Yasser Abed Rabbo - Secretary General, Palestine Liberation Organisation Executive Committee HARDtalk

the minority Shiah community for almost two months.

Welcome to HARDtalk. I'm Stephen Sackur. Today, Namin Ramallah,

headquarters of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.

Palestinian leaders here are wrestling with the fallout from the

military confrontation between Hamas and Israel in Gaza. It raised new

questions about Palestinian political unity and their next moves

in the quest for statehood. My guest is a senior figure inside the PLO `

Yasser Abed Rabbo. Can the Palestinians get their political act

together? Yasser Abed Rabbo, welcome to

HARDtalk. Thank you. There is a cease`fire. The Gaza conflict ` at

least for now ` appears to be over. What would you say that you and the

Palestinian leadership have learned over the past two months? Well, we

believe that this should be the last war. But it needs, also, an Israeli

position or policy that will enable us to start a very serious process

which will end the occupation. Because the source of all these

conflicts, of all these wars every two years, is not only the siege

upon Gaza ` the siege is part of the occupation. We should put an end to

the occupation, and the whole world should join us in this effort. Well,

you have been calling for an end to the occupation for many, many years.

In terms of the strategic direction right now, I come back to this

question about what you've learned. Because Hamas is claiming a victory.

And Hamas says it's a victory for armed resistance. So what's your

position on that? Are you now saying that armed resistance can work?

Well, they claim the same thing `` claimed the same thing in 2005. That

was the result of the continued attacks by Hamas and the Israeli

occupying forces in Gaza. It ended up with the Israeli withdrawal from

Gaza. Then elections came, and they raised this slogan ` "Through armed

resistance, we push the Israelis outside Gaza." Through negotiations,

we ended up with nothing." And they won the elections. And people

believed them then. With respect, it's been a problem for the

Palestinian Authority and you, as Secretary`General of the PLO, ever

since, because ` if you look at what Palestinians on the street believe

right now, and opinion polls suggest they think that the leader of Hamas

is right ` they think that Hamas has the right strategy, which is to

continue with armed resistance. That's right. Because, after the

negotiations ` which lasted for 20 years ` and the last round of

negotiations with John Kerry trying and hoping that there will be an

outcome, we ended up with nothing. And John Kerry knows very well, and

he tried even to express it, who was behind that failure. We tried our

best to get an agreement with Israel in order to end the occupation

within a certain period of time. What we had ` more settlement

activities, more confiscation of land, more arrests, more demolition

of homes in the West Bank, and the people feel now that at least Hamas

had achieved something. They call it victory, but the people call it

maybe steadfastness. Well, I just wonder whether you are, in this

interview with me, renouncing two decades of strategic thinking, then.

I mean, are you saying to me that, right now, recognition of Israel,

abandon. Of the arms struggle, acceptance of the Oslo Accords ` all

of that is a failure and needs to be finished with? I'm sorry to say it's

a failure, but it's not our responsibility. That's why, now, we

are calling for a new initiative by the international community ` the

United States comes first. Other international forces should join in

order to accept a plan, a political plan, by which we can see a day

where we will be a free nation, put an end to the occupation, and we can

live peacefully with Israel. Mr Abed Rabbo, nobody ` least of all in

Washington ` is going to listen to that message if you are telling me

that you are going back to the arms struggle. Binyamin Netanyahu said it

quite plainly ` when you formed this national unity government with

Hamas, and again in the last few days at the end of the conflict in

Gaza, he said, "Mahmoud Abbas ` the Palestinian Authority ` have to

choose which side they are on. The side of peace, or the side of

terror." In fact, there was no peace. Peace had vanished. The whole

effort that was made by the Americans had collapsed completely.

And people were witnessing that. The Americans were witnessing that. The

whole world... That's not the same thing as you then saying, because

the track is failing or has failed, we are going to countenance resuming

the arms struggle, which appears to be what you're saying to me. No, I

didn't say that. Then how come you have a relationship with Hamas? How

come you are praising Hamas? I am saying that, in 1994, we had an

agreement for five years. By the end of these five years, we should have

a final agreement with Israel to put an end to occupation. Now, we are 20

years after the Oslo agreement. What happened? The occupation is

deepening its presence inside the Palestinian territories. Now, it's

up to Netanyahu to decide ` does he want peace, or he want the collapse

of all the agreements that we had in the past? He had to choose, not us.

We are the people under occupation. What did the people of gauze a want?

`` Gaza want? They wanted dignity. They wanted the end of the siege.

