Conversations with History: Amira Hass

I welcome to a conversation with history I'm Harry Chrysler of the Institute of International Studies our guest today is amira hass who is a correspondence for Haaretz newspaper in Israel her publications include drinking the sea at Gaza and a collection of articles entitled reporting from Ramallah an Israeli journalist in occupied land she is a recipient of numerous human rights and journalism awards including the Bruno Kreisky Human Rights Award and in 2003 the UNESCO Press Freedom Award Amira welcome to Berkeley I mean where were you born and raised alum Israel and looking back how do you think your parents shaped you're thinking about the world they were Jewish Holocaust survivors members of the Communist Israeli Communist Party my mother had been a partisan with the in Yugoslavia against German occupation but then she was deported to a concentration camp my father was in the ghetto and I think I was raised in this in their attempt to personal attempt an ideological attempt to compensate for a terrible emotional and ideological vacuum in family vacuum created after the second world war with the loss of most of their family and friends and and in people and history and life to compensate this with with the hope that you can work on for a better world war ii quality the principle of equality is recognized as as a basic for human life in reading the introduction to your book drinking the sea at gaza you talk about your family and i get the sense of both a legacy of loss of looking back but also of a resistance is that a fair characterization you're already the loss is not that you look back and you feel the loss the loss is always there you don't have to look back to feel the loss it's in everyday days life if your brothers and sisters and beloved other beloved ones have all been murdered by the Nazi system then it's the loss is ever present but yes and your mother was a writer she she actually had a diary about so tell us a little about that she wrote the diary in the concentration camp which was already a panel death panel penalty if she was found writing it her her friends or or or the other inmates in the barrack were covering for her when she was writing she wrote on pieces of paper that she found who knows where and they actually she described the life there she didn't talk so much about herself she made kind of analysis of her of what was happening to people around her she was also teaching children she and it was another forbidden activity for people for inmates in this concentration camp bergen-belsen and she taught children because she felt that they needed to be taken care of and in this hell and but it was for her it was like a way of fighting for sure 22 to have this boss forbidden activities where were you educated through the lemon then Tel Aviv and in what university you were to these I went to Hebrew University and then tel Aviv University but I was stuck with my with my ma studies and and what what first you did some human rights work but then then you became a journalist when I was already working for Hobbit's as a text editor I was I needed something for my new show me as you say people for my soul and I volunteered it was in the middle of the First Intifada I volunteered in a group called workers hotline we assisted Palestinian workers mainly whose rights were violated by Israeli employers and they were not represented properly by Israeli trade union with the Israeli trade union so we started this advocacy group and also active active assistance in the sense of approaching approaching employers and either through lawyers or directly in order to get for this people body deserved and is this where you first developed your consciousness of the plight of the Palestinian or is it goes back it goes okay I grew up in a political family and political surrounding I've never I mean it was I was active in the Israeli left-wing for years so occupation we i mean i've been involved in acts against occupation but i always thought that our activity should be in the Israeli Street with Israelis and to explain to them and to try and and and promote the understanding that occupation is wrong for this I did not need to go and meet with or experience Palestinian occupation but there was a change with the first intifada that I felt that all this kind of political activism led nowhere and with this this activity of mine with workers hotline I was I came to know gasm especially and it was like discovering a new world because you know I didn't have prejudice a thing but I didn't have much knowledge about ordinary life their most theoretical knowledge i had so it was an opportunity to have more detailed knowledge and was fascinated by people in the society i found it a very very warm society very welcoming society very resilient society so let's talk before we we talk about the occupation and the suicide bombers let's talk a little about the way you see your craft the methodology you use and so on you in your work have actually gone to live in the communities that you write about tell us about that and and that choice of as a way to do your craft as a journalist yeah I think it's so natural you know for journalists to do so if I were asked to cover French affairs i would go on living in paris i guess and travel a lot in France not right about France from Germany so this is the basic basic i think in journalistic work in this sort of journalistic work then also i guess i have this maybe research curiosity which i could satisfy by living there because what it is is an ongoing research so i'm very lucky now always i discover a new society and I I discover all kind of facets of this society by living in it but still by being some sort of an observer I'm not not part of the society in the in the real sense of the word of course you become sort of but you I'm always in this position and it's interesting this position of observant while you live in the society so it is something some have compared my work with anthropological work maybe more progressive for anthropological work not that so this is this for me has been I think very important also