G’day. I’m getting pretty tense because my book Not happy John! Defending our democracy will be launched on Monday in Canberra, Tuesday in Sydney, Thursday in Melbourne and Friday in Brisbane. Webdiary columnists Harry Heidelberg, Jack Robertson and Antony Loewenstein have each written a chapter. Antony dissected the Hanan Ashrawi affair (see The battle for minds on November 5 and follow-up entries). To refresh your memory, a director of the Sydney Peace Foundation and Prize committtee, Professor Stuart Rees, who also heads Sydney University’s Centre for Peace & Conflict Studies, reflects on the scandal and the politics of media derision.
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Revisiting the Hanan Ashrawi affair
by Stuart Rees
Eight months after the award of the 2003 Sydney Peace Prize to the Palestinian academic and human rights campaigner Hanan Ashrawi, it is still painful to revisit that event let alone write about it. Since the August 2003 announcement of the award, as Director of the Sydney Peace Foundation, I had received e mail, phone calls and letters, many hostile, most supportive. The tenor of these personal communications was reflected in letters to newspapers and by the anchor men on call back radio who invited their listeners to take sides over Dr. Ashrawi’s selection.
The involvement of major political figures, the Premier of New South Wales Bob Carr and the Lord Mayor of Sydney Lucy Turnbull and the organization by an Israeli academic of a world wide petition against Dr. Ashrawi receiving the Prize put the issue in national and international spotlights. Premier Carr was involved because he had agreed to present the Prize at the award ceremony in November. The Lord Mayor �s views became an issue when she made public her decision to withdraw the City �s support for Dr. Ashrawi.
Despite the controversy, Hanan Ashrawi left Ramallah on Sunday November 1st, traveled through checkpoints to Jerusalem, and from there to Tel Aviv in the middle of an Israel wide transport strike. She eventually took a British Airways jet from Tel Aviv bound for London�s Heathrow. On arrival and after much negotiation she boarded a Qantas jet for Sydney and landed on the morning of November 4th just hours before Hanan was to deliver the 2003 City of Sydney Peace Prize Lecture.
The following appraisal of ways of thinking and writing focuses on the scornful attitudes of authors who opposed the choice of Dr. Ashrawi. Sections of the media seemed pleased to encourage such writing. Polarized positions were cherished and an understanding free from the call of tribal loyalties was difficult to achieve.
Examples of the use of derision as a way of conducting an argument will be taken from articles inThe Australian and The Sydney Morning Herald and from letters to the editors of those newspapers. I am picking these items to show how editors accepted accusations without foundation, and name calling without caveat or caution. To comprehend why such writing was regarded as worthy of being published requires a recall of the atmosphere which followed the events of September 11th and the subsequent announcement of a war on terror. Before describing that atmosphere, here is a brief profile of the 2004 Sydney Peace Peace Prize recipient.
Balanced person, reasonable choice
Hanan Ashrawi is a Christian woman in a Muslim, male dominated part of the world. The holder of a PhD in literature from a major US university, she had been Dean of Arts at Bir Zeit University, a Minister of Education in the Palestinian Authority and spokesperson for the PLO in the Madrid/ Washington peace talks of 1992. Since that time she had founded MIFTAH a non government institution concerned to foster democracy and good governance within Palestinian society.
Ashrawi is openly hostile to the policies of the Sharon Government. Her perspectives are partisan. Her Israeli critics said she was an absolutist who rejected the idea of Israeli/Palestinian coexistence but her website includes the comment, �The solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict must emanate from a spirit of tolerance and sharing, not one of blind hatred and exclusion�. She has consistently supported a two state solution in the region but remains critical of the implementation of the ‘road map to peace’ because it lessens the prospect of a just outcome.
To assess the invective against her receiving a Peace Prize, a picture can be drawn of Ashrawi as a moderate who had condemned violence and contributed to dialogue about peace. Mary Robinson, the former UN high commissioner for human rights commented, ‘I admire her (Dr.Ashrawi’s) integrity and commitment to seeking a peaceful and just solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict�.She has the respect of the international human rights community for her condemnation of violence on all sides’. Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu said, ‘No one could be more deserving of this prestigious award. Against daunting odds she has remained committed to finding a peaceful solution to what seems an intractable problem’. Madeline Albright former US Secretary of State praised the selection of Dr. Ashrawi and commented, �She is a brilliant spokeswoman for her cause�.
