Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, November 2003, pages 30-31

Special Report

Hanan Ashrawi Assures Californians That Palestinians Won't Emigrate or Evaporate

By Pat McDonnell Twair

In the space of one August week Dr. Hanan Ashrawi, visiting Southern California, managed to deliver three major speeches, address 10 organizations and meet with the editorial board of the Los Angeles Times. Throughout her whirlwind tour, the articulate scholar reinvigorated California audiences whose spirits have been dampened by news of three years of unbridled Israeli assassinations, incursions, house demolitions and curfews.

Among her recurrent themes were the necessity to end Israeli occupation of Palestinian land, multinational intervention, Palestinian elections, release of political prisoners, a just solution to the refugee problem and dismantlement of the Apartheid Wall.

Dr. Ashrawi, whose U.S. visit was sponsored by the Friends of Beir Zeit in Chicago and American Friends for Palestine in Southern California, also addressed the plight of malnourished Palestinian children targeted by Israeli soldiers.

A poignant scene at her Aug. 23 speech at the Hyatt Regency in Garden Grove was the introduction of wounded Palestinian children receiving medical care in local hospitals courtesy of the Palestine Children's Relief Fund (PCRF). Since its inception in 1991, PCRF has brought 251 injured children to the U.S. for treatment. With the aid of a translator, the wheelchair-bound youngsters described the circumstances of their deliberate shooting by Israeli soldiers.

After a resounding ovation from the crowd of 800, Dr. Ashrawi declared it is unacceptable for any military force or individual to target women and children. Of the 2,500 fatalities in Gaza and the West Bank since the onset of the current intifada, however, one-third have been children, she said.

"It is the utmost form of racism for Israelis to claim we use our children as human shields or suicidal targets," she emphasized. "Nor," she continued, "does this systematic murder of Palestinian youth give Palestinians license to kill Israeli children."

Militarism and unilateralism have triumphed over a global emphasis on peace, Ashrawi said, and Israel embodies unilateralism as it attacks Palestinians without accountability.

In a thoughtful assessment of the post-9/11 era, when the U.S. lost its so-called innocence, Dr. Ashrawi said concern with the roots of terrorism has given way to a simplistic reductivism: "you're either with us or against us."

"When the causes of injustice are not addressed, but the issue is viewed as good versus evil, we are bringing God into this," she elaborated. "Once we introduce Divine Right, the conflict becomes one between divinities, and it is insoluble."

Arab states drew the wrong conclusion when the U.S. launched its pre-emptive strike against Iraq, Ashrawi argued, by assuming they must stay on Washington's good side or expect American troops invading their borders.

According to Ashrawi, a new dynamic has surfaced in the region: the U.S. now is a Middle Eastern power and occupier.

"Israel is trying to forge a new partnership with the U.S.," she pointed out, "by portraying both as occupiers using similar methods to subdue terrorists."

Turning to the devastation wreaked by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, she stated: "For the past three years, we have been in a fatal embrace trying to inflict as much damage as possible on each other. Power is in the hands of the Israelis and it is suicidal for Palestinians to fight the overwhelming occupation by military means.

"We are the only people on Earth asked to guarantee the security of our occupier," Ashrawi stated, "while Israel is the only country that calls for defense from its victims.

"The Israeli concept that security is its exclusive right," she went on, "somehow generates the U.S.-enforced notion that the Palestinians are obligated to deliver security to the Israelis while Israel delivers death and destruction with impunity to the Palestinians.

"Extremism in Israel comes from the government," she explained, "while extremism among Palestinians comes from individuals. Collective resistance is what the Palestinians do best, but every time they organize a popular protest, it is met with absolute brutality."

Israel does not want the violence to calm down, Ashrawi asserted. Whenever Palestinian attacks abate, Israel plows a massive missile into the home or vehicle of a Palestinian leader—200 of whom have been slaughtered since October 2000, along with many more bystanders.

Israel calls the shots, Ashrawi noted, and the Palestinians are blamed for them: "We need help and a genuine accountability on the part of Israel."

An Editorial Encounter

Dr. Ashrawi reiterated her plea when she met with eight Los Angeles Times editors Aug. 26, explaining that third-party intervention is crucial to ending the conflict.

The CIA's John Wolfe and 12 inspectors are incapable of monitoring 64 Israeli checkpoints and keeping track of mushrooming illegal settlements, she told the journalists. "We must have enough outside troops to enforce a real separation."

One bemused editor, noting that the U.S. already has 150,000 troops in Iraq, inquired how many American soldiers Ashrawi was proposing to make up a peacekeeping force in the occupied territories.

"We already are occupied—we don't want another occupation," she quickly replied. "We will welcome a multinational force that can enforce an Israeli withdrawal to pre-'67 borders."

Another editor asked how a Palestinian state, were it to exist, could survive if its people no longer were a labor force in Israel.

"We can employ our laborers," Ashrawi responded. "Our people don't need to work in Israel. Israel wants to occupy us militarily, but it doesn't want to run the infrastructure."

Many of the Times questions focused on Hamas, particularly on why the Palestinian Authority hasn't distanced itself from the radical Muslim organization.

"The PA isn't strong enough," she explained. "Hamas still has institutions. Whenever a Hamas bomb explodes, Sharon blows up PA institutions. There is a need to restructure the institutions of the government, not just the jails. Hamas must understand violence is the wrong solution to end our suffering."

The former PA minister of higher education and research said she urged Arafat's first appointed prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas, to prepare for new elections as soon as possible. However, she cautioned, basic conditions must be met. "How can people living under curfew get to the polls?" she asked.