personally this I have I do have an obsession to get to get the taste or the flavor of things from very much from inside when I was 20 I lived for five months in Romania was under Ceausescu and I believe that I have this need I felt this person philosophical responsibility i will tell you because I came from a communist family I didn't have any illusions about the regime's in Eastern Europe and I felt because they come from such a family and from such ideological background I have some sort of a philosophical responsibility to taste life in the mutation or in this disturb all terrible dictatorship that evolved in Eastern Europe you wrote you you wrote I think in the introduction to the cosmic it has always been my can fiction that history has made more in the currents of ordinary life than it is by rulers and their ceremonies mm-hmm so you're you're implementing that I guess I know I mean I referred there too why was not interested in the coming of Abu Mazen to Gaza after he had two years I don't know one of the series of these feuds and this kind and disagreement that he had with our fat and then he came all of a sudden so everybody was very interested in this but for me just look like boring ritual of people who think themselves at the top of I don't know of the olympus in i prefer to be with friends who had who made their own met the own history i I can't resist asking you this question and that is because you you come from a Marxist communist tradition Elias what what is the relation of theory to observation and facts in your work I mean I clearly you you had it as you already discussed toward the notion of what what is the real situation what are people's lives really like but but how do you think about theory in the back of your mind I think it exists in the sense i mean i always see the class conflict I always seek last class tensions I I don't even have to see rise about it it's so self-evident I think that's why I was very early on very critical of the Palestinian Authority because I saw the way that they were creating new classes a all sort of corrupted and corruptive ways in order to build up a stronghold which supports the Oslo process so I saw this at the same time I saw the Israeli ongoing colonization very clearly and I saw it was done in order to establish Israeli Jewish privileges in the area but then because I'm very aware of the basic this my theoretical inbuilt assumptions I mean I cannot even help it it's not that I'm a scholar in Marxism I'm not I I was very careful to be very very to collect a lot of information and I was very very careful when people started telling me about our photographers people starting to accumulate their capital in the occupied territories well most of the people went through a process of impoverishment I was very careful and they didn't immediately write about it because I felt no because I'm inclined to believe this I have to collect more information so in a sense I'm sometimes more careful about it and because I'm aware of it tell me a little about your your craft is a writer your pieces are beautifully written they they are comprehensive in they detail there's a there's an eye for things that people ignore how do you do this how did you come to do it so well thank you it's not not the basic requirement of journalism so it is but well I guess that's my I think sometimes I see kind as if I see a film and then I feel I have to describe the film in words hmm so I want if I were a filmmaker that's how I would have done it with pictures with so that's my way then also of course I don't only right features a right to operate and I know that I have to to have to give up the analysis to show to expose the analysis but I prefer to expose it through examples and through examples from daily life and not to burden with slogans I'm trying to avoid slogans as much as possible because I live in a society both Israeli and Palestinian that is really our overcrowded with slogans and copyright you know one sentence exclamations and I'm very appalled by it and it sounds like you keep many stories in your mind at one time and and choose when you actually write it up and publish it so you're not you're not driven by the headlines as you make as many journalists are I don't need to because I don't cover now Daily News so I know I know some things are structural and they might not get the first headline news or headlines but they are structural and their develop its a certain development within Israeli policy all within Palestinian tactics so I pay attention to this much more to what seems to catch the attention of everybody at a certain moment and then dies after 23 days but let's talk now a little about the Israeli occupation you have daily inated in an essay in Palestinian studies the the structure of Israeli rule explain it to us what what what are the the by-products of the strategy that Israel is employing to control the territories let me first say this that occupation is not necessarily a military occupation the patient means when one people in one government a foreign government decides about the future and scope of development and chances of development of another people which is not elected this sort this government so this is for me this I came to understand what occupation is especially in the years of Oslo the Oslo process where everybody which everybody thought was the peace peace process and I felt this this ongoing ever intensifying Israeli policy of control over Palestinian life even though the army was not directly inside was not inside Palestinian populated areas and even though there were negotiations between Palestinian leaders and Israeli the Israeli government so the two main manifestations of this control and Israeli persistent and successful attempt to dictate Palestinian future were these two means what it is twofold one is the policy of colonization or of settlement where by Israel got hold of much more land within Gaza and the West Bank also during the Oslo process made sure that actually it created a in the infrastructure of a one state in the grey in the one country between the land and the river so it was one infrastructure