Program #403
"On The Edge of Peace"
Host: Charlayne Hunter-Gault
TRT: 26:35
May 9, 1996

V.O. ANNOUNCE: Principal funding for "Rights & Wrongs" has been provided by The John D. And Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and the Open Society Institute. Globalvision presents "Rights & Wrongs: Human Rights Television.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Hello, I'm Charlayne Hunter-Gault, and you're watching "Rights & Wrongs," the world's only television program devoted to covering global human rights issues. Our focus this week, peace: how to make it, and how to keep it.

MICHELLE WALDEN: And it's hard. It's a long, demanding, painful process. But it's about a world that has a real chance for change, a world that has a real chance for the preservation of life.

V.O. ANNOUNCE: Global Vision presents "Rights & Wrongs: human rights television."

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Treaties and handshakes, bombings and massacres: these very public parts of waging war and making peace are usually well-covered by the media. But rarely are we taken behind the scenes of the arduous "two steps forward, one step backward" process of conflict resolution and peace making. In this special edition of "Rights & Wrongs": On the Edge of Peace in the Middle East.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Since 1993, two young women-- one Israeli, one Palestinian-- have been recording video diaries as part of a documentary film about ordinary people's impressions of the ongoing peace process in the Middle East. Although the women live just a few miles apart, they've never met. And as you will see in the following excerpts, their views of the possibility of peace are often divergent, but sometimes surprisingly similar.

SUHER'S PALESTINIAN DIARY(translated): When we moved to Bahashi refugee camp, I didn't realize it was surrounded by a fence, and all main entrances were closed.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT(V.O.): Twenty-eight-year-old Suher Ismail lived with her extended family in Bahashi, a Palestinian refugee camp in the West Bank.

SUHER'S PALESTINIAN DIARY(translated): I didn't realize we'd be penned in like animals in a big prison, and that we could neither leave nor enter it without being checked by soldiers. I live here now with my husband Najib, next door to his sister, her husband and children, in the Bahashi refugee camp.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT(V.O.): Einat Kapach is a 27-year-old film student and Jewish philosophy teacher. Einat lives in Ofra, an Israeli settlement only 12 miles from Bahashi.

EINAT KAPACH, ISRAELI DIARIST(translated): I've lived in Ofra for the past 19 years, and Ofra is a settlement, but I'm not sure that I am a settler. My eyes don't glow with messianic fervor, nor do I carry a gun. I don't want to kill Arabs. I don't make myself a target for stone throwers, or throw stones back. Yet I am deeply upset by the present situation.

(applause)

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT(V.O.): Our diarists began taping in late 1993, shortly after Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, and Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, sealed a new peace agreement with a historic handshake on the White House lawn.

(applause)

EINAT KAPACH(translated): I have a great many doubts about the future, about our chances of maintaining coexistence between us and them, or our willingness to do so.

SUHER'S PALESTINIAN DIARY, THURAYYAH FARRAJ, SUER'S SISTER IN LAW(translated): We will never forget the land of our fathers and ancestors, however far we've wandered away, however great the injustice, or however long the occupation lasts. We didn't shed our blood for our Palestinian land to settle for a bit of Gaza and Jericho. Nevertheless, this is still some game for us. Allah willing, it will all end up well.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: February 25, 1994:

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT(V.O.): Baruch Goldstein, a right-wing Israeli settler, began shooting in a crowded mosque in the West Bank town of Hebron. Twenty-nine Arabs were killed, dozens more were wounded, along with the fragile peace process itself.

AHMAD FARRAJ, SUHER'S BROTHER IN LAW(translated): If the Palestinians were armed, they wouldn't do such a thing. They wouldn't dare. We lived through the wars of 1948 and 1967, and we didn't see massacres of the kind we see today. Can you trust a snake? Never.

EINAT'S ISRAELI DIARY, FIRST ISRAELI BOY: They're all Hamas, none of them are PLO member. All the terrorist came from there.

SECOND ISRAELI BOY: I support him but he was a fool not to kill 40 more arabs.

EINAT(translated): I totally condemn what happened in Hebron, but I wish the world would stop turning it into a carnival, which is what it feels like. Obviously we can't go on living as we did before, but they can't make scapegoats out of us. They can't blame us for all the troubles and come to us with ultimatums because of a single madman's act. That's all out of proportion.