They wanted to live as normal people, as free people. That's what

we want everywhere, as Palestinians. But the tactics used by Hamas were

armed resistance ` in fact, they were sending rockets, thousands of

rockets, into Israel, and many of them were hitting civilian areas

and, we know, civilians died. Of course, Israel has Iron Dome, it has

protections, but the fact is, when Israel calls that terrorism, people

around the world agree with them. And you now have to ` let me finish

` you have to decide, in the Palestinian Authority, whether you

are prepared to say to Israel and to the Americans, "We will now police

the borders of Gaza and we will ensure, we will guarantee you, that

Gaza will be de`militarised." Are you prepared to say that? No, we are

not. I'm telling you why. Until the last Israeli soldier withdrew from

the Palestinian territories `` withdraws from the Palestinian

territories, then we can say that we are ready to protect. We are not the

agents of Israel. You are playing with fire, are you not, when you

suggest to me that, actually, there is a legitimacy to Hamas's rockets?

Because, frankly, for years, you and your people... There is a difference

between the legitimacy of rockets and the legitimacy of the

occupation. There is no legitimacy, first of all, to occupation. We

didn't use rockets. We were trying to use the peaceful way all the

time, and until today. But who is insisting to keep the occupation, to

keep the settlement activities, to keep the siege in gauze `` besieging

Gaza? I am confused, because only a few weeks ago, the Palestinian

Authority Foreign Minister, Riyadh al`Maliki, said, "Look, if Hamas was

responsible for the abduction and the killing of three Israeli

teenagers in the West Bank, then Hamas will pay a heavy price and we

will review our national unity agreement with them." Your message

is very different. You seem to be saying that, because of diplomatic

and political failure, you're now going to give a green light to

Hamas. No, it's not diplomatic failure. It's the continuation of

the occupation ` Israelis are controlling our life, are

controlling our territory. This is the issue. And we want to put an end

to that. For years, you've cracked down on Hamas right here in Ramallah

and across the West Bank. Human rights groups have accused your

police of abusing human rights, over legal detentions, of cracking down

on a free media and banning free expression. Are you saying to me

that the strategy has now changed and that Hamas is free to operate

across the West Bank? No, we didn't say that. I want to know what you

are saying, then. I'm saying that we will try our best to form a kind of

a national unity government with Hamas, with all other factions, and

we should have one platform. And the world should understand that if

there will be another chance for a peace process, it will be the last

one in the coming future. The world should intervene. Here's a personal

question for you. I first met you during the Oslo peace process, when

you were a Palestinian negotiator. You have been a key figure in two

decades of efforts to make that Oslo process work. Even after doubts were

cast, you continued to talk about "the peace process" with Israel ` a

direct relationship between you and Israeli negotiators. Are you saying

that's all over? We spend half of our lives negotiating, and I can say

`` I would say it's impossible to go on the same way as we did in the

past. Finished? No more it bilateral negotiations? We didn't say

finished. He killed it. Mr Netanyahu killed it. Killed the process. How

can we negotiate ` sit there ` about the future of this land, and your

counterpart is, daily, annexing, confiscating, that land? With

respect, nothing has changed in the last few months ` that has been the

case through most of this process. You know when it stopped? The past

two months, during the war. They stopped annexing more Palestinian

territory. How much credibility you and Mahmoud Abbas can possibly have

with Palestinians today when you've suddenly ` suddenly ` had a total

change of heart about the wisdom of negotiating with Israel? It's not

the question of wisdom of negotiations. The question is, if

people are no more confident in that policy, I should... They don't

believe in Mahmoud Abbas anymore, do they? No. No. How can they? No. They

do not trust that negotiations with Israel ` the same old way. That is

the policy that defines Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority.

OK ` Mahmoud Abbas today is saying something different, slightly

different. We need the involvement of UN, of the Security Council, and

of the United States as well. In a serious process, we need to see when

this occupation will end. This is the question that is very crucial,

and that will convince the Palestinians with the resumption of

the negotiation `` of renegotiation. In the President over the last

couple of weeks, there have been rumours of conspiracies, of plots,

to remove Mahmoud Abbas, and your name has been attached to at least

one of them. Yeah. Yeah. Is it time for Mahmoud Abbas to go? And have

you been planning his removal? I have heard these rumours. But the

source of these rumours is an Israeli source. I don't want to

elaborate more about that. Nobody trusts these rumours inPalestinian

street. What we trust is, for the first time in the life of this

so`called peace process, when are we going to see a credible process?