of very good highways roads connecting settlements remote settlements with Israeli mainland establishing the same sewage system water system electric read education system whatever of Israel in these remote places in the occupied territories but an infrastructure for Jews alone now in between this infrastructure this grid of roads and settlements you had Palestinian and claves which were a lot of the sort of self-rule but the self rule was in itself very limited because you could not expand in your natural reserve and territorial reserve because this was taken by the Israelis in the time of the peace process so-called peace process so this was one the second thing to control Palestinian development was through a new system introduced first in 91 which it was practically a pass system like the one we knew we knew in South apartheid South Africa which meant that Palestinians what the right of the freedom of movement was taken from them was not respected in Reverse to what had happened between 67 291 that in spite of the occupation in spite of all kind of attacks against Israelis by Palestinians during these previous years there were granted freedom of movement in the whole country with certain exceptions now all of them were not granted what were allowed to move freely accept of a few categories which were chosen by Israel in different times and were granted this very limited freedom of movement now with the years this system has perfected so it involves more and more people who need permits and in smaller and smaller and smaller areas if at the beginning you needed a permit a travel permit from Gaza to Israel or from Gaza to the west bank and vice versa you now need a permit to go from one city in the West Bank to another city in the West Bank in certain areas in the West Bank and Gaza people who live near settlements need permits to go out of their own area in special hours through special gates so you have so actually what Israel has been doing during the last 12 years is segment izing not only Palestinian territory but Palestinian population into certain categories which you characterized by their accessibility to the privilege of freedom of movement so so what what you're saying is is that the reality the actual lives of Palestinians the actual rules that Israel is imposing is very different in some ways from the general perception because all of this was happening at a time when the Oslo Accords seemed to be a peace process moving toward a final status in which Palestine would have its own its own stay exactly exactly it was process which guarantee that the final status be a very enfeebled palestinian political entity and and and we are you are also saying that in the course of this process israel through the in a sense through the processes of of its rule was creating facts creating realities that in a way really narrowly limited the future place where the palestinian state could be exactly yeah now now i guess the the talk a little about you say and i think what's very interesting is your writing you you actually focus on time and space in this process and if i can quote from you say time and space together make room in one's world not only materially to accomplish once tasks and activities but the level of the spirit enabling both the individual and the community to breathe to develop to prosper to create space and the occupied territories has been gradually but ruthlessly encroached upon for more than 30 years as more and more land has been expropriated that's what you just described you know this is a kind of a theoretical statement give give us an example in everyday life i think i read recently a column of viewers about children trying to get through the fence tell us a story like that too because i think what what's really interesting if I if I scan sermonize here is when we deal with these issues from afar or maybe even in Israel we don't think about their implications for everyday life but you are addressing that of course I'll give you that I'll share with you again this story of village coach butter it's it found itself locked between the new built fence that Israel the security fence and the former Green Line and in the dispense we should explain is offense that Israel is building is allegedly for security purposes to separate the palace from Israel exactly and to prevent from terrorists from suicide bombers infiltrating into Israel but the fence is not built accord on the green line along the border of 67 but it's built in many places deep into Palestinian territory in order to incorporate Israeli settlements so actually it is it is upgrading the former the former border and it is actually expropriating land from Palestinian terror from Palestinian community and it looks in people so people in there in these areas are not allowed to go freely to Israel and I cannot go freely to the Palestinian to Palestinian territory so in this village only 300 people you have 100 children studying in a bit nearby village which is actually the mother village of this little village so her students have to go to this other village through the fence children defense has a as a gate so sometimes it is being opened sometimes it is not being opened now there are some teachers teaching in a nearby Palestinian city called to Karim so they have to cross from another place through Palestinian Israeli checkpoint with soldiers sometimes they'll let through sometimes they are not get through now the villagers need to have a special actually a special identity card additional to what they have which which is the authorization Israeli authorization for them to live where they live this is a very new issue because they live in this area which was declared closed area but only two Palestinians Jews can go there and live there but Palestinians cannot only those who live there are allowed to stay provided they get this authorization from the Israeli authorities Israeli military now if you have already were already told that they are not allowed to stay there because some of them were active politically active years ago and we're in Israeli jails or so on and so forth but this is their land this