Sept 6, 1993, Transcript
 Sept 13, 1993, Transcript

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31 August 1993 Transcript:

"CANADA AM" TV HOST KEITH MORRISON:
The two sides must now figure out how to implement this deal.  Joining
us from Washington is Mark Bruzonsky*.  Thank you for being with us
this morning.

MARK BRUZONSKY:
Good Morning. And thank you for inviting me.

MORRISON:  Some people are calling this an unbelievable breakthrough,
a major change in the way the Middle East is functioning now. Would
you agree that that is so or that it is problematic?

BRUZONSKY: Well you know every time there is a diplomatic deal it is
always called a major breakthrough, that is what the politicians who
make the deals feel they have to say.   The Israelis are doing pretty
much what they've said they will always do.  The talk of giving Gaza,
the talk of "autonomy", the talk of giving back some of the
territories for local rule; these are things the Israelis have talked
about for a long time.  The change you are witnessing is that Yasser
Arafat -- pressured as he is, losing his grip as he has been, without
financial resources, finding himself cornered and without anywhere to
go -- has agreed to things that heretofore the Palestinian movement
has always said they would never agree to.  Now there is no doubt
there is a major shift in the road ahead.  Whether it is going to lead
to a stable and just peace, to be quite frank I am very skeptical.

MORRISON: Why is Yasser Arafat in such a weak position that he had to
capitulate to this kind of a deal?

BRUZONSKY: Look, we only have a few minutes, let's call it straight.
The Palestinian people have been beaten into submission now for a
generation.  They are destitute  They have been living under military
occupation.  Their economy is in shambled.  Their institutions are in
shambles.  All along they have had the hope for eventual independence
in their own state.  That's what the PLO was set up to achieve.
   On the other hand, in the wake of the Gulf War, with the collapse
of the Soviet Union, the American empire is in control of the Middle
East with "client regimes" all the way from Saudi Arabia to Morroco.
Under these circumstances the PLO has been squeezed to a point where
it's institutions were beginning to come apart...
    The truth of the matter is that what you are witnessing today is a
very uncomfortable deal between long-time enemies -- Rabin, who leads
a shaky coalition government in Israel; Yasser Arafat whose hold over
the PLO has been whittled away by Hamas and by the disintegration of
the PLO.  So you are witnessing an accommodation that these two
parties are making.  And when politicians have been negotiating for a
number of years, placing people's hopes in the forefront, they don't
like to come forward and say 'we've failed'.
    You'll remember a few months ago the negotiators were said to have
failed.  Nothing had been achieved.  People were talking about
resigning.  Now if you are Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin saying that
you've failed is your ticket to maybe losing power.

MORRISON: From Rabin's point-of-view, if he didn't strike some kind of
a deal with Yasser Arafat he would soon not have Yasser Arafat to deal
with and Hamas would be much more difficult..

BRUZONSKY:  Absolutely. What you are witnessing now is the kind of
tension that unleashes other forces.
     Now in the last 20 years since I got out of school I've been to
the Middle East region maybe 200 times and I was there during the Camp
David period, I knew Sadat, had dinner with Arafat...  Nobody knows
what this initial agreement, this initial "breakthrough" agreement, is
going to lead to.  But I think it's very fair to say that there will
be tremendous tensions placed on the agreement.  And its very
difficult to see right now how the agreement is going to be
implemented because one side from day one is going to say: Statehood,
Flag, Palestinian independence, Return of the Palestinian exiles.  The
other side is going to say, no, no, no, "autonomy", limited self-rule,
5-year trial period...
     It's going to be an extremely unstable and fragile agreement.
But it will keep, it will probably keep, the current political leaders
in their jobs because they will be able to say:  we are the leaders
who started this process, we're making progress, give us more time, we
know what we are doing -- even if they don't have the slightest idea
where this is going to take them.

MORRISON:  Exactly.  But as you say, you know the situation on the
ground pretty well, you've been to these areas.  The question is
whether the people who live in them -- whether they are associated
with the PLO, or Hamas, or whomever -- will the Palestinians be able
to accept the notion that they can have a kind of a limited autonomy
in these special areas for a period of years -- God knows how long --
and maybe some day get what they have wanted all along.

BRUZONSKY: Palestinian society is already in the midst of a low-grade
civil war.  You've got Hamas and the PLO and various factions of the
PLO.  You've even got major resignations of major personalities from
the PLO Executive Committee -- Mahmoud Darwish, Shafiq al-Hout --
these are long-time Arafat comrades and stalwarts...  Palestinian
society in the beginning, I think, will look at this agreement and
say: well, if it really is a step on the road to our independence and
statehood ok...maybe.  But, they'll be very skeptical and I suspect
within a very short time there will be all kinds of signs that it's
not a step on the road to real independence.  Listening to Abba Eban
last night he said "Let's get back to reality!" after Hanan Ashrawi
stated talking about "eventual independence"...
   The Israelis want recognition.  What they really want -- they won't
say it -- is they want the Palestinians on reservations and
Bantustans.  They want to be able to control the territories.  They
want to economically move within the Middle East.  They want to be
able to make peace agreements with the pro-American Arab regimes that
are being pressured tremendously to make a deal. They don't want
Palestinian independence...  And they will do everything they can to
prevent it.

MORRISON: Arafat in this case is not acting as Mandela is he?

BRUZONSKY:  Well Arafat is acting more like Butelezi than like
Mandela.

MORRISON:  Thank you very much for shedding this light on the
situation. And now local news.

* Mark Bruzonsky's bio and publication information can be
found at http://www.MiddleEast.Org/mab.htm
 

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