The Darkest Hour of the Soul

Hanan Ashrawi is commissioner of information and public policy for the Arab League, an elected member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, and the founder and head of the Palestinian Independent Commission on Citizens’ Rights. Ashrawi received a doctorate in medieval and comparative literature from the University of Virginia. Her book This Side of Peace offers a candid insider’s view of Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations and the obstacles to genuine resolution of the bitter conflict in the Middle East.

Earlier this year, Ashrawi visited Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, to give a lecture in the college’s annual January Series. Calvin’s president, Gaylen Byker, spoke with her then.

Could you start by giving us your description of the current situation?

The current situation is difficult to assess or to diagnose because you never know where you’re heading next. And you cannot judge if you’re locked in the day-to-day situation, because then you lose sight of a more long-term strategic view. But it looks like we are witnessing the darkest hour of the soul in Palestine. It’s not just an escalation of violence. It’s not just a total devaluation of human rights and lives. It’s not just an occupation that has gone beyond any legal or political limits or any type of restraints.

What we are seeing is a double victimization of the Palestinians—where the victim is blamed, again; where we are all maligned and labeled as terrorists and therefore anything that happens to us is something we somehow deserve. At the same time, we don’t see that there is any way out. We don’t see third-party intervention, we don’t see a willingness to provide observers, monitors, protection. And we don’t see a political alternative that would work.

What do you think has made it worse this time around?

First, you have an Israeli government that is made up of a combination of the most extremist elements, representing both the political hard-liners and the religious fundamentalist parties in Israel. And at the head of this government is Ariel Sharon, a person who has been indicted for war crimes, crimes against humanity, somebody who’s been held responsible for massacres. This government has no vision. There is only the escalation of violence with the erroneous assumption that you can somehow, with the use of force, bring a whole nation to its knees. That you can, in a sense, subdue the will of a people by escalating violence, by battering and bashing them into submission, by killing more people, carrying out a policy of collective punitive measures, a siege that has destroyed our economy, the very fabric of our lives. And with a total lack of awareness that such escalations only produce greater volatility and violence.

You’ve said you don’t see any way forward. I was going to ask, what impact does the current situation have on the prospects for peace?

That’s the point. To go forward we need protection, monitors, third-party intervention in a positive way. And, of course, a genuine political alternative. And this is not going to come from Israel. It will only come through intervention. When Secretary of State Powell made his speech about ending the occupation, about establishing a Palestinian state, about ending punitive measures and lifting the siege, we thought that we glimpsed a political option. What we need is to translate that into action, into concrete steps. That has failed, unfortunately. And in the post-September 11 universe it has become more difficult to address issues of human rights, issues of national liberation movements, and so on. Israel has managed to monopolize the discourse and to present its own version, it’s own spin, replacing policy with a public discourse that has nothing to do with reality.

What do you see as the role of violence on both sides in escalating the conflict?

Clearly there is no military solution. Violence only aggravates the situation and claims more innocent victims. And this has to apply to both sides, despite the imbalance in power. The occupied are being held accountable, are being told that they have to take whatever Israel dishes out but there must be no response, otherwise we’ll be labeled as the culprits while Israel is in a state of self-defense. I’ve never seen an occupation described as a state of self-defense.

This cycle of violence has its causes, of course, in the occupation itself. Not in any sort of genetic or cultural attribute, as if Palestinians were born violent and Israelis are wonderful, innocent people. The fundamental reality is a very lethal situation, a very abnormal situation, a situation of occupation, and that has to be addressed.

Do you think that suicide bombing is a legitimate form of resistance?

No, not all. I think suicide bombing is the weapon of the desperate. And I often wonder, what would drive individuals to such a point as to transform themselves into instruments of death, willing to die and take others with them. What kind of mindset, what kind of emotional or mental state would drive persons to do these things? Particularly given the fact that historically, our culture is not a suicidal culture; historically, the incidence of suicide among Palestinians has been very low.

Suicide bombing is an extreme measure, a new way to make a statement that claims other innocent lives. In this sense, I feel that the suicide bomber is a double victim. Most suicide bombers who have left messages claim they are inspired by the need for revenge. And in turn, these bombings create greater hostility and greater feelings of revenge among the Israelis. So here we are locked in a cycle of revenge.

