“Pariah State” Meeting with the Prime Minister of Palestine

by Scott Kennedy

    A friend, knowing of my many years of leading study groups to the
Middle East, told me he wanted to gain a first hand view of what is
happening on the ground in the ongoing conflict between Israel and the
Palestinians. He asked for my recommendation of where to visit and what
to do. It happened that I was planning to lead a delegation to the
region and that our times in the region would overlap. I suggested that
together, at the end of my study group, we visit Gaza.

  I warned my friend at the outset that the American and Israeli
governments would put up as many bureaucratic obstacles as possible to
our going to Gaza. If we persisted, they would try to scare us out of
going.

    Through my friend’s close contacts at an Israeli consulate in the
US, before leaving California, we received verbal assurance that Israel
had granted us “permission” to enter the Palestinian territory of Gaza
for three days . This was great news, but I was confident that, if it
remained true to form, the American government and Israel would do
their it best to dissuade us from visiting the hellhole of a fourth
world country, the world’s pariah state known as Gaza.

  I first visited Gaza in 1968 and have returned more two dozen times,
most recently in April 2002. Since then, Israeli authorities have
prevented our visiting Gaza. I was eager to return, to renew
friendships and see for myself the changes that have taken place. I
also wanted to convey my support for those courageous people who
continue to work for human rights, democracy and a political resolution
to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They persist despite formidable
obstacles and being cut off from visitors. It is imperative, for them
as well as for us, that those suffering such extreme isolation not be
forgotten and that their voices still be heard.

    But visiting the Gaza Strip is no simple matter. After Hamas won
control of the Palestinian Authority (PA) in January 2006 elections,
the Bush Administration determined that the Islamic movement represents
a key thread in the web of global terrorism. Israel for its part
decided Hamas constitutes a mortal threat to its survival. The European
and other nations followed suit by supporting both a US-led
international diplomatic and economic boycott of Hamas and Israel’s
military siege of Gaza. By all but official Israeli accounts, these
factors have created a severe humanitarian crisis for the 1.5 million
people crammed into Gaza’s 140 square miles and surviving on less than
$2.00 per day. But we were intent on visiting Gaza in any case.

    At our half hour meeting in Jerusalem three weeks later, an
American official spoke to us in a lifeless monotone. Mustering as much
gravitas as possible, given the circumstances, he emphasized just how
dangerous our plans would be, pronouncing, “Gaza is the second most
dangerous place in the world for Americans to visit.”
 
  What place beat out Gaza, I mused? It must be Baghdad. Or maybe Tehran
or Kabul? But I wasn’t sure. Perhaps St. Louis, declared ‘the most
dangerous city in the USA’ in a poorly timed news item during the
recent World Series. (Detroit came in second in the danger competition
also.)

  The diplomat and his head of security detailed the recent kidnapping
of two Fox News personnel in Gaza. The cameraman reportedly tried in
vain to convince his captors that his home New Zealand is not part of
the United States.

    No matter how unimportant the two of us might be, and it was clear
from the diplomat’s demeanor that he considered us altogether
unimportant, we would surely be “prime targets” for kidnapping or
worse, just because we were Americans.

    We also learned that if we were taken prisoner, our government
could do nothing to help us. He forewarned that the US no longer has
any contacts in Gaza and we’d be on our own should anything happen. We
were supposed to believe that the sole Super Power is incapable of
communicating with groups operating in Gaza or influencing events
there.

    We continued to listen to the American official with more than a
bit of skepticism as he tried to to prevail upon us to avoid Gaza. The
meeting drew to a close with all parties feeling equally frustrated.

    The final straw, however, came later that day. A State Department
official in Washington, DC told my friend by phone, “Were you to travel
to Gaza, you will almost certainly be killed.”

    My friend called me later that night and explained his decision
against going to Gaza, “If we were rescuing hostages or something, I
might be able to justify making such a trip. But I would be going just
for my self-education. It doesn’t seem to be worth the risk.”

    I was not entirely surprised, but I was disappointed in his
decision. Later I wished I’d had the presence of mind to counter, “But
there are 1.5 million hostages in Gaza!”

  Since the capture of an Israeli soldier early this summer, the Gaza
strip has suffered a devastating blockade and complete isolation that
made it nearly impossible for anyone to visit. Growing hunger and
despair reveal a civilian population held hostage to political power
games by the Palestinian factions, Israel and the United States.

