PRINCE HASSAN INTERVIEW - Wednesday, 19 July, 2006
GEORGE NEGUS: Your Highness, thank you very much for your
time. Can we
try and put this whole situation with Israel and Lebanon into some sort
of perspective? One Middle East source said to us today that there is a
great air of despondency in your part of the world. "Things have never
looked so bad. It looks like Israel wants a fight of the final battle."
Do you feel as despondent and as negative about the situation as that?
That sounds pretty grim.
PRINCE EL HASSAN OF JORDAN: I would agree with much of that.
In south
Lebanon there's now a movement of Israeli troops reported into south
Lebanon and the kidnappings of the soldiers were described by Prime
Minister Olmert as an act of war, so we've moved from a war on terror
into an actual all-out war declared by the head of Hezbollah in south
Lebanon and the question is nobody really knows where the endgame is -
that's why it's so grim.
The Turks, for example, today were warned by the United States not to
enter into northern Iraq to address Kurdish terrorism which is plaguing
them for years and the Prime Minister of Turkey is pleading
double-standards, so it's a very bad precedent.
GEORGE NEGUS: You and your family have been involved in this
situation
for decades now. You're saying it's grim, you're saying there's no
endgame in sight. You've always been the moderating force in the region
- you and the family. What do you feel at the moment? Do you think
that's a futile effort? Is there no point in trying to stop this? Is it
going to escalate? Are things going to get much, much worse, as we say,
before they get better?
PRINCE EL HASSAN OF JORDAN: It's gutting to feel - I worked in
the
Balkans during that bitter hatred leading up to the Dayton Conference
and if you recall the Dayton Conference came too little too late and
everyone was advising the Europeans and the Americans that you can't
stamp out terror by military action alone - that's only power play.
What is important is the diplomacy that goes with it.
What we need here - and for 58 years of the existence of the state of
Israel we have been saying it before and after every war of which we've
had four or five now - what is the political endgame? Circling the
wagons, ethnicity, self-absorption with religion putrefying civilised
society is basically killing moderation. Centrist voices are simply not
being heard. My fear is that some Israelis on the right wing, in
particular, want to make Israel a dominating minority in a mosaic of
minorities, rather than a state within the West Asian context in a
community of states.
GEORGE NEGUS: Do you think that this really, in the long run,
has very
little to do with the three captured Israeli soldiers and more to do
with some sort of master plan by the Israelis, with or without American
knowledge and consent, to actually change the entire geopolitical face
of the region by moving, firstly, against Hezbollah, then maybe against
Syria and then maybe against Iran? Are we looking at the beginning, if
you like, not the end, of a master plan?
PRINCE EL HASSAN OF JORDAN: If you hear the Prime Minister of
Israel
speaking in the Knesset, he mentions Iran, Syria and Lebanon in one
breath. A couple of days ago one of their ministers was talking about
the importance of a superpower taking out Iran and Israel playing the
role of a regional superpower in the interim, but, unfortunately, there
is no end in sight for a regional structure, as in the Balkans, a
stabilisation pact, a cohesion fund. Nobody is thinking regionally, and
it's all quiet on the grounds that what the United States thinks and
does at the appropriate moment - we're waiting for the Secretary of
State of the United States to visit the region, but what is that
appropriate moment? You can't stamp out a terrorist organisation by
military action alone.
GEORGE NEGUS: At the moment, though, Your Highness, we've got
this
awful situation where a blame game is going on - an eye-for-an-eye
game, if you like, who fired the first shot? Without blaming either
side, what should both sides be doing to give us any chance at all of
some sort of cessation of the violence?
PRINCE EL HASSAN OF JORDAN: As your own intelligence inquiry,
the Flood
Report, suggested, you cannot stamp out terrorism by power play alone.
So I think that that parallel track to which Israeli ministers have
referred of negotiation over the subject of the return of the kidnapped
soldiers, the possible release of prisoners. I think that was coming
anyway after the first soldier was kidnapped three weeks ago - the
possibility of the return of prisoners might have been a goodwill
gesture towards the Palestinian leadership, but, as you know, it's all
a question of saving face, and that possibility was closed by the
Hezbollah action.
But I think what the Israelis must do is clearly to recognise that this
war is going to continue if they so state it and their intentions are
very clear into a future which is totally unknown so there must be a
cut-off point because otherwise all Israel's friends in the world I
think would be extremely embarrassed to see this whole region
incandescent with flames that we can't quench.
Secondly, I think that it's always been the equation - Israel's
security requirements on the one side and the Arab legitimate rights on
the other, so if we're talking about living with a viable Palestinian
state, some form of a recognition of the fact that the peace process,
if not entirely dead, is in limbo, but what we have at the moment is a
limbo of fear and this fear must be transcended, but with every passing
day, the hatred industry is winning. And, therefore, I call the
international community to recognise - don't just send in international
troops, send in also people with the vision to develop a stabilisation
pact for this region.,/i>
GEORGE NEGUS: So sending in a UN peacemaking force is just not
enough.
You're saying somebody has got to get together diplomatically and
politically and, if you like, bang Israeli and Hezbollah heads together
and say "Let's see some sense in this. Put the guns down, both sides."
Or is that just wishful thinking?
PRINCE EL HASSAN OF JORDAN: It's wishful thinking at the
moment
because, as we see in Iraq, for example, there's no distinction between
the so-called resistance, the Jihadis - they are the types, of course,
who are opposed to any form of Shia or Sunni working peacefully
together - and they've been one of the provocations in this whole
equation - and between common criminals and what's happening today in
Lebanon is almost a repeat of that situation of lawlessness.
I think the Lebanese Government has a thankless task and if the idea is
to replace that situation with some kind of an extended zone of
influence - I mean, what was the use of the Syrian army withdrawing
only for the Israeli army to enter Lebanon?
GEORGE NEGUS: Do you really hold out any hope that this well
recede the
situation or is the apocalypse we've talked about in the past possible
this time? Maybe this could be the spark that draws in other nations
and we find ourselves in a World War III scenario. .
PRINCE EL HASSAN OF JORDAN: If we are going to stabilise the
Middle
East region, the same rules of engagement have to apply as applied in
the Balkans, in South Africa - truth and reconciliation, recognition of
the rule of law, no double-standards, a regional conference to be
prepared by wise heads away from the propaganda and the publicity
because if we get into the American domestic elections in November, I
don't think anybody's going to be interested and maybe that's why
there's furious fighting to gain positions before that eventuality
takes place.
GEORGE NEGUS: Thank you very much for your time, sir. I hope
that next
time we talk it is on a more pleasant and positive basis. .
PRINCE EL HASSAN OF JORDAN: So do I. Thank you, sir.
GEORGE NEGUS: Thanks very much.