SUHER'S PALESTINIAN DAIRY, SOLDIERS AT MEGAPHONE: Curfew has being imposed from now until further notice.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT(V.O.): In the aftermath of the massacre, Palestinian refugee camps were put under curfew. Israeli soldiers began house-to-house searches to discourage revenge attacks. When they came to Suher's house, she turned on her camera.

(baby crying)

VARIOUS VOICES:
- Shut up!
-You are not to use the camera, understand?
-She can use the camera!
-She cannot!
-Even Rabin needs permission! Are you a judge in court?
- I neither Rabin nor Peres.
-I'm asking you to leave my house in peace, it's enough.
-Listen here, I'll leave your house when I want to and you won't film here.
-So you want me to leave my house, and you stay here!
-You are not to film here! Understand?
-You're born here, you're here just for 20 years. I lived here for one century and it's the first time I've seen a soldier like you. I demand an officer!
-There's always a first time doogie.
- Please I'm not speaking to you.
- So what do you want now?
- So stop using this camera or I'll break it.
- Where's the radio? Report to HQ we've got trouble here.

(shouting)
Camera off.

EINAT(translated): The Hebron massacre left behind a sense of atrocious loneliness. We've been thrown to the dogs. There's such hatred against us. This hatred emanates from the radio and television as they go on and on and on with their reports. I'm not saying it's been blown out of proportion; it's just endless. They keep talking of evacuating us, suggesting we shouldn't be allowed to carry arms.
We feel as if there's someone who is rejoicing at the bloodshed in Hebron, and that's the media and the leftists. I don't normally talk about the media and the left like this. I don't like to generalize. But they do seem to be thinking, "Now's our chance to nail them."

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT(V. O.): The Hebron massacre sparked demonstrations by the Israeli left calling for the removal of all settlements, and counter- demonstrations from the Israeli right.

EINAT(translated): lately people have been accusing us, the settlers, of being the main obstruction, the spoke in the wheel of peace. This is ridiculous. As if it's not Hamas who murder people, who speak openly of destruction and sabotage by terror. Yet the enemies of peace are us, not them.
I'm an inseparable part of one great entity, which can be defined as the land of Israel, or the people of Israel.

(crowd chanting)

(car horns blaring)

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT(V. O.): On may 9, 1994, as part of the peace accord, Palestinian Authority Police entered territory that had been occupied by the Israelis since 1967. They began opening Palestinian houses previously sealed as punishment by the Israeli government.
Two months later, Yasser Arafat entered the occupied territories for the first time in decades.

Y. ARAFAT: You have to remember, when I left Beirut I said, when they asked me, "Well where are you going?" I said, "I am going to my homeland, Palestine," and now I am came back to my homeland.

(translated): Why aren't you watching Arafat's speech?

THURRAYYAH FARRAJ(translated): Because there are other members of our family who were deported by the Israelis and haven't come home. I've been shedding tears for them.
I had hoped they'd let everyone come back without selection, but Arafat brought home only a handful of those poor men, exiled from their land, homes, families.

EINAT(translated): It's really getting to me, those senseless words of Arafat.
First it's, "Yes, we want Jerusalem." Then it's, "No, we don't want Jerusalem."
It's an insane rush onwards. It's a disastrous spin which could still be stopped.
But no one dares stand up and say, "Hold it. We may be wrong."

(whistles blowing)

EINAT(translated): Everyone in this country feels the agreement is too fragile. It hangs on a very slim thread. It can't grow into a stable, long-term agreement. There must be an explosion. God forbid it explodes in war. But as it is now, it can't survive. It's too fragile to last for long.

V.O. ANNOUNCE: You are watching "Rights & Wrongs," human rights television.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Coming up, we'll discuss how peace can be made with a man who was at the center of the secret negotiations that culminated in the signing of the historic Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement in September, 1993. But first, the conclusion of our video diaries, "On the Edge of Peace." At the end of 1994, our diarists were still unsure of the future of the peace agreement. Throughout the next year, the process continued slowly moving forward, despite numerous terrorist attacks that claimed dozens of lives.
Then, on November 4, an assassin's bullet brought the peace process to a dead stop.

