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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.
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