BY PAULA ABOOD & ALISSAR GAZAL
"I've always maintained that [we women] have a more fair approach to the truth and to the integrity of other human beings, because we serve life and peace" — Hanan Ashrawi on ABC Radio, October 22, 2003.
"Ashrawi certainly presents well in the media. She is articulate and intelligent. But she is dogmatic and ideologically driven. Her carefully cultivated media image as a moderate cannot disguise her consistent history as a rejectionist and a maximalist" — Peter Wertheim, former president of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies in the Sydney Morning Herald, October 23.
When it was recently announced that Palestinian human-rights activist Dr Hanan Ashrawi was to be awarded the 2003 Sydney Peace Prize by Sydney University's Sydney Peace Foundation, many of us in Sydney roundly supported this brave decision and prepared for the coming storm.
What we have seen since then amounts to little more than a campaign of disinformation and defamation. Reports of political intimidation, threats to pull funds out of the Sydney Peace Foundation, the lobbying of NSW Premier Bob Carr to desist from personally awarding the prize on November 6, and the announcement on October 20 from Lord Mayor Lucy Turnbull that the City of Sydney will boycott the award, all bear testimony to the realisation of this campaign.
So why so vehement a response to a woman who is internationally recognised and celebrated for her determined commitment to global dialogue and human rights? Who is driving this campaign?
Frank Lowy, Australia's second-richest man, has been identified in the Sydney Morning Herald as a key player, others name powerful Israel lobby groups the Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) and the Zionist Federation.
Perhaps most revealing of all though, is Sydney-based journalist Antony Loewenstein's claim in a compelling article on ZNet on October 23, that the Australian Jewish News "has been the conduit through which numerous Jewish groups and individuals have been able to libel [Ashrawi]". Loewenstein believes "it is nothing less than an attempt by the Jewish community to delegitimise the Palestinian cause".
Others who have grubbily waded in to criticise Dr Ashrawi include NSW deputy opposition leader Barry O'Farrell and federal ministers Alexander Downer and Tony Abbott. Finally, the elite of the elites, merchant banker and wannabe Liberal member for the seat of Wentworth, Malcolm Turnbull has joined Gerard Henderson of the ultra-conservative Sydney Institute, in accusing those who have criticised Lucy Turnbull's decision to boycott the 2003 Peace Prize of being misogynist and anti-Semitic.
Prominent human rights advocates like Mary Robinson, former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu think otherwise. Robinson says of Dr Ashrawi, "I admire her courage, integrity and commitment to seeking a peaceful and just solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict". Tutu notes, "Against daunting odds [Ashrawi] has remained committed to finding a peaceful solution to what seems an intractable problem".
That the Turnbulls and Hendersons are so far out of step with such respected human rights activists should alert even those who have scant knowledge of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that something rotten is afoot.
The smears being hurled at Dr Ashrawi are intended to deflect focus from the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian people, and how long-term peace advocates like Dr Ashrawi can instruct us on how a just peace might be achieved.
Many Sydney-based opponents of Dr Ashrawi have pointed to her rejection of the Oslo accords as proof of her antagonism to peace. But it is generally acknowledged today that the Oslo accords amounted to nothing more than a consolidation of the ever expanding Israeli occupation.
Under the accords, a series of non-contiguous patches of land segregating communities into Bantustans would be as much as Palestinians would ever get as their so-called state. Most observers call this model the apartheid model. How any advocate for a just peace could agree to such a disingenuous deal is beyond arguing about today. Oslo is dead and buried, and better that than a people condemned to eternal rule under the jackboot of a military occupation.
Dr Ashrawi's scheduled visit to Sydney in November seems set to stand many of these accepted myths on their head. Perhaps that is why she represents such a threat to those whose interests would be better served if there was no dialogue, no discussion, no dispelling of falsehoods, no engagement with the facts as they relate to a grassroots reality.
The strategy of silencing, of demonising, of shutting down dialogue before it even has the chance to see the light of day is what this campaign is all about. And so too then, does it become easier to see how the cliche of the so-called "Palestinian terrorist", the "violent Arab" retains such power in the minds of those who would rather rely on the racist stereotype, than look beyond and ask why on earth a young woman or man would strap a bomb to their bodies and go blow themselves up and those around them.
It is only when we unpack the unrelenting prejudice and the distortions that have ultimately served to position the Palestinian people as a non-people with no claims to humanity, do we get closer to understanding how the politics of this issue has become so shabbily contested even in the relatively uneventful halls of downtown Sydney.
Dr. Hanan Ashrawi, as an advocate of the Palestinian people, stands out in a gallery of unimaginative and predictable dinosaurs because she is a woman of integrity and has refused to be co-opted by power or deceit. She cannot be so easily written off because she does so ably embody all that many aspire to be: compassionate, articulate, courageous and understanding. Her commitment to global dialogue, human rights and just peace is compelling enough for all Australians to actively engage with and participate in discussions on this important issue, even if those elites in Sydney Town Hall would have us do otherwise.
[Paula Abood and Alissar Gazal are community activists based in Sydney.]
From Green Left Weekly, November 5, 2003.
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