Appraisals of Dr. Ashrawi’s ‘peace record’ also came from significant Israeli citizens. Interviewed on the ABC �s Religion Report of 29th October, the Israeli Meretz MP Yael Dayan said, �Look, as a Palestinian, she is an activist compared to some of the others. But from my point of view, she could have done more, she could have denounced terror more � but she did carry out a dialogue with us Israeli women, which is commendable and certainly peace making.� Baruch Kimmerling a sociologist from the Hebrew University observed that awarding Dr. Ashrawi the prize was an important symbolic act. He wrote, ‘As an Israeli, as a Jew and as an academic I am deeply sorry and ashamed that members of the Australian Jewish community are acting against this rightful nomination’.
A culture of far and intolerance
In many circles a culture of global intolerance was fomenting. In response to the destruction of the twin towers in New York on September 11th 2001, President George W. Bush challenged, �You are either for us or against us�. He implied that there were civilizations and civil peoples, barbaric societies and uncivil peoples. Made more specific,that division translated into Christian democracies versus Muslim autocracies, into responsible democratic Israel confronting irresponsible, dangerous Palestinians. The events of September 11th became a catalyst for thinking in terms of wars against enemies, of good versus evil. Accusation could replace analysis.
The charge of anti semitism merits more detailed attention later in this paper. At this point it is important to say that when such charges became a catch all phrase, they nurtured intolerance. In 2003 the Jewish author Judith Butler wrote in the London Review of Books that following September 11th, the phrase ‘anti semitic’ was being used as a form of censorship which prevented issues such as the ‘the containment and dehumanization of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories from being thoughtfully debated’. In Australia, the Israeli/Palestinian conflict provoked partisanship so intense as to make people take sides and find it difficult to hear others’ perspectives. In discussions with Israeli academics in North America and in Israel six months before the award of the Peace Prize, one colleague warned, �Jewish leaders in the diaspora are often more inflexible, more dogmatic than we would be in Israel�.
Significant Australian observers warned of a culture which encouraged denigration of opponents as though ridicule could be accepted as argument. In November 2003, in an address to the Melbourne Institute, the new Governor General of Australia Lieutenant General Mike Jeffery said that unless debate in Australia became more civilized, a drift towards a destructive polarization of views was inevitable.
A few days earlier in a public address, the actress Judy Davis said, �We are incapable it seems of conducting a civilized conversation with each other. Petty local politics are the order of the day. It is distressing to realize the lengths the supporters of this �new world order� will go in order to control the public debate and vilify great international institutions such as the United Nations’.
A culture of fear and intolerance seemed to invite abusive language and a taken-for-granted assumption that vilifying those you did not agree with was an appropriate way to conduct arguments. At first sight the derision might seem plausible. It was also confusing. The writers identified themselves as respectable professionals or office holders. Violent ways of expressing criticism were presented as though these were not unusual. In the following examples of derision, the adjective �left� crops up as though it means extremist, dangerous, to be condemned and avoided. It is a lazy way of arguing and so routine as to be politically meaningless. Nevertheless it was a stock in trade of those who seemed to think that adjectives should be used as weapons.
Derision as a Form of Argument
To stereotype people as Islamists or as Palestinian apologists and to use ridicule as a way of arguing, is a style which schoolchildren are usually persuaded is inappropriate and inadmissible. A prime example came in an article by Michael Kapel, a member of the board of the Australian/Israel and Jewish affairs Council. Even the title of his article reads like an incitement. �Award raises the volume of terrorist mouthpiece�. He maintained that Hanan Ashrawi was �an apologist for Islamic terror� who had falsely accused Israel of indulging in the cold blooded murder of Palestinian children.
Mr. Kapel then took aim at me. �Rees presents himself as a champion of tolerance, justice and peace for all. That is of course unless they are American or Jewish for whom he reserves little more than undergraduate vilification.’ At the time I did not respond to Mr. Kapel. But his claims merit a response now. In my accounts of the Peace Foundation�s work, I would be ashamed to lump together the members of any one nationality or ethnic group. Over the Ashrawi issue I might have sounded defensive and I certainly pleaded for tolerance and magnanimity. Nevertheless Mr. Kapel claimed that I had �stomped around the media in terms reminiscent of Malaysian leader Dr. Mahathir Mohamed’. Kapel maintained I was �prone to conspiracies and the vilification of those who do not support his extreme views�. One might ask, as calmly as possible, under what circumstances is the promotion of peace with justice ‘extreme’?
