Interview with the Palestinian Ambassador - Part 1

Last Friday I was privileged to interview, for nearly 90 minutes, Dr Hikmat Ajjuri, the new Palestinian envoy to Dublin - his first interview with an Irish newspaper. The Sunday Tribune ran a news story derived from the interview, but I found the whole conversation so valuable that I have decided to offer a rough transcript.

I've a rough transcription about half of it here, roughly 4,300 words -- most of which will appear after the "Read More" jump. The rest I'll offer hopefully tomorrow.

I made a decision that I would allow Dr Ajjuri to speak his peace with minimum interruptions. I don't challenge his assertions, even ones with which I may disagree. There are plenty of other opportunities to do so - and if I was conducting this interview in a broadcast environment it would of course be handled differently.

I found Dr Ajjuri to be a warm host, a sincere interlocutor and a compassionate man. I wish him the best for the duration of his mission in Ireland.

RD: Talk me through how you came to be here.

Dr Hikmat Ajjuri: By background I am a medical doctor, I was a graduate in 1975 from the Baghdad University, Iraq - the medical school. I worked the first five years, in fact I was sent by the PLO, to practice in Tunisia, because there was a relationship between the PLO and Tunisia. They were asking for Palestinians, different professionals. Mainly the focus was on doctors and teachers. So I was one of the doctors who were asked to go to Tunisia. After that, after four years, I moved to London and I was attracted to the city. I found that the work in London, the media, it gives me more space to achieve what I was thinking of achieving, in terms of what I was thinking as a Palestinian refugee. I was involved in politics and the national movement since I finished secondary school. So I went to university already converted, already involved in the national movement, which is called Fatah.

[a phone call interrupts our conversation]

So I found in London the home I wanted in terms of working, doing something. In London there is a big Palestinian community. I met with fellow Palestinians who are also linked to the mainstream – we used to call it – the national movement. We sat there and decided to carry on what we were doing. I began to shift more towards politics and more towards what I call a human politics, because I was very much interested in changing, in entering the world of dialogue, the world of negotiations. No more radicalism, no more militarism. We had enough, we had…it was my personal feeling we had enough of that after the invasion of Lebanon. I decided, I mean I began to get convinced that armed struggle is no more our priority and we should as Palestinians begin to think of something else. That was my opinion, and perhaps my opinion was at that time not very much favoured by other Palestinians, until we started in 1984 meeting with Jews in London.

That was very challenging sort of work and we used to meet in secret, once a month – a group of Jews and Palestinians. That was across the board – politicians, businesspeople. I still remember people, Julie Jacobs (sp?) – she was a deputy in the Jewish parliament in London. There was Tony Klug as well. And there were others, 11 Jews and nearly 11 Palestinians. A few faces changing, but four from us and four from the other side kept meeting through the Oslo Agreement, until the wind, the breeze from Oslo hit us and we decided at that time to make ourselves public. And we have done that, where we called for a big meeting of Jews and Palestinians.



It went well, the meeting was good, but after a while we thought, maybe wrongly, that we have done our bit, we have done our homework, now let’s give a chance to the politicians and see what they do. And we follow their steps. Meanwhile the other work I was doing, after the invasion of Lebanon we met with Dr Fathi Arafat [Yasser Arafat's brother], minister of health in exile. He was the president of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, he came to London in 1982, I met with him at that time with other Palestinians, and the chemistry worked very well between him and I and we started working together. So upon his request we founded a charity called Medical Aid for Palestine. And that charity was aiming at two things: assisting medically our people in the camps in Lebanon. We focused on Lebanon after the Sabra and Chatila, and the Palestinians left and the whole of the PLO were forced to leave Lebanon to the rest of the world, including many of the Arab countries, we aimed at doing something to help those vulnerable, those needy people, the Palestinians.

