2 November 2001
Mr Arafat
I would like to welcome very warmly our great guest. A great man, Prime Minister Blair, not only the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom - of Britain, - but also a very, very dear friend of the Palestinian people. A very important friend of the process of making peace. A very important friend of the Holy Land. I thank him very much for visiting our area at this important moment to push the peace process forward. And I would like to thank him very much and thank all those very important visitors and people who have helped during the last few days that have succeeded finally in getting the Israelis to make the first withdrawal from Bethlehem, Beit Jala (phon.) and Beit Zahur.
And we have really talked about steps to push the peace process forward, to protect the peace and support it, not for us only, it is for the Palestinian people, the Israeli people, for the Middle East, for the rest of the world. I thank him very much for all the effort he is making in the direction of peace, and in all other positive directions. I would like to assure you here, now, of our commitment to keep and to sustain the cease-fire. Our commitment to push forward the peace process, and to achieve peace, not only for us, but for all the people of this area, and we will continue on that road.
Prime Minister
First of all, Mr President, thank you very much indeed for inviting me here to be with you. You said I was a true friend of the Palestinian people, and I am very pleased to be that. I also believe, as I have been saying in different parts of this region in the last two days, that it is of vital importance that we move the Middle East Peace Process forward. And as I said to King Abdullah of Jordan earlier today and I said with Prime Minister Sharon, and I say with you here and now, I think there are three things that are vital.
One is to make sure that the condemnation of the events of 11 September remains strong. That the coalition against international terrorism is strong, and that we bring to justice those that perpetrated this deed.
The second is that the true voice of Islam, which is moderate, and not extreme, catches back the ground from those extremists who do not represent the true teaching either of Islam or of the Koran. Because as I have found everywhere I have been in the Arab world, it has been explained very clearly, by those better qualified than me, that Islam is a loving and a peaceful religion.
And the third thing is to prepare the ground for fresh momentum in this Middle East Peace Process here in order that we deal with the problems of the past and offer a future in which people can live side by side: Israel secure and confident in its State, and the Palestinian State. And we will do whatever we can, and I will do personally whatever I can, to help that process forward.
Question
Prime Minister, I understand …. (inaudible)
Prime Minister
Well I don’t make any claims as big as that, no. But I do say to you that I think provided people get within their minds these two fixed points of principle that Israel must know that it is confident in its own security, and the Palestinian people with their own state, then if those two fixed points of principle can be accepted by people, by everybody, then the rest is discussion and negotiation. And as I said when I was in Israel earlier today and I was speaking about the grief of people when bombs go off in a restaurant or in a discotheque and people are killed, and here too there are people being killed. And this cycle of bloodshed goes on and on and on. Now, at some point, we are going to have to talk. Because one thing is for sure, Israel is going to carry on existing, and the Palestinian people are going to carry on here, and wanting their own state and wanting justice. So in the end, when all the bloodshed stops, people are going to have to talk again. And the only question is does the bloodshed stop sooner, rather than later. And I hope it is sooner.
Question
Inaudible
Mr Arafat
I think confidently that this is very dangerous talk and that bin Laden has to know and has to remember the important links that bind them first with Pakistan. We cannot accept from bin Laden any such dangerous talk against any Islamic country.
Prime Minister
Can I just say to you on this that first of all we should be very clear, I believe, in our support for President Musharref at this difficult time, who is trying to do his best for the people of Pakistan and we stand solidly with the people of Pakistan in trying to help them at this moment. And secondly to say that I think, and I hope, that people realise that the desire of bin Laden is to create Taliban-type states all over the Arab and Moslem world, and if people go and see the poverty in which people exist, the repression of women, the appalling circumstances in which people live, the extremism, the oppression, that is what he wants to put into every Arab and Moslem country. And when he attempts to get on the back of the cause of the Palestinian people, I hope very much that people are not fooled by that. That is not his overall objective. The person who represents the Palestinian people and their cause is this man here, next to me. What he represents is a form of extremism that would cause huge repression and tragedy in every part of the world that it is tried and you only have to see what the Taliban regime have done to their own people to realise it.