Now, what we demand is seriousness, and seriousness means that the

international community ` Arab countries like Egypt, Saudi Arabia

and other countries ` should be `` and Jordan ` should be involved in

this process so that, in one year's time, in a few months' time, in a

few weeks' time, I don't know, we would reach a tentative agreement

where the Israelis would say, "On that date, we are going to leave

you," and we can then accept the reality that, "OK, the end of the

agony of the Palestinian people, the plight of the Palestinian people,

had finished `` has finished as well." Is this not just words? If

you do not work with the United States and with the Israelis in a

diplomatic process, that is never going to happen. It might be an easy

thing to say, but it is hard and difficult to live in this country

with the daily humiliation, without dignity, and without freedom. These

are newt slogans. These are issues `` not slogans. These are issues

that relate to the life of every single Palestinian. The question is,

how best ` practically ` to reach a different place, to actually fulfil

the quest for statehood. I put it to you that nothing that the

Palestinian Authority ` Mahmoud Abbas, or perhaps even yourself, is

saying right now, suggests to me that you have a viable plan for

fulfilling that quest. We had plans in the past. We don't need to search

for a new plan. How many aingredients did we sign? Nothing of

these agreements were respected except one ` the security coalition

between Israel, because Israel feels that they gained through this

security co`ordination. Other than that, what did we gain? When you say

to me ` it seems to me it's a very important point ` "Yeah, we'll, as

the Palestinian Authority, will go and police the borders of Gaza, but

we will not guarantee that Gaza will be demilitarised," I guess you're

saying, "We won't even guarantee that we'll stop weaponry and rockets

entering Gaza from Egypt." If you're saying that, then how are the

Americans, for example, going to regard you as serious about a peace

process? In this region, in the Middle East, all kinds of conflicts,

military conflicts, armed conflicts, can last forever, unless you find a

political solution for these conflicts. What will put an end to

all kinds of extremism, all kinds of military confrontations, the renewal

of wars every two or three years ` the only thing is a political

solution, is a solution that can live forever between two states,

between two equal nations. We and the Israelis. That's what we are

demanding now. If you know that ` I'm sorry to keep going on, but if

you know that that is the solution, it has to be political, then why not

say to me that, "Yes, we will commit to the demilitarisation of Gaza,"

because that has to be a part of the resolution. By the way, even the

Israelis do not demand that ` the demilitarisation of Gaza during this

war. They wanted guarantees to stop rockets and to stop what they call

some form of tunnels. Not the defensive ones, but the other kind,

that might lead inside Israel. That's what they ask for. Don't ask

for the impossible. We don't want to see ` neither Gaza nor the West Bank

` to be militarised. But we don't want to see a continuation of this

occupation forever. The end of the occupation will lead to the solution

of all other problems, and demilitarisation is one aspect of

these problems. If we sit there with real and serious international

presence and intervention and we put all the issues ` starting with the

occupation ` I'm sure that the people here, in hundreds of

thousands, will move against those who might reject such a solution. We

don't have so much more time. Just a couple of brief, specific points.

The Palestinian Authority has talked about going to the International

Criminal Court and pursuing a case against Israel for fundamental

contraventions of international law during the Gaza conflict. How can

you do that? Do you not think you may be dangerously misreading the

politics in Washington, if you believe that the United States will

support you pursuing Israel in the International Criminal Court, you

may be sadly misguided, and you may jeopardise the Palestinian

Authority's relationship with the Obama administration. So, let them

tell us what is the other option. Tell us if there is a genuine

process or not. That's what we seek at the end of the day. Have you

given up on Obama and Washington? No. I don't think that we should do

that. I mean `` do that at all. I mean, they did their best in the

past few years. But now they feel that it's a hopeless case, maybe, or

they feel helpless, and they feel that they have faced a solid wall in

Israel and they cannot overcome so many difficulties ` even domestic

ones. But in all cases, what we want is to see today, as soon as

possible, a process. A political process. We know, at the end,

there's no solution without that. You have been involved, as you said

yourself, for half your life in this effort to find a path to statehood

for the Palestinians. You have failed. Does it feel like this is

the end of a road for you? I don't care about it, but what I care more

is ` I see a new generation of Palestinians who are more committed

to the case and the cause of freedom. Freedom is the only word

that unites all Palestinians, irrespective of their beliefs,

political affiliations, whatever it is. The new generation will continue

this message until we achieve what we want ` a state for the

Palestinian people, for all Palestinians, wherever they are. It

is interesting that you talk about the "new generation". I've been

coming to this region for the last 25 years. What strikes me now is

that, if you look at the attitudes and talk to young people on both

sides of the conflict, young Palestinians and young Israelis as

well, you come across more hate, more fear of the other, more

suspicion, than ever before. That is profoundly depressing, is it not?

What do we expect? The new generation ` we have an employment

here which is over 40%. In Gaza, it's over 60%. Every year, we have

tens of thousands of graduates. They don't have any chance for having

work, for having a possibility of building their own life. Do you

believe there'll be peace with Israel in your lifetime? I believe

there will be peace. When it will come ` I want it to be as soon as

possible, to witness that peace while I am alive on this earth. But

I am very confident that, if I'll not going to see it, my children and

grandchildren ` I have four granddaughters ` they will see that

day. Yasser Abed Rabbo, we have to end there, but thank you very much

for being on HARDtalk. Thank you. Thank you, sir.

Hello. As high pressure builds in, fine weather to come this week, but