EPHRON: The Israelis have sealed you off in this compound. How has that affected your ability to carry out diplomacy? ARAFAT: You can see for yourself that their tanks are 70 meters from here. During Christmas… they kept the siege up around Bethlehem. Can this be accepted by the Christians all over the world? How can this be tolerated by the international community? Especially countries that aid Israel financially?
Some people compare this encirclement to 20 years ago, when Ariel Sharon’s forces surrounded Beirut. They say maybe nothing has changed in all this time. But don’t forget–I’m here in my land. You remember when I left Beirut, they asked me in the harbor, the journalists, “Where are you going, Arafat?” I told them I am going to Palestine. Here I am in Palestine.
Sharon says you’re not stopping the violence. From the beginning we condemned it. And not only that–we took measures. We declared a state of emergency. We closed many of their [Hamas and Islamic Jihad] institutions. We arrested some of their leaders because there is a decision which has been taken in the Palestinian leadership and the cabinet and the executive committee of the PLO. This has to be respected by everyone.
How many people have been arrested? As an example, in Gaza we have arrested more than 132 or 135 people. [In the West Bank] something similar.
The Israelis say you don’t arrest the big fish. Sheik Ahmed Yassin [the spiritual leader of Hamas] is not big? We have to take into consideration that the Israelis are looking to create friction between Palestinians.
The attack on a bat-mitzvah celebration in Hadera was carried out by a member of your own group. What does that say about your leadership? We are doing everything we can at the political and security level to exterminate this phenomenon of suicide operations. It’s obvious that Sharon finds in such operations a golden opportunity to damage the reputation of the Palestinian people, the Palestinian Authority and to… destroy the peace process.
Do you still have contacts with Israelis? On the telephone.
But the process that had been taking place between Foreign Minister Peres and [speaker of the Palestinian Assembly] Ahmed Qurei, is that dead? Yes, I’m sorry to say. Not by me.
Did you authorize the plan that talked about a Palestinian state within eight weeks? We had accepted in general what had been done [by Peres and Qurei] but not the details. But [the] most important issue is that Sharon said Peres is not mandated. Let us start [negotiating]. If there is a will, there is a way.
I’ve heard Palestinians say that as long as Sharon is in office, another year and a half, there’s no possibility of coming to an agreement. Is that true? Did you forget that he had signed an agreement with us in Wye River? He and Netanyahu? And the Hebron agreement?
But Sharon called you irrelevant. But he sent his son [Omri] to carry on contact with me. There is no solution for us [or] for the Israelis through confrontation.
