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Posted on 11/19/2001 12:09:06 PM PST by anapikoros

WASHINGTON - Former US assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs Edward Walker, a prominent advocate of Palestinian self-determination, said last week that if Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat fails to break with Hamas, then a future Palestinian state will be nothing more than a "mini-Taliban regime" that Israelis should oppose.

After returning from a three-week visit to the region last week, Walker, who left public service earlier this year to become president of the Middle East Institute, also said he is now convinced Arafat will never make peace with Israel.

"I have concluded that Arafat will not make peace because he doesn't have a vision to lead his people to peace," Walker told The Jerusalem Post at his Washington think tank on Friday.

"What I've been doing is criticizing him for not outlining what he believes the Palestinian state should be other than borders. He hasn't come out specifically and talked about if it is going to be a democratic state. Is it going to have transparency, balance of powers... Why in the hell should Israelis accept something that they don't know what it's going to be?

"If what we're talking about is a Palestine that is a mini-Taliban regime, I'd be the first to stand with Prime Minister [Ariel] Sharon and say: 'Hell no. Who needs it?' And one of the things that worries me is some people were implying that the reason Arafat doesn't do so is because that will lose him Hamas. That's a real problem," Walker said.

Walker also clarified what he said were misquotations of previous remarks. "I do not think anyone considers the fights between the Israeli army and Palestinian fighters in occupied territories terrorism," Walker had said in an interview. He was then asked whether Jewish settlers are legitimate targets.

"I believe women and children are not appropriate targets," Walker is quoted as responding, an answer that made it seem as if he were legitimizing attacks on male settlers. Walker said his response was taken out of context and that he believes that all attacks on "innocents" are acts of terrorism.

"You know how you say, 'look, it is wrong to kill civilians, you don't want to be killing women and children.'... And keep in mind that I'm not trying to say it's okay to kill anybody."

Asked whether Israeli targeted killings of Palestinians fall into the category of terrorism, as Arabs claim, Walker said: "It's not terrorism... I happen to be opposed to it. But it doesn't fit within the definition [of terrorism] the president gave."

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