Hanan Ashrawi Mixtape

Speaker 1: A triumphant homecoming today for the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas. Abbas was greeted by cheering crowds in Ramallah fresh off his trip to the United Nations, where he demanded that Palestine be recognized as a state, a move that is vigorously opposed by both President Obama and the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who on Friday called for direct negotiations right now.

Speaker 2: We've both just flown thousands of miles to New York. Now we're in the same city.

Speaker 3: We're in the same building.

Speaker 4: If we genuinely want peace, what is there to stop us from meeting today and beginning peace negotiations?

Speaker 1: And joining me now, Hanan Ashrawi, a top Palestinian negotiator. Thank you for being with us.

Speaker 4: Thank you, Christiane. It's good to be here.

Speaker 1: So it's really good to have you to talk about this really important issue.

Speaker 3: Absolutely.

Speaker 1: Is there a day after? President Abbas did what he did. The prime minister of Israel has said, come on, let's talk. Let's not wave papers around. Is there negotiations in the offing?

Speaker 4: Well, you know what we've been doing for the last 20 years? We've been negotiating, Christiane. We've been negotiating ad nauseam with a process that had no relationship to reality.

Speaker 3: That's the problem.

Speaker 1: So what happens now, though? Now we're in a new situation.

Speaker 3: Now negotiations are not an objective. They are a means.

Speaker 4: And these have been a very flawed instrument. Either you fix the tool, the instrument, or you find alternatives. So if you negotiate and you buy Israel time to create unilateral facts, to build more settlements, to steal more land, it is in danger of destroying the whole— not just peace process, but the prospects of peace.

Speaker 1: The United States and its allies, the Quartet, UN, etc., have called for talks to start and to be concluded by the end of 2012. Is that remotely possible?

Speaker 4: Look, what's possible is— and we've said this very clearly— if Israel commits to the terms of reference, '67 by The 2-state solution, Jerusalem as the capital, and with a timeframe, binding timeframe, as well as cessation of all settlement activities. Israel talks about the 2-state solution, talks about talks, but is busy stealing the land. It has stolen over 40% of the West Bank. And it has annexed Jerusalem. And it has changed the terms of reference and the agenda.

Speaker 5: And you—

Speaker 4: So if they commit, we will negotiate. If they don't commit, then we have to look for alternatives, because this is the end of the 2-state solution. Look, Christiane, we've known each other for years. I'm not prone to hyperbole or lies or anything, but— and no panic politics. But when President Abbas said this is the moment of truth, this is it, because soon there will be no 2-state solution.

Speaker 1: So, people are concerned that he may have raised his people's expectations, that this is just going to deepen intransigence from the United States, from those opposed to these unilateral moves, and could lead to violence in the territory. Do you think that's possible?

Speaker 4: Look, the only unilateral moves are Israeli moves on the ground. The siege, the apartheid.

Speaker 1: But what do you think is going to be the reaction of the Palestinians?

Speaker 3: Sadness.

Speaker 4: No, the Palestinian people are very political, very astute, and they know. They know that this is a new phase. This is not the end of the road. This is the beginning of a new phase, that for 20 years we've seen more lives lost, more land lost, more freedoms lost, and Israel has maintained the enslavement of the whole Palestinian people. They want to see a change in the modus operandi. They want the Palestinian Not just identity, but rights to be vindicated and to be based on international law and international humanitarian law. If this doesn't happen, then the power politics of a brutal military occupation will prevail.

Speaker 1: Prime Minister Netanyahu, as you saw, said, let's talk now. One of the things he spoke very loudly about at the U.N. was recognize Israel as a Jewish state. If you want a Palestinian state, fine; recognize Israel as a Jewish state.

Speaker 4: Look, look, we recognized Israel in '93.

Speaker 6: Will the Palestinians do that?

Speaker 1: Because the Quartet's even talked about that.

Speaker 4: We recognized Israel in '93.

Speaker 6: Huh?

Speaker 4: If Israel wants to change its name, it has to go to the Security Council or whatever and ask everybody that's recognized it to recognize it again as a Jewish state. We want a Palestinian state that is pluralistic, inclusive and tolerant. I don't want an Islamic state or a Christian state. Why should I want a Jewish state? But at the same time, look, in Israel there are Palestinians who are Christians and Muslims. And when we say Jewish state, it means not only are they legitimately discriminated against, but that the Palestinian refugees have no right to return. Now, if Israel wants to call itself a Jewish state, then it has to go the proper procedures to change its name. But we recognized it already. How come we're the only people who are asked to re-recognize Israel?

Speaker 1: But you know very well— and I know we're not going to negotiate this now— but the whole issue of return is a big issue, and they won't all be allowed to go into Israel.

Speaker 3: You see, that's the problem.

Speaker 4: Israel has placed so many preconditions. It wants to annex Jerusalem. It wants to— remove the refugees from the agenda. It wants to keep its troops in the Jordan Valley. It wants to control our—

Speaker 3: it wants everything.

Speaker 4: And it wants to annex all the settlement clusters and then says, let's talk.

Speaker 2: No.

Speaker 4: These are unacceptable preconditions. Either you negotiate in good faith and act accordingly in order to achieve the 2-state solution, or this option will no longer be available, particularly given the Arab Spring. This is a new phase. This is a new region, and it's a new ballgame, and they should understand the significance.

Speaker 1: And we'll keep watching it. Complicated issue as ever. Hanan Ashrawi, thank you very much indeed for joining us.

Speaker 5: Welcome to A Conversation with History. I'm Harry Kreisler of the Institute of International Studies. Our distinguished guest today is Dr. Hanan Mikali Ashrawi, the distinguished Palestinian leader and the 2000 Sanford S.L. Berg Lecturer at UC Berkeley. Dr. Ashrawi, welcome to Berkeley.

Hanan Ashrawi: Thank you.

Speaker 2: It's good to be here, Hala.

Speaker 5: How did your parents shape your character?

Speaker 2: Other than biologically, I think? Well, I talked about my parents as being sort of 2 legacies. I described them as my mother from the lavender legacy and my father the jasmine legacy.

Speaker 5: And by that you meant?

Speaker 2: Well, my mother was more of a sort of a product of a British Victorian tradition. My father was very much a Palestinian sort of peasant tradition, even though he was a doctor. And both of them, I think, shaped my character in terms of, first, the intellect, in that my father was a humanist, but a person who wrote a great deal, who had a love for the language and the word, and also a commitment to the Palestinian My mother in terms of the emotion, the warmth, the homemaking, as well as a woman who was a pioneer in her own right, actually. So the sense of daring as well.

Speaker 5: And among all of the things that your father gave you, he also was a man who spoke for women's rights. In your book, you say, in the 1920s, your father wrote, women deserve equality by right and not as a gift condescendingly bestowed by men.

Speaker 2: That's true. Yes, my father has always been ahead of his time. And it's hard to think of him as dead, but he certainly contributed to the general intellectual debate in Palestine— political, human and social. He was a firm believer and practitioner of social justice and a sense of individual commitment. He also, even before— as I said, before he got married and had 5 daughters, he was a firm believer in women's rights and an outspoken critic of those who felt that social justice can be postponed because we're facing national issues. And he always said— another famous statement of his is, liberate yourself, you liberate the land. It's that we— can always find others to blame, whether it's the British mandate or whatever, but we have to be our own sort of force for reform and for justice.

Speaker 5: You write, from your childhood, I took memories of family picnics, of games and jokes, and a special reverence from words— for words.

Speaker 2: For words, absolutely. In a sense, both my parents had this Affinity for language. My father wrote, as I said. My mother was also a very avid reader, and she discussed things. But I could see the magic of— even when I was 3 or even younger— of the mystery of books, of my sisters being able to open books and sort of solve the mystery of words, of language. And I was fascinated.

Speaker 8: Right.

Speaker 2: That people could do that, and that not just the spoken, but the written language opens worlds for you. And I, in a sense, that always stayed with me. That's why I started at a very early age, and I never stopped.

Speaker 5: And your father took you seriously as a writer from an early age, and took you aside and said, keep a notebook with you all the time, and offered correct— Warm suggestions about how you might improve your work.

Speaker 4: Yes.

Speaker 2: Actually, what he did was— I don't know whether this was, again, a sort of common book, but he always said, whatever you see, whatever strikes you, whatever thought, idea, whatever you've read, write it down at the moment, record it. And then I used to discuss what I've written with him. And he also encouraged me to read. So, in a sense, it wasn't just a passive relationship with language. It was very active, is that I had to capture it, and I had to use my own perceptions, my own words, in order to convey it.