(gunshots)

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT(V.O.): While attending a peace rally, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was shot and killed by Yigal Amir, a right-wing Israeli extremist.

EINAT(translated): I see where Amir got his ideas, but I don't agree with them. Before the assassination, we felt abandoned, personally and security-wise. Since the death of Rabin, we've been in a daze, and we've completely forgotten that we have some kind of agreement with the Palestinians, which in our eyes is problematic anyway. We simply forgot this whole issue, and we must slowly return to it, and think about how this affects us, and what the ramifications are.

SUHER(translated): What changed after the peace accord and the coming of the Palestinian authority? Things changed in form only. It is true that the checkpoints are all open, and I can come and go from my house more easily. But what changed in the situation of the people? We expected that the detainees would be freed, that there would be a real Palestinian authority, not one that is ruled by the Israelis or takes its orders from the Israelis.

(sirens)

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT(V.O.): Four months after the Rabin assassination, a series of suicide bombings by Palestinian extremists rocked Israel.

EINAT(translated): Two weeks ago the attacks started, or should I say resumed, in a serious and murderous fashion. It is very, very hard when people send themselves to blow up in the heart of a group of civilians, and the situation repeats itself again and again. And all this is done with the funding that supports them.

SUHER(translated): It is true that there were military operations against Israel in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, and that there were many casualties. Today, no one supports these operations, because they do not serve peace and the peace process. To the contrary, they hurt this process, and at the same time, a lot of innocent people died.

EINAT(translated): It reinforces the feeling that we are the ones who have to be concerned with ourselves. We can't rely on anyone else. When I see the Palestinian police, it is very difficult for me to rely on them. I feel much more secure when the Israeli defense force is here, when the security is in our hands.

SUHER(translated): Terrorism is not what Hamas has done, or what people talk about as terrorism. I am against military operations that kill innocent people, children, and women, and which do not serve the peace process, but actually hurt it. But I am also strongly opposed to the curfew under which children began to die of hunger.
I wonder if this is justice, or if it isn't terrorism, to carry out a collective punishment in this manner. When a baby is hungry, if this baby girl does not find anything to eat, her father will see her dying in front of his eyes, and he will be forced to do anything to keep her from dying of hunger.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT(V.O.): Our diarists taped their last entries in march of 1996. To Suher, the Palestinian, real peace between Palestinians and Israelis still seem distant.

SUHER(translated): Peace means people living together in calmness, working together, visiting each other, living in a peaceful and social manner, not living like this. Whenever something happens, Israel creates a security zone that prevents us from moving around. This is not logical, this is not justice, and this is not peace.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT(V.O.):And to Einat, the Israeli, the road to peace was as dangerous as the new road through the desert.

EINAT(translated): the first time I went on the new road that bypasses the Arab villages, I was quite overwhelmed. The main problem with these roads is that they were built in such a hurry, they're very, very unsafe. They're filled with potholes, and there are many dangerous curves, because they wanted to finish building them very quickly in order to fulfill the peace agreement. But they opened a Pandora's box of huge risks on the roads, and there are many accidents on these roads. If the construction was done at a slower pace with more patience, and more concern for safety, then there would have been fewer accidents.
If we proceed at this fast pace to a permanent agreement, it will be crazy. If we proceed to the permanent agreement patiently, and not with a packed, hectic schedule, but rather with a lot of thought, then this will create a more secure feeling.

V.O. ANNOUNCE: "Rights & Wrongs" is now on-line. Please be in touch with by E-mail, and visit our internet site on the world wide web.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: To discuss the process of making peace, we're joined by Terje Larsen, Undersecretary General of the United Nations, and its special coordinator in the occupied territories. In 1993, Mr. Larsen led the Norwegian team behind the Israeli-Palestinian secret peace negotiations. He joins us now from Tel Aviv. Mr. Larsen, welcome. Thank you for joining us.

T. LARSEN: Thank you very much.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: What is the first step in a peace process of trying to reconcile peoples who've been at odds for centuries, and use perhaps Oslo as the example for us.

