The Middle East, Seen by Christopher Dickey

DATE April 2, 2002 ACCOUNT NUMBER N/A
TIME 12:00 Noon-1:00 PM AUDIENCE N/A
NETWORK NPR
PROGRAM Fresh Air

Interview: Christopher Dickey discusses the situation in the
Middle East, the Saudi peace plan and the groups behind the
suicide bombings
TERRY GROSS, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

My guest, Christopher Dickey, has been Newsweek's Middle East regional editor
since 1993. He's also Newsweek's Paris bureau chief. Last week he was in
Beirut covering the Arab League summit. He co-wrote Newsweek's April 1st
edition cover story, The Future of Israel: How Will It Survive? This week he
co-wrote the story A Deadly Passover and A State of Siege. We called him this
morning in Paris where, among other things, he's picking up his flak jacket
for his return to the Middle East tomorrow. We began by talking about the
confrontation in Ramallah.

What do you think Sharon's goal now is with Arafat? What do you think he
wants?

Mr. CHRISTOPHER DICKEY (Newsweek's Middle East Regional Editor): Well, look,
his first goal is the same as the goal of any administration in Israel would
be: to end the terrorism. But does he have longer-term goals? Everybody on
the Arab side thinks that he does. And they see those as very sinister goals.
They basically believe that he wants to get Arafat out, that he wants to crush
the Palestinian Authority, that he wants to marginalize any institutions that
can even speak out against Israeli occupation, and then, eventually, he wants
to create a situation that drives Palestinians or most of the Palestinians,
and certainly any rebellious Palestinians, out of the occupied territories.
That's the way the Arabs see it, and that's the assumption that they're
working on, in fact, in their dealings with Sharon.

GROSS: And how do the Israelis see it?

Mr. DICKEY: They want to see an end to the terror. I think a lot of Israelis
are very worried that that's the kind of policy that Sharon will pursue and
that it won't work, that as he puts more and more pressure on the
Palestinians, there'll be more and more who will, in fact, see reasons to join
with the suicide bombers, to attack Israelis wherever they can. And then, of
course, I think Americans have to be concerned that even if Sharon succeeds in
completely repressing the Palestinians in the territories and completely
isolating Israel from the threat of the Arab world that surrounds it, that
there will be then an effort by those people to strike at easier targets,
including, and especially, the Americans who are backing Israel.

GROSS: If Arafat is intentionally or accidentally killed by the Israelis,
what would you project their reaction would be?

Mr. DICKEY: Well, there will be a lot of international outrage. But there
probably will also be some quiet relief, especially in some Arab quarters,
because Arafat is not popular with the Arab leaders in the Middle East. He,
in fact, is hated by some of them. You can see that being played out in
little protocol games that were going on at the summit in Beirut last week.
They don't like him, and they'd like to be rid of him. But nobody knows what
comes after him. He has successfully either suppressed or eliminated all
competition over the years. And the ones that he didn't eliminate, in many
cases, were eliminated by the Israelis. So as a result, it's very hard to say
who would come after. It's very unlikely that you would see somebody like Abu
Mazen or Abu Allah come in and be the nice, moderate, diplomatic voice--Nabil
Shaath, for instance. It's much more likely that you'll see people who feel
as if they have the street behind them and who do, like Marwan Bargouthi,
maybe Mohamed Dahlan, maybe Jebril Rajoub, who are the warlords of Palestine
right now.

GROSS: Israel has attacked the headquarters of Jebril Rajoub, who's the
Palestinian Authority's security chief. So through the attack on Arafat's
compound and Rajoub's, I mean, Israel is really attacking the Palestinian
Authority. The Authority was established by the agreement of Israel and the
Palestinians. So in a way it's Israel attacking the Authority that it helped
establish.

Mr. DICKEY: Well, yes, but that was a different government, wasn't it?
They--the idea of establishing the Authority was that after the first intifada
which began in '87, and after the show of hatred by the Palestinians for the
Israelis that arose during the Gulf War, when, as you'll remember, they were
cheering the Scuds being shot by Saddam Hussein, there was a feeling that
maybe the best way to deal with security in the occupied territories was to
get the PLO back, the Palestinian Authority back, and put it in place, make it
responsible, and move toward a peace deal with it that would assure the safety
of Israel within safe and secure borders.