Speaker 3: And we—

Speaker 2: he took time out of his very, very busy schedule as a doctor, who, by the way, responded to every call, day and night, to take time off to talk to his youngest daughter, you know, even before I was 10.

Speaker 3: Right.

Speaker 2: On issues of style, of language, and of substance, and of humanity.

Speaker 5: As any reader of your book will discover, This Side of Peace, you became a magnificent writer, and not in a scholarly sense, because often academic work can be turgid and dry and so on, but your prose is absolutely Beautiful. And when do you think you found your voice as a writer most?

Speaker 2: I think I've never lost it. I think I started from the beginning. I mean, even when I was at school. It's not whether a writer becomes one when he or she is published and is read, or whether a writer is somebody who has a special relationship with language and the use of language. I think I've had it even when I was a child. I started writing I wrote a short story once about a panhandler or a beggar, and my father felt it was extremely sensitive. And he said, you know, you see things, you see beyond the surface, and you challenge the prevailing wisdom. And I think this has always been with me, and I always took it for granted. But unfortunately, reality always intrudes. I mean, you cannot have the luxury of doing what you want to do all the time.

Hanan Ashrawi: Right.

Speaker 2: Given my choice, I would much rather be an academic than a writer.

Speaker 5: Does writing come easily to you?

Speaker 2: Oh, yes.

Rashid Khalidi: Does it flow?

Speaker 2: Yes, yes. I wrote this book late at— I mean, in 4 or 5 months, writing every night after midnight, 2, 3 hours, in between doing lots of other things. But it was not cathartic. It was a source of achievement, and I felt that I had to be honest to that period. I had to record it. I had to state it. Otherwise, it would be distorted or usurped.

Speaker 5: And this book is— one main part of it is really about the peace process that you got involved in. But before we talk about that, I want to focus on this extent to which your Palestinian identity has shaped your writing. Or at least the extent to which you care very much about finding a voice for the Palestinian people through your words. Tell us a little about that.

Speaker 2: Yes, I think that since the creation of the State of Israel, or even before, Palestinians were conveniently dismissed from the consciousness of the world. Even though we were a nation that had a tremendous culture and heritage and literary output and creative output and music and so on, all of a sudden we found our life totally disrupted. And so we were always absent. We were always silenced. We were always invisible, so to speak, except as labels and stereotypes. And I felt that I had to give an authentic voice to a Palestinian reality that was constantly being distorted, subjected to other people's agendas and language. And we had to— from the beginning, I felt we had to use our own language. We had to present ourselves by ourselves. We had to stop what I described as the confiscation of our voice and our will, that we had to be there. And we had to gain an audience as a means of gaining credibility and establishing our presence, not in a defensive or apologetic way, but in a very human way, and to challenge people on their own terms and turf, so to speak.

Speaker 5: So, that words and language become very important to telling the story, which is really a way, a vehicle, for affirmation of a national identity.

Speaker 2: It is, certainly. We have an affinity for language as Arabs anyway, using Arabic.

Speaker 3: And—

Speaker 2: but you can never really separate the language from the identity or the mindset or the worldview, of course. How you use language is shaped by your perceptions, and the language that you use will shape also other perceptions. And I felt that a national identity finds the best expression in an honest use of a personal narrative, because we were abstracted, depersonalized. We were either numbers of victims, or we were, again, labeled in a very racist, stereotypical way. So the best way to do it is to challenge ignorance by telling the truth and through our humanity, using our own words.

Speaker 5: As part of a people who were stateless, you were able to You were carried forward into politics. You may not have chosen that. Tell us a little about how a political life, an active political life, became almost inevitable once you returned to your hometown on the West Bank, began teaching, became a dean of faculty, And suddenly wound up protecting your students, as one would expect in any liberal society.

Speaker 2: Well, I started my political life— I think I said the moment I was born. You are born as a Palestinian with a responsibility and a challenge. And being a Palestinian is something that's very controversial, something you can't take for granted. It evokes serious extremist So, no, I started my political activism as a student in Beirut. And I started working with refugees and then with the revolution. But it was 1967 that was the turning point, when Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza, which is something my father always told me would happen. But somehow I felt that was part of his destiny. And you were 16? It's his legacy, his past, not mine. And I took it on then, in '67. But when I came back— I mean, I was an activist in Beirut as a student, in the States as a student, even.

Speaker 8: Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2: And when I went home, after a very difficult journey, I started the legal aid committee to defend students and human rights activists. But at the same time, I was also part and parcel of the student movement, so to speak. I mean, the students and faculty then were one. There was no distinction. And we used to go out and demonstrate together. I was arrested with my students several times together. But, no, one of the most painful aspects— and I always said that no academic has ever had that responsibility was to cradle the head of a dying student. I mean, I've had to do that. I've had to protect students. I carried wounded students in my car, went through checkpoints and tear gas and bullets to take them to hospital. So, in a sense, you merge the academic, the political, the personal, the human, the struggle, all together.

Hanan Ashrawi: Right.

Speaker 2: And you don't fragment yourself as a human being or divide your roles. You're all these things together. You're a dean, a teacher, a mother, maybe even a priest, if you will, at the end of the day.

Speaker 5: You say that you became— you always perceived yourself as being an envoy, being and perceiving myself to be of the people and not official. An envoy, though not a diplomat. I exercise my option for directness and honesty.

Speaker 2: Yes. I felt not so much as an envoy, but maybe somebody, a voice, a spokesperson, I said, but somebody who would embody, who would express her people's fullness of experience, history, History, character, pain, aspirations, everything simultaneously, without all the distortions of diplomatic talk and political doublespeak and so on, but directly and honestly. And to do them justice, one had to be part of them. One had to share their pain, their sorrow, their struggle, and also share their aspirations. And I never felt that I came from outside the people, but rather as being one of the people, had to convey in as honest and candid a manner.

Speaker 5: One of the things I always like to ask distinguished visitors like you, who have been part of a political struggle, is, what enabled you to survive? And as I read your memoir, I think— I read 2 things, and you can tell me more. One is your family. And the other was Amana.

Speaker 2: Amana.

Speaker 5: Amana, the trust. Tell us about those 2 things. And were they key to your surviving, persevering?

Speaker 2: There are many other factors, yes. These 2 were key. My family, in terms of my upbringing, but also my family in terms of my husband and daughters. To me, they're a major— source of strength and love, unquestioning, unconditional, unlimited. And that is a source of strength. Also, my commitment, a commitment to the human dimension of the Palestinians, to the history, but also the future, to the pain that Palestinians have suffered for no fault of their own. And amana is a sense— is a trust. You are given something in trust.

Hanan Ashrawi: Right.

Speaker 2: As an amana. But it also goes beyond that to mean that you will do so with integrity, that you will do so with honesty, that you will carry out what you've been entrusted with. And I've always felt I have been entrusted to present— I called it a personal account and not a memoir, because I don't like it to be a memoir, by the way.

Hanan Ashrawi: Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2: It's a personal account, because I believe that the collective is always seen through the individual narrative. And there were so many individual narratives, much more moving, much more tragic, maybe, or even dramatic than mine. But I felt to get to the reality of the Palestinian experience, one had to use the gateway of the personal narrative. And to do that, one had to be honest, carry the amana of the people. Being honest with oneself and one's own articulation of the story.

Speaker 5: And is not your effort for frankness, honesty, finding a voice, always coming up with a confrontation with the configuration of power?

Speaker 2: Always.

Speaker 5: And how do you move forward in the face of that? Continue? Get up in the morning?

Speaker 2: Yes, you have to continue. I would continue with dedication, I think, maybe obsessive zeal. No, that's just too—

Hanan Ashrawi: Yeah.

Speaker 2: No, I think it's— in the sense you create an alternative and more authentic power. I think the power of honesty, of principles and values, is much more powerful than political power, so to speak, and personal power and self-interest. And because I had no personal agenda, and because I I felt I was empowered by that trust I had. I wasn't going to be intimidated or deflected. And I could speak up and speak out, and I could stand up to all sorts of traditional power, whether it is in the hands of an Israeli soldier with a gun or an assassin or with a machine gun or even courts.

Hanan Ashrawi: Right.

Speaker 2: The military courts under occupation, or even with my own people and systems of power that deal with authority and people who view themselves as being above the law. No, because it's not a personal agenda; it's a national agenda that finds an articulation through a personal experience and vindicates the collective human experience.

Hanan Ashrawi: That gave me strength, drive.

Speaker 2: Right. And I felt I wasn't alone or vulnerable.

Speaker 5: What distinctive role have women played, both in the Palestinian movement? You emphasize that a lot.

Speaker 2: Yes.

Speaker 5: Your story is that story.