they're home this is their family and now they are actually supposed to leave it and this is this is something which is not it is it happened in a different scale so far larger scale in the world in Gaza Strip the same thing you have areas in the Gaza Strip where people can not need to go through fences and through gates twice a day once a day sometimes not sometimes yes they cannot go with their cars they're not allowed to bring in things they cannot ship they cannot market their grid cultural market agricultural products so many people have been pushed to leave these areas which are not by surprise the only vacant areas in the Gaza Strip and where there are some of the big settlements situated so you see and slow it's a policy in the name of security which forces people many people to leave their own land and owned homes if they want to conduct some decent life and if they insist on staying there they are doomed to impoverished impoverished life and pushed into charity life subjects of charity and they are not living of their own work and so this combination of the past system and and the infrastructure to support the Israeli settlements leads to to everyday problem so that for an Israeli to travel on the highways that were built for the Israeli settlements a trip could take hypothetically 30 minutes on a freeway like we have in the Bay Area but on the other hand a Palestinian who's not entitled to go on these roads could the same trip could take several hours yes and all he could not leave it all yeah so what I call it is not only the grab the robbery of land but you have a robbery of time so Palestinians time has been dropped in the last 13 years because you have to wait for a permit and you don't get it and you have to wait again then you waste time way to get a check point when you waste time in a way giving submitting another request for a permit then you waste time trying to go and buy in all kind of small dangerous bypass road and time is a means of production time is so precious for one's development internal development community development and this has been robbed by the past system this very important means of life of every color of every person not just Palestinian has been robbed of them and sometimes I think it's more it's more precious than land because land you can get back or some some one way or the other the lost time you will never get back and it must lead to a kind of a sense of helplessness of frustration that eats away at the soul I guess is the only way there it's you know total strangulation and the thing is that people are are not even made are not even that aware of how huge this loss of time is but I see how they because of this loss of time in loss of space because they don't have freedom of movement people have lowered they are their fan of expectations they are are not expecting much of their lives because they know that they will be disappointed you cannot plan and go to see friends and I'm even talking about this before this terrible times of armed armed clashes between Israelis and Israeli assaults against Palestinians people have lowered so much their expectations of themselves and they restrict themselves to their narrow surrounding family work home family work home nothing more than that you don't even go in Gaza now even the sea half of the shore is blocked for for Palestinians you you live for hundred meters away from the shore and we can't reach the sea because there are settlements and the security of the settlements comes first help us understand hit how Israel came to adopt this strategy I think in your readings I get the sense that these were odd hoc decisions initially with regard to to control that have in essence turned into something else yeah you know it's something that I'm always asking myself to what extent it had been a master plan from the start I'm still you know oscillating between the two two possibilities or how much it was taken in 91 is an ad hoc policy meant especially to meant especially to contain the in the first intifada because in 91 the first thing the father came to some sort of a standstill in terms of palestinian measures and ability to to continue a mess or inability to continue a mess mess up rising and the israeli repression came to a standstill because at that time israel acknowledged the status of its status in humanitarian terms of an occupying power so it had responsibility on the welfare of the civilian situation that's why it could not bomb Palestinians it could not repress their uprising by dropping one tonne bombs on in on civilian areas or by killing every day five six seven people so it had to confine to bureaucratic logistic means and the past system was a sort of such bureaucratic such bureaucratic means it put try to contain Palestinian uprising from spilling over into Israel proper and also I think that it allowed Israel much more control because people were subject to all this X documents and then you can control people's movements and then you contain their activities but with time I think and with especially with the Oslo years they understood how they could control economic life how they could actually lead what I see now and I'm their economies to say the same need this sort of war economical war of attrition visibly the Palestinian Authority and thus enforce them to have all kind of to accept all kind of concessions during the talks during the negotiations about the interim status and then the final status then I think it evolved I don't know at what stage I mean I think very early on it has evolved as a very good as a means to achieve demographic separation not geographic separation not political separation but demographic separation which means that Israel is still in control all over the territory or two peoples live but it is separating the two peoples and then you it separates but for the sake of one people of one demographic group let's talk a little now about the suicide bombers because in in this in this recent phase the last couple of years of the Second Intifada this has become a series of events that have shattered our ability to actually understand you know what is going