But neither side--that led, of course, to the Oslo Accords, first Madrid, and
then Oslo, but then after Oslo, neither side really dealt in good faith in
building the kind of confidence that would be required to have that kind of
peace. A succession of Israeli governments, both Labor and Likud, continued
to build settlements in the occupied territories, which were seen as creating
facts on the ground and political problems that the governments that create
them can't eventually resolve. At the same time, Arafat was bringing in lots
of illegal weapons and he was not taking the kinds of measures against people
who attacked Israel, that the Israelis expected. So the deal soured over the
course of several years, instead of sweetening, as it should have done, as
everybody hoped it would do in 1993. So now you've got this situation that's
almost completely untenable.

GROSS: What happens if the violence does spread? What are some of the
possibilities of how the violence in the Middle East could spread beyond the
region?

Mr. DICKEY: Well, I think Jordan is the most in danger. The regime in
Jordan--the Hashemite monarchy in Jordan--was in many ways a colonial
construct, just as in some ways Israel was a colonial construct. And it is a
regime that is a minority regime. The East Bank Jordanians, the basic
Hashemite structure of the country, is smaller than the Palestinian population
of the country. Now it's worked well with the Palestinians over the years,
especially the last 20, 25 years. I think a lot of Palestinians in Jordan
feel they have a real stake in that country and in its stability.

But if the situation continues worsening in the West Bank, you're going to
start to see attempts by Palestinians to move out of the West Bank and back
across the Jordan River, into Jordan, and you see certain Israeli politicians
to the right of Ariel Sharon, saying that's what should happen. There are
politicians now in Israel who say bluntly that there should not be any
Palestinian presence that counts or that has any vote or any say in its future
to the west of the Jordan River. They're basically talking about what's
called transfer in Middle East parlance, but if we were in the Balkans it
would be called ethnic cleansing. And that has about--last poll that I saw,
about 46 percent of the Israeli population supported such a measure.

Well, if you transfer those people out of the West Bank, a lot of them will
wind up going to Jordan and they will destabilize that country. And you'll
have a very good chance that that regime will either have to become
ferociously repressive or will fall or both.

GROSS: Can you imagine a scenario where Israel really tries to remove the
Palestinian population from the West Bank?

Mr. DICKEY: Sure. I don't think it's hard to contemplate. Take a look at
the television right now. You can see the force that's been deployed in the
occupied territories right now. You see the way that the troops are going
house to house, looking for terrorists, they say, but often ransacking the
houses that they've visiting. The area is already cut off economically.
People don't have any way to live. It doesn't mean that they're going to go
in, necessarily, like the Serbs, but it does mean that they'll create a
situation where life is untenable for most of the population that lives there.

And remember that there's a demographic challenge to Israel. If things
continued as they were, with the Arab population of Israel itself--about a
million of the six million people in Israel are Arabs--continuing to grow,
and the population of Arabs in the Palestinian areas of the occupied
territories, the West Bank and Gaza continuing to grow, then most demographic
projections show that within 10 years the majority of the population west of
the Jordan River would be Palestinian and Arab. And as a result, you'd have
the Jewish state in the position of being a minority population, lording it
over an Arab and Muslim majority.

And the answer of the Labor Party of Rabin, of Barak, and of Peres,
traditionally, has been, the only way to solve this problem is to divest
Israel of the occupied territories, to get rid of those Arabs by giving them
independence and coming to peace terms with them. But there's now a feeling
that the way to deal with that situation is to just start pushing them out,
make life untenable for them. But, of course, that will create a situation of
extreme isolation for Israel in the region. Essentially, it's going to
be--it's a projection of an idea of fortress Israel, an enclave on the coast
of the Mediterranean, surrounded by literally an enormous sea of hostility.
And I wouldn't think that most Israelis would feel comfortable with that
situation.

GROSS: My guest is Christopher Dickey, Newsweek's Middle East regional
editor. We'll talk more after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: Christopher Dickey is my guest. He's Newsweek's Middle East regional
editor. He's also Newsweek's Paris bureau chief.

Do you think that Israel and the Arab countries are moving closer to
out-and-out war with each other?

Mr. DICKEY: Well, I think Israel has a lot less to worry about in terms of
out-and-out war against an Arab alliance than it had to worry about, say, 20
years ago, and certainly than it had to worry about 30 years ago. Now it's
hard to conceive a situation where Egypt would turn around 180 degrees and
become an actively hostile military force on Israel's border. I--I just don't
see that happening as long as Mubarak and the current regime is in power. I
think it's also true that the Jordanian regime doesn't have the stability or
the strength or the will to go in that direction. Syria can't do it by
themselves. Iraq is begging off, saying, `You know what the geography is,'
even as they try and inflame the situation because obviously it takes
attention off of them. The Saudis--I spoke with the Saudi foreign minister at
length yesterday and asked him several times about the question of whether the
Arab world would use--or more to the point, Saudi Arabia would use the oil
weapon in this conflict. And he said unequivocally no. So in a way the
Palestinians are much more on their own than they ever were before.