Speaker 2: Yes, I wish it could be the sort of the story of my gender and the women of my nation, my race. No. I'm one of the women, and there are many women. But historically, of course, the Palestinian women's movement is an old movement. It started in the '20s. But the gender-sensitive, the gender agenda started in the '70s, because that's when we decided to organize and start working on issues of bringing women's perceptions to politics, to social organization. To resistance, because we were part of the resistance and part of the— later on, the Intifada, under occupation, how to create appropriate, alternative or authentic institutions, structures, how to help empower women, how to benefit from the experience of others. Palestinian women are tremendously strong. It's amazing. Maybe that's true of all patriarchal societies. And male-dominated societies, because the women have a big struggle. They have to— the battle for excellence, for credentials, has to be fought every day. And so, you have to validate yourself as a woman wherever you are every day. And you don't have it easy, because— not me, personally; I was privileged. But women have to stand up to tremendous discriminatory practices. Whether inherited traditions, whether imposed norms, male perceptions of power and control. And women always have to go through that and cannot take any privilege for granted. They have to demonstrate that they can. That's why, when I was minister of higher education, for example, women students did much better than men. You know, 100% would be 90% women. You know, the top, let's say, 10 students or the top 50 or the top 100 would always be women, because they had the hardest struggle and because they had the harder life, but also because women have a sense of solidarity. And we don't work alone. We work within a sort of group, collective network. And we try to bring A gender sensitivity, a woman's approach, a language, and daring, because women have been at the forefront also of resistance, have taken risks, have stood up to traditional norms or expressions of power. Women were in demonstrations. I wrote a poem called Women and Things, which describes the power of women in Different ways, but— and a short story, a series of short stories called Women on the Hilltop. I think this should tell you how I feel, that women, no matter where they come from, don't only bring with them a sort of elemental or biological or natural force for life, but they also bring a strength and a willingness to take risks and to confront and to stand up with pride.

Speaker 6: Right.

Speaker 2: Which I have seen, maybe because they don't look at themselves as through narrow self-interest, but through the interest of the people as a whole, the cause, the issues, rather than personalities.

Speaker 5: In your lecture earlier, if I can summarize it, you talked about the different ways that the peace process had become an end in itself. And in so doing, distorts and makes impossible real peace. What, if not words, if not the efforts of women, what will take us to the next level to move beyond the limits of such a peace process?

Speaker 2: Oh, there are so many requirements. I think the peace process should stop being an end unto itself and be perceived as a process, a tool, a mechanism. And therefore, it should be amended. It should be rectified. I believe we need more involvement in the peace process beyond the American role. And I also believe that we should rid it of this accommodation of the strong at the expense of the weak. It's incorporated, as I said, the disequilibrium of power, the asymmetry of power, and therefore continues not only blaming the victim, but victimizing the victim and exploiting that weakness of the victim, disregarding the human dimension, the human component, and, of course, totally flouting international law and legality by attempting to create an artificial reality that would suit certain objectives rather than trying to transform reality to empower the weak.

Speaker 5: And you really believe in your emphasis now on— well, throughout your career, but now through your new organization on human rights— that human rights really have to be realized not only internationally, But in, you know, within Palestine.

Speaker 2: Of course, human rights are universal, but that's a cliché. No, I think we discussed the issue of intervention. Whose responsibility is it? And human rights are not reduced— I think the most basic right, of course, is the right to live in peace. Peace is a human right. And those who deny you peace are those who are violating and It's an essential right. Mm-hmm. So it's not a gift that somebody is granting you. It's a right that you have to struggle for. And human rights are an integrated approach to reality, where the human being is the focus of every endeavor. I mean, we have instruments, we have organizations, we have procedures. We've— I've worked with, you know, since the early '70s on human rights. But the question is, how do you create systems, how do you create institutions, but how do You create awareness and transform mentalities and mindsets. And it is a responsibility. And you cannot have peace without justice. And you cannot deal with justice only as an abstraction, but as an operative principle that would involve the recognition, the safeguarding of all these rights.

Speaker 5: And, of course, I said that transition to peace cannot take place without a transition to Students looking at this very brief interview with you, what lessons might they draw from your distinguished career where language and contemplation and love of family come with the hectic pace of international negotiations, ramming your heads Heads against the wall of intransigent power and so on. What lesson? Should they stay out of the game?

Speaker 2: Should they—

Speaker 5: It's hard, no.

Hanan Ashrawi: No, no, it's hard to give people one lesson, and I don't believe in this sort of overtly didactic approach.

Speaker 2: Give us several. I think interaction. I mean, as a teacher myself, as an academic, I've always felt it's a learning and teaching situation. One thing, one thing I think that comes through is the confidence that comes from self-respect. To, you know, to demand respect of others, you have to respect yourself. And you have to be confident to stand up also to injustice and not to accept it, not to be intimidated. I've always told my students, and I enjoy that, the fact that they can— I'm sorry. Question, that they can provoke. And even when I was minister, I always told them, provoke reality. Don't acquiesce to it. Challenge it. Speak up. The courage to speak out, to— not to be complacent, not to accept the givens, not to accept, also, as my father said, the limits, to be daring And he said, be daring in the pursuit of right, of what is right, or of justice. And this sense of daring, of questioning, of not being deflected, comes also from a recognition that your humanity is what you have in common with others. And there is a common language that emerges, regardless of whether it's Arabic, English, French, German, Japanese. There is a common human language that recognizes no boundaries. And at the same time, the human will and the human spirit are the determining factors in everything you do. So there will always be small-minded, narrow-minded, power-driven, power-hungry people who will try to set limits, who will try to give you constraints, and the human spirit to refuse such constraints. constraints, and the willingness to take risks and to vindicate your humanity. It seems to me this is essential.

Speaker 5: And this is through words and action?

Speaker 2: Of course. I mean, words alone— I love words, but words are an embodiment also of how you think, how you feel, what you believe in. They have to be expressed, first of all, because you may have the most brilliant idea, and if it's not articulated, it's not there. And words, without becoming an operative way of life, without becoming— without finding expression, not just in action, even in just the way life flows, the way you perceive yourself and others, —and the way you deal with others and the way you take up challenges. This— it's a fusion. No person is compartmentalized, and no person is separate roles. We are all a combination of so many different aspects, and we mustn't sell short one of our roles or one of our identities in order to have others emerge. I believe this integrated approach—

Hanan Ashrawi: Yes.

Speaker 2: to a human being, a united human being, is also the integrated approach to reality.

Speaker 5: Dr. Ashrawi, thank you very much for joining us today. I would like to end with a quote from the distinguished Palestinian writer Edward Said, who said of you, she is the creator and speaker of the new language of the Palestinians.

Speaker 2: Thank you. That's a supreme compliment and a statement of confidence.

Speaker 5: Thank you very much for joining us. And thank you very much for joining us for this Conversation with History.

Hanan Ashrawi: There is a willingness to hear the Palestinian voice, to respond to it. And what Israel could get away with in the past, they cannot get away with now. The only way you can live with the Israelis side by side is when there is mutuality, reciprocity, equality, and a recognition of the humanity of each other. Now, for the first time, people are listening and are being aware of what the Peace in the Middle East is not an abstraction. It deals with our lives, with our futures. And at the same time, it's the core of stability and peace for the rest of the world.

Speaker 3: Do you need somebody to introduce me?

Speaker 2: No, I don't. We know you.

Speaker 6: I'm Hala.

Speaker 8: Could you have envisioned that not quite one year after Desert Storm, Did you ever expect that you would be here in Washington, D.C., with the intention of substantive peace talks supported by the United States?

Hanan Ashrawi: I think these peace talks are rather late. They should have started 23 years ago, not now. But at the same time, we did expect them sooner or later. The conditions in the region have made it absolutely urgent and imperative that peace talks start. Otherwise, without solving Without solving the Palestinian question, there will not be genuine stability in the region. And the interests not just of the people of the region, but the rest of the world, who rely in many more— in many ways on the resources of the region, on the potential of the region for their own economic and human advancement, have to understand that the solution of the Palestinian question would lead to stability and peace. I think that's a very important point. And in this new global interaction and interdependence, you cannot isolate areas or conflicts or regions into compartments. You have to deal with them holistically. And there is an urgent need and an imperative need to solve the Palestinian question, for everybody's sake.

Speaker 8: Is this delegation here in Washington empowered with the authority to make a decision affecting Let's say this delegation has a specific task of negotiating with the Israelis.

Hanan Ashrawi: Each phase of Palestinian struggle necessitates different people coming out and doing different jobs, and the focus shifts depending on the nature of the task at hand. This delegation is representative of the Palestinian people under occupation. It is empowered to carry out negotiations. But it is part of the overall comprehensive representation of the Palestinian people. And the only body empowered to conclude agreements or to sign treaties on behalf of the Palestinian people everywhere is the PLO.

