NEWSWEEK: Would you like to see Ehud Barak, the Labor Party candidate and retired general, defeat Benjamin Netanyahu in the elections for prime minister? Would Barak be more helpful than Netanyahu? HUSSEINI: I don’t know that Barak would be more helpful to us. But I know that Netanyahu is not. He is an impossible negotiator. He doesn’t try to negotiate with us. He tries to dictate to us. I don’t know Barak’s positions, but I hope that he would be a real negotiator who would be ready to find a way to peace in the region.
Your representatives at the United Nations have been promoting [U.N. Security Council] Resolution 181, which would go back to the borders of 1947 [that divided the British-run mandate of Palestine into adjoining Jewish and Arab states]. Is this the new Palestinian strategy? No, we have [U.N. Security Council Resolution] 242 [which accepted Israel’s borders prior to the Six-Day War of 1967]. From my point of view, if Israel refuses [to return to its pre-1967 borders], this will push us to [the pre-independence borders set out by Resolution] 181.
Isn’t it out of the question for any Israeli government to consider such borders? It’s out of the question [for the PA] to accept the neglecting of [Resolution] 242.
What must Israel do to prevent the PA from demanding the land involved in Resolution 181? There must be no unilateral activities like settlements and changes in Jerusalem.
Is there a deadline? We want to see what kind of government we are going to deal with.
Last month President Clinton wrote a letter to Arafat that proposed a one-year deadline for reaching a permanent peace settlement with Israel but stopped short of endorsing an independent Palestinian state. How do you feel about Clinton’s letter? It was good; we were satisfied within the circumstances. We were hoping that [U.S. support for] self-determination would be there. But you can take several sentences from the letter and understand that the United States supports self-determination [for the Palestinians].
Were you in favor of a unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state on May 4? No, we gained from postponing it. The whole world is telling us, “We are with you, but we want you to postpone the declaration until after the elections.”
Can you describe the relationship that has evolved between the Palestinian Authority and the U.S. government? We have succeeded in reaching a kind of understanding that was not there at any period in our history. It was in the dreams of the Palestinians that Yasir Arafat would meet President Clinton so many times.
Was President Clinton’s visit to Gaza last December an implicit recognition of a Palestinian state? It is more an understanding for the Palestinian position and aspirations.
Do you think that Mrs. Clinton meant what she said when she supported a Palestinian state last year? Yes, I believe she did.
How important is the direct U.S. involvement in security talks between Israel and the Palestinians over steps to fight terrorism? Very important, because it makes it more difficult for Israel to give the Americans false information. And this helped rebuild relations between us and the United States.
Haven’t a lot of meetings taken place with high-level PLO leaders? There have been a lot of meetings at the White House.
As head of the Palestinian Authority committee in charge of negotiating Jerusalem’s final status, what is your vision for the city? We would like to see in Jerusalem two capitals in one open, free-access city. If the Palestinians become convinced that Jerusalem is no longer a subject for the peace process and will not become a Palestinian capital, they will not accept any kind of peace agreement. Jerusalem is Jerusalem.