Every time there’s a period of quiet, during which the Palestinians somehow manage not to respond to anything that Israel does, you end up with an act of deliberate and willful and timed escalation, such as the assassination of a leader. And that is like an invitation for the young people to respond, to take revenge. This cycle has locked us all in prisons, both peoples, and we can’t get away.

If there were to be peace between Israel and Palestine, what would it look like?

To me the final result would be the two-state solution. We have accepted the 1967 boundaries, which would mean a Palestinian state that would include only 22 percent of the Palestinian homeland. That is a major historical compromise. To accept the two-state solution means that our homeland is a thing of the past. We make the distinction between a homeland and a state—that we did have all of Palestine, and we no longer do. And you cannot go back and say, I will claim all of Palestine. When we accepted UN resolutions 242 and 338 as the basis of negotiations, we said that we accepted the existence of Israel on 78 percent of historical Palestine, and that we would build our state on the remaining 22 percent, which is the West Bank including Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip. That would mean that you would have two states living side by side, hopefully as good neighbors. We need to have a democratic state, a contemporary state in Palestine, a state that will respect the rule of law and the rights of all its citizens—and thus will be an agent for change in the region.

That was our dream, our expectation. Unfortunately right now we are seeing a real deterioration. Sharon’s policies are designed to prevent a viable Palestinian state with territorial contiguity.

What do you think the Israelis would have to do differently to achieve the kind of long-term change you envisioned?

Actually I think the Israelis are missing a historical opportunity. The two-state solution is a genuine compromise. But to recognize this, they must change their understanding of security. You cannot make “security” a precondition for peace. A just peace will bring about security for both peoples. No nation can enslave another whole nation and expect to be secure.

Some people have argued that the peace plan that was offered by Barak was a great missed opportunity on the part of the Palestinians. How do you respond to that?

First, Barak never presented anything in writing anyway, so I would defy anybody to show me a “peace plan.” Various proposals were being discussed orally and were shifting daily. From what I can gather from all the different discussions and minutes and so on, it was very clear that Barak entered the negotiations with the idea that he knew what was best for Israel and what was best for the Palestinians. Therefore he thought he could impose a unilateral solution exploiting the objective weakness of the Palestinians, attempting first of all to gain retroactive legitimacy for the settlements by saying, ok, we will dismantle isolated settlements but we will annex three settlement blocks. Which meant that any peace agreement would violate international law. Second, it meant that Israel would refuse to acknowledge the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war, because according to Barak’s “plan” Israel would retain West Bank territory.

The injustice of this acquisition, we believe, is not a question of amount or degree. You don’t say, Well, to steal 100 percent of somebody else’s land or wealth or whatever makes you a thief, but if you steal only 80 percent—or if you give back part of what you took—that’s OK. We believe a just peace requires a return to the 1967 boundaries. It would not permit the planting of settlements that would fragment the West Bank, leading to the re-creation of isolated reservations with no territorial contiguity and with no viability for the state.

And, of course, Jerusalem was a major issue. There is what I call the “onion” theory, where you peel Jerusalem and stop at the layer that you like. We said no, Jerusalem is not an onion, you don’t peel off the Muslim and the Christian layers and then stop with the Jewish layer. Why not go on peeling to the Roman and the Greek and the Canaanite layers and so on? No, Jerusalem has to be taken as a city in its entirety, as a human heritage with no exclusive claims. All claims to the city must be dealt with and be resolved according to political and legal means, not according to ideological means. Because spiritual adherence to a city doesn’t give you the right to claim sovereignty over that city and to violate international law.

Finally, there is the matter of the Palestinian refugees. We have now about 5 million Palestinian refugees. As part of the peace process, Israel wanted us to relinquish the rights of the Palestinian refugees, abandoning UN resolution 194, which gives them the right to return—the very resolution that was the basis for recognition of the state of Israel and its admission to the UN. That is, recognition of Israel as a state was contingent on allowing the Palestinian refugees to return.

We said in the negotiations that we cannot deprive the Palestinian refugees of their national and legal and historical rights. It’s not up to us. Nobody can legitimately do that. And in any case, the exclusion of 5 million refugees from any peace agreement would guarantee its failure, because the excluded would continue the struggle.

The issue of the refugees is not a matter that affects Israel and Palestine alone—it engulfs the whole region. It’s an element of destabilization. How can you force hundreds of thousands of refugees on Lebanon, on Syria, on Jordan? They have rights like all other refugees. We don’t see why Palestinians should be treated differently from all other refugees, so that if you happen to be Palestinian or non-Jewish, you don’t have the right to return to the lands from which you were expelled.