Speaker 8: And what is the relationship with this delegation and the PLO?

Hanan Ashrawi: Well, let me explain what the PLO is, first of all, because people don't understand what the PLO is. It is a system of government, a representative system of government. It represents the unity of the Palestinian people everywhere, whether under occupation or in exile. It represents, in a way, the continuity of the Palestinian national struggle and is a symbol of the Palestinian national identity. So, structurally, it's an embodiment, in a sense, of all Palestinian representative bodies everywhere. Very well. And in terms of political and moral stature, it has symbolic representative capacity, as well. So it is not a party that people have party cards to, or you can say he or she is a member or not. It is something— it's a— let me put it very frankly. I think it is a question of allegiance, of loyalty.

Speaker 8: Right.

Hanan Ashrawi: Palestinians have close identification as a source of personal definition with the PLO, regardless of whether they have a job or a structural position in its institutions or not.

Speaker 8: Now, there's a tremendous range on a political spectrum, from the far left to the far right. And a lot of, I think, Americans tend to perceive Yasser Arafat as being very extreme. Is that true? And how would you consider How do you consider yourself? How do you view yourself on this spectrum, on this political spectrum?

Hanan Ashrawi: Well, let me tell you very frankly that Yasser Arafat is the voice of moderation and reason among the Palestinians. Without the work of the PLO right now and President Arafat, there wouldn't have been Palestinian participation in the peace process, because it was President Arafat who got together all the different political elements, the whole spectrum of political Palestinian thought. And the decision was taken within the democratic institutions, representative institutions of the Palestinian people, whether it's our parliament in exile, the Palestine National Council, or the Central Council, or the Executive Committee. All these are representative bodies that have in themselves adopted and advocated a peace in So it's not a question of being extreme or non-extreme. Our extremists are those who are outside the peace process. In terms of my position, I'm within the mainstream of Palestinian political thought.

Speaker 8: Are you concerned about your safety, either from Arab extreme groups or from Israeli authorities?

Hanan Ashrawi: Frankly, the main source of danger to us, to me personally and to Palestinians The only people who have been killing Palestinians under occupation has always been the Israeli occupation. These are the only people who had weapons and arms in our sight. I mean, we are the people who are unarmed. We are a civilian population. And we are at the mercy of an extremely cruel occupation. Besides, within Israel, too, you have tremendously extremist, racist groups who think nothing of taking human lives, especially Palestinian human life, and who have gone They've gotten away with it regularly. They are above the law, and there is no system of accountability for them. There is that danger. In terms of extremists outside the region or fundamentalists or whatever, I don't think so. You see, you don't— you can't afford it. You don't have the time or the energy or the peace of mind to sit and worry and think about this. You have to get a job done. It's an important job. And you have to take risks for that.

Speaker 2: I'm sorry.

Speaker 8: I know that recently you were— the Israeli authorities had intended to arrest you subsequent to the Madrid peace talks. Why were they trying to arrest you?

Speaker 2: It's very tense.

Hanan Ashrawi: It's very clear it's a cheap shot. It's an attempt at intimidation, I said. It's a very petty attempt and a vindictive attempt at intimidation and trying to silence the Palestinian voice. It didn't work. Because I think, fortunately, right now the world knows there is, let's say, receptivity. There is a willingness to hear the Palestinian voice, to respond to it. And what Israel could get away with in the past, they cannot get away with now. The whole world is looking on. Normally, Israel could do things in the dark and get away with it. Now they have to face the consequences of their actions, and they have to weigh them. I think it was an attempt, again, at trying to reinforce this asymmetry of power, to reintroduce it, to assert domination and the politics of domination. And it didn't work, because— not only because of Palestinian opinion and reactions, or Israeli public opinion and reactions, but also international reactions. Even President Bush personally said something Which I found extremely gratifying. But it had its effect.

Speaker 8: You have compared Israeli policies to those of apartheid in South Africa. Can you elaborate on that?

Speaker 2: Oh, yes, very clearly, even the symbols, the general attitude, the whole system.

Hanan Ashrawi: You see, Israel legislates for its own self, with no accountability, with no reference, violating even international law. It has a double system of legislation, one for the Israelis and Jewish Israelis in particular, and one for the Palestinians, especially those under occupation. We are subject to what they call military orders, and military orders are manufactured as they go along. You could go to jail for thoughts, for thinking thoughts, because they think that you're thinking of something. On the other hand, you You have clear symbols, where you have magnetic cards for workers from Gaza. You have different-colored license plates for Palestinians and for Israelis. You have different ID cards. You have green cards for those considered security risks. They cannot move anywhere. They're easily identified. They cannot enter Israel, for instance, only the occupied territories. You have blue ID cards for Jerusalemites. You have orange ID cards for West Bankers and Gazans. And it's such an intricate system of racism that has filtered down to everything, that it's so sinister. And it sets a double or triple or quadruple value system on human lives and human rights. We cannot, for instance, drill a well. We cannot plant a tree without permission. Outhouses can be destroyed. Demolished for mere suspicion of something, of stone throwing or whatever. You can be detained for months and years without any proof, without any evidence, without any trial. This is what they call administrative detention. You can be restricted in a military area. Universities have been turned into restricted military areas. We were not able— we were not allowed to set foot on our university. Whole towns and villages. My town has been under curfew for a week now, very strict curfew with house-to-house searches. And at the same time, you have no recourse to legal defense or protection whatsoever.

Speaker 8: You know, there have been so many atrocities on both sides, you know, Palestinians killing Jews, Jews killing Palestinians. And I spoke to a rabbi the other night, and she You told me that Palestinians teach their children to hate. What do you teach your children?

Hanan Ashrawi: First of all, let me react to such a racist statement again. You were talking about apartheid. Who feels free to make such generalizations about another people? This is an extremely racist statement. It's extremely insulting, not just to us, but to the people listening and to the person who made it. We have been struggling for years in order not to allow the situation to breed hate or the need for revenge among people. We have been saying, in spite of the fact that we are being killed, imprisoned, deported, our houses demolished, we cannot hate, that we have to stop the cycle of violence, and we have to reach out and to make peace. You see, the most obscene form of violence And intimidation and terrorism is the occupation, because the occupation holds a whole civilian population hostage. And this is violence. And I think it is the worst type of atrocity, collective atrocities—

Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.

Hanan Ashrawi: —committed against a people, where you deprive them not just of their national rights, not just of their rights to their own identity, to their own freedom of movement, But to their most basic human rights and to their need for human definition and human interaction. And then you prevent them from having the right to fresh air and sunshine and their own land and their own daily lives, and then you say that they commit atrocities? This is the atrocity. This is the horror of the 20th century. Now, at the end of the 20th century, there is an occupation. There is an occupation. Which is so inhuman and so cruel, and yet it is allowed to continue. And the victim is accused of committing atrocities if they lash out in any way and say, we don't want to be victims. The atrocity is the occupation itself.

Speaker 8: Talking about you as a woman, I think there's an American perception that Arab women stay behind the veil and they walk 2 steps behind their man and they can't even drive. Is this Do you think it's an anomaly that you are a tremendous political presence in the world stage, an Arab woman?

Hanan Ashrawi: Yeah. Well, I defy stereotypes, if you wish. But I'm not an exception in Palestinian society at all. You see, I come as a result of— with the backdrop of a long history of Palestinian women's struggle. We do have a strong gender cause and a strong gender agenda. And we have— Palestinian women's struggle started in the '20s. It goes back a long way. And I come, in a sense, empowered by the work of the Palestinian women at home, by our struggle collectively for recognition, for empowerment, for self-determination as women. I don't feel that I'm an isolated incident or that I came out of a vacuum. I came out as a result of a systematic, long and difficult struggle. Palestinian women's struggle for recognition. And as such, I don't see myself as the exception. There are other women in the Palestinian delegation. We feel that there's a two-way street between us as Palestinian women out here and the Palestinian women at home, who have strengthened our cause and our position. And at the same time, we come from a long tradition of an open I mean, Palestinian society is not the society of the veil. It is true, like most other societies and Arab societies, a male-dominated society and a traditional society.

Speaker 8: Not unlike Western societies, really.

Speaker 2: Exactly.

Hanan Ashrawi: But on the other hand, we have had a history of struggle and awareness and a long history of education. Palestinians place tremendous emphasis on education. So we have never had a society of the veil.

Speaker 8: You are an educator. You're a professor.

Speaker 2: Yes.

Speaker 8: I believe you teach English?

Speaker 2: English literature, yes.

Speaker 8: Literature. As an educator, how did you evolve from the role of an academic to that of a key political presence in the Palestinian leadership?