Question
A question for President Arafat. The Israelis say that you could arrest if you wanted to the people responsible for the death of Mr Ze’evi. If you could do it, would that not be exactly the kind of grand gesture at this stage that the peace process and friends of the peace process, like Tony Blair, suggest that we need.
Mr Arafat
We have just learned about the names of these suspects just very recently and not through the Israelis. They arrested two. When they told us about the remaining two names we tried our best to arrest them. We could not and we were able to arrest despite that we arrested two brothers who were implicated with their brothers in this matter. Two still remain at large, and we are doing our best to arrest them. These two brothers we arrested confessed that they were actually collaborators with the Israelis. Maybe you should also ask the Israeli Intelligence about this matter.
Question
…..(inaudible) you have the support to be able to negotiate a serious peace ….
Mr Arafat
Please remember that what I am doing is, I am implementing a decision taken in 1988 by the Palestinian National Council and it is on the basis of that decision I was authorised to go and start first talking with the Americans. And our Minister of Information was the first one who actually started the dialogue with the Americans to get the peace process going. And then we went to the Madrid Peace Conference in 1991, and as a result of the Madrid Conference we started our direct negotiations with the Americans and then of course with the Israelis. We followed that with the negotiations that led to the Oslo Agreement and as a result we went into popular elections here. On the basis of these elections the people made their choice, and on that basis we are following up this peace process. Immediately after that we had a meeting of the Palestine National Council here in Gaza and if you recall part of that meeting was attended by President Clinton. We have all the authority.
Question
You were very enthusiastic for starting an international coalition against terrorism. Why don’t you call for a coalition against occupation. What could the people of the occupation do?
Prime Minister
Well, that is precisely why you need a process. You have got to have a peace process based on the principles that I have just described. But in the end I am afraid it is only ever going to be negotiated. Well you say to me, how many years. I will tell you how many years it will take. It will take as many years as to get people around the table and talking through their differences, because violence won’t solve it. We had a peace process in Northern Ireland and back in the 1970s there were bombs going off in mainland Britain. People - 20, more - dying in pubs and clubs.
The British naturally reacted with tremendous force in that situation. The bloodshed went on. Hundreds of people killed every year. 20 years later finally people understood we have to talk to each other. And what I say to you is what I said in Israel earlier today the only way of doing it is to stop the bloodshed and talk because when you finish with the bloodshed, you are going to be left with the same situation. Israel will exist, and a Palestinian State will have to come about.
Now that is what we need. And I say to you that one of the things that I have discovered perhaps as strongly as anything else in these last few days going round this region is that there is a gulf of misunderstanding between the Arab and Moslem world and the Western world on many of the key issues that affect you. And what we have got to do - both of us - us from our perspective in countries like Britain, and you from your perspective in areas like this, we have got to reach across that gulf of misunderstanding. We have got to understand why you believe that we care about people being killed in terrorist acts in our countries but don’t care about the fate of the Palestinians.
We have got to understand how you feel about that, and we have got to address it, which we are trying to do, which is why I am here today. And you have got to address also the fact that no matter what the cause is, no matter how passionately people believe in a cause, nothing can justify killing thousands of people in cold blood in New York or anywhere else in the world. We … that gulf of misunderstanding. And what the bin Ladens of this world want to do is that they want to widen that gulf.
They want to put Islam against Christianity, they want to put Arab against westerner or America, they want to put the Moslem world against the Western world. And I tell you that way lies disaster. And what we have got to do, all of us that believe in decent out of the values, of tolerance towards people, of prosperity for all people, we have got to be the ones that take charge of this political situation and drive the extremists equation, and I need to do my part in achieving that, and you and your colleagues need to do your part too.
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