But the flip side of that is they are more in charge of their own destiny than
they ever were before. Before, you had all these Arab regimes trying to
appropriate the Palestinian issue and use it for their own self-justification.
This is what we saw with Nasser. This is what we've seen with Assad, the
father of the current president of Syria. This was the Arab game for years
and years and years. And now we see the Palestinians taking their own future
in their hands, and it may be an almost nihilistic message, but the message
is, `We are not leaving. We are not going to put up with this occupation
anymore, and we will do whatever it takes with whatever resources we have to
make that occupation end.'

GROSS: Let's talk about the position President Bush is in. America has
declared war on terrorism. Israel has declared war against terrorism. The
Bush administration has said that any country that harbors terrorists is a
terrorist government. At the same time, the Bush administration is trying to
be an intermediary between Israel and the Palestinians and trying to broker
some kind of peace. So talk about what the Bush administration is up against
in trying to figure out how to handle the Middle East conflict now.

Mr. DICKEY: Well, the Bush administration is running up against the basic
problem of the black vs. white philosophy that was expressed after September
11th, `You're with us or you're against us.' Obviously in different areas of
the world, there are different imperatives and different situations that have
to be addressed. It's a great mistake to try and liken the situation fighting
suicide bombers and terrorists coming from the occupied territories and the
situation that the United States faced in Afghanistan. And it's also a
mistake to think that they're being addressed in the same fashion. In the
case of the West Bank and Gaza, you're talking about territories that are Arab
territories that have been occupied for 35 years. There are a string of
Security Council resolutions to which the United States has signed on that are
absolutely clear about the need to exchange territory for peace. And you've
had a steady accretion of control, or at least land, by the Israelis in those
territories that has created a situation of constant and growing resentment on
the part of the people there.

You have to go to the territories to understand--just a parenthesis here. You
have to go to the territories to understand how that works. We're not talking
about the vast majority of the so-called settlers, many of whom just live in
suburbs that happen to be in the West Bank, suburbs of Jerusalem. But the
more militant settlements, the ones that often are peopled by folks with very
firm religious convictions about their God-given right to be in Judea and
Samaria, those settlements, in many cases, are right in the face of the
Palestinians. They're often right in the middle of Palestinian towns and
Palestinian populations, and they are protected by Israeli troops who
interfere constantly with Palestinians' lives. So they are a constant
friction. And the Mitchell Report a year ago said, you know, it's time to
take a look at some of these and see whether it's really worth maintaining
them.

That is a very different situation than what you had in Afghanistan.
Afghanistan was an outlaw regime that was created and backed by elements like
bin Laden in order to be a center of Islamic terrorists' terrorism challenging
the whole world and especially the United States. That's a very, very
different kind of situation. Even though bin Laden tried to embrace the
Palestinian issue, you know, it didn't get much attention. But the fact is
when bin Laden came out and started saying he was fighting for Palestine,
there was vehement rejection of that by almost all of the Palestinian
leadership, and especially Arafat, because they didn't want their issue, their
fight appropriated. As they see it, they are on their land fighting for their
land. And that's a very different situation. And, in fact, as the Arab world
sees it, most of the Muslim world and a lot of Europe sees it, they are on
their land fighting for their land. And that's just not the situation with a
bunch of Arab radicals parachuting in, as it were, to Afghanistan and
appropriating the government so they can run terrorist operations out of
there.

So when you make that analogy, it's not a very valid one, but it's not clear
from the rhetoric of the administration that it always understands that,
because we're fighting terror, and terror seems to be something that is very
clearly and absolutely defined. And frankly, turning this argument around
slightly, the attacks on the civilians in coffee shops and restaurants and
supermarkets and pizzerias inside Israel, of course, anyone who looks at that
says, `If you're fighting terror, you've got to try and stop that. You've got
to say "no" to that kind of activity.' But at the same time, if you're
fighting for a solution, for an end to this kind of situation, then you have
to be seen to be more evenhanded than the Bush administration has seemed in
the eyes of most of the Arab world and certainly in the eyes of the
Palestinians of late.

GROSS: How is the Middle East conflict complicating President Bush's attempts
to put together an alliance in the war against terrorism, an alliance that
includes Arab countries?

