Officials weigh in on Palestinian changes

Editor's Note: CNN Access is a regular feature on CNN.com providing interviews with newsmakers from around the world.

(CNN) -- Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat announced Sunday he was giving up his position as interior minister and said presidential elections would take place by the end of the year or early 2003.

Palestinian officials are touting the government changes as steps toward a Palestinian state. However, Israeli officials expressed skepticism, saying only an end to violence against Israeli citizens will signal real change.

CNN Correspondent Matthew Chance spoke Sunday with chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat, while CNN's Jerrold Kessel talked to senior Israeli government adviser Dore Gold. Here are excerpts from those interviews:

Overhaul of Palestinian Authority

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat on the Cabinet shuffle in the Palestinian Authority: "This is a significant change."

ERAKAT: I believe there is significant change. Ten ministers are out. Seven ministries have been merged. The key ministry of finance will have a new minister. The key ministry of education, higher education, will have a new minister. The minister of justice will be a new one.

This is a significant change. The number of cabinets shrunk from 30 to 20. And these changes are Palestinian steps in the direction of building the institutions of the Palestinian state.

GOLD: There's a tremendous sensitivity and a tremendous doubt on the Israeli side whether all this talk of reform leads to smoke and mirrors or leads to real change. For us, the proof will be on whether the situation on the ground will be fundamentally different tomorrow than it was yesterday.

The real question is not just a political science question of how many ministries there are. The real question is whether Mr. Arafat and the Palestinian leadership will abandon violence as a political tool.

'Reform is many things'

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ERAKAT: I don't think that [Israeli Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon cares if we are ruled by the Boy Scouts or Attila the Hun. And I think the only meaning of Sharon when he speaks about reform is to get rid of the elected Palestinian president, President Arafat. Sharon -- while we're having Palestinian reform -- Sharon is deforming us.

The end game of Sharon is using reform as a pretext to achieve his end game -- that is the destruction of the Palestinian Authority, getting rid of Arafat and replacing this authority with an Israeli civil administration and resumption of full Israeli occupation.

GOLD: Reform is many things. Reform is, first of all, creating accountable government and transparency. How many aid dollars have come in from the European Union and other international organizations and have not filtered down to the Palestinian people? Instead, many have filtered into the hands of these organizations that have been involved in attacking Israeli citizens. So we are interested in reform. We are interested in transparency. But most of all, we're interested in the security of the people of Israel.

We don't have great expectations from Yasser Arafat. But when we see that the Palestinian leadership renounces violence, renounces armed struggle, sets aside the use of terrorism to advance political interest -- when we see the everyday security of the Israeli people vastly improving, we'll know real reform has occurred. In the meantime, that hasn't happened yet.

Israeli-Palestinian relations

Sharon adviser Dore Gold: "When we see the everyday security of the Israeli people vastly improving, we'll know real reform has occurred."

ERAKAT: People can score points and assign blame on President Arafat. He is the elected president of the Palestinian people. He's the one who led the Palestinians toward peace. He's the one who has recognized the state of Israel's right to exist.

Sharon is the last person on Earth anyone would like to sit with. But at the end of the day you have to think -- this is the elected leader of the Israeli people. This is the democratic choice of the Israelis. We have to respect that, and I hope that the Israelis will respect the democratic choice of the Palestinians.

GOLD: The state of Israel knows how to negotiate with Arab partners when they act like real partners. When [the late Egyptian] President [Anwar] Sadat came to Jerusalem in 1977, we negotiated a peace treaty and withdrew from Sinai. When King Hussein of Jordan exercised the same criteria as President Sadat and ... adopted the principle of "no more wars, no more violence," we reached a peace treaty with Jordan.

What Mr. Sharon has said ... is that he wants a real partner for peace. He wants to go forward. He has very specific ideas of how to pragmatically move the Israelis and the Palestinians in a positive direction. But he needs a partner. He needs a man like Anwar Sadat or King Hussein. And right now, Yasser Arafat hasn't fulfilled those conditions.