    I resolved that night to make the trip to Gaza on my own. After
arranging for transportation, the only remaining detail was to provide
the US Embassy three details about me (my dogs’ names, my wife’s
nickname and such) that could otherwise not be discovered were I
‘Googled.’ The details would be useful in confirming my identity if I
were captured. Despite what I had been told earlier, I knew the US
government wouldn’t be completely useless were I taken prisoner!

    Three days later, an hour-long taxi drive from East Jerusalem
brought me to the Erez border crossing between Israel and Gaza. The
crossing seemed old hat to the half dozen journalists seeking entry
into Gaza. I was the only other person at the entry point so I
approached it as an adventure.

    I had been assured the day before that the Israeli Foreign Ministry
still had my name on the list of those permitted to enter Gaza. The
young solider behind the counter staring lazily at the computer screen
before him, however, first told me that my name was not on the list.
Then he made a phone call.

    He next said that my name was on the list, but I had to wait while
they checked things out. Another phone call. Next I was told that my
name was on the list but my permission had expired on May 15, 2006. I
asked him to check with somebody how that could be true since I had
only applied for permission a month ago. A few more people filtered
into the transit room as I waited patiently.

    Still later, after checking by phone with higher ups for the
umpteenth time, the soldier smiled, handed me my passport, and stated
without any explanation that there was no problem for me to enter Gaza
after all.

    Finished with the Israeli army process, I next handed my passport
to another soldier six feet down the counter. She advised me it was
unsafe to travel to Gaza and asked my reason for visiting. When I told
her I was visiting non-governmental organizations, she asked why I
would do that. I told her I supported their work. She asked if I work
for them and if I have any friends in Gaza. I said no, I worked in the
US, but had several friends in Gaza. Finally, she wanted to know if I
had a business card demonstrating that I work for an NGO?

    I handed her a personal business card with no mention of a
non-profit organization. She looked at it quizzically, raised her
eyebrows, handed it back to me, and said, “Have a nice trip!”

    I had official permission to pass through Erez into Gaza. There was
almost no one else at the crossing facility. Still, it took me over an
hour and a half to clear the Israeli procedures. All of this fuss was
occasioned by my entering a territory from which the Israelis had
“disengaged” more than a year previously.

    I understood the need for nations to control who enters their
country. It’s not entirely clear, however, why Israel would be so
concerned with my visiting Gaza? If they thought I was smuggling Qassam
rockets into Gaza, they would at least have looked into my bag.
Instead, at the next step in the process, the civilian employee from a
private security firm simply waved me past and into Palestinian
territory without so much as a glance into my shoulder bag.

    After a series of one-way turnstiles, I made my way several hundred
yards along a two lane street. Eight meter high concrete sections, the
same used by Israel to build what they call the “separation barrier”
through the West Bank, formed a concrete corridor. There were benches
at the foot of the wall for long sections, should one tire. Corrugated
iron provided cover from the heat or rain. A single Arab porter with a
neon vest and a wheel chair waited at the halfway point. As I entered
the Palestinian portion of the passageway, the concrete was chipped and
uneven in height.

    At the other end of the corridor, several uniformed Palestinian
border officials sat around a simple table under a metal awning. They
were chatting and drinking tea with a couple of men in civilian
clothes. As I approached, they smiled and welcomed me to Palestine.
Without their getting up, I was asked for my passport and they wrote my
name in a lined register book.

    Being admitted to Gaza, as opposed to leaving Israel, took all of
two minutes. The Palestinians weren’t concerned the least bit about
what I might be carrying into Gaza, and didn’t ask to look in my bag.

    A translator and a guide from the Gaza Community Mental Health
Program and the Union of Women’s Health Committees in Gaza, along with
a police escort, waited for me just outside the Palestinian border
station.

    For the next two days, I traveled with a police car in front and a
heavily armed security detail from the Palestinian Authority’s Interior
Ministry in a pickup truck, with blue lights flashing and sirens
blaring, behind our car.  I’m still not sure if I was any safer for all
that effort. But anybody gunning for me definitely knew we were coming.
Children rushed to the street to see the passing attraction. They must
have been disappointed to see only me waving back at them.

  We made stops at a demolished mosque in the town of Beit Hanoun and
at a home where 19 people had been killed ten days before and a
hospital in Jebaliya Refugee Camp. We rushed from site to site because
I was scheduled to meet with Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh
shortly after noon.