Hanan Ashrawi: Well, frankly, I always say that I am a political being and not a politician. And Palestinians Palestinians have to be political. I mean, it's not a choice. It's not by choice. It's by birth. The moment you're born a Palestinian and you're living under occupation, it becomes a responsibility, a duty. You're born with this duty, and it's something you have to deal with, to do something about. So, we feel it's like service. You have to serve. And sometimes the conditions of occupation do not allow you to carry out a job of your preference or your own definition of what you want to be. You may choose to be an academic, but reality intrudes and tells you you are needed for other things. And what happened is that all of us serve the cause in different ways. And my way is to be able to analyze, to interpret, to articulate the Palestinian cause, and to be very active in the peace process. And in this new, challenging and exciting era of the birth of a state.

Speaker 8: What is it like, as a mother, to raise children in the occupied West Bank?

Hanan Ashrawi: It is extremely frustrating and extremely painful and a desperate attempt at, on the one hand, shielding your children, on the other hand, trying to give them a sense of childhood and to prevent others from robbing them of their own childhood. I've always said, nobody, nobody has the right to rob my children of their childhood. Unfortunately, it's happening not just to mine, to all Palestinian children. They have never had the luxury of being children. What we have to do, first of all, is guarantee their safety, in some ways, is to try to prevent the fear, the insecurity, the threat of the occupation from intruding in their own lives. As you know, most of the children killed by the Israelis were killed in their own homes, not even in the streets.

Speaker 2: At least one person—

Hanan Ashrawi: one child in 3 has been, in one way or another, injured or hurt by the Israelis. So— and schools have been closed. There is tear gas all the time. There are beatings going on. It's an extremely difficult context for children to be raised in. So, you have the double or triple responsibility of trying to give them a sense of love and affection and security and comfort, only within your own home, knowing that even your own house can be violated, and to try not to allow the occupation to distort their own sense of reality or their own sense of values, to keep them confident that there is a sense of humanity, in spite of the fact that everything around them may be unfair or unjust or painful. And I feel that it's an uphill struggle, constantly, trying to give them that little bit of childhood that they deserve. My next-door neighbor's kid, a 15-year-old kid who was playing with my daughters, He was shot at the funeral of his best friend. He was shot 5 times in the back.

Speaker 8: By the Israeli military?

Hanan Ashrawi: By Israeli soldiers, because he was in a symbolic funeral of his best friend. You see, when they shoot somebody, they don't give you his body. You're not allowed to have a funeral. So what they do is hold symbolic funerals. I wrote poems about this, Reza and Yasser. Reza is our— A next-door neighbor. And my children just couldn't understand that this harmless young boy was shot and killed for taking part in a symbolic funeral. When we came back from Madrid, there were, as you know, marches of people who were receiving us, who were welcoming us back, who were showing support for the peace process. And we have films of this young boy who was handing out olive branches To the soldiers, to the Israeli army, and decorating Israeli tanks and jeeps with olive branches to tell them, we want peace. A few days later, he was shot and killed, because he was writing a slogan on the wall, saying— expressing support, yes, to the peace conference in Madrid. And he didn't even finish Madrid. He said, Mad— he wrote Mad, and he was shot in the head, mutilated beyond recognition.

Speaker 2: Wow.

Hanan Ashrawi: And all you could see was mad, in Arabic. So, indeed, it's a mad world.

Speaker 8: How do you envision a Palestinian state?

Hanan Ashrawi: It's going to be a long, hard struggle.

Speaker 8: Ultimately, what could it be like, in your mind?

Hanan Ashrawi: I'll tell you what I dream of a Palestinian state like—

Speaker 3: being like.

Hanan Ashrawi: First of all, I take the Declaration of Independence very seriously, because in our Declaration of Independence, we talk about democracy, political pluralism, freedom, equality between the sexes, religious tolerance. These are all statements that I want to see translated, actually, into substance, into concrete reality. So I envisage the Palestinian state to have the basic standards of democracy. And what does that mean? Strength of the human resource, because we don't have any other resources. We have tremendous human potential, and we have to utilize that effectively and constructively. I see a state which is open, democratic, tolerant, respectful of the rights of the minority, and at the same time carrying out democratic— democratically the will of the majority. I see it, again, attempting— because I can't say that all of a sudden we're going to have pure equality between the sexes— but attempting not to be discriminatory in any way. I see it as the answer to Palestinians' dreams and prayers for so many years, the return of the people who've been dispersed and who Who were left at the mercy of every other authority in the region or outside, who were deprived even of the right of recognizing their own identity, who were told there is no such thing as Palestinians. And, in a sense, connecting the past with the future. We have a long history. We are, as you know, in— we are a very— an ancient culture and an ancient people.

Speaker 3: Yes.

Hanan Ashrawi: And we'd like to see the legitimacy of the future being based on its connection with our past.

Speaker 8: Can the Palestinians, Israel, live peacefully together?

Hanan Ashrawi: Side by side, we can live peacefully, and we can work together for the development of the region. But in this equilibrium, in this— A symmetrical relationship of power and domination, of occupier versus occupied, of force and violence against the Palestinians, you cannot. The only way you can live with the Israelis side by side is when there is mutuality, reciprocity, equality, and a recognition of the humanity of each other.

Speaker 8: Thank you. And in this particular delegation here in Washington, this delegation recognizes the— a right of Israel to exist?

Hanan Ashrawi: We recognize the principle of mutual recognition, of mutual and equal rights. We recognize their humanity, although they haven't recognized ours yet. We recognize the principle of the partition of the land. We recognize the 2-state solution. I feel that knowledge is also a burden, that once you have knowledge, you have responsibility. It's not enough to know. Now, for the first time, people are listening and are being aware of what the Palestinians and who the Palestinians are. And it's not enough just to know. Something has to be done, because we do not want to relish the idea of guilt in retrospect or in the future, or people saying we should have done something in time. I think now is the time to do something, to translate this awareness into a political position, into concrete actions, to end the occupation, to get Israeli withdrawal, to start a new phase, a new era in the region, because peace in the Middle East is not an abstraction. It deals with our lives, with our futures. And at the same time, it's the core —of stability and peace for the rest of the world.

Amy Goodman: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The Quarantine Report. I'm Amy Goodman. As we continue to look at Israel's assault on Gaza and the Palestinian uprising, we're joined by 2 guests. In New York, Rashid Khalidi is Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University. He's the author of several books, including his latest, The Hundred Years' War on Palestine. And in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Dr. Hanan Ashrawi joins us, longtime Palestinian diplomat and scholar, formerly an executive committee member of the Palestine Liberation Organization, first woman to hold a seat in the highest executive body in Palestine. She also served as the official spokesperson of the Palestinian delegation to the Middle East peace process. We welcome both of you back to Democracy Now! Let's begin in Ramallah with Dr. Hanan Ashrawi.

Hanan Ashrawi: Hi, Amy.

Amy Goodman: On Thursday, the Israeli Defense Forces, the IDF, put out a one-line tweet: IDF air and ground troops are currently attacking in the Gaza Strip. Can you talk about what's happening there now and the significance of both the attacks there and also the mob attacks throughout other parts of Israel and the occupied territories?

Hanan Ashrawi: Yeah. Well, what the Israeli occupation forces did was, once again, target an area that is the most densely populated area in the world, that is under a state of siege. They have nowhere to go, nowhere to hide. They don't have sirens. They don't have shelters. They don't have air force. And, of course, they have no protection whatsoever. And they started bombing and shelling, by air primarily. And they destroyed 3— at first, 3 major high-rise buildings with residential apartments. And then they continued. This is a pattern that continued. They escalated. They're destroying roads and streets, infrastructure, electricity and so on. And they're turning life in Gaza, which is already a disaster area, into a disaster. And they're killing people. As a result of the siege, turning it into sheer hell. And as you mentioned, there were so many people killed, it's not— I mean, it's difficult for us to talk about statistics. But when I read stories, when I see pictures of whole families, a mother and her 3 kids, bombed, shelled, destroyed, killed brutally in their own homes, in their own beds, this is what the reality of living under occupation is, under a state of siege.

Rashid Khalidi: Right.

