Clinton Q&A with Reporters on the Middle East October 11, 2000
Q: Mr. President, did your peace plan for the Middle East ever
contemplate sovereignty for the Palestinians in East Jerusalem?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, the last thing I think we need to be doing now is
talking about -- I think you know what we talked about at Camp David
and what we've talked about since has been fairly well publicized.
Q: No, it hasn't. I don't know what your plan is.
THE PRESIDENT: But I do not believe that any of us should be saying or
doing anything now except focusing on putting an end to the violence,
keeping people alive, calming things down, and getting back to the
negotiating table.
And I do believe, by the way, that a plan to get back to the
negotiating table is an important part of ending the violence in a
substantial way. And so for me, that's what we're doing. That's what
I've been working on for several days now, almost a week.
Q: Do you think you will be traveling to the Mideast or elsewhere to
meet with the leaders from -- Palestinians and the Israelis?
THE PRESIDENT: First of all, as always, I'm prepared to do whatever I
can to help. But I think the most important thing is that we all keep
working to calm things down, keep them calm, and then find a way to
get the peace process going again.
I think Secretary Albright or I might go; maybe in time we'll both go.
I had a long talk this morning with Secretary General Kofi Annan, and
we've been working together in an attempt to make sure we've got a
substantial calm there.
I can do a lot here on the phone. I've been spending a lot of days and
nights on the phone, and I hope that the United States is having a
positive impact. But the first thing we've got to do is to get this
situation calmed down and figure out where to go from here. But I do
believe where to go from here must include a resumption of the peace
talks because that's one of the reasons that we've had things so calm
for so long, that we've basically had these talks going along, moving
in the right direction.
We have to reach an agreement on this fact-finding effort to determine
what happened and how to keep it from happening again, and I think we
can do that. So we've just got to keep working on it.
Q: Can I follow up on that for one second? A follow-up on that for one
second? This is sort of a pointed question about the Middle East. At
this point, if you're frustrated about possibly setting up a summit
over there, do not the Israelis and the Palestinians at least owe you
the courtesy of participating in such a summit, considering what you
have tried to do to bring peace to the region?
THE PRESIDENT: Oh, yes. I'm not worried about that. I think -- that's
not what's at issue there. I think we can do that. But the main thing
we have to do is, we don't need just another meeting, we need to know
what we're going to do and how we're going to do it.
I wouldn't over-read the fact that there won't be a big meeting
imminently in Egypt. I don't think you should over-read that as a
reflection that either the Israelis or the Palestinians do not want to
continue the peace process. This is -- I think everybody is shocked at
how quickly and how deeply it got out of hand. And I think the most
important thing now is to restore calm. We've had a couple of pretty
good days, people are really trying, and we're trying to put together
a way forward, which will increase the chances that things will stay
calm and more peaceful. So that's what we're working on. And I just
have to tell you, it's very important to us to keep all of our options
open, it's important that you know that I'm willing to do whatever I
can to help, but these things have to take place in a certain way in
order for them to make sense, and I'm doing the very best I can with
it.
Q: Some critics of the administration's policy blame some of the --
Q: -- spoke of fact-finding as an agreement to return to negotiations,
do you need to see those before you agree to go to the Mideast or send
a representative?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, no. First of all, I don't need to see anything
before I send representatives. We've been involved with them too long,
and we have been already -- keep in mind, we've had people already in
the region, and then Secretary Albright met with them in Paris, and
now lots of others coming in.
I have been talking to them all for extended period of times, really
since the beginning of the difficulties. So that's not it. The point
is, everything that the United States does should be designed toward,
number one, trying to preserve the calm, and number two, trying to
restore the peace process. And so I will do whatever I think is likely
to advance those objectives. So that's the only thing I was saying.
We're in this for the long haul; we have been from the beginning, and
we'll stay.
Q: Are you disappointed at Mr. Arafat, Mr. President? Are you
disappointed in Arafat's attitude? Q Some of the administration's
critics blame some of the violence on the failed Camp David talks and
charge that summit was called too soon. Do you think that's unfair?
What's your response to that?
THE PRESIDENT: I think if there had been no talks at Camp David, it
would be worse now, because the pressure on the Palestinians to
unilaterally declare a state would have been far worse, because their
level of misunderstanding would have been even greater, because they
had never -- in all of these seven years, they had never talked about
these big, deep, underlying issues -- not in a serious, formal way.
So I think, certainly, the Israelis, I think, were disappointed that
they were as forthcoming as they were and they thought more progress
should have been made, but I think that everybody had a sense -- I
announced that at the time.
But then after that, they continued to talk and everybody had the
sense that they were moving forward. So I don't think that the
evidence will support that conclusion.
Keep in mind, we were running out of time and the Palestinians,
Chairman Arafat delayed the date that he had previously set for
unilateral declaration. So the facts on the ground and the behavior of
the parties do not support that conclusion.
The truth is, we got down to the tough issues where there were no easy
answers. And I think that what this tells everybody is that after all
these years of working together, there are still underlying different
perceptions that have to be worked on. And we slid off into a sense
where both sides felt as if they had been victimized and abused.
There is no alternative here but to get back together and to go back
to work.
Q: How would you like to live under military occupation for 50 years?
Q: What exactly are you recommending on how to calm things down?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, they're working on that. They have worked
together on that. They have common security understandings and a very
detailed set of things that both sides have been doing, and they're
talking about it some more. So I think first, you have to do that, and
then they have to figure out beyond the security operations how
they're going to get back together.
Q: You are reportedly disappointed by Arafat and puzzled by his
attitude. Are those reports true?
THE PRESIDENT: I don't think that anything I say that stirs this up is
very helpful. I think that, look, there's a lot of people dying over
there. We need to stop people dying. And there's been enough people
saying enough things that have contributed to that.
My goal is to stop people dying and then get them back together. We
can all have our judgments -- you have yours; they're somehow implicit
in some of the questions you're asking -- but what I have noticed in
these circumstances is, if they do good things, there is enough credit
to go around, and if the wheel runs off and people start to die, then
there's enough blame to go around.
This is not the time to be assessing that. This is a time to make a
primary first commitment to end violence, to keep calm, to start the
peace process again, and then they can establish some mechanism to
evaluate what happened and why, and how to keep it from ever happening
again.
Both of them have agreed to that. They haven't exactly agreed on the
modalities, but they both agreed to that. So we can't lose sight of
the fact that the most important thing right not is to stop people
from getting shot and wounded and killed and to get the peace process
back on track and to give a sense of safety and security back to all
the people there.
When you get -- when things are most explosive in the Middle East,
when both sides feel victimized -- and we were slipping toward that at
a rapid pace over the last several days -- now both sides are feeling
-- are taking responsibility here for moving out of this, and I think
the statement that Prime Minister Barak made in the middle of his
night-long cabinet meeting a couple of nights ago was very helpful in
that regard, and a wise thing to do. And then he and Chairman Arafat
have been doing some specific things here on this security front, and
we need to support that and not -- look, there will be plenty of time
in a calmer atmosphere for people to say whatever it is they've got to
say in a political nature.
But we can't bring any of those kids back to life, we can't bring any
of those young people back to life, we can't bring -- Lord knows how
long it will take to reestablish some of the relationships that have
been severed there, and none of us need to do anything to make this
worse. We need to calm this down.
Thank you. 10:08 A.M. EDT
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