Mr. DICKEY: Well, I mean, the basic message--there were two basic messages
that came out of the Arab summit. One was: We've got to find a diplomatic
way to address the violence in Israel and Palestine, and we have to end that
and we have to move toward a peace settlement. That's the positive message.
The other message was: Don't think for a minute that we're going to help you
invade Iraq or get rid of Saddam Hussein and exacerbate what is already a
tidal wave of instability coming at every regime in this neighborhood. So
that certainly complicates the Bush administration's position.

The Saudis are not going to get on board going against Saddam. I think even
the Kuwaitis are doubtful at this point. You know, there was a nice show of
camaraderie there at the summit. You know, make of that what you will, but I
think the essential message is not now, maybe not ever, but not now. This is
not the time to move against Saddam. So if that's the next step in the war on
terror, then I think that that has been blocked pretty badly by what's going
on in Israel and the territories.

But there's another problem that I think one has to be concerned about, and
that is that the pitch of anger that arises from what's going on in Israel and
the Palestinian territories right now is such that it can inspire a lot of
terrorist activity that really has nothing to do with al-Qaeda. We might wind
up completely dismantling al-Qaeda from an American point of view. The FBI,
the CIA and all those troops in Afghanistan could just do the job. Al-Qaeda
could be brought to its knees and completely dismantled. And it's a very good
sign that they finally caught Abu Zubaydah, it seems.

But there is a real possibility that with the fever pitch of violence and
anger that exists in the Arab world right now, you will have other groups come
up who have learned not the lesson in detail, but the broad lesson of bin
Laden, which is: Go for the weak targets, think big and keep yourselves small
and your security good. And, you know, we could wind up with whole new
terrorist organizations we've never even heard of as a result of this.

And that's--you know, there was a reason that bin Laden wanted to appropriate
the Palestinian issue, because the Arabs understand that this is the most
emotional kind of passion play in Arab life, what happens to the Palestinians.
Even if they don't like the Palestinians themselves, they are absolutely
passionate about the idea of Palestine and the idea of Jerusalem. And that's
a powerful issue, and it's one that can inspire a lot of terrorism, a lot of
which may have nothing to do with al-Qaeda but could come home to haunt the
United States and Israel in the future.

GROSS: Christopher Dickey is Newsweek's Middle East regional editor and Paris
bureau chief. Our conversation was recorded this morning. We'll hear more of
it in the second half of the show.

I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

(Announcements)

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: Coming up, the status of the Saudi peace plan, and the groups behind
the suicide bombings. We continue our discussion with journalist Christopher
Dickey, Middle East regional editor for Newsweek magazine.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross, back with more of our
conversation with Christopher Dickey. He's been Newsweek's Middle East
regional editor since 1993. He's also Newsweek's Paris bureau chief. We
called him in Paris this morning, where he's preparing to return to the Middle
East tomorrow.

You were in Beirut for the Arab League summit, and the Saudi peace proposal
was discussed there. Do you think that the Saudi peace proposal is still
alive?

Mr. DICKEY: Let's hope so, because it is the best breakthrough in the peace
process since the collapse of talks between the Barak government and Arafat at
the end of 2000. And in some ways, it's the best breakthrough in the peace
process ever, because it is offering a complete peace and security to Israel
within safe and secure borders in line with the entire tradition of Middle
East peace negotiations about exchanging land for peace under various UN
Security Council resolutions. I've seen a lot of editorial comment coming out
of the United States writing it off as if it's completely insignificant but,
in fact, there isn't that much to work with right now, and I think the Saudis
wanted to provide something, and they were able to ram it down the throats of
some pretty reluctant members of the Arab summit, including the Syrians and
the Iraqis.

GROSS: Well, what does the...

Mr. DICKEY: So I think it's pretty good news.

GROSS: What does the Saudi peace plan say about the right of return, the
right of Palestinians to return to Israel proper, which Israelis have always
seen as a non-starter, because if that happened, then there would soon be an
Arab majority within Israel, and that would be the end of the Jewish state.

Mr. DICKEY: Well, let's take a look at that. In fact, they said, in line
with UN Security Council Resolution 194--now what what 194 contemplates is
either return or compensation, and the issue of balancing return against
compensation was part and parcel of the Camp David talks, and especially the
Taba talks at the end of 2000. That is not a radical position at all, and
it's not meant to endanger the existence of the state of Israel. It's meant
to say that somebody, somewhere needs to come with a lot of money to
compensate the 1948 refugees, and there needs to be some way of figuring out
an equitable solution where maybe some of them can go back. But if you look
at the notes that were taken during the Taba negotiations, there were a lot of
different formulas being discussed. This is not an insoluble problem. It's
difficult, but it's not insoluble, and it can be addressed realistically.