The other thing we wanted to do was create a human bridge between the British people and the Palestinian people, sending volunteer doctors and nurses to train Palestinians, because we knew the standard of hospitals in the camps was not great. So that was the two main things we focused on: medical, in terms of pharmaceuticals, and this relationship. We have done a great job in that sense. We have made a good base in London and Britain. We had a great relationship with the British Government in part because we took a non-political. We focused very much on the humanitarian issue and very much on the needs of the Palestinians. I cannot say that what I’ve been doing is a pure political, it was only an emphasis on the human politics. Just to try to help regarding the Jewish-Palestinian dialogue, which we called the Jewish-Palestinian Dialogue Council, so that was the name of the body we established.

I was asked to go back to Jerusalem by Dr Arafat in 1995. So I left and went back to Jerusalem, and I was given the task of a director-general of the Palestine Council of Health. I shifted, because of my background, all the work of health towards building bridges with the Israelis, in order to promote peace and reconciliation. And I met, the first day I arrived in Jerusalem, Dr Arafat and the engineers of the Oslo, from the Israeli side, Yair Hirschfeld and Ron Pundak. So these were the two close counterparts to me, from the Israeli side. We worked very well, I mean, maybe hundreds of meetings – joint ones, big workshops, even regional meetings. We involved the Jordanians and the Egyptians in different fields. I tried to focus on my background, my health background, so we focused on issues of substance abuse, the health and safety, another issue – in addition to Israeli-Palestinian doctors and nurses and it went well and we were well supported by different European countries. In fact the Swedes were the first to sponsor our programme, in fact we were the first, our “people to people” programme between Palestinians and Israelis.

Things went well until the intifada broke out. And after that things went down. So we kept this hardly the communications at the top level. Since then I began to focus more on the Palestinian issues, and I was elected president of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society. I was appointed vice president of the Palestine Academy of Science and Technology, the two departments I focused on since the intifada began.

RD: And how did you come to this posting?

HA: Representing Palestine, I visited the world. Many countries, heading Palestinian delegations. One of the areas maybe I didn’t mention, I was elected vice president to the IPPNW – the Nobel-prize-winning International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, which is based in Boston. Dr Arafat first nominated me for the post, that was five years ago, and it didn’t work because of…well, many things happened at that time, I’m not going to go into…well, lately, when we have this, a new minister for foreign affairs, who was our Ambassador to the United Nations – Dr Nasser al Kidwa – we discussed…well I knew him before. And we discussed…they wanted to add new blood, inject new blood into the diplomatic corps. And as you know now, things have changed, the vision, the mission, things have changed amongst the Palestinian leadership. The focus is on negotiations. Our president’s main vision is to focus on democratic and different Palestinian state, through a negotiated settlement. So this by itself made one look for the people who can achieve such a thing. The mainstream now is really shifting towards negotiations.

RD: And why Ireland?

HA: Maybe because I lived in London. I can’t, by law, represent Palestine in Britain, because I carry a British passport. So, being next door for a long time, I know the geography, I know the politics, I’m involved in the politics of the region. Because Ireland is and an independent country, but being next door gave me better than the others, who were far away, an idea.

RD: How important is Ireland for the Palestinians?

HA: Ireland is a very important country to us. We, the Palestinians, realise the influence of this country to the political, global political stage. Ireland holds the presidency of the European Union, Ireland has a good relationship with the Americans. The Irish people have a lot in common with us. They have been through many things we have been through. So that will make building bridges with a country like Ireland top priority for the Palestinian leadership. Maybe that’s why they selected me for the job. Maybe they trust me in doing in making our dream reality in terms of strengthening…we have a good relationship already.

I met with the President the other day, with Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern. They are supportive to the cause. They are non-biased. And I believe that there is a lot that we the Palestinians can learn from the Irish people. Ireland was occupied at one time and now look at Ireland – it’s number two in terms of standard of living in the EU, after Luxembourg. If we miss such a great opportunity to learn from this place which, however small, is a great country, and on top of that there is this touch between the two peoples – the Irish and the Palestinians. I felt their sympathy with the cause, their care and respect for the Palestinians, they don’t know how much we love them, back at home.

Because we know maybe this country in Europe, they have suffered, they know – the Irish people – what the occupation means. This is part of what makes life – hopefully – more comfortable between the two societies. And I would love to see more cooperation between our two societies, at several levels, social, business, if we can do it. Now we are in the process of developing the private sector and maybe in this area, with its knowledge and experience in the high-tech, can we think of in terms of building a good relationship with this beautiful island.