  When we pulled up in front of a tall office building in busy Gaza
City, armed security milled around with a dozen members of the press
awaiting our arrival. Several dozen other curious passersby waited to
see what was going on. The Prime Minister’s staff greeted us and
together we quickly made our way up two short flights of steps and into
the building. I noticed several men on their knees in prayer in a room
off to the right as we hurried by, lest I forget that I’d soon be
meeting with the elected head of the Hamas government.

  We joked nervously when the elevator failed to move for several
minutes despite multiple pushes of the button. The elevator not only
failed to rise but the door wouldn’t open to let us out. Finally, a man
accompanying us hit the red button and a loud alarm sounded. I imagined
an onslaught of armed security forces converging on the elevator, but
no one seemed to notice. We soon exited the elevator on an upper floor,
stepping into a spacious office suite with golden brown rug and
overstuffed sofas and men in suits standing around. A few minutes later
I was ushered into the Prime Minister’s office.

  After shaking hands, Prime Minster Haniyeh motioned for me to sit
next to him at one end of a rectangular office. A Palestinian flag
stood behind us. Another faced us from the far reach of the office
where four men in dark suits sat chatting and answering cell phones
during our meeting. Introductions later revealed they were Palestinian
cabinet members, representing the Ministries of Information,
Transportation, and the Interior, and the official spokesperson for the
PA.

  Haniyeh turned to face me and through an interpreter offered a warm
welcome. He wore a neat gray suit with a Palestinian flag pin on his
lapel and a freshly pressed shirt opened at the neck. I introduced
myself and explained that I was visiting the region on behalf of three
pacifist organizations that oppose violence by all parties to the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I had come to express my opposition to
the United States’ campaign to isolate the PA because of Hamas’
victory in the January 2006 elections and to oppose the killing
economic sanctions against Haniyeh’s government and Israel’s military
siege of the Gaza Strip.

  Prime Minister Haniyeh said how pleased he was to have a visitor
from the United States and that Hamas bears no ill will toward the
American people. He noted with irony that those calling for the spread
of democracy didn’t respect the results of the Palestinian elections,
even though the January elections were universally viewed as fair. “I
was shocked by the US response to the Palestinian electoral process,”
he added.

  Haniyeh acknowledged that I had already seen some of the evidence
of the Palestinians’ suffering and the destruction brought about by
Israel’s “incursions”: “Gaza is under total siege by sea, air and by
land. This has resulted in tremendous humanitarian suffering.” He said
the military escalation culminated in the recent massacre in Beit
Hanoun in which 19 people from one family were killed by Israeli
artillery. I had met two young survivors of the massacre earlier in the
day. An Israeli military spokesman said the shelling was an accident
and Israeli Prime Minister Olmert offered an apology.

  The week before my visit, the US vetoed a UN Security Council
resolution condemning the killings in Beit Hanoun. Haniyeh said the US
veto gave a green light to Israeli aggression against Gaza and sends
messages that Israel is above the law and Palestinian lives are worth
less than other lives.

  Many commentators say that Hamas had not expected to take control
of the Palestinian government. This view is widely shared by those I
met in Gaza. Hamas ran on a platform of “reform and change” and the
Islamic movement’s candidates benefited from the moribund peace
process, deteriorating economic situation in Gaza, and widespread
corruption in the PA dominated by Arafat’s Fateh Party. Their political
strength is rooted in an Islamic social program that has developed over
a decade and a half.

  A secular woman activist from Gaza told me that the Hamas political
program largely focuses on the role of women in society. She described
a recent attempt to alter Palestinian law in order to permit polygamy
according to Hamas’ reading of the Koran. After meetings with a broad
coalition of grassroots human rights and women’s organizations, Hamas
withdrew the proposed changes. Hamas does not have a strong “foreign
policy” agenda. They choose instead to fold themselves within the
Palestinian consensus. Hence, while Hamas may not be taking
groundbreaking initiatives with regard to Israel, Haniyeh indicated
that Hamas will live with a political accommodation with Israel because
that is what the Palestinian people want.

  I pressed the Prime Minister about the question of Hamas making
peace with Israel. Haniyeh said that the problem remains that Israel
has yet to determine its position towards the Palestinians. Despite all
of the peace talks, “We have received no real offer” of peace from
Israel. Instead a series of demands have been made of the Hamas-led
government: that they recognize Israel, honor agreements previously
entered into by the PA, and renounce violence. He asked rhetorically
whether the same demands are made of Israel? Answering his own
question, Haniyeh argued that Israel must first recognize the
legitimate rights of the Palestinians, including a clear statement
about what borders the Palestinian state will have. Only then will
Hamas be able to clarify its position.