To say that the Saudi plan was just a sort of a subversive plot to eliminate
Israel is to completely--well, it's basically to have ignored UN Security
Council Resolution Number 194, which is an integral part of the plan.

GROSS: What do you think the Saudi motives are in offering this plan?

Mr. DICKEY: Well, I think there are several. To some extent, it was to get
the Saudis off the hook. They were really tired of the bad public relations
they were experiencing as a result of the fact that 15 of the 19 hijackers on
September 11th were originally from Saudi Arabia, and the fact that bin Laden
is originally from Saudi Arabia. So there was a certain element of
distraction there, but I think it's unfair to emphasize that too much.

Crown Prince Abdullah, who's the effective ruler of Saudi Arabia right now,
was expressing his concern very forcefully to the Bush administration at the
middle of last summer, long before September 11th, saying, `Something has got
to be done about the situation in Israel and Palestine.' Of course this was
at a time when the Bush administration really didn't want to be bothered with
that issue. Its position was, `You know, gee, the Clinton administration got
burned on that. Let's just let that sort of muddle along for a while. Let's
not get involved. It's a no-win situation for us. Let's keep our distance.'
And Crown Prince Abdullah was pushing hard, sending some pretty forceful
letters to President Bush, which did cause the president to sit up and take
notice. And, in fact, the Bush administration was trying to put together a
much more ambitious plan for dealing with the situation in the Middle East
when the suicide bombers hit the twin towers on September 11th and, of course,
everything was put on hold.

But I think that the Saudis, especially Crown Prince Abdullah, is dealing in
good faith here. He sees that the kind of instability inherent in the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict is eventually going to destabilize the entire
region, and it will make life more difficult for the House of Saud in Saudi
Arabia, but it will also endanger the lives and prosperity of everybody in a
part of the world that really needs to get on with business and quit talking
about war.

GROSS: You were at the Arab League summit. Can you single out any particular
moment as being revelatory of what's going on now? I mean, was there one
moment that stands out in your mind as kind of symbolizing where things are
heading?

Mr. DICKEY: Well, yeah, and it's not a good moment. Basically the whole
first day of the Arab summit, which should been one of high drama, the Arabs
coming together to offer a comprehensive peace settlement to Israel, was
instead an indication of how much the Arabs still hate each other. There was
a lot of back-biting, a lot of maneuvering, a lot of silly games being played,
a lot of implausible excuses being offered for what was happening. Mubarak,
of course, didn't show; King Abdullah of Jordan didn't show. The explanation
from his people was that he was suffering from exhaustion and a sore throat.
You had the Arafat broadcast being canceled, not by the Israelis, but by the
Syrians and the Lebanese, who are completely controlled by the Syrians.

So it was a very ugly and, I think from the Arab point of view, very
disheartening kind of scene. The good news was that overnight and the next
morning, the Saudis did sort of whip everybody back into shape and they got
the resolution pushed through that they wanted with really minimal
adulteration. It still provides a good, basic framework for a peace
settlement if either or both sides are inclined to talk peace seriously.

GROSS: My guest is Christopher Dickey, Newsweek's Middle East regional
editor. We'll talk more after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: Christopher Dickey is my guest. He's speaking to us from Paris. He's
Newsweek's Paris bureau chief, and also the Middle East regional editor for
Newsweek. Tomorrow he returns to Israel.

The culture of suicide bombings seems to be spreading. Now Donald Rumsfeld
said yesterday that Iraq is offering stipends to families of Palestinian
suicide bombers. What do you know about that?

Mr. DICKEY: Well, they've done it before; they love to do that, because it's
a way for Saddam to use a little cash, of which he's got, actually, quite a
bit, to identify himself with this tremendously potent symbolic cause. But I
don't think that the suicide bombers are killing themselves because they think
their families will get a little cold cash from Saddam Hussein.

GROSS: You don't?

Mr. DICKEY: No, absolutely not. The suicide bombers--look, first of all, I
don't know if you've ever had the opportunity to go to Israel, say, 15 or 20
years ago, before the first intifada, the Palestinian population there was
almost completely docile. You had Palestinians outside in refugee camps in
Lebanon and Jordan who had been involved with a lot of violence, and you had
terrorist operations, many of which were guided by Arafat that had taken place
all over the world. But within the territories, the culture was essentially
passive and docile, and the people did not rise up, even though their
situation became progressively worse. And then in 1987 they started throwing
stones and the violence picked up. The Green Line effectively came back into
existence, the line of demarcation between the occupied territories and
Israel, but still it was kids throwing stones.