RD: A technical point. The status of the mission here. Did you present credentials to President McAleese –

HA: -- no, according to the Geneva Agreements, and according to the European Union Memoranda of Understanding, we were invited to have a general delegation. It is not called an embassy, but I am an ambassador. I am appointed by my government to be ambassador of Palestine to Ireland. But the status we have here is general delegation. We respect that, we appreciate that. I think, however, in other European countries, we have full diplomatic status – I think in Greece.

RD: I know you wrote an article for the Irish Times [the op-ed piece ran the following day, January 14; his tone in print is considerably sharper than the one I experienced in person - something I'm prone to myself] –

HA: I was provoked by an article I read in there, there were things thrown unfairly onto Palestinians’ shoulders. I want to say one thing. I will tell the people of this country the truth. I will never tell anything false. I will never give false information, even if it hurts our interests. Because I trust the people of this country, so I hope that I will be up to their expectations by telling them the truth. I don’t want the people to sympathise with the Palestinians. I want people to tell the truth, only the truth, about the situation there – about the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians. We have given up every possible means, in order to live peacefully side by side with the Israelis.

I will just take you back – I hate to dig in graves, I hate to go back into history, but sometimes you cannot really ignore the facts – Israelis with the wall, with the settlements, they are trying to create false realities on the ground, to make life difficult for both of us. Not a lot of people know, Israel came to be not by God, it came to being by the United Nations [Security] Council 181, it was called the partition plan. It was 29 November 1947, that very particular partition plan gave 56 percent of the land to the Israelis, it focused on dividing the Holy Land to a Jewish and Arab states. 56 of the geography for the Jews and the rest for the Arabs, making it 44 percent. This is the approximate figures. After the 1948 war we ended up with 22. Israelis conquered 22 percent more of the land, and since 1948, Israel lived on 78 percent of the Holy Land. We were left with 22. However, these were divided between Gaza and the West Bank, and Gaza under the administration of the Egyptians, and the West Bank under the Jordanians. But when we the Palestinians tried to tidy our home and we began to think of how unfair we were treated. In fact, some will say, serves them right because they refused the partition plan. Why? Because we thought it was damned unfair. The part that was given to the Jews, which was 56 percent of Palestine, it was inhabited by just over half a million Jews and three hundred thousand Palestinians. The 44 part of us, was inhabited by 800-something Palestinians, and 10,000 Jews. So it was impossible, it was difficult to accept such a formula. And the whole world watched – and they didn’t do anything. Maybe they blamed Arabs and Palestinians for the 1948 war. In my opinion that war was wrong. That war was unfair on us. We did not launch that war. We found ourselves in the midst of that war. And we lost a lot. In terms of refugees at least the most of the 300,000 Palestinians from the area allocated to Jews were forced, and now we call the refugees and that’s a major problem in the attempt to create a long-lasting peace. We cannot ignore the fact that we have those, I think the total left was 700,000. Now we are talking about four million refugees living outside of Palestine, and maybe more than that live inside the West Bank and Gaza. I personally know that it’s unfair, and maybe too early for this to be published now, that 4 million Palestinians going back will end the Jewish identity of Israel, and that will not be acceptable, neither by the Israelis or by anyone. However, we cannot just ignore – especially the Palestinians living in the camps, in Lebanon, in appalling circumstances. Maybe you know, maybe the people know, the half million living in really appalling circumstances. I’m sure the readers know the situation. There was a lot of unfairness.

Sometimes we the Palestinians think it’s an international conspiracy against the Palestinians, because people are watching all this and doing nothing. That opens another thing for me – I don’t know if I should wait for the question to come – because the story – I cannot speak about the whole plight of the Palestinians – but when the Palestinians notice the whole world is ignoring them and nothing has happened.

Unfortunately we are facing with an enemy, I would love to see them tomorrow’s friend. Maybe they are today’s in the eyes of many Palestinians. I have many friends who are Israelis.