Hanan Ashrawi: Where Israel has unlicensed— has total license to use unbridled power, to kill and destroy and maim and get away with it. And then you get people like Biden and others say Israel has the right to self-defense. I will repeat something I've said and I continue to say: There is no normalcy under occupation. This is an abnormal situation and an occupier who's oppressing a whole people. OK. People cannot claim self-defense if its victims decide to strike back, even in a minimal way. It's— the real issue is the occupation. Now we are seeing, not just in Gaza— we are seeing horrific scenes, of course, of death and murder and destruction. We are seeing also in the West Bank, there are protest marches ongoing. In every town, city and village. You're seeing in Jerusalem, again, the Israeli border guards, the Israeli security are targeting individuals. They're killing— they're shooting at Palestinians. They have injured scores of them and arrested many. In historic Palestine, what we call 1948 Palestine, which became Israel, the indigenous Palestinians, again, are being targeted. Right. The irony, they're being beaten up, actually, by Jewish Israelis, because they happen not to be Jewish, because Israel legislated a basic law called the nation-state law, in which it says only Jews have the right to self-determination, which meant even Palestinians who were in Palestine before Israel was created, and although they are Israeli citizens, have no rights whatsoever. This is legalized discrimination and apartheid, very clearly. So, as a result of decades of discrimination and oppression and so on, the Palestinians in all major areas, cities, towns and so on, in '48 Palestine, are now protesting, because they are facing the violence of the Israeli— ironically, the Israeli settlers.

Rashid Khalidi: Right.

Hanan Ashrawi: —who came from the West Bank. It's not enough that they're stealing our land, that they're illegally building colonies and settlements in the West Bank. They are fully armed. They are never held to account. And they are always protected by the Israeli army in the West Bank. Now they have been imported, particularly the most extreme racist wing, the Lahava group, that has been emboldened by— and adopted, actually, by Netanyahu.

Speaker 8: Right.

Hanan Ashrawi: And they are wreaking havoc within Israel, within what they call the mixed towns and cities, wherever they can find Palestinians, even though they are supposed to have the same passports or nationality as Israelis. They are totally vulnerable. And the Israeli security— Netanyahu actually also imported not just the settlers into Israel, but also the border guards, which means he is treating— Right. All of historical Palestine like an occupied territory. He's treating Lid, Ramleh, Aqqa, Haifa, Yaffa, all these towns and villages, as though they are part of an occupied territory, which means Israel is reoccupying Palestine. This is a pattern. But now it has come to a head, because now Palestinians everywhere are united. in their opposition to oppression, to injustice, to violence, to cruelty and brutality. You have them, as I said, in the West Bank, including Jerusalem, in the Gaza Strip, within Israel, '48 Palestine, and all over the world. Now, Palestinians in the States, in Washington, in Manhattan, New York, in Chicago, in different places, are also protesting, along with their allies, along with this—

Speaker 5: Right.

Hanan Ashrawi: Amazing solidarity network that is emerging in the U.S., as well as in Europe and in the Arab world. So, there is this unity of identity, unity of struggle, despite the differences of injustice. It's not— you can be under occupation, you can be suffering also from discrimination and apartheid, you can be facing an army, you can be suffering exile, dispossession and refugee status.

Speaker 4: Right.

Hanan Ashrawi: But you all know that the source of your oppression is the same.

Amy Goodman: Well, I wanted to bring— I want to bring Professor Khalidi into this conversation. And he's here in New York. And speaking of the United States and its role, I wanted to play a clip of President Joe Biden reiterating his support for Israel's military attack on Gaza, shrugging off concerns over the mounting Palestinian death toll.

Speaker 5: And one of the things that I have seen thus far is that there has not been a significant overreaction.

Amy Goodman: Biden did not mention Palestine or Palestinians during Thursday's remarks from the White House. And the Biden administration has stopped the United Nations, on several occasions this week, the Security Council, from taking up Can you talk about this, Professor Khalidi?

Rashid Khalidi: Yeah. Well, one wonders what proportion you have to have of Arab deaths, of Palestinian deaths, over Israeli deaths. Is it 20 to 1 before the United States finally begins to recognize that this is not legitimate self-defense? We're currently at about 11 to 1, 119 Palestinians killed in Gaza as against 11 Israelis. 9 Israelis. And the biased rhetoric from American leaders, American politicians, continued— continues. I think that this is a perfect illustration of the bias that has been a feature of American policy for many, many years. You have, in Washington, an entrenched view, going back to what Hanan just said and what Representative Tlaib just said.

Amy Goodman: Right.

Rashid Khalidi: That the Palestinians are less than human, are not important. They don't really count. 31 children have been killed. One Israeli child has been killed. Any child being killed is a tragedy. But that does not penetrate the consciousness of the politicians who make statements like this, whether the president or the secretary of state or the secretary of defense. And I think it's tragic that a country that claims to be in support of human rights universally should basically consider a whole group of people less human and less entitled to rights. I think that what's happening all over historic Palestine today has brought us back to basics. I mean, it's really tragic that it should have taken this kind of ordeal for everybody, but in particular for Palestinians. But it has brought us back to the understanding that things that were done back in 1948, things that have been done since then, Whether the occupation of '67 or whether the Nakba of 1948, have echoed and echoed and echoed down to the present. What happened in Jerusalem in the Al-Aqsa, what happened in Sheikh Jarrah, what's happening now. Gaza is not just 2 million people in a strip of land, 356 square miles. These are people who were driven from their homes in 1948 and who have been denied permission to return.

Speaker 2: Right.

Rashid Khalidi: —to those homes, and have been stripped of their property by Israeli laws. Nobody talks about this in Washington. Nobody talks about the fact that a terrible attack on a synagogue, which happened, for example, in Lid, a city that Israelis call Lid, has been featured in all the American media. The 3rd-holiest mosque in Islam, built in the 8th century, has been attacked repeatedly Stun grenades, tear gas bombs have been fired into the precincts of the mosque as worshippers are praying in Ramadan. I haven't heard a peep out of an American official about this. So we're really talking about something that at the top, at least, of the American political pyramid, in my view, is quite— is really quite disgraceful. And I think things are changing at the bottom. I think people are fully aware Of the complete iniquity in the way in which the United States deals with this. And I think they're beginning to be aware of the fact that American weapons being used to kill 31 children in Gaza and another 80 people, others— most of them civilians, are being used in violation of U.S. law. The U.S. law dictates that those weapons be used solely for defensive purposes. So when American officials bleat about Israel is engaged in self-defense, what they're doing is not just protecting Israel, they're protecting themselves.

Speaker 2: Right.

Rashid Khalidi: Because otherwise those arms sales would be illegal, and they would be complicit in illegal actions. So, I think— I think that it's disgraceful that we should hear such statements. But it is really interesting that other voices are beginning to be heard in the United States and around the world protesting this.

Amy Goodman: Do you see a difference, Professor Khalidi, between the Trump administration and the Biden administration, between President Trump and President Biden, in dealing with Israel?

Rashid Khalidi: Well, of course there are differences. But we are— they play the same tune. They play it in a different register. The Trump administration essentially adopted the most extreme tenets of the most extreme Israeli government in history. It's a government that intends to create one Jewish supremacy state in the entirety of what they call the land of Israel. That's the Netanyahu agenda. Right. The Trump administration signed on to that completely. This administration, however, is still committed to the same kind of bedrock inequalities that every American administration for decades has supported, whether this involves not talking about Palestinians at all, as no administration official has done all week, or whether this involves a kind of —acceptance of Israeli terms, like Israel's security. Israel's security is seen to mandate the killing of 119 people, most of them civilians, a dozen women, 31 children. That kind of thing, it was shared— that kind of logic, I should say, is shared between all of them, American administration and Israeli government, for many decades.

Amy Goodman: You talk about going back decades. I wanted to go back to 1986, what, like more than 35 years ago. —when then-Senator Joe Biden talked about U.S. support for Israel, saying if Israel did not exist, the U.S. would have to invent an Israel to defend its interests in the region. This is what he said.

Speaker 5: If we look at the Middle East, I think it's about time we stop, those of us who support, as most of us do, Israel in this body, for apologizing for our support for Israel. There is no apology to be made. None. It is the best $3 billion investment we make. Were there not an Israel, the United States of America would have to invent an Israel to protect her interests in the region. The United States would have to go out and invent an Israel.

Amy Goodman: That was Senator Biden in 1986. Has he changed his view? And talk about what he is saying, Professor Halliday.

