democratic.

Lehrer: With elections like in America or Great Britain?

Arafat: Oh, yes. Yes.

Lehrer: Even like in Israel?

Arafat: Definitely. Why not? Although the Israelis, they haven't pure democratic elections. You know how they are dealing with the Palestinians who have the Israeli nationality. They are not dealing with them on equal footings and equal rights.

Lehrer: But you would?

Arafat: Yes, definitely. And we are proud of our democracy.

Lehrer: Do you have in mind a pattern, in other words, a country that already exists that has a government that you would like your Palestinian state to follow?

Arafat: I followed the same experience of American people and the American nation. I like it.

Lehrer: Have you given thought to the kind of economic system this new state would have?

Arafat: Free democracy. Free. Definitely. It is now. We have these dynamic activities among the Palestinians...

Lehrer: All Palestinians in the world would be invited to come and live here?

Arafat: They can have the ability to be buried in their homeland. Not to live without an identity card ... Not to live without a passport ... At least they can have their passport...

Lehrer: Do you believe that a viable state can be created in this territory that you're talking about; that can live economically and live in peace as a real country?

Arafat: We are proud that we have achieved many successes in this line all over the world, in the Gulf states, in America, Latin America, in the States, in Europe, everywhere. We are proud of it, how we are now living. You know that now our people are living through these donations and through these supplies and assistance and help from our communities all over, everywhere.

Lehrer: Politically, let me read you what a newspaper columnist in the US, a man named Charles Krauthamer of the Washington Post, wrote recently about the Palestinian state. "in a Palestinian state, 16-year-old boys will not rule. The armed factions of the PLO will. The West Bank will become the focus of murderous conflict between PLO factions, each backed by an Arab patron precisely as had happened in Lebanon for the last 14 years." . . His point and the point of others who questioned the viability of a Palestinian state is that you Palestinians are so divided you have radical movements over here, you...

Arafat: And the same among the Jews. They have the extremists, the fanatic groups and elected in the last election, 18 of them, 18 seats. And the Communist Party, the Labor Party, the Likud, the religious parties, the progressive parties. And we had the same ... we are proud of this democracy. And we have in our PNC all these parties and all these groups. This is a part of our democracy. You have the same thing in the States. They have the same in France. They have the same in Italy

Lehrer: There was a poll of the Israeli people. And three quarters of the Israeli people said they did not believe that the Palestinians would ever be satisfied with just the territory that was occupied as a result of the 1967 war and that eventually your people would want to take the rest of Israel.

Arafat: All the guarantees they need I am ready to offer ... And not only Palestinian guarantees, United Nations guarantees, big power guarantees, EEC guarantees. What else? They have mentioned the same before the Camp David agreement with Egypt. And now, after 11 years, it is not a truce between Egypt and Israel ... an agreement has taken place.

Lehrer: How would you characterize the discussions that are going on between your representatives and those of the United States?

Arafat: It is going in a very positive atmosphere. And we are speaking frankly ... we are receiving the American points of view. . and we are sending the same to the American administration...

Lehrer: Would you like to talk to Secretary of State Baker?

Arafat: I would like to. Why not? As he is doing with other partners in the Middle East, I have the right to ask him to deal on the same level with the Palestinians. I am dealing with the EEC. I am dealing with the socialist countries. I am dealing with the Islamic leadership. I am dealing with the non-aligned countries' movement. Why not with the States?

Lehrer: Do you think things have changed under President Bush and Secretary Baker from what they were under President Reagan and Secretary Shultz?

Arafat: Yes. I know the pressures to stop this American/Palestinian dialogue.

Lehrer: Are you getting signals?

Arafat: Yes, yes. I am getting signals. I am following. And in spite of this pressure, His Excellency, the President, accepts the continuing dialogues with the PLO ... We are the main part of the Middle East conflict.

Lehrer: When your representative talks to the US representative, do you feel as if you are indirectly talking to Israel?

Arafat: Definitely. No doubt of it. The American administration is working actually as a mediator between the two sides.

Lehrer: So you are already in conversations with Israel in some ways, right, indirectly?

Arafat: Many times it has happened. In 1981, it had happened between me and the Israelis through Mr. Philip Habib. In 1982, it had been done, and there was an agreement between Mr. Philip Habib and me. I was also in direct talks with the Israelis.

Lehrer: That was over Lebanon.

Arafat: Lebanon, yes.

Lehrer: Right, right, but do you feel now that your messages are getting through the United States to Israel?

Arafat: Yes.

Lehrer: Last week in the United States, Judy Woodruff, who works on our program, interviewed Prime Minister Shamir...

Arafat: Prime Minister No.

Lehrer: "Prime Minister No," and he was asked whether or not the US was delivering messages to the PLO from Israel and he said, the PLO already knows his message, and I quote him, "I don't trust them. I think they should dissolve themselves. I think the PLO is an obstacle for peace in the Middle East."

Arafat: And he is an obstacle for peace, too, from my point of view. But I have to deal with him. You see, I have been elected by my people and he has been elected by his people. I can't choose their delegation and they haven't the right to choose our delegation.

Lehrer: Would you go to Israel and talk to him?

Arafat: Where?

Lehrer: Or somewhere else. Are you willing to sit down and talk to Shamir?

Arafat: Definitely. With whom am I to make the peace? With him. To accept him or not to accept him, I am ready... If we are going to make peace, I have to go to talk with him and definitely we have mentioned many times that peace has to be done between enemies and not between friends.

Lehrer: Do you feel your life is in jeopardy because of this?

Arafat: You see, from the beginning I offered my life for the sake of my people, for the sake of our new generations. This is part of our mission.

Lehrer: You consider yourself a man of peace, correct?

Arafat: Yes. And I am proud of that after. . . this long confrontation. I found no other way, but to work for peace. For how long will we continue this confrontation ... Generation after generation?. . This Israeli leadership has to understand that it is their duty to work to achieve peace.

Lehrer: And yet in America, there are a lot of people who feel that you ... wear a military uniform, you carry a gun on your hip, you project the image of a man of war, not a man of peace. What do you say to those people?

Arafat: Eisenhower was a general and in spite of that he was elected president of the United States. Washington was also a military man and in spite of that he was elected the first president of the USA. What is wrong with that?

Lehrer: But both of those men took off their uniforms...

Arafat: Okay. When I return ... maybe I will do it.

Lehrer: When you become president of a Palestinian state?

Arafat: We have to respect our democracy. I don't know when we return whom they will elect. . This is a democracy ... The most important achievement for me would be real peace in the land of peace for our people and for our new generations. . You don't understand how our people are. . You don't know the troubles, the obstacles, the very difficult life our people are living: homeless, stateless, without an identity card. Believe me, sometimes we haven't places for our people to be buried in. We have no graves ... You can't imagine how difficult our lives are as refugees, as homeless, as stateless.

Lehrer: Do you feel that you are dose to achieving this, achieving your state?

Arafat: Yes.

Lehrer: How close, how much time will it take?

Arafat: Not more the distance of a stone's throw.