Military

DATE=03/28/01

TYPE=INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT

TITLE=MELVIN FRIEDLANDER

NUMBER=3-

BYLINE=TOM CROSBY

DATELINE=WASHINGTON

INTERNET=

/// EDITORS: This interview is available in Dalet under SOD/English News Now Interviews in the folder for today or yesterday ///

HOST: As you have been hearing in the news ... at least 20 people died Wednesday, in a suicide bombing at a hotel in the northern Israeli coastal town of Netanya. More than 100 others were wounded. All the while, Arab leaders have been meeting in Beirut to discuss a Saudi peace proposal. Notably absent are Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat who was barred from leaving the West Bank. Israel had made it clear if he traveled to Beirut ... he likely would not be allowed to return home.

HOST: Melvin Friedlander says the suicide bombing in Netanya on Wednesday may... have the effect of diminishing whatever is achieved in the Arab League summit. For many years he briefed officials at the Pentagon and National Security Council on Middle Eastern affairs, and he has written extensively about U-S policy toward the Middle East.

MR. FRIEDLANDER: There are many different aspects to this. There is, first of all, the concern of the continued violence, which no one can really have a brief for. I mean, the violence has been continuing and spiraling out of control and this will only increase the likelihood of more violence.

The Israelis have indicated -- there was an article in the Washington Post a few days ago -- indicating that if the violence did not end, there was not an ability to get a cease-fire, that they would respond with even greater effort to curtail it. The Army will come in to most Palestinian towns and will take over and really generally take over the Palestinian Authority's control.

MR. CROSBY: The task of curtailing that violence has been laid upon Yasser Arafat, both by the United States and by Israel. Is he up to that?

MR. FRIEDLANDER: The Israelis have a response to that, and it is one that makes a good deal of sense. And that is if he does not have the control or if he does not have the ability to issue orders and for them to be followed, then he is irrelevant to the peace process. On the other hand, we have seen from time to time, when he is pressed and pressed hard, either by the Israelis or by the United States, or both, for a time at least he is able to curtail some of the violence. So that would indicate that he has some ability. That ability is obviously fast eroding as more and more Israeli military responses enrage the Palestinian population.

So my answer would be that he has some ability, an increased ability over and beyond -- at least the United States Government has been saying -- both in terms of Vice President Cheney's visit and Secretary of State Colin Powell's continued conversations, that they both believe that he has more ability than he has so far demonstrated.

MR. CROSBY: Does Mr. Arafat's absence from the Arab League Summit in some degree work in his favor?

MR. FRIEDLANDER: Well, there is an old adage that you win if you go and you win if you don't go. It works in his favor in terms of inciting the Palestinian population, to indicate that he is not going to buckle under the Israelis. It also allows him to don the mask of the aggrieved party. And from that perspective it gives him sort of a win-win situation, whereas the Israelis are put on the defensive by not responding both to the international community and to the United States Government.

MR. CROSBY: Does the mask of being an aggrieved party, though, play well with the Arab leaders, do you suppose?

MR. FRIEDLANDER: Publicly, they'll have to indicate that they are in sympathy with him, as Mubarak has indicated by a statement. I don't know that we have heard from King Abdullah in Jordan as to the reason why he is not attending. Privately, I suspect that they are irritated, if not angry, that the situation is allowed to continue to boil over and that violence will continue to occur on both sides, and that they will not be able to allow for the situation to cool down. And, of course, it also demonstrates the U.S. inability to persuade Israel to do what it wishes; therefore demonstrating that, at least on all sides, there is a lack of success in moving the situation to a positive outcome.

HOST: Melvin Friedlander, a professor of International Studies at George Mason University just outside Washington. During the Reagan administration he briefed administration and military officials on Middle Eastern affairs. He was speaking with News Now's Tom Crosby.

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