  Haniyeh reiterated his oft-stated position that Hamas is willing to
enter into a ten-year interim peace agreement with Israel and perhaps
longer term truce to enable the Palestinians and Israelis to build a
new relationship. For the past eighteen months, they had observed a
unilateral cease-fire with Israel. He covered the same points he has
made elsewhere, “We are strongly in favor of direct talks between
Mahmoud Abbas, the head of the PLO and the head of the government, and
the prime minister of Israel, [Ehud] Olmert…. If they reach an
agreement in their discussions that’s acceptable to the Palestinian
people, we will accept it, also. Hamas will.”

  Conversation with Haniyeh strengthened my impression that Hamas is
prepared to agree with a political resolution to the conflict with
Israel, so long as it represents the will of the Palestinian people as
confirmed by a vote.

  The great sadness is that the US and Israel has failed to test this
possibility, choosing the course of continued occupation and war
instead. Hamas appears primed to join the international consensus in
support of a Two State Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
This solution calls for an exchange of “land for peace” and creation of
a Palestinian state consisting of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and
Gaza Strip, that Israel occupied in 1967, in return for normalizing
relations with Israel, and return or compensation of refugees from the
1948 War. Support for a Two State Solution has been officially adopted
by the Palestine Liberation Organization and every Arab state, the
European Union, the United Nations, the nonaligned countries, Russia
and the Commonwealth of Independent States, and every other significant
grouping of world nations.

  Sheer exhaustion, if not a change of heart, has brought the
Palestinian people to accept the international consensus in support of
Two States. Hamas would eventually have had to bend to domestic
Palestinian pressure and the international consensus, just as the
grizzled guerilla leader Yasser Arafat had been compelled to do. The US
instead gave Hamas no grace period to come to terms with this
Palestinian consensus, demanding isolation of the newly elected
government and bringing about a severe humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

  Meanwhile Israel’s continued annexation of Palestinian land and
increase of Jewish colonies in the West Bank threatens to render the
“land for peace” formula meaningless and the Two State Solution
irrelevant. Many observers have already concluded that Israel’s land
grab in the West Bank has killed the option of a a Two State Solution.

  I can’t claim the same gift George Bush professes—the ability to
look into a man’s eyes and size up his soul. But I did look squarely
into Haniyeh’s eyes during much of our half-hour conversation. There
was no evasion and no shifting of eyes. He seemed to be a kind and
thoughtful person.

  When I asked Haniyeh about the so-called “clash of civilizations”
that has dominated American understanding and discussion of global
events since the September 11th terrorist attacks, I sensed a deep
sadness. With a clear and determined voice, he slowly laid out his
position on a question he obviously had answered many times: “We
believe in dialogue between civilizations and not the clash of
civilizations…. We know how special the relationship is between the
US and Israel. We don’t look to stop this strategic alliance. We are
only asking for a more balanced position.”

  He lamented the fact that after September 11th, the US missed a real
opportunity for cooperation and coordination between East and West,
based on mutual respect. The USA missed another opportunity when it
chose to oppose the democratically elected government of Hamas. “Hamas
is   moderate and pragmatic and realistic…. We are not a terrorist
organization just because we are part of the Islamic world. We can be a
bridge between the US and the West and Islam and the Arab World.
Instead, the US has pushed Hamas into a corner….”

  I couldn’t help but wonder whether this soft-spoken man was
well-suited for the job. Haniyeh rose to prominence after his mentor
Sheikh Yassein and other Hamas leaders were assassinated by Israel.
Immediately after his election, Israel and the United States moved
decisively to bring about his downfall. When I shared my assessment of
their prime minister, my guide and translator said that Haniyeh is
known among the people in Gaza as a very thoughtful and kind person
both before and after his election as prime minister. His stature was
enhanced when he offered to step down as Prime Minister if necessary
for Israel and the United States to lift the devastating siege on the
people of Gaza.

  We concluded our meeting with a round of handshakes and the obligatory
photos. As we exited the office building, I was greeted by an impromptu
press conference on the front steps. I expressed my opposition to an
American campaign promoting democracy that failed to respect the
results of a fair election. I also said that the economic blockade of
Gaza was immoral and expressed my support for the human and national
rights of the Palestinian people. The fact of an American coming to
meet with the Palestinian Prime Minister apparently was newsworthy
enough and made headlines across the Middle East.