The technique of claiming someone’s guilt by virtue of their perceived association with people defined as terrorists, thereby painting a picture of danger, characterized a letter from Martin Guenzl of Perth in The Australian of 29th October. He asked: “Does Sydney really want to laud someone who legitimizes the murder of women and children in their homes?” In similar vein – the assumption that people can be labeled in terms of guilt or innocence, good or bad – Tom Minchin of Victoria wrote in The Australian on November 5th: “She (Dr. Ashrawi) is an apologist for terror who provides terrorists intellectual shelter. As such she is as guilty as those who strap on bombs.”
Paddy McGuiness of The Sydney Morning Herald used an article called �Prizes for Prejudice of a Particular Kind�, to not only scoff at Hanan Ashrawi but dereide the Nobel Peace Prize: “In general the Nobel Prize is comparable in its recipients to the Stalin Prize..� It is clear what the politics of the Sydney Peace Foundation are. They are about claiming the moral high ground for the left, while making excuses for terrorists and warmongers.”
A habit of making sweeping claims as to what sort of people were against Ashrawi receiving the Peace Prize appeared to have the advantage of identifying friends and enemies. Such an either-or way of arguing was not to be impeded by evidence. The claims about the worthiness of critics of the Peace Foundation�s decision implied that those they criticized would be against peace, unable to think, anything but respectable and almost certainly not Jewish. A certain Professor Allan Borowski wrote in a personal letter that the award of the prize would bring its host, the University of Sydney (which was not the host) into great disrepute among the vast majority of decent Australians who abhor all terror and racism and seek a truly just peace in the Middle East. All decent Australians, it seems, would be against Ashrawi winning the Peace Prize which presumably meant that all indecent Australians, who favoured terrorism and racism, would be supporting the Sydney Peace Foundation?
Another example of jumping from one topic to another as though they were connected was also displayed in an article on the front page of The Australian on the weekend of 29th October, �Peace Prize A Betrayal: Officer�s letter from Baghdad�. A Colonel Mike Kelly, described as a senior adviser to coalition forces in Iraq, made connections between attacks by terrorists, injuries to soldiers, the case against an Australian State Premier awarding a peace prize to a Palestinian and the award of this prize as amounting to support for an (undisclosed) enemy�. According to Colonel Kelly, “It would be hard to explain to a soldier who has just lost both his legs in a terrorist attack why an Australian state Premier (supposedly an ally in this war) has been in effect comforting the enemy.”
As if the monolithic arguments of Colonel Kelly and those who decided to publish this material were not sufficient, Government MP Christopher Pyne, chairman of the parliamentary Australia/Israel committee, said: “People like Bob Carr are more dangerous than they realize when they legitimize people who have justified what we describe as terror. Bob Carr is an awful fool in the way that revolutionaries described French aristocrats who helped them against other aristocrats.”
At least Mr. Pyne�s statement had the quality of searching for obscure historical precedent. Others used words and phrases such as �incendiary�, �Arafat booster�, �Israeli bashing�, �rush of blood to the head�, which were inflammatory as well as partisan.
The Australian Jewish Council leader Mr. Colin Rubinstein seemed unable to use moderate language. He claimed that �Mrs Ashrawi was an incendiary who has given unyielding support to violence�. In support of Mr. Rubinstein, an editorial in The Australian of 23rd October said: “Mr. Carr has had a rush of blood to the head, and has agreed to present the Sydney Peace Prize to Palestinian MP and longtime Arafat booster, Hanan Ashrawi.” The same editorial speculated that Carr�s decision had left Labor�s Jewish supporters wondering how deeply the party has been infected by knee jerk Israeli bashing of the Left.
The anti semitism issue
Polarized views included the claim that Jews monopolized the position of victim, which in turn increased the likelihood of charges of anti-semitism, a sensitive issue which needs to be considered in the context of September 11th and the continuing Israel/Palestine conflict.
The Jewish scholar Kimmerling refers to the dominance of a primordial or tribal identity in Israel as opposed to a civil identity based on concepts of universal human and civil rights. Participation in the primordial identity meant that ‘any criticism of Jews, the Jewish state, or its policies, is considered anti-semitic while Jewish traitors are to be vigorously denounced’. Given this atmosphere it was not surprising that support for a controversial Palestinian receiving a Peace Prize was treated in some quarters as being evidence of anti-semitism. Such charges amounted, in Judith Butler’s words, to a form of censorship, the charge ‘anti-semitic’ being so unexceptional that almost anyone and anything could be included.