There is one important thing and I want you to really highlight that: Jews are not our enemies. Never our enemies. Our enemies are the people occupying our land. Our enemies are the people who are torturing every day. Our enemies are the people who are humiliating us every day. That’s why we are very much willing to live in peace with the Jews. Side by side, in peace and harmony. I’m sure that more than 50 percent of the Israelis, want peace. It seems like certain politicians, like Sharon, I don’t know if it’s in their genes, their physiology, their political philosophy, make them fully and totally working against this. Because otherwise how do I explain what’s happening now, and how do I explain how the Prime Minister of Israel came to prominence with the Palestinians in 1953 when he himself established a group called Unit 101, he raided a village called Quibya, and they blew up 45 houses on the heads of the inhabitants? How can I explain in 1982 what he has done, he was found guilty by his own justice, by Israeli justice, and he was sacked from being defence minister? The irony was that the biggest demonstration against the Sabra and Chatila massacre was held in Tel Aviv. The Jews, the Israelis, it was in the region the biggest number of people objected to that massacre, and they were very happy to see that man sacked from office. Now, things are changed and this man came back, from the back door, from the window, to be the prime minister. So this is really the irony.

RD: Let’s bring it back. The elections. January 25. I heard from you the other day [Monday in TV3] that the Palestinians in East Jerusalem were going to be able to vote, it looked like. Is that still the case as far as you know?

HA: Yes. Today again, I think thanks to the Americans, I think there was pressure to the Americans. But still the Israelis insist that they will not allow the Hamas candidates to participate in this Jerusalem elections. They are going to make it difficult for Hamas. This in fact was one of the most stupid things the Israelis are doing. The more they pressure Hamas, the more popular Hamas becomes in the eyes of the Palestinians. Because Hamas, in terms of its being not responsible, or not in charge of the Palestinians, they can do anything. It’s a faction. It’s an organisation. This is the difference between Fatah, the government party, the leading party, and the other faction. Because we are answerable to the world. We are under the microscopes of the world. Do we deserve, the Palestinians, led by Fatah, a state? Are we civilised enough to have a state or not? So that is why Fatah cannot react to the atrocities or whatever the Israelis are committing against the Palestinians, in the same way. I know there are a group, an armed group, that are linked to Fatah, the Aqsa Brigade, I think that has been created, in my opinion, wrongly. Because we should have full civil resistance. However, in the first three months after the beginning of the intifada – the intifada that began after Sharon’s visit to Sharam al-Sharif that was on the 28th September 2000 – many Palestinians killed on that date in that place and it was a spark. Because the Palestinians, the whole intifada, was a cry for freedom, because we have conceded, we have accepted to live on 22 percent of mandatory Palestine, we have accepted the State of Israel, changed the PLO charter, we have done everything we have been asked for. What have we in return?

From the other side, we have Rabin was assassinated. Rabin was a great man. When the right time came he became a man of peace. The moment he was assassinated, I thought, I felt, that the peace process has been derailed. Since then, everything went wrong with the peace process. I remember the words of Rabin when Hamas committed suicide during bombing three times when Rabin was in charge. His reaction was, I did not sign an agreement with these people, these people are destroying the peace process; I signed the agreement with people I know are not destroying it. We should not give them a chance to hijack the agenda of, which I signed with my counterparts, and at that time his counterpart was Yasser Arafat. And that’s why we Arafat kept calling him his partner. In fact, he launched the “peace of the brave” – everyone knows this term – it was initiated by these two visionaries. And they were visionaries – I miss both of them now.

I wholeheartedly am still with the Oslo Agreement. Everybody thinks the Oslo Agreement is dead. I don’t think it’s dead. We are having elections because of Oslo Agreement. We are back in Palestine because of the Oslo Agreement. Oslo Agreement never died. But there are people who are not involved, who did not join the party, they want it dead. And there are people who were against it from the beginning, they want it dead. Every enemy of peace in the region, they want the Oslo Agreement dead. Oslo Agreement never dies, in my opinion.