We said we’d be willing to resolve this problem in three steps. First, Israel has to accept historical culpability, accept responsibility for the plight of the refugees, which means setting the historical record straight. Second, Israel must accept the right of return as required by UN resolution 194. Only then can we begin negotiating the implementation.

And what do you think the Palestinians would have to do differently to achieve a peace of the type you have described?

Right now it’s extremely difficult. I think we’re witnessing the end of an era. Sharon clearly has his way. He is monopolizing the discourse. He has even hijacked American foreign policy when it comes to our part of the world. And he is determined to destroy President Arafat and the Palestinian Authority, the infrastructure and institutions and any symbol or sign of sovereignty that the Palestinians have. Sharon is busy unraveling the modest gains of a flawed peace process and at the same time ensuring that there will be a complete Palestinian collapse. They’re starting of course to design a whole new leadership for the Palestinians that would be tailor-made to suit Israeli needs. That is not going to happen, because over decades of occupation there has never been a collaborating regime in Palestine that accepts Israel’s view of reality and what’s good for Israel as over and above what’s good for the Palestinians. But the attempt will be very destructive.

I see Sharon as the bulldozer, moving ahead, dealing death and destruction not just to the Palestinians but to the chances of peace in the future and to the stability of the whole region. I think there has to be serious intervention. Such a mentality has to be curbed. You cannot continue. Ultimately, I think that there will be peace, but we have to survive the current period, which is an attempt at destroying the foundations of peace and trust and confidence between both peoples.

One of the ultimate goals of groups like Hamas is to take back all of Palestine and reoccupy the land. Is that a goal shared by most Palestinians?

No, no. Only a minority of Palestinians support groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad. It’s true that they are becoming more vocal and probably gaining more adherents because ideological extremism on one side encourages its counterpart on the other side. The more theological the Israelis are in their claims, the more absolutist, the more they encourage the people like Hamas and Islamic Jihad on our side.

According to the polls, the vast majority of Palestinians have accepted the two-state solution, with the 1967 boundaries, and the vast majority still maintain that the only solution is a peaceful solution. But they find themselves trapped because they’re on the receiving end of unrelenting violence and shelling and killing and starvation. I’ve never seen the situation so bad, where people have no rights whatsoever. It’s open season on Palestinians.

Do you think that the fact that you’re a Christian affects your perception of the situation or your role in it in a distinct way?

It could, but perhaps not in very overt ways. Maybe in terms of the way I was raised, in terms of my community, but I work within a civil society, and whether the people I represent are Christian or Muslim, they have the same principles. The divide is not along religious lines. It’s a question of commitment to the principles of peace and democracy and human rights and justice. But we have very active local Palestinian churches, which have been supported by the global churches, particularly through the World Council of Churches. There’s a very strong movement of liberation theology in the churches here, a peace and justice movement that has made a difference in the collective ethos of the Palestinians in ways that are greater than their numbers would suggest.

Roughly what percentage of the Palestinians are Christians?

We started out with 20 percent, but we have only about 4 percent or perhaps even 3 percent by now. The percentage of Christians among Palestinians outside Palestine is much higher, but in Palestine the numbers continue to dwindle, and this is really alarming. After all, we are the longest-standing Christian community in the world. It would be tragic if the Palestinian church were to disappear.

Much of your work involves building civil society and the organizations and institutions that are the basis of that kind of society. Where do you see that development going in the next generation?

I think it’s our only hope in Palestine, because the legacy of the revolution has not been transformed into nation-building. Historically, we in Palestine under occupation have relied on our own will to build our institutions with NGOs. We built our own universities, we built our own system of government, even under occupation. That has been the backbone of Palestinian society. When the Palestinian Authority was established, there was a conflict between the authority and the institutions of civil society. The atttitude toward the NGOs was, there’s a government now, we don’t need you. And we kept saying, no, you need civil society more than ever because this is the only safeguard for democracy and pluralism and the very fabric of our society.

The Palestinian Authority made a serious mistake in thinking that you can superimpose the mentality of revolution on government. As a result, there’s a disillusionment with political parties and factional politics. But what we hope to do is build a new type of political pluralism with genuine political parties that are not the remnants of military factions—parties that will address issues of social justice and good government and inclusive, active democracy.

Gaylen Byker is the president of Calvin College.