Rashid Khalidi: Well, what he's saying is that Israel operates as a proxy of the United States in the Middle East. And what he's also saying is, vote for me and continue to give me campaign donations. Those are— that's unspoken. And that— and those two elements in support for Israel, both in the Democratic Party and in the Republican Party, have been constants. The search for a strategic role for Israel Sometimes it's gotten pretty desperate, because Israel in fact harms American interests in many cases in the Middle East. But the pretext which during the Cold War— Biden was speaking in '86 at the very end of the Cold War. During the Cold War, it could be argued, well, Israel is an American proxy, and there were Soviet proxies, and so on. Those feeble pretexts for arguing for a strategic role for Israel as benefiting the United States. Those have disappeared since the Cold War. Since then, unfortunately, the so-called war on terror has taken the place of that. And Israel has managed to merge into American concerns that were sparked by the 9/11 attacks and the rise of the Islamic State and so forth, in order to sell itself to Americans— Netanyahu is a master salesman in this regard— as a valuable ally in the war on terror. In fact, American support for Israel probably provokes a lot of terrorism. Israeli actions we know provoke resistance. Colonial settler regimes always provoke resistance. If you dispossess people, they're going to resist. Native Americans did the same thing. Africans facing settler colonialism did the same thing. Palestinians have resisted. And this resistance, coded as terrorism, is then turned into a pretext Well, if you did not have this settler-colonial process of dispossession, which has been going on since 1948, you would not have the resistance, and you would not have what is being called terrorism by American politicians.

Amy Goodman: Dr. Hanan Ashrawi, can you talk about what you think is going to happen over these next few days, and particularly tomorrow, the significance of the day tomorrow, as well as these attacks happening during Well, of course, it's expected.

Hanan Ashrawi: Tomorrow is the commemoration of al-Nakba, in which— the date in which Israel was formally formed or created on the land of Palestine. But it's not the beginning of Palestinian suffering, because the Zionist enterprise started way before that, and not just with— even with the Balfour Declaration of 1917. Right. 1912 and so on. There has always been an attempt at dispossessing Palestinians, displacing them and replacing them with another nation. And the extremist Zionist ideology actually gained more and more traction and has been adopted now, till now, in a process of negation of a whole nation— our land, our history, our culture, even our very physical presence, our identity. And replacing them, replacing us, with a new narrative, with a new people that came from outside Palestine, at the expense of the Palestinian people, without any kind of curbs or engagement or accountability. So, to the Palestinian people, the date, the Nakba, signals a process. It probably is in the middle of this process, but it is always ongoing.

Speaker 2: Right.

Hanan Ashrawi: And as you have seen in the protests in '48 Palestine, the Zionist ideology does seek to displace and replace a whole people. It is not— it is a settler-colonial enterprise. It has acted and gained protection as a colonial, a Western colonial outpost. It has been a functional state, let's say, for—

Speaker 3: Right.

Hanan Ashrawi: The remnants of Western colonialism.

Amy Goodman: So, what do you think needs to happen now?

Hanan Ashrawi: I think what needs to happen is to provide 2 things. Palestinians need protection in accordance with the law, and Israel needs accountability in accordance with the law. The problem is it has been emboldened. It has been given license to act with full impunity. It has become the primary source of identification and support. These refrains that Rashid talked about were, you know, Israel's right to self-defense, which is absolutely bizarre and unconscionable. This is one thing, in addition to the fact that the pro-Israel lobby, as well as other factors, self-interest in terms of elections and so on, all these things have worked together in order to give Israel preferential treatment and immunity to act with full impunity. Right. What needs to be done is to treat Palestinians with full recognition of our rights to freedom, to dignity, to live in our own land, to self-determination, actually, and to start treating Israel as a country governed by international law and humanitarian law. This is one. The U.S., of course, we're not going to expect miraculous transformations. We know that the Biden administration has bent over backwards. Now, in order to prevent any kind of intervention or engagement, sending a sort of symbolic, let's say, third, fourth-level civil servant does not do anything. Adi Amel going to Israel or wherever, when Netanyahu clearly told the American administration, whether it's the president or the secretary of state, that it's none of your business. When they asked him to come down on the issue of Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa Mosque and Sheikh Jarrah evictions, he said, we have the right to do whatever we want, and told them very clearly, it's none of your business. So, you think Hadi Amr is going to come and be listened to and has or will have the full weight of the office? No. It's clearly just a gesture, a symbolic gesture. And, of course, Biden is looking internally at his own elections, at his own party's elections, and he's ignoring a whole body of— a new conversation in the U.S. The progressives, the minorities, women's movements, LGBTQ, Black— everybody is out there placing Palestine in the middle of a conversation of rights, of equality, of justice. And within the Democratic Party, they're not just turning a blind eye; they are sort of closing off their ears, because they don't want to hear. There are changes now. There's a new conversation, a new language. Palestine is no longer taboo. It is part of the discussion. It is part of the global rights movement. We have allies. And what— to add to what Rashid said, this unholy alliance between the U.S. and Israel, historically, —has cost the U.S. a great deal, has cost it credibility and standing and interests, and quite often even lives, because when you have this obsessive support for a country that is creating a situation of extreme abnormality and injustice— and the occupation is, in itself, an abnormal state, a state of constant aggression— and yet it is getting cover and protection, and it is getting emboldened.

Speaker 8: Right.

Hanan Ashrawi: As we said, during the Trump administration, they became a party to— they became actually partners in the crime of the Israeli occupation and annexation and so on. So, this does not in any way serve American interests. It may serve the interests of individuals who seek to get reelected on the basis of Palestine bashing and rendering the Palestinians invisible and silenced.

Speaker 1: Right.

Hanan Ashrawi: And amplifying only the Israeli voice in a distorted way. But at the same time, the truth is coming out.

Speaker 6: Let me take you back, if I can, to September 1993, in the White House, on the lawn outside the White House. And you were there at that moment when peace looked possible. And you said the Palestinian state is emerging.

Speaker 4: Yes.

Speaker 6: What went wrong?

Speaker 3: Many things went wrong since 1993. Well, beginning— I don't want to go through the whole history, but began with a very flawed agreement, frankly speaking, that gave Israel power and control and in many ways diminished Palestinian Palestinian people's rights to create sovereign aspects of statehood. So that was one. Two, the fact that the U.S. maintained a position of Israel as our strategic ally, Israel is our special ally, Israel can do no wrong, and therefore maintained Israeli impunity and power without any kind of checks or accountability.

Speaker 6: And that exists to this day.

Speaker 3: And that exists and has become worse. Following the 4 years of Trump, we have seen a deliberate attempt at bashing the Palestinians to submission and at pandering to Netanyahu and giving him everything he wanted, plus some more. And add to that the fact that Netanyahu has been actually shifting the discourse to the extreme right. And he said it openly. He only paid lip service to the 2-state solution. What he wanted really was to superimpose Greater Israel on all of historical Palestine.

Speaker 6: What about Palestinian failures, though? What about the divisions within the Palestinian political echelons? I mean, there is always this phrase that people trot out, the Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. But you have missed opportunities.

Speaker 3: No, that's a racist statement, and I really can't stand it when somebody says Palestinians never— this is really misleading and it's a lie because I've been there and I've seen what's happening. There was ill will from the beginning against the Palestinians. And look, you have to place things in context. I'm not— I don't defend the Palestinian leadership. They've made— we've made many mistakes. But the issue is not that. The issue is that you are under occupation. The leadership has no power, no sovereign powers whatsoever. They don't control freedom of movement. They don't control airspace, sea space, territorial waters, crossing points. It's a prison. There are 2 prisons. And Israel has been busy doing whatever it wanted with full impunity— demolishing homes, stealing more land, stealing resources, killing Palestinians— with no intervention. And the Palestinians were supposed to pretend that we were living in a very normal situation where there are 2 states next to each other equal, they have to talk to each other. How do you talk to your occupier? How do you ask for permission from your occupier to be free? So it would be very simplistic just to say Palestinian shortcomings. Yes, we have them and many of them are internal and we deserve better. But that's not the reason why The so-called peace process failed. There was no intention from the beginning to hold Israel to account, to provide the Palestinians with protection, or to manage to guarantee and protect the so-called global vision of a 2-state solution.

Speaker 6: So what happens now? A 2-state solution is, you say, dead, correct?

Speaker 3: I think Netanyahu destroyed It's not an organic thing that you can say died. It has been in many ways destroyed.

Speaker 6: A one-state solution is not something the Israelis will ever accept. So what now?

Speaker 3: It's not up to the Israelis, I think, to decide what to accept or not to accept.

Speaker 6: But they do. Whether you like it or not, they control it.

Speaker 3: They control it, yes. They do control. But the situation is changing now. There is public opinion that is moving and influencing decision-making. Everything that Israel used to do in the dark is now in the open. People are seeing the brutality, the cruelty, the lawlessness, the criminality of this occupation. And they're not willing to give it a free hand. The public, as usual, is way ahead of the governments. But they will be heard. They will make a difference. This is happening now because Israel also went too far, and they thought they could dominate the discourse and the narrative and continue to distort realities. But now it's— people have access to the truth, to facts on the ground, and they are speaking out. So it's very important that this is seen for what it is. I think sooner or later there will be a consensus that Israel is creating— and it's emerging— is creating an apartheid state. This latest eruption, I would say, and confrontations took place among Palestinians everywhere— in '48 Palestine, in Jerusalem, in Gaza, in the West Bank, everywhere— plus Palestinians in exile and in refugee camps. So there's a unity of voice, a unity of vision, and there is a solidarity movement that is emerging that is capable of transforming transforming perceptions and realities. It will take time, yes. But I don't think Israel should have the veto power on anything, including international law and the guaranteed rights of the Palestinians, including the right to self-determination.