on in in that part of the world and has obviously been tied to the US policy and war against terrorism and the links have been made whether they are justified or not how do you account or let's put as we help us understand how suicide bombers emerged in this conflict on the Palestinian side you know the first suicide bombings which occurred in Palestinian territory not in Israel were in 93 this was ten years after the first suicide bombings in Lebanon which means for 10 years Palestinians who are mostly Muslims did not think of endorsing such a way their fight was always based on on hope for life not for death now 93 is two years after the imposition of the past system all of the closure policy I think it has to do this this kind of you feel this sort of impotence this dis terrible sort of importance that Palestinians felt in the times when their space was reduced this was only 93 and this was three or four attempts inside the occupied territories Gaza in the West Bank the source and this was against me mostly military targets and settlers but who are seen by Palestinians as military military military notice civilians but the first source of bombings inside Israel were in 94 and this were of one months or so two months after the murder that is conducted by a Jewish American physician or doctor in mahitamu Paulo in the in Hebron where he killed 29 Muslim worshippers in their holy place so this was a revenge one time and then the revenge started it started to be emulated by Hamas and by jihad against Israel always saying that this is retaliation against against Israeli actions and killings of civilians but it had a clear political motive on the part of Hamas and this was to to foil the Oslo agreements or to push to a corner the Palestinian Authority I have no I mean this is i think is obvious so it had a political motive and especially internal political motive the struggle within the Palestinian Authority inside so that the factions among the power within the Palestinian leadership in their competition with each other for popular support see this as a tool it was a tool then yeah by Hamas yes in this Intifada it became a tool in the competition between everybody so they are using these factions are using people's discussed with life total loss of hope the need for revenge because so many Palestinian civilians had been killed during the last three years almost unnoticed by the entire world so they feel this need to retake revenge and they feel this need to get out even for a moment from their captivated and and and very limited space with a V Israeli military technology and to be omnipotent even for one moment so they are ready to die for this because they don't see any point in living but then the factions are using these readiness not because they strategize and they think that this will bring them are closer to independence but because they compete with each other on their popularity within the Palestinian population so so let's broaden our understanding of this so what you have is a hypothetical person whose family's land is taken away or who loses a relative all right so much blood around look right who is led to kind of unbelievable depression and frustration and becomes a target of opportunity for factions among the the Palestinian leadership who want to use them in this way to to strike back at Israel very often they don't have to work hard to recruit him or her yeah very often such people voluntarily look for someone until we would like to make a suicide attack so they come themselves very often so but but so the the mo is from our side of the water it's hard to understand what would lead a person to take this act and one is not sure as to whether they are motivated by religion by going to heaven talk a little about that for me as a secular person it's also very difficult to on the one hand to believe or two to understand when people do talk about heaven so I need the help of my Palestinian friends and acquaintances who might not be very secular but not either not very religious they say most of them say that that going to heaven or the religious motivations of being Shaheed being marked here and getting that's why eternal life in heaven these are not the main motivations that they only come lust or they are being adopted because it is accepted as the norm the real motivations are those personal community wants of what even not personally in the sense that one once life is a total wreck whoa we see that many of those who were who went to explore themselves had careers or started to head careers were not they were not coming from the poorest families enrolled into universities so it's not people who were really a total total loss in western term in norms or or even Palestinian own so they felt they represent the society in its despair and they want to do something some use of this despair revenge so it is a very it is a very delicate interplay here between the personal despair but not very not immediate despair and the political community despair then I think that many of them got strength by becoming more observant by going to to to mosque to the mosque by praying five times a day by reading Quran over and over again it's only then some of them are not started with the Quran at the beginning of the Intifada when they saw so much bloodshed so many of their neighbors and friends and relatives getting killed civilians getting killed by israeli soldiers so they found compensation and solondz with the court with reading the Quran so it strengthened them but this was not the motivation it was maybe the support at the same time you know I spoke as I told yesterday in my lecture I did speak to one person from Hamas who eventually was killed not in a suicide attack he was always going out vis a vie Israeli military military tanks and soldiers and eventually he was killed in one of those battles he would his gun and invading tanks in his neighborhood and we had talked to a year before he had been he was killed and he saw himself as a candidate for suicide because this was suicide to fight against Israeli army is almost suicide because the proportions are such that you you are