It's been a very slow process, the development of this culture of suicide
bombing in Palestine and in the occupied territories, but it has reached a
critical mass and now it is seen as not only a religious expression, but as a
nationalistic expression, and a very strong one at that. I think that they
have learned a lot of lessons from Hezbollah in Lebanon, and I don't mean that
they've taken a lot of training courses or they get a lot of arms, though
there is that, too. Basically, when Israel pulled out of Lebanon in 2000,
just about two years ago now, after occupying it for 18 years after the
Sharon-led invasion of Lebanon in 1982, the lesson to Arabs all over the
world, but especially to the Palestinians was, `You see, you can do it. If
you're willing to die, if you're willing to keep up the pressure, if you don't
back off, if you never compromise, eventually they have to leave.'

Since the end of last year, at least, polls have shown that more than 60
percent, and sometimes much more than 60 percent of the population of the
occupied territories supports suicide bombings inside Israel. So you could
say, yeah, it's a culture of suicide bombing, but as I say, I don't think it
depends on Saddam Hussein's stipend.

GROSS: Several of the recent suicide bombers are part of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs
Brigade. What is the connection of that group to Arafat and his group,
Fatah.

Mr. DICKEY: Close.

GROSS: This is a relatively new group, right?

Mr. DICKEY: It is. This is the group that Arafat started pulling together
in--it seems to be, basically, in 2000. I mean, we can trace the roots back
to the first intifada and organizations like the Fatah Hawks. And what Arafat
does is he watches the political winds and he sees where he needs to have
support. And in the first intifada, for the first, really, year or two, all
of the initiative was in the hands of Muslim fundamentalist groups like Hamas,
which not only were not beholden to Arafat, they hated him and wanted to
eliminate him. And so what he tried to do was set up his own organization
that he would control that would do what Hamas did, only better, and answering
to him. And they're now, depending on who you talk to, responsible for some
70 percent of the attacks inside Israel and against settlers in the
territories. And I don't think Arafat really wants to deny that connection.
I think he thinks that that is giving him a lot of political support. And,
you know, that's a frightening thing, but I absolutely believe that to be true
on the basis of talking to people close to him and just seeing what the
general reaction is in the Arab world.

GROSS: Now I believe the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade's self-described goals are
to get Israel out of the occupied territories, but not to destroy Israel.
Does that official goal jive with what their actual actions have been?

Mr. DICKEY: Yes, in the sense that they feel they have to take the war home
to the Israeli population if anyone's going to pay attention to them and feel
enough pain to act on that pain inside Israel. But remember that they are
only one group, and Hamas and Islamic Jihad do not take that position. Their
position, as well as the position of Hezbollah in South Lebanon and in Beirut,
is that all refugees should be able to return to their homes in Israel, and
the Israelis should live, if they want to stay in the region, in Palestine,
where supposedly their rights would be secured. Of course, this is a fantasy
construct, but that's the ideology of Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad.

The Al-Aqsa Brigades, which are responsible now for most of the terrorism,
have an actual political platform, which is `We want to win back the occupied
territories, Gaza and the West Bank, and have Jerusalem as the capital.' And
it is--you know, they justify in various unsavory ways the reason that blowing
up innocent people in cafes, pizzerias, bars, what have you, in Israel will
accomplish that goal. You know, I think it's morally reprehensible--no,
that's too weak a word. It's disgusting as a policy, but I have to tell you,
when you are in the Arab world, an Arab world that has felt humiliated--which
is a very active concept, loss of face and humiliation in the Arab world;
humiliated again and again by the Israelis for more than 50 years. I cannot
tell you how surprising and horrifying it is to meet lots of sensible, and you
would think moderate people, who hear of these suicide bombings, hear of the
fear that's being inflicted on Israel and say, `Good.'

GROSS: You've witnessed that a lot?

Mr. DICKEY: A lot. It's really--it's deeply disturbing to see.

GROSS: Now we were talking about the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade. One of the
ways in which they differ from Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad is that Hezbollah
and Islamic Jihad would like to create an Islamic state in all of Palestine,
where as Al-Aqsa, I believe, is more of a secular group.

