WRMEA, August 2010, Pages 59-60

Waging Peace

Ashrawi Charges Netanyahu With Stifling U.S. Peace Efforts

The current lack of unity between Palestinians should not be used as an excuse for inaction, said Dr. Hanan Ashrawi. All Palestinians yearn for freedom and self-determination. (Photo Courtesy Mawish Raza, MEI)

ON MAY 15 the Middle East Institute in Washington, DC hosted consummate diplomat and activist Dr. Hanan Ashrawi. The first woman to be elected as a member of the PLO's Executive Committee, Ashrawi presented a disturbing analysis of the current state of affairs in Israel-Palestine. Despite a surge in optimism and excitement following President Barack Obama's Cairo speech, the prospects for peace on the one year anniversary of that historic event appear increasingly gloomy, Ashrawi said.

The reorientation of strategic and foreign policy doctrines under Obama has unfortunately coincided with a reorientation of the Israeli electorate to the right of the political spectrum, she noted. The current parliamentary coalition follows the hard-line ideological views of Likud, Yisrael Beitnu, and Shas. According to Ashrawi, the coalition is not "conducive to peace, to mutual trust, or to any kind of accommodation." These parties, their representatives, and their leader, Binyamin Netanyahu, have shown only a willingness to dig their heels in further regarding the occupation, she said.

Netanyahu and his stubborn adherence to the coalition's views have stifled all efforts by the Obama administration to make progress. "Netanyahu somehow managed to hijack the public agenda...[and] the U.S. was seen to be helpless before Israeli violations and Israeli unilateral actions," Ashrawi explained. Even significant changes in the American strategic perspective have failed to overpower Netanyahu, she pointed out.

Linkages between the resolution of the conflict and American national security interests have been highlighted by key officials in the administration and in the Pentagon, including Gen. David Petraeus and National Security Adviser Gen. James Jones. These linkages were famously brushed aside by Netanyahu, however, during Vice President Biden's tour of Israel. Instead of responding like a true ally and grateful beneficiary, Ashrawi said, Netanyahu arrogantly and defiantly intimated that "[Israeli] avarice trumps [American] national interests."

Ashrawi continued her sobering discussion by highlighting the unfortunate tendency to repeat the mistakes of the past. "We ended up with a process for its own sake, totally abstracted with no relation to reality, no impact on behavior on the ground, and no credibility or legitimacy for those engaged in that process," she said. In addition, there has been a preference for a "gradual, functional" approach that easily descends into technical, side issues rather than dealing with final status or core issues. Neither of these trends, Ashrawi argued, is worth continuing; in fact, both are destined to derail prospects for peace. "We started the [peace] process for good reason," she said, "for the devolution of occupation and the evolution of statehood; however, what we got was the evolution of occupation and the devolution of statehood."

Ashrawi emphasized in particular the immediate need for an end to all settlement activity, which "threatens the territorial viability and contiguity of a Palestinian state." She presented this as the first part of a triple-tiered approach. Along with a halt to all settlement construction, incursions, and siege by the Israelis, she recommended that state-building exercises be continued and advanced, and that a simultaneous political framework be developed. The latter, Ashrawi said, must focus on concrete issues and take place within a well-defined timeline.

The legislator went on to affirm the right of the Palestinians to resist Israeli occupation and to redefine resistance as the nature of the occupation changes. She highlighted the value of nonviolent methods, including a robust Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign. "The occupation has to become costly [because] for all these years it has been very profitable for Israel," Ashrawi reasoned.

Along with protest movements, civil disobedience and BDS, she remarked on the need for "carrying out a system of legal and judicial accountability." If the political will to end the occupation is absent, she noted, then it is the responsibility of the public to express the legal, judicial, and popular will to "hold the occupation accountable and to expose it for what it is."

Acknowledging that the Palestinians have work to do as well, Ashrawi noted that the Palestinian divide between Gaza and the West Bank,between Fatah and Hamas, is a major problem. However, she argued, the divide is itself an outcome of the "abnormal and tainted situation under" occupation. While the lack of unity between the major Palestinian political factions is problematic, she said, it should not be used as an excuse not to engage and take rapid, concrete steps to end the occupation. "We are for a Palestinian cause that has not lost its integrity and its substance. We are yearning for freedom, for self-determination—these are noble causes and objectives and we have to pursue them with full support—these are unifying themes," she explained.

Dr. Ashrawi concluded her discussion with a stern warning. Expediency was of the utmost importance, she said, considering the rapidly disappearing opportunity for a viable two-state solution and the continuity of a leadership that is committed to a negotiated peace settlement. The pairing of Abu Mazen (President Mahmoud Abbas) and Salam Fayyad and their deep-seated desire for a politically negotiated peace "is not an open ended proposition."

—Andrew Blakely