  Talk of building bridges of communication and cooperation or
lifting sieges against the Palestinians, whether spoken by Prime
Minister Haniyeh or a normal American citizen, has no currency with
President Bush. His administration decided immediately after the
democratic election of Ismail Haniyeh to bring down the Hamas
government. Taxes that Israel has collected from the Palestinians are
withheld from the Palestinian Authority in defiance of written
agreements and international law. International aid has also been
suspended. 150,000 government employees including teachers and police
have not been paid for more than eight months. Commerce to and from
Gaza is disrupted or stopped altogether. Poverty and malnutrition are
on the rise. The people of Gaza are paying a very heavy price for
freely casting their ballots.

  Standard operating procedure for the Bush Presidency includes
breaking off communication with those who won’t go along with our
nation’s global agenda and trying in turn to bring down governments we
stigmatize as “terrorist.”

  Syria, for example, fought alongside the US in the first Gulf War and
was taken off the list of “terrorist nations.” Later, after 9/11, the
US publicly thanked Bashar al Assad’s regime for their active
cooperation in the “international war on terror.” Syria was on the list
of those regimes to be toppled, depending on whether US military forces
turned left or right after vanquishing Baghdad. More recently, Bush
threw the full weight of the US into forcing Syria out of Lebanon and
then watched as that country slid into chaos and war with Israel. Now
the Bush Administration faults Damascus for the situation in Lebanon
and Iraq and shuns any contact with Syria along with Iran and North
Korea.

  The net effect is that relations with these countries continue to
deteriorate and drift towards escalated conflict and war. Meanwhile,
the United States grows more isolated among the nations of the world.
156 countries, including the European nations, voted for a General
Assembly resolution expressing sympathy for the Palestinians killed in
the Israeli attack on Beit Hanoun. The resolution was amended to also
oppose Palestinians firing rockets from Gaza into Israel. Seven nations
abstained, but only half a dozen nations, including several Pacific
island nations, joined the US in voting against the resolution.

  In the five years since the World Trade Center attacks, President
Bush has squandered global solidarity and support for the US and the
American people. He has instead fomented an unprecedented anti-American
sentiment around the globe. For the first time in my four decades
visiting the region, I experienced explicit anti-American feeling in my
two weeks in Israel and the occupied Palestinian West Bank. Of course
people were mystified or upset by such things as President Bush
declaring war criminal and Israeli Prime minister Ariel Sharon “a man
of peace.” But many more people are despairing now of the American
people for having reelected a president that went to war with Iraq
based on false accusations and continues single-minded support for
Israel in defiance of United Nations Resolutions, international
political consensus, and our own national self-interest. This rising
anger at the American people for its government’s actions prompted my
heavy security arrangements in Gaza, the likes of which I have never
experienced before.

  In his effort to isolate Hamas as a “pariah state,” Bush has
achieved quite the opposite effect. The US is increasingly isolated on
the world stage and it is our nation that is viewed as adolescent,
bullying and warlike. The US’s continued backing for Israel, no matter
how heinous its crimes, reinforces the general deterioration in world
esteem for our nation and its people.

  President Bush sits by while Israel effectively destroys the
possibility of a Two State Solution, the only basis for a political
resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that abides by UN
resolutions, enjoys an international consensus of support, and offers a
diplomatic rather than a military solution. Bush may in the short run
bring down the Hamas government, but at what long term cost to regional
stability and peace?

  Bush may very well have succeeded within our own borders in defining
Hamas and other political movements as terrorist groups. But there is
little doubt, from the perspective of the broad international consensus
about how to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, it is the United
States that has become the pariah state.

[Scott Kennedy coordinates the Middle East Program of the Resource
Center for Nonviolence in Santa Cruz, California. He was elected to
three terms on the Santa Cruz City Council and served twice as mayor.
Kennedy was elected national chairman of the Fellowship of
Reconciliation and founded and chaired the FOR’s Middle East Task
Force. He has traveled to the Mid East four dozen times since 1968 and
most recently in November 2006 when he colead a delegation for the
Interfaith Peace-Builders http://www.interfaithpeacebuilders.org ]

Scott Kennedy
Resource Center for Nonviolence
http://www.rcnv.org

30th Anniversary Year!
Peace and Justice: Our past, our path, and our passion.

Read about delegation with scott kennedy to israel & palestine in
November 2006.  http://www.interfaithpeacebuilders.org/del20/default.html