Mr. DICKEY: Well, it is more secular. Look, Hamas and Islamic Jihad don't
really have a political platform that's credible. They would like to
eliminate Israel as an entity, and they would like to create an Islamic state.
You could say, from a completely Machiavellian perspective, and that's maybe
not the worst perspective with which to understand the actual cause and effect
in this part of the world--you could say that Arafat, by creating the Al-Aqsa
Brigade, has effectively stolen the thunder from Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and
is leaving open a door to a more moderate solution that would lead to a
settlement and a secular regime in the occupied territories in Gaza. And I
really do suspect that's what he had in mind, although it's always hard to
read his mind. But, you know, that doesn't help people who've lost their
loved ones and their children in suicide bombings inside Israel.

GROSS: Who is funding the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade?

Mr. DICKEY: Well, Arafat has a lot of money floating around. He's got a bag
man who literally follows him around everywhere; he's probably still with him
in the bunker. He gets money--you know, he's gotten money for development
projects from the European Union and elsewhere, but there are lots of Arabs
who are willing to support Arafat, and lots of Muslims who are willing to
support Arafat, including and especially if he takes a hard line against
Israel. He found it a lot harder to find money when he was fully engaged in
the peace process.

GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guest is Christopher Dickey. He's
Newsweek's Middle East regional editor and Paris bureau chief. Last week he
was in Beirut covering the Arab League summit; tomorrow he returns to Israel.

Christopher Dickey, before we began our interview, you told me that the reason
that you went back to Paris was basically to pick up your flak jacket.

Mr. DICKEY: Well, that's right. I also wanted to see my wife and get a
change of clothes. But the flak jacket is very heavy, and you sort of have to
carry these things yourself, and I didn't have one with me in Beirut, but I
think it's pretty much standard equipment now, especially if you're going to
go to the territories.

GROSS: Where do you plan on going when you return?

Mr. DICKEY: Well, I'm going to spend some time, if I can get in, in Ramallah,
Bethlehem, maybe Jenin and some of the other flash points; probably Gaza as
well. But I also want to spend much more time in Tel Aviv, in Israel, in
Haifa, in Netanya, in places where we're not talking about militant aggressive
ideologues, but average Israelis who want to go on leading peaceful lives, and
who, in many cases, are very sympathetic to the Palestinians and to what
they've suffered under occupation.

I think their voices are getting completely drowned out in this. I think they
have very few counterparts now, fewer and fewer on the Arab side and on the
Palestinian side. There's a huge radicalization that's taking place there. I
want to try and judge again--I sort of took a sampling a couple of weeks ago,
but I want to try and judge in as much depth as possible the feelings of those
Israelis who would like to come to a political settlement and who feel
completely cornered by the situation, completely boxed in.

GROSS: Several journalists in Ramallah have been fired on over the past few
days. You work with Newsweek's correspondents in the Middle East. What have
you been hearing from your correspondents?

Mr. DICKEY: Well, it's very ugly and very dangerous. Josh Hammer, who's our
Jerusalem bureau chief, was with a group of European protesters yesterday--I
mean covering them, not joining in the protest--when they approached an
Israeli armored vehicle and the man inside opened fire on them, wounding
several, none of them fatally, it seems, although I believe there was one
Italian woman protester who got a bullet in the stomach and is in pretty bad
shape. And, you know, there's no red lines here, there's almost nothing that
Sharon won't do if he feels that he's advancing his cause on this terms. And
I think he's tried to make that clear to everyone. There was a feeling that
the protesters were getting in the way, sometimes there's a feeling that the
press is getting in the way. The press is then expelled and kept out and I
think that you will see situations where reporters and photographers who try
and breach those lines to get in to see what's happening will be fired on.

There was the example just a few weeks ago, the Italian photographer who was
killed. Now was that a crossfire or was he fired on directly? It depended on
who you talked to. But it's a very ugly situation, and now that Israel is at
war, as Sharon says, it's under no compulsion to investigate these incidents.

GROSS: What advice are Newsweek correspondents being given now, to go into
Ramallah in spite of the Israeli prohibitions against having the press there,
or to stay out of Ramallah?

Mr. DICKEY: Well, we judge it on a case-by-case, moment-to-moment basis. The
only way to judge that situation is to be on the ground. Nobody can give you
guarantees. Nobody can tell you you're safe. No amount of armor on your car
or on your body is going to keep you alive if you make the wrong judgment. So
we don't have any guidelines on that, to tell you the truth. Our guidelines
are to get as close to the story as we need to to get it and to tell the truth
and to tell it in a balanced way. But live to tell the story as well. So
that's all I can tell you, it's just a case-by-case, moment-to-moment thing.