always getting killed and he didn't mention religious motivations at all only the national ones only the seeing how many of his friends got killed and he was a very educated person so and also very religious theoretically religious and he didn't use is the first motivation for him at all it gave him support but not motivation we've talked about Israeli policies of occupation and now the the response on the Palestinian side from from some soft parts of the Palestinian community with the use of suicide bombers in both of these cases there seems that is on the Israeli side on the Palestinian side there seems to be a failure of leadership of a kind of responsible leadership that sees with the implications of policies and and and the dynamic of the situation let's look at both sides and I want to ask you about first on the Israeli side it seems to be the case that will even labor governments who initiated and tried to implement the Oslo process continued to build settlements and that that was a a real failure of leadership do you agree with it not at all you told not at all if you don't agree know that you say failure because you assume that what was there what their main goal was to have peace with the Palestinian okay and just a specialist in ian's yeah I think that their main goal was to guarantee a stronger Israel bigger Israel and an enfeebled Palestinian political entity and they were very successful so it's a very responsible leadership if you think that this was their main goal so that so that all sides in the Israel or most all the sides in the Israeli debate are really committed to enlarging the size of Israel through settlements I think so I think that this is this has been made clear during the Oslo process especially not before because before you could always say security bargaining chip whatever but during the Oslo times when everybody expected Israel to freeze all settlement oh it only was only expanded and since Robin all through the ultra government's so they were very successful dude it's not a failure of leadership so so then it's a failure of Israeli constituencies that did not support these policies okay but let themselves believe that their leadership is going towards peace okay and why so why so so why did these constituencies then fail and seeing what was going on and try to build a political coalition to oppose that yeah I guess that many people wanted to believe that it is possible to break the spell of conflict and I think that people are very optimistic with the Oslo process they thought that their demands of years for two-state solution and talk with the Palestinians in recognition of the Palestinian people etc we're coming through on their labor and they just felt oh we will write all these years and now there is a government which acknowledges we were right so they paid very little attention to the reality on the ground so I think on part is a say you can explain it psychologically not not not attributing bed motivations to these people but others saw that peace was possible with settlements until 91 we were made to believe that peace was not possible with settlements there were the austell process after Arafat actually signed the Contras in a court where Israel is not being demanded is not being demanded to stop all settlement activity so Israeli saw that peace with settlements was possible so maybe Palestinians are satisfied with it and after all the settlement activity was beneficial for many segments of Israeli society so I think this is why these constituencies failed to feel to understand the discrepancy between the promise of step is ability in a normal life in a state and the reality of permanent colonization let's talk about the Palestinian leadership then how do we account for their failure and and I I hear you having said two things one is that important parts of that leadership sold out to the Israelis in in the in the Oslo process that's my word not your would but but compromise themselves creating a class system almost among that leadership and and then secondly I think I've heard you say that they have failed by the abuse of their own people especially in the case of the suicide bombers where they see them as as tool for jockeying for position Lisa V the other factions and not to about the suicide bombers I don't think that this day Palestinian leadership sent suicide bomber's yeah it may be did not dare to stop it on time in this Intifada but it did not to use the suicide bombers it's the factions and not the affections of some of them in opposition to the leadership and some photography and groupings that which had lose connection with our fat so it's not the failure but it is true that it's on the visa V Israel it was a failure to correctly analyze Israeli motivations and to conduct better strategy of negotiation I think it's partly the naivete of this Palestinian leadership this also human need to see a change I do believe in spite of all what is said in Israeli and American propaganda but they didn't intend to have peace with Israel let's not forget they were still the weaker party and I think that they were very sincere in their readiness for a two-state solution is a final-status solution but they fail to see Israeli to learn Israeli methods our thoughts and our thoughts people didn't consult with people inside the occupied territories who had known Israelis better they didn't know when they discussed when they signed on the DL declarations of principles they didn't even know how a settlement looked like they thought it was military distant position so that's why they did not bother to insist on it and then they are whole they were not sold out so much as they were they let themselves be pampered by Israeli methods vary colonialist methods of pampering and elite with all sorts of privileges especially privileges of freedom of movement which allowed the Palestinian Authority to build up store a sort of entourage which benefited economically from the process and that's why gave its political support of the process participated in the negotiate political negotiations so what you had people who were economically dependent on the Israelis