Five thousand cards for the press had been printed bearing the legend, “Conferencia International de Paz para Oriente Media”. No, thundered the Israelis, the press would not be given a license to refer to the Madrid meeting as “international”. And so, the journalists received their passes, each with a little rectangle neatly clipped out where the offending word had been. But the Israeli’s were not off the campus. The agitations turned violent and left many students dead, In those days she was on the hit-list of Israel’s radical right; her attending the Madrid conference brought her death-threats from Palestinian radicals, incensed that Israel’s conditions would be accepted in return for a chance to be present at the meeting.

In fact, Ashrawi’s status at the Madrid meeting involved a bit of semantic Kashmiri damming she was woven in among the other “threads” so as to be diplomatically invisible to the Israeli’s who can’t stand her, When they originally refused to accept her as a member of the official Palestinian delegation because of her sympathies with the PLO, at the instance of US Secretary of State James Baker, she was invited as one of a team of “advisers” to the official delegation.

As an example of her parrying skills, there’s nothing to beat her answer lo journalists trying to pin her down on her links to the PLO:”I can’t tell you that. I always tell the press that the questions I don’t answer for the interrogator, I don’t answer for the press”.

It is usually supposed that as all Israelis are Jews, likewise, those opposing them, viz. the Arabs, are all Muslims, Not true. At the time of the Gulf War we saw that one stubborn negotiator for the Arab cause, Iraq’s Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz, was a Christian. At Madrid too, Israeli arguments were rebutted by a Christian Palestinian the same Hanan Ashrawi. This worked in Palestine’s favor whenever anyone tried to imply that whatever Israel did was justified as it had to contend with fanatical neighbors who were inimical to it on religious grounds.

Ashrawi came across as the very antithesis of fanaticism:” I don’t like slogans. I don’t like the sort of slick professional PR attitude and I think that most probably people react positively to what I say. Because I’m genuine. I don’t mince words and I don’t play games.

I really like to answer questions and I don’t like to manipulate.”

Article extracted from this publication >> December 20, 1991