Unfortunately what we have that the mistake Shimon Peres has done, he delayed, by his actions – he took over after assassination of Rabin – he became the Prime Minister. And I understand this from the guys who were part of the Labour Party, my friends in Israel, (inaudible) Berlin?, and Yair Hirschfeld and Ron Pundak, had this argument to go for elections straightaway or to postpone it for at least he push the agreement forward in case someone from the Likud come in case to contribute more concrete to the foundations of the Oslo Agreement. That’s why he delayed the elections, and by that time the Israelis had pulled out of many towns in the West Bank and handed them to the Palestinian Authority. Unfortunately he’d done another mistake in his life, because he’s not a military man – and that’s why he’s not liked – I mean there was a joke about Shimon Peres, if he stands against himself in the election then he will lose. So this is what they said.

But I think he’s a visionary man. I thought for a while that maybe the Israelis don’t deserve someone like Shimon Peres. With his vision about the Middle East, with his vision of prosperity for everybody. And it was him who in fact to the best of my knowledge attracted Rabin’s attention to the Oslo. The dynamo – he was behind the scenes. It’s true Rabin was the Prime Minister and has to say yes, but I cannot discredit Shimon Peres from that fact. That’s why I still have respect for him.

Another irony. Netanyahu. In his campaign against Shimon Peres, his manifesto focused on his book which was published a year before 1993, Among the Nations. In that book he explicitly made it clear that Oslo Agreement meant destruction of the State of Israel, so we had to destroy Oslo Agreement before it destroys us. That was his manifesto. Unfortunately he was elected. The difference between Netanyahu and Shimon Peres was less than 20,000 votes. And those votes, my fellow Palestinians voting in Israel went to the elections and they handed blank papers. If they were supporting to elect those votes were supposed to go to Shimon Peres. But Shimon Peres made another mistake [Kahana?], and that Caana? caused a lot of hatred amongst the Arab Palestinians in Israel and that’s why they decided to punish him. Unfortunately, when the ordinary people decide to punish a politician, it comes back on them. It happened to have punished everyone; by bringing Sharon and Netanyahu to office, I believe my fellow Palestinians in Israel have punished us all. Some of them think they are all the same, Likud and Labour, that they are two faces of one coin, and I think that this is unfair. There is no such thing as a two-faces of one coin.

RD: The elections. You’re confident they’re going to go ahead as scheduled?

HA: Well in that part of the world everything is…I would never say 100 percent until I know that the sun set on that day and everyone has gone to the ballot, elected who they wanted to elect and then go home. I have great experience from that region that things you have many times – I have had to cancel very important meetings one hour before the meeting, so nobody can move.

It looks as if the Americans are exerting some pressure. Exactly as when Condoleeza Rice was exerting pressure on the Israelis so she brokered the Rabah crossing agreement. And we are thankful to – this is the only window for my fellow Palestinians the Gazans to smell [stage sniffs] the fresh air from the outside this big prison I call the Gaza.

RD: Prison?

HA: Because it is surrounded on everywhere except this Rafah crossing. And thanks to Condoleezza Rice for that because for a change the Americans now, I hope that, for more of these actions, the Palestinians will change their feelings towards the Americans at large.

I would like to see…I’m not calling for the Americans to treat us with even-handed policy, but at least less bias towards the Israelis. People calling on the Americans to stop supporting the Israelis, this is unfair. I don’t want the Americans to stop supporting the Israelis. But at least not to ignore completely the other party.

RD: This has been a recent change in American policy, hasn’t it?

HA: I am telling you, I am grateful for what Condoleezza Rice has done. I am grateful to the Americans because they pressurised the Israelis. Our president, he was just about to postpone the elections, and everyone was thinking he will postpone it. Then he issued a press statement saying, today I have received assurances from our friends in America saying that the Palestinians, the Jerusalemites, will be allowed to participate in the elections.

Because if we let this…because – Palestine is Jerusalem. Without Jerusalem there is no Palestine. Holy places, history, everything. Letting the Israelis get away once, with making us holding elections without Jerusalem, meaning Palestinians, forget about that…it will never happen. Even if it means we will not have elections for 200 years. Now we have the elections. They will not be as comfortable as in other Palestinian cities but as long as the Palestinians practice this right…of electing their legal leadership of the people in Jerusalem are the Palestinians.


-continues-