The writer Bob Ellis addressed the blanket nature of anti-semitism in a letter to The Australian of 29 October, 2003: “Is it being anti semitic to say it is wrong to bulldoze apartment blocks and leave the tenants nowhere to live? Then I swear on the head of my grandmother Rachel Larkman that I am anti-semitic too. Is it anti semitic to say that killing 3000 unarmed Palestinians in three years is wrong and a crime against humanity. Then I swear by the blood of my ancestors all the way back to Abraham that I am anti semitic too.”
In Handing a club to the anti-semites, Phillip Adams wrote in The Australian that he could be an admirer of Hanan Ashrawi and a friend of Israel: “My first daughter, named Rebecca, renounced her father’s atheism and converted to Judaism. And I’ve lost count of the occasions when I’ve launched books by Jewish authors, opened exhibitions by Jewish artists and spoken at Jewish fund raisers or at Holocaust exhibitions or museums.”
Nevertheless the critics kept coming, notably the Minister for Employment and Labor Relations Tony Abbott who addressed the Zionist Council of Victoria and was reported in The Australian of 30th October as saying it was anti-semitism that made many in the West ‘habitual critics of Israel even though it’s the only functioning liberal democracy anywhere in the Middle East’.
A tendency to lump together people by nationality or religious conviction lives alongside assumptions about anti-semitism. Ian Fraser of Rockdale NSW said in The Australian: “In Australia there is a powerful pro Palestinian lobby consisting mostly of Muslims, but also including the far Left. They lobby politicians and vilify anyone who has a good word to say about Israel.” McGuiness in The Sydney Morning Herald wrote that the award to Ashrawi was “yet another manifestation of the anti-semitic strain which lies just below the surface of those who regard themselves as progressives”.
“They prefer to applaud Arab extremists who want to murder Jews � The SPF is not alone in providing monetary rewards for propaganda in Australia.”
Prospects of Dialogue
Seeing everything and everyone as being for or against and using derision and misrepresentation to express such views sucks the oxygen out of any conversation. Such polarization may give an illusion of certainty but precludes enquiry and appraisal of evidence, let alone the beginnings of dialogue.
By contrast there exist perspectives which enhance the prospect of building bridges between peoples such as the leaders of Jewish and Palestinian communities within Australia who were said to be enemies or whom their followers claimed had nothing in common. John Swanston of Kenmore Hills, Queensland in a letter to The Australian of 26th October 2003 sounded a conciliatory note:
“Her visit might just contribute to the peace process by allowing the ignored and despised voice to be heard, listened to and respected. ”
Ashrawi herself subsequently observed: “Blind loyalty for and identification with one side leads to the adoption of strident belligerency towards the other. This intensifies the conflict and subverts rational dialogue.”
Building bridges between peoples requires language that leaves room for interpretation. It requires that touch of humility which allows for consideration of others�` points of view coupled to courage to at least question one�s age old assumptions. The attacks on Hanan Ashrawi displayed few characteristics of dialogue and not much evidence of courage to show even a tinge of doubt. Perhaps the surprising and disappointing feature of this controversy is why those sections of the print media, who regard themselves as mainstream and respectable, facilitated and even encouraged a partisan and gladiatorial way of thinking and writing?
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References
Adams, Phillip (2003) Handing a club to the ant-semites, The Australian, October, 28th
Ashrawi, Hanan, (2003), Peace not a question of legitimacy, but of humanity, Sydney Morning Herald, November 6th
Butler, Judith (2003) No, it�s not anti semitic, London Review of Books, August 16th
Kapel, Michael; (2003) Award raises the volume of terrorist mouthpiece, The Australian October 29th
Kimmerling, Baruch (2003) Politicide, Ariel Sharon�s war against the Palestinians, London & New York, Verso Press
McGuiness, Padraic (2003) Prizes for prejudice of a particular kind, Sydney Morning Herald, November 11th
Ramsey, Alan (2003) At last some fine words about peace, Sydney Morning Herald, November 1st/2nd
Shanahan, Denis (2003) Peace prize betrayal: officer�s letter from Baghdad, The Weekend Australian, Nov. 1st/2nd
A fuller version of this article will appear in early July in the first edition of the new Arts Commentary Journal EAST WEST.