because of the privileges and doubt to them by the Israelis we're also conducting the negotiation political negotiations with the Israelis about how big the settlements will be I mean how how quickly the israeli withdrawal redeployment will be and how big the settlements will be or not be so this was a catch here what you can which the by-product is what you feel is being sold out but I don't think it was intentional and many of them did believe that if they if they if they serve Israeli security demands for some time they are guaranteeing the future and the stability of a Palestinian society this is it now class society it was all it has always been Palestinian has always been closest iety but the Palestinian Authority in internally it had responsibility for the welfare of the people now instead of dedicating and developing this the development of human beings inside it invested a lot in all kind of symbolic in symbolic aspects of life which serve the grand grandeur of the authority it daddy it allocated much of its budget to security organizations multiplied security organizations with because our fat needs dismal typically multiplicity in order to control they did not allow they did not develop enough health system education system did not see the person the human beings in order to use their own opportunities to develop I think this was their main failure and it stems out from the fact that they are they were not really elected they came from outside they were very indifferent to the people they come from very with from very undemocratic traditions and this was a major failure I think that if they cared more for their people and were more attentive to people's demands internally there would have been stronger visit the Israel in the negotiation table what what is the role you think that you as a writer can play in in elevating consciousness of these dynamics and in what way does that in the long term to contribute to to a change in the situation sometimes I think that I'm only writing for the Ayrshire archives that in 5-10 years people would say oh she wrote so and so I mean it's a look I didn't have influenced it's I've been writing about I mean discrepancy between the reality and facts on the ground during the austral period I've been writing extensively in my paper and then my book people read me but somehow it did not sink in people did not most of the people i could say did not get the message because it's not for one writer to change to change things you need the movement you need a social movement certain activity in the street of people who voice out clearly and then this in this our interplay between voices in the media and voices outside in the streets in social activities can make can make some sort of a change or can be heard when you are one voice then I was you know I was considered a radical extremist pessimist I don't know what Cassandra yeah are we could seven jono Cassandra's can be joy killer killing joy killer yeah yeah yeah I'm always spoiling the party so I was told I was told by my editor sometimes all well everybody is talking about how cousins are happy but you but you only tell us about past system and travel permits and all these so why do you use I was even told not by a somebody but I don't have perspective because i live in Gaza so it's a new definition of you know journalism so no I don't think I made on the contrary I mean I'm I'm only I'm only very I'm only very frustrated because I voiced so many clear and very logical voices among Palestinians which warned Israelis about the coming explosion if Israel continues this policy of pushing into a surrender agree vendor arrangement and so so one one final question what is your advice to two students who who were interested in this region and want to prepare for some future that might involve a relationship with that region but also people in other communities that have an interest in the region that have to view events there from afar and many of whom may not read your writing on a regular basis and actually probably don't and are driven in their understanding by what they read in the headlines in the english-speaking press which is maybe less than adequate in describing the real situation their advice to them what first to read other things did very hard it's online know a lot already not only okay they are all kind of fall so all kind of non you know less all kind of messages email not everything is always accurate but they have to be very skeptical about what they read first and then always to meet people with the region and maybe try to see al Jazeera I mean things which are not only Western from a Western point of view news this is one don't remember and I think it's true about every place that it to be very skeptical about official versions very skeptical I think that power any power has to be suspected everywhere and has to be monitored nothing this is the main task of journalism so they have to look for those kind of writings which monitor power not in which which described the situation situations not from the eyes of of the ruler only and I get the sense that that you really think that and believe both in Word and in deed that the truth emerges from sort of really understanding describing and and being immersed in the reality that that you're writing about yeah I believe that what I've been describing is the truth that I don't believe that it makes much change and much influence I mean it does not it does not preach to the non converted it does not reach to not converted it built it which is the converted but still I believe this is this is true what I've been writing mirror on that note I want to thank you very much for taking the time to come to the Berkeley campus but also being a guest today on our program thank you very much for an interesting talk and thank you very much for joining us for this conversation with history Oh

Channel: University of California Television (UCTV)

Views: 18,427

Rating: 4.6712327 out of 5

Keywords: history, Israel, Palestine, terrorism, Amira, Hass

Id: vEJfmSkIwMo

Length: 58min 0sec (3480 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 15 2008