Speaker 6: I just wonder the extent to which you are worried that the support now among Palestinians has shifted over to a much more violent form of resistance, in the sense that, you know, I was outside the Damascus Gate when those rockets hit, the Hamas rockets hit near Jerusalem. People cheered outside the Damascus Gate. Hamas seems to have a level of support that we haven't seen for some time.

Speaker 3: Right.

Speaker 6: Where is this heading? Are we seeing, you know, an ANC-style, African National Congress-style resistance, where any Israelis are fair game in I don't think so.

Speaker 3: I think, look, Palestinians started the armed struggle and had freedom fighters historically. We were part of a revolution. And it was a global revolution. And people were in solidarity with us a long time ago, including the ANC. But the issue is not that Hamas is going to gain and is going to be the leader, because Hamas is not just a political organization. An armed struggle movement or resistance movement. It also has a social agenda, an economic agenda. And people don't necessarily agree with the other aspects of its agenda. But this came at a point of extreme anger and sense of letdown. They saw somebody, something happening instead of lying down and dying quietly.

Speaker 2: Right.

Speaker 3: That some people are acting. And this— I describe this as an antidote to helplessness and hopelessness. The thing is that we're not going to accept this. We're not going to just sit—

Speaker 6: But what you're saying is that violence is an antidote to helplessness and hopelessness.

Speaker 3: Partly, yes. It became in the public imagination, I would say, that we are not helpless victims. We are not passive victims, and we don't want to be. The fallacy of this is that people see violence only when Palestinians resort to violence. And as you know, any people under occupation by international law have the right to resist in every possible way through the international law. But still, Israel exercises violence on Palestinians daily. It daily kills Palestinians. Daily it demolishes homes. Daily it arrests people.

Speaker 6: And yet the narrative is the other way around. Israel is portraying itself as the victim.

Speaker 3: Exactly. You see, that's why—

Speaker 6: So how do you switch that narrative?

Speaker 3: The distortion of the narrative—

Speaker 6: How do you switch it?

Speaker 3: And the lack of knowledge of the power asymmetry have created distortions and unrealistic views of what's happening on the ground. This has to be switched by public diplomacy, by a clear policy, by clear strategies, but more importantly, by this emerging network of solidarity. The protest marches— hundreds of thousands— people came out and said, this is wrong. It's time to stop the injustice exercised against the Palestinians and to stop the pain. Seems to me Israel is its own worst enemy by destroying the two-state solution. Solution and by escalating the violence and criminality to such a level. It brought the subject back to the original issues of the creation of the state, of the exclusionary nature of an ideological system that describes itself as a Jewish state where only Jews have the right to self-determination. It brought back the issue to, well, where are the— what happened to the original Palestinian Palestinians, the indigenous peoples. This is really crucial now. And so the whole nature of the discourse is shifting. You can no longer expect Israel to maintain the control over the public diplomacy and public discourse.

Speaker 6: And finally, in a sentence, what is your assessment of Benjamin Netanyahu's legacy?

Speaker 3: I think Netanyahu's legacy has been one of the most, if not the most, destructive legacy. Israel, for the whole region. And I think in many ways by legitimizing fascism and violence and manipulation and control, as well as corruption, that he has created a situation where the chances of peace have become all that more difficult, if not impossible. And this legacy is going to last a long time, because destroying the chances of peace means that not only the Palestinians will pay the price, but also the Israelis, because there's no way you can maintain an exclusive control over a people who are bent on getting their rights and their freedom. I was surprised. The shock came later, but for many reasons. But what happened on October 7th was unprecedented, in the sense that the Palestinians and Palestinian fighters came out, broke free of their prison, and were able to face the Israeli army, stand up to the Israeli army, and, in many ways, expose the myth of the army that cannot be defeated.

Speaker 12: This was— It was mass murder on a huge scale. 1,400 Israelis are killed. It was an act of terror. It was an act of brutal terror. They basically came over to murder as many civilians as they could.

Speaker 3: You assign that as their motivation, that they just want to kill as many civilians? This, I know—

Speaker 12: It seems obvious that that was the case.

Speaker 3: —is something that Israel has been doing to Gaza for decades. 5 assaults on Gaza. They killed 5,000 Palestinians before this 3,000-and-some Palestinians killed. That's systematic state terror, because they kill long distance, because they don't have to look their victims in the eye. It's an active policy that is being implemented by the Israeli occupation, by the Israeli army, on But surely this was a deliberate act of mass murder. This was a deliberate act of resisting an occupation army that has been surrounding Gaza, besieging Gaza, regularly bombing and shelling Gaza, killing civilians.

Speaker 12: So it's justifiable, in your view?

Speaker 3: I don't justify the killing of civilians, ever. But I justify your misrepresentation Because the mass— the mainstream media picked up the distortions and the narrative and the versions of Israel, even the lies that were disproven later.

Speaker 12: But children were killed and families were killed in the most brutal way.

Speaker 3: So this has been happening to Palestinians for decades.

Hanan Ashrawi: Where is your moral outrage?

Speaker 3: Why is it that you always ask the Palestinians to prove their moral fiber? Why is it that you extract whatever happened and you deal with it only by accusing the Palestinians? I think I would like— no, no. This sort of predisposition to think of the Palestinians as being guilty all along is part of a pattern.

Speaker 12: Are you concerned—

Hanan Ashrawi: That's not the issue. I'm concerned that you have—

Speaker 12: Are you concerned what this will do to the Palestinian cause that you have fought for, for decades? Are you concerned what it will do to the Palestinian cause?

Speaker 3: Of course I am concerned. I'm concerned that this will be used again to label and malign the Palestinians. If you look at the occupation and what it's done, and if you look at the siege of Gaza, for 17 years, the people of Gaza The Gaza Strip has been imprisoned. They have had no hope. Regularly, they're being shelled and killed. Food, water, land, whatever, that has been taken away. They've been treated like subhuman species. They've been denied their humanity and their rights.

Speaker 12: Is it possible to wipe out Hamas? Israelis are talking about wiping out Hamas. Is it possible to do that?

Speaker 3: It shows you how much they know. They tried to do this before. And they killed civilians, and they bombed and shelled people's homes, and they destroyed and obliterated whole families the way they're doing now. Did it wipe out Hamas? They don't understand Hamas is a military and political organization. It has both wings. It has organizations, institutions. It has social welfare programs. It's not just It's not a group of fighters who emerged out of nowhere. It's part of the political fabric of— they ran for elections, for heaven's sake.

Speaker 12: So you have been working for peace for—

Speaker 3: I have been, yes.

Speaker 12: —many decades.

Speaker 3: Yes.

Speaker 12: Are we further away from peace now than we've ever been?

Speaker 3: I think so, yes. I think that's a trajectory that has begun from the beginning, even when When we signed the Declaration of Principles and so on, and the Oslo process, Israel maintained its policy of land confiscation, of building settlements, of targeting Palestinians.

Hanan Ashrawi: With this government—

Speaker 12: Please, let me tell you, Ehud Barak said to me that in 2000, they had the deal, they were very close to the deal, and Arafat rejected it and then returned very quickly to terror, were his words.

Hanan Ashrawi: You want to go back to 2000?

Speaker 12: I'm just saying what he said.

Speaker 3: There are reports about— read neutral reports about 2000. The Israelis did not in any way offer a deal. I asked them. I challenged them. Give me a piece of paper that says what your deal was. They said, well, we want to have— you know, you can have aboveground Jerusalem. We'll have underground. Islam is not an onion. They wanted to maintain control and annex large areas of— and it's all verbal, nothing in writing. Negotiations were ongoing. Suddenly, Ehud Barak asked— So, do you fear— No, never.

Speaker 12: Do you fear that there will be an explosion of violence as a result of what is happening in Gaza, on the West Bank and in other areas?

Speaker 3: There are already confrontations. And the violence is already taking place by the settlers and the Israeli army. And the people are terrified. There are areas that are being cleaned out, because they're afraid. They're not protected. And because each town, city and village is totally besieged and isolated, they have no protection. That's what scares me, is that there is violence, but it's happening Is there, in your view, a way back from this? No. There's no way back. You have to go forward. What we need is to see an end to the occupation, an end to the brutality.