“Ashrawi Delineates Palestinian ‘Red Lines,’ Reiterates Need for a Two-State Solution.”
Report from a Palestine Center briefing with Hanan Ashrawi

16 March 2000—Reminding her audience of “the grave historical injustice that befell the Palestinians,” Hanan Ashrawi rejected the notion that “the only good Palestinian is the Palestinian who accepts the Israeli version of reality.” For every “no” repeated by Israeli negotiators, the Palestinians have their own “red lines”; cross them, Ashrawi warned, and the opportunity for “historical reconciliation” between Palestinians and Israelis will be deferred indefinitely in favor of a “temporary truce.”

Despite the “frenzy of diplomatic activity” captured in television news clips, Ashrawi, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, perceives little change in a “peace process” that encourages its delegates to “sign first and negotiate later.” In the succession of interim agreements that followed the much-celebrated Declaration of Principles (or DOP, signed on 13 September 1993), the “peace process [has become] a process of diminution” and “non-incremental gradualism.” While the DOP made plausible the idea of a Palestinian state in all of the West Bank and Gaza, seven years on, said Ashrawi, all the Palestinians have to show for their participation in the peace process are bantustans.

As it happens, the course of negotiations has run parallel to another less transparent, but no less deliberate, process of Israeli settlement activity, land confiscation, and house demolition. With every renegotiation of the principles set forth in the DOP, Israel has accelerated its efforts to create facts on the ground. The result, said Ashrawi, is that “not a single agreement” between Palestinians and Israelis has been fully implemented. She called attention to the main issues that “remain outstanding”: the status of Jerusalem, borders, settlements, and refugees.

With respect to Jerusalem, Ashrawi denounced the “absolutist language” of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. His insistence that Jerusalem remain the “eternal, undivided capital” of the Jewish state effectively “make[s] God take sides” in a debate that is already charged with supra-political sensitivities. Palestinians, Ashrawi reiterated, should insist upon East Jerusalem as their national capital. In so doing, they “are not inventing a new legal basis for negotiations”; rather, the Palestinian position is consistent with UN Resolution 242, which affirms the “inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war.”

Likewise with the Palestinian position on borders between Israel and a future Palestinian state. By accepting 242, the Palestinians accepted a state based on the borders that existed before the June 1967 Arab-Israeli war. By conceding to these borders—effectively limiting a Palestinian state to the West Bank and Gaza—Palestinians “have made an historic compromise, and this should never be forgotten.” And yet, one of Barak’s “four no’s” includes Israel’s refusal to return to pre-1967 borders. “Our red line,” declared Ashrawi, is “in response to their red line.”

She was equally insistent upon the Palestinian right to reject all settlements in the West Bank and Gaza. Again drawing upon international law, which clearly deems illegal Israel’s sprawling settlements on occupied Palestinian land, Ashrawi stated explicitly: “I don’t believe any Palestinian should bestow legality on any settlement. Why should we?” If not simply on principle, she argued, Palestinians should reject the Jewish-only settlements because they interrupt the contiguity of Palestinian land and institute a menacing “apartheid system” for maintaining Israeli hegemony over all of historic Palestine.

In order to “set the historical record straight,” not only must Israel dismantle its settlements; it must allow the return of Palestinian refugees to their homes within historic Palestine. The right of return, Ashrawi noted, is an international “human and political right.” Elaborating, she added that “absorption is not an option” for Palestinian refugees who remain languishing in camps in neighboring Arab countries. Moreover, these refugees, whose plight has reached “unacceptable proportions,” should not have their host countries negotiating on their behalf; the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization), said Ashrawi, remains the refugees’ sole, legitimate representative.

Notwithstanding Israeli fears that the refugees’ right of return to all of historic Palestine will alter the “Jewish character” of Israel, restitution, added Ashrawi, is an essential component of any final settlement. Rather than having to be the “guardians of Zionism,” the Palestinians, whose nation was torn asunder by the creation of the state of Israel, must focus their efforts on “reconnecting the past with the future.”

Dismissing suggestions that hers is a “maximalist” position, Ashrawi challenged her would-be detractors to “talk to people who still want all of Palestine back.” In fact, the above “imperatives of peace” are “minimalist” to most Palestinians, for whom “[t]here is still a historical narrative.” Punctuated though it has been by disenfranchisement and dispersal, this narrative is linked to land deeds to confiscated properties and keys to once-Palestinian homes.

That the collective Palestinian memory is still rooted in the land is, to Ashrawi, one indication among many that the “two-state solution” to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict remains the most viable. Even more important, perhaps, is that Palestinians need to be “liberated from the injustices of the past.” Ashrawi made the case for an independent Palestinian state, saying that it was necessary for Palestinians to “enjoy the security of having a passport.” “We need to be able to have our day in the sunlight, as a nation among equals,” she added. Palestinians “cannot relinquish that right a priori.”

Even though a single, bi-national state may become “the de facto solution” if Israel continues its settlement and land-confiscation policies, such a state, predicted Ashrawi, would not be “non-sectarian” and would therefore repress Palestinians as second-class citizens. While she did not rule out the possibility of a bi-national state in the future, Ashrawi emphasized that such a development, like the realization of a just and lasting peace, cannot come before an Israeli “admission of guilt” for the suffering of Palestinians.

The above text is based on remarks delivered on 14 March 2000 by Hanan Ashrawi, Secretary General of MIFTAH, The Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy. Her views do not necessarily reflect those of the Palestine Center or The Jerusalem Fund. This “For the Record” was written by Palestine Center Writer/Editor Samer Badawi; it may be used without permission but with proper attribution to the Palestine Center.

This information first appeared in For The Record No. 34, 16 March 2000.