GROSS: My guest is Christopher Dickey, Newsweek's Middle East regional
editor. We'll talk more after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: Let's get back to the conversation I recorded earlier today with
Christopher Dickey, Newsweek's Middle East regional editor.

There's a 24-hour curfew now in Ramallah. I think you've been on the phone to
people who you know there. What are you hearing about what life is like there
now?

Mr. DICKEY: Tough. Very tough. There's not enough food, people can't go out
to get food. There's not water in a lot of places. The communications are
bad to non-existent. Electricity is off in a lot of places, so even people
with cell phones can't charge their batteries. The presence of the Israeli
troops is everywhere, and they also are in houses, in private dwellings, so
often you can be in the proximity of Israeli troops and not know that they're
there, which creates a very dangerous situation for a correspondent, or for
any civilians.

Of course, you know that men between 15 and 60 are being systematically
separated out and arrested or detained and interrogated, as some of them
remain under detention; some are released. But it is a full-scale occupation
of the town. One imagines that that situation will stabilize, people will
find some way to operate within it, to get on with their daily lives, at least
to eat in the near future. But right now it's extremely ugly.

GROSS: What are you hearing from your contacts in Israel about life there in
this new era of heightened suicide bombing?

Mr. DICKEY: Well, I think it's terrifying. I mean, if you look at the
targets the suicide bombers hit, it's not like they're going against hardened
installation to the military. They're not attacking the Defense Ministry.
They're not attacking government buildings. They're attacking precisely the
symbols of daily life: shopping malls, supermarkets, pizzerias, cafes. I
might also say the symbols of secular daily life, the places where the
liberals hang out. It is as if the strategy were to inflict pain on the
peacemakers, or on the voices of peace in hopes that they will capitulate.

What I fear, and suspect, and is that that strategy is only going to eliminate
the voices of peace and force them to be even more--to identify even with
Sharon's policies.

GROSS: I have one last question for you. I know you're about to return to
Israel, you've been covering the Middle East for Newsweek since 1993. Just
on an emotional level, what's it like for you to watch the peace process fall
completely apart in the way it has and, you know, to become more like war than
a peace process?

Mr. DICKEY: Look, I have a lot of friends on both sides of this, and it is
just deeply, absolutely depressing to see what's happened. To see a process
that seemed to be so close to completion just to years ago just completely
crumble, and then head in a direction which was not only about no movement in
the peace process, but it was about movement toward an expanding and
terrifying war that is going to inflict really terrible fear and suffering on
all sides and probably will reach out and hurt people very far from the
conflict as well, and--you know, that is just--in fact, I first went to the
Middle East in 1985. It's been a long, long time back and forth to the Middle
East, and it's just awful.

GROSS: You say you have friends on both sides of the conflict. Is it hard to
maintain friends on both sides?

Mr. DICKEY: Well, you start to--well, it's hard to have the same kinds of
conversations you used to have. I have friends in Israel and friends in the
Arab world with whom I used to feel I had relatively rational discussions, and
now the rational element seems to be evaporating very quickly from those
conversations. So you do what you do with friends, you just try and avoid the
topic if you have to.

GROSS: It must be very hard when you're in the Middle East to avoid the topic
of the Middle East.

Mr. DICKEY: But I was going to say--no, no, it's not only when you're in the
Middle East, any time you turn on the television, any time you turn on the
radio.

GROSS: Right. Right.

Mr. DICKEY: And, you know, of course, with the situation now--you know, but
it's amazing--actually, you know, it isn't that hard to avoid the topic,
because everybody kind of desperately wants it to be solved, and so many
desperately people want it to be solved and desperately want to avoid the
topic, want to pretend that they can go on with their normal lives. But now
the violence, I think, is just impinging on all sides, everyone, too much.
And if they can't avoid the topic and they can't solve it, the sense of
desperation--well, the sense of desperation that I feel is nothing compared to
the sense of desperation that they feel.

GROSS: Well, Christopher Dickey, thank you so much for talking with us, and
we wish you safe travels.

Mr. DICKEY: Thank you.

GROSS: Christopher Dickey is Newsweek's Middle East regional editor and Paris
bureau chief. Our interview was recorded this morning. He spoke to us from
Paris. He returns to the Middle East tomorrow.

(Credits)

GROSS: I'm Terry Gross.
Transcripts are created on a rush deadline, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of Fresh Air interviews and reviews are the audio recordings of each segment.