JOHN HUMPHRYS:                Well clearly all that raises 
serious questions for Britain's foreign policy, Menzies Campbell is the 
Foreign Affairs Spokesman for the Liberal Democrats and he's in our Edinburgh 
studio.  Mr Campbell, however deeply Muslims feel their grievances we can't 
give them what we want can we because it would cut against our own interests 
and our own policies, I mean, simply taking the Palestinian/Israeli question, 
we cannot give them what they want.

MENZIES CAMPBELL:            Well I'm not sure about that 
because the Prime Minister after all, having seen Yasser Arafat this week 
talked about the need for the Palestinians to have justice and land and 
talked about the need for them to have a viable state and there is now 
a recognition, I think, in the United States for the first time the present 
administration has actually articulated a similar aspiration.  I think 
it is possible to achieve that but it will need a very substantial degree 
of compromise on both sides, which we have not so far seen.  

HUMPHRYS:                    And we're certain....

CAMPBELL:                    I beg your pardon.

HUMPHRYS:                    No I beg your pardon, 
do finish.

CAMPBELL:                    Yes, I was going to say 
I suspect it is only the United States, perhaps with some assistance from 
the United Kingdom, that's in a position to exercise that pressure on both 
sides.

HUMPHRYS:                    I was going to say the 
chance of compromise has disappeared hasn't it, after the murder of Al.....Mr 
Ze'evi, the Tourism Minister, Yasser Arafat has been told by the Israelis 
that unless he hands him over, that's it, they are not going to deal with 
him anymore, they are going to cut him off at the knees.

CAMPBELL:                    Well that wouldn't make 
very sense, Shimon Peres the Foreign Minister and the Israeli Government 
said only  a fortnight ago that if you were going to do any kind of deal 
with the Palestinians, then you had to do it through Yasser Arafat.  Part 
of the problem is that Mr Arafat is nominally the leader of the Palestinians, 
but his own position is not all that strong for a variety of reasons, that's 
why, for example, it was the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine 
that carried out the assassination of the Tourism Minister, because they 
don't want to see any kind of accommodation between Israel and the Palestinians.

HUMPHRYS:                    So it would kill the 
peace process if the Israelis were to follow up that threat.

CAMPBELL:                    Well it most certainly 
would and one of the things the Prime Minister said, which struck a chord 
with me and I hope with many others in the course of the last week or so, 
was to say generations, far too many generations of young people on both 
sides have grown up with this threat hanging over them.  If succeeding 
generations are to have any hope of a peaceful existence then a serious 
effort has got to be made to try and reach some resolution.  There is one 
problem though which is worth pointing out and that's this there's, what 
I sometimes call the crisis of expectation, we were here after all rather 
similarly at the time of the Gulf War with President Bush's father and, 
although there was no linkage and great efforts were made to say there 
was no linkage, there was a tacit understanding that as soon as Saddam 
Hussein had been expelled from Kuwait, then serious efforts would be made 
in the Middle East and there were some efforts.  There was the Madrid Conference 
and then the Oslo Peace Agreement but the problem is, that after the Oslo 
Peace Agreement, most Palestinians are very much worse off than they were 
before and if we talk about doing something about this, and then don't 
deliver, then, of course, the position will be very  much worse in the 
future than it was before. 

HUMPHRYS:                    Indeed, and that's one 
problem, the other is Iraq, they want a more lenient approach, the Arab 
world wants a more lenient approach towards Iraq, the reality is we may 
well take a much more stern approach towards Iraq, we may indeed attack 
them again for all the reasons that we are aware of, so that is another 
respect in which we cannot give the Arabs what they want.

CAMPBELL:                    Well I was among those 
who was rather critical of some loose talk about extending the military 
action to Iraq, I think if there was any question of that and there is 
some suggestion in the American Administration, there are still those who 
believe it is necessary, if there was any question of that without any 
credible evidence, then I think it would be a very substantial mistake, 
because, as one of your contributors pointed out a little earlier, there's 
not much sympathy for Saddam Hussein but there's huge sympathy for the 
Iraqi people, because of course it is they who have faced the brunt of 
the effect of the sanctions. Now to be fair to the British Government, 
along with the Dutch, they put together United Nations Security Council 
Resolution 12 04, which said that the non-military sanctions could be lifted, 
after, or suspended, after a period of ninety days, if Saddam Hussein  
would allow the return of the inspectorate. And that was a difficult resolution 
to achieve, but it was achieved. The problem is that Saddam Hussein simply 
refuses to co-operate because from his point of view, the more he can maintain 
the fiction that it is the sanctions and the sanctions alone which are 
causing the trouble to his people, then the stronger his position is.

HUMPHRYS:                    Just a final yes or no 
answer, no bombing pause against Afghanistan? Yes or no, if you would.

CAMPBELL:                    I'm afraid not, I understand 
those who call for it, but the best thing we can do is to press on with 
the campaign, at the same time making a maximum humanitarian effort.

HUMPHRYS:                    Ming Campbell, thank 
you very much indeed.