T. LARSEN: I think what was the most important thing was that we insisted on having very small delegations, so that there were actually only three people on each side. And we also insisted that--this is the second item-- that they should live together and stay with each other around the clock, so to speak: have breakfast in the morning, lunch, dinner, long evenings, and being at a fairly isolated place so that they could get to learn each other personally, because trust can only be developed in a person-to-person relationship.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Are these the same kind of techniques that you use to sort of penetrate the emotional and psychological barriers that arise between people who've been enemies for long periods of time?

T. LARSEN: I think in many ways the third party's role is to be a lightning conductor, and sometimes also somebody who you can... You can be a chopping block. Somebody you can take out your rage towards and you can complain to about the other party.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Is this the most difficult part, penetrating that emotional barrier that exists?

T.LARSEN: You cannot succeed in negotiations like this without breaking down these emotional barriers, and that has to be done in a person-to-person relationship. You cannot do it the bureaucratic way. You have to do it eyeball to eyeball.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: What about the people who are not a part of the process, like our video diarists, the young people who were recording events since the peace process started? They express fears and a lack of confidence in the process.

T. LARSEN: I think what I saw in the interviews and on the videotape pretty much illustrates my point, that is that here you have not only different interests, but you have also very different images of reality, and that has to be corrected. And one of the big flaws with the peace process so far is that it has been an elite-to-elite process, that the relationship between the people at the top is getting cozier and cozier. But in the people-to-people relationship, this has not happened, and I think the videotape in an excellent way demonstrates it, how that is necessary.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: As you will know, the terrorist attacks that have taken place have undermined people's confidence in the process.
How do you get at that?

T. LARSEN: The Hebron massacre... The wave of terrorists attacks in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and outside Ashkelon, has brought us again deep down in a valley of crisis and depression, just as the Hebron massacre did. But I am very optimistic that we will get out of this valley, and that we will move towards new peaks of optimism, because there is no alternative to the peace process. The peace process has crossed the point of no return. It is impossible to turn back because all alternatives to walking the road of peace will be much more difficult, much more dangerous, and also much more bloody than the path that the parties have been trodding on since 1993 after the declaration of principles.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: How do you get people to accept compromise in negotiations? For example, we heard, in Suher's diary, her sister-in-law talking about the ancient injustices and so forth, and saying that they didn't shed their blood for a little piece of Gaza and Jericho. And yet she also says, "there's still some gain for us." I mean, both sides have to give up something, is that not right?

T. LARSEN: Yeah, that is of course a prerequisite for reaching any agreement; that is, that it has to be a give and take process.
But I think that in the case of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, there is a win-win situation. It is possible to find compromises where both parties will gain something which they do not have currently, and that both parties can be satisfied with a compromise.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Well, as you know, Prime Minister Peres has said that he would submit any final peace agreement to a referendum for the Israeli people to vote on. Do you think that's a good idea?

T. LARSEN: I think that the suggestion of having a referendum is excellent, because then it's the people itself that decides. And if there is a majority for it, I mean, it's irreversible. If there is not a majority for it, you can't create peace without having a majority of the population behind it. So I think it's an excellent idea. It may be an absolutely necessary step in order to establish a permanent and lasting peace. We now have Arafat and the Palestinian authority well-established in Gaza and throughout a large part of the West Bank, and it is functioning. What we also see is that the two enemies, the P.L.O. and Israel, now mutually have recognized each other now formally through the Palestinian national council meeting. And I think this is proof that even very long-standing and very emotionally laden conflicts can be solved if you work it the right way, and if you work with strong willpower and tenacity. It's possible to solve any conflict, however emotionally laden it is, and however difficult it is. I think this proves the case.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Well, Undersecretary General Larsen, thank you very much for joining us.

T. LARSEN: Thank you very much.
It was a pleasure being with you.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: The process of peace in the Middle East continues. So-called final-status negotiations are due to take place in the coming months. These talks will decide the fate of settlements like Einat's and Palestinian statehood. I'm Charlayne Hunter-Gault. Thank you for watching "Rights & Wrongs."

(cheers and applause)

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Thank you for watching "Rights & Wrongs." We welcome your comments and suggestions, and you can share them with us by mail and e-mail. Look for our home page on the world wide web. For "Rights & Wrongs," I'm Charlayne Hunter-Gault.

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