ROBERT SIEGEL, host:
Now, Rafiq Husseini, who is chief of staff to President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority. Welcome to the program, Mr. Husseini.
Mr. RAFIQ HUSSEINI (Chief of Staff to President Mahmoud Abbas): Thank you.
SIEGEL: And first, can Pres. Abbas negotiate credibly on behalf of the Palestinians without some acknowledgement from the Hamas leadership in Gaza, that he actually speaks with them too?
Mr. HUSSEINI: Well, I think the president has been elected with a 66 percent majority in 2005 on a mandate and a program to negotiate for peace. And therefore, he has his mandates from his people. I know that there is a problem with Hamas in Gaza, but that is not an obstacle, in our opinion, to negations.
SIEGEL: Without control of Gaza, can President Abbas bring about an end to rocket attacks on Israel?
Mr. HUSSEINI: Well, we are, of course, not in control of Gaza at the moment, but I think the population - the people in Gaza have shown that they are supporting Pres. Abbas and supporting the stopping of rockets. And as you know, maybe in November, there was a big demonstration in Gaza where over 600,000 people went out in the streets to support Pres. Abbas. Six-hundred thousand people out of 1.5 million people is a lot of people, and therefore, we are sure that the people in Gaza will understand and support the peace process if and when it begins and if is Israelis also are ready to negotiate with the Pres. Abbas in good faith.
SIEGEL: Mark Regev, spokesman for Prime Minister Olmert, said that the Israelis have undertaken the change as they described it to undertake their obligations under the roadmap, not conditionally upon Palestinian actions toward their obligations but on their own. First of all, do you sense any difference in that regard, and second, what are the Palestinians doing on their own, say, in terms of security guarantees with the Israelis apart from how much progress they make, how soon on the settlements.
Mr. HUSSEINI: Well, first of all, on our side, we're trying our best to get the situation under control from a security point of view. You can ask anybody in Palestine and they will tell you that the security situation here is much better. The problem, of course, you have to understand that we don't control all the West Bank. As Palestinian security, we only control 12 percent of the West Bank. The rest of the West Bank is controlled by the Israeli army.
Now, what I've heard from you about Mr. Regev, only he has said it, it is very welcome - it's a very welcome statement and we would like the Israelis to start with the first item of their obligations on the roadmap and that is to declare a freezing of settlement activity to which they have not done as yet.
SIEGEL: Including East Jerusalem…
Mr. HUSSEINI: Absolutely…
SIEGEL: …as far you are concerned.
Mr. HUSSEINI: …including East Jerusalem because East Jerusalem was occupied in 1967 as the rest of the West Bank has been.
SIEGEL: Well, how are you going to get around that then to talk further when Prime Minister Olmert says with Pres. Bush to decide we regard East Jerusalem as different. And we regard, say, the Har Homa construction is separate.
Mr. HUSSEINI: Well, I mean, we have been encouraged to hear Dr. Rice today saying that there's no distinction between the settlements off East Jerusalem and the settlements of the West Bank. This is encouraging and this is what where the American rule is important as long as broker when it comes to the deciding whether this is acceptable from an international committee point of view or not.
SIEGEL: Rafiq Husseini, thank you very much for talking with us today.
Mr. HUSSEINI: Thank you very much.
SIEGEL: Mr. Husseini is chief of to Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian authority. We also heard from Mark Regev, spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.