Reforms are being carried out within the PA, Ashrawi pointed out, most notably in the Ministry of Finance under Salam Fayed. A Presidential and Prime Ministerial Commission was empowered to draft a constitution, but is unable to meet with its constituents.

"It is amazing how much the Palestinians can tolerate economic deprivation. It is the imprisonment that hurts," she said, referring to Israel's confinement of Palestinians to their their town and city limits. "This is not a security siege," she charged, "it's a punitive siege."

In an Aug. 27 address to the Los Angeles World Affairs Council, Dr. Ashrawi maintained that the hard-line military government of Ariel Sharon exploits Israelis' fears in order to remain in power. Incursions, devastation of the Palestinian infrastructure, and efforts to eradicate the Palestinian spirit and identity have backfired, she said.

The road map, drawn up by the U.S., United Nations, European Union and Russia, calls for a phased approach to a Palestinian state, but has been stuck in its first phase, Ashrawi noted. She described the present situation as one in which the Palestinians must deliver nonviolence, while the Israelis pursue assassinations, settlement expansion, sieges, isolation and the erection of the Apartheid Wall fragmenting the Palestinian population into eight Bantustans.

"Settlers and soldiers are on both sides of the wall," she pointed out, "so it is not a defensive wall, but it will destroy any chance of a viable Palestinian state. Some have said if the occupation doesn't end within a year, there will be no two-state solution. Others say it already is a pipe dream."

Israel has failed to release political prisoners, as stipulated in the road map, she continued. Criminals or men whose jail terms were completed were released, she said, but not the 5,000 prisoners of conscience.

Peace will not come without a just settlement of the refugee problem, Ashrawi stated, and recommended a three-stage implementation.

The first is to recognize the historical narrative and plight of the 5.5 million Palestinians in the diaspora. Second is recognition of the right of return as outlined by U.N. Resolution 194. Ashrawi identified the final hurdle as negotiating the right of return.

The situation of Palestinians living in camps in Lebanon is critical, she emphasized, and could lead to regional instability. Lebanon has refused to absorb three generations of refugees who have no rights and exist in a "cruel limbo," she noted.

Elections are in order, Ashrawi insisted, saying, "we need to make room for new leaders." President Arafat controls finances and the security forces, but he no longer is in charge of all the money. Serious reforms are underway, she told the audience, but Arafat has a constituency and was elected by the people. "However," she lamented, "people in power in the Arab World don't know the meaning of a graceful exit."

"Our goal isn't outrageous," Ashrawi concluded. "We simply want to live in dignity on our own land, see a just solution for the refugees, and closure to 55 years of injustice and denial of our own existence."

Evidence of Israel's deliberate policy to crush Palestinians' collective memory of the past and claims to the future is its systematic attacks on the infrastructure of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and its obliteration of hard discs in the ministries of education and statistics.

"Some misguided Israelis believe that if they make life unbearable for us, we'll leave. No Palestinian is ready to go into exile or commit collective suicide," she said to a standing ovation. "We are here to stay," she vowed.

Pat McDonnell Twair is a free-lance writer based in Los Angeles.

SIDEBAR

The Personal Side of a National Treasure

There is no doubt that Hanan Ashrawi is the living symbol of Palestinian national and female liberation. When one is privileged to engage her in a private conversation, however, it is clear that she shares the same concerns of wives and mothers the world over. They are simply compounded by the fact that she is living in a war zone.

On her most recent trip to the U.S., Ashrawi was accompanied by her husband, Emile. The graying, urbane Emile watches his wife with pride as she eloquently answers hostile questions or inspires huge audiences to rise in standing ovations. One American bystander observing the middle-aged couple commented, "I hear they had quite a love affair when they met."

It seems they still do.

Ashrawi mentions her two young daughters in her memoir, This Side of Peace, so it is surprising to hear her say that Amal is married and Zeina is in graduate school.

"Well, little girls do grow up," she noted.

Amal's wedding was a traumatic experience in that she returned to Ramallah in April 2002 to prepare for her upcoming nuptials just as Ariel Sharon's forces invaded the city. The Ashrawi home is directly across the street from Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's compound.

"Concussions from the artillery blew out each of the 80 window panes in our home," Ashrawi exclaimed. "In fact, we had to replace them four different times in two months."

As the bombing and destruction continued, a distraught Amal lost weight and three dress sizes, so that by her June 21 wedding day, she was swimming in her size 2 gown.

Her determined parents did not allow the havoc surrounding them spoil their daughter's wedding, however. And life goes on—their latest concern is selecting the safest car for daughter Zeina.

The former spokesperson for the Palestinian negotiating team at Madrid admits to a smoking addiction and takes pride in her recent success at cutting the habit. Although she laments at having gained a few pounds, she says she never will pick up a cigarette again.

The same proud expression adorns her face as she recounts to Los Angeles Times editors her accomplishments as the Palestinian Authority's minister of higher education and research.

"Those were the best years in 1996 after the elections," she recalled. "I built a ministry from nothing. All job appointments were approved by recruitment committees. The PA refused to give me money because I wouldn't accept unqualified people it sent me. Eventually, I went broke for refusing to be corrupt. I couldn't build a ministry in isolation, nor solely from funds from the outside."

Asked how she gets along with Arafat these days, Ashrawi replied, "We coexist in amicable disagreement. I tell him openly what I think. I am told I exasperate him, but I deal with him honestly and directly."

—P.McD.T.