August 7, 2003

Hani al-Hasan, former Palestinian Authority Minister of Interior.

Today the Birzeit program had arranged for the foreign students to meet with President Arafat. First, we went to Fatah party offices to see Hani al-Hasan, the former PA Minister of Interior who is currently in charge of rebuilding Fatah. After playing a part in decades of conferences, summits, agreements, and accords, none leading to a just and durable peace, he seemed tired and not very hopeful. He asserted that without a strong "push from Bush" to assure Israeli agreement to the Roadmap, there will be no progress, and in fact, the situation will probably deteriorate rapidly.

His major criticism of the Oslo process (which he never supported as a good plan) was the lack of explicit mechanisms of accountability. In contrast, the Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt stipulated that the US must intervene to redress failure to follow the agreement. Without these, nothing ensured real progress towards a final solution. Rather, since Oslo began, the number of settlers and the size of their settlements increased twofold, and only 18% of the Occupied Territories came under Palestinian control. For people who expected a viable state in the 1967 borders by 1998, the real results of Oslo were meager and frustrating. Al-Hasan also indicated that he thought Clinton forced the signature between Rabin and Arafat prematurely (with 32 issues - including water rights - unresolved), seemingly for his own political advantage.

A stop for lunch at Angelo’s Pizza is always good for the soul.

Elizabeth and the very talented art teacher from Zababdeh’s Latin School.

An interesting meeting, but not very hopeful and showing a lot of strategy on the part of the Palestinian leadership except the status quo negotiation process. We discovered that there had been a miscommunication somewhere, and Arafat was not expecting to see us. Our group (all cleaned up and on our best behavior) was disappointed, but hopeful maybe we could meet with him another time.

Nothing to do but eat Angelo's New York style pizza. On the way there, Elizabeth bumped into the (extremely talented) art teacher for Zababdeh's Latin school. She's been taking a course on computer art and design in Ramallah and staying with two of her brothers who have a natural beauty care wholesale business. It was nice to catch up with her and see her brothers' store, and all the products (causing a streak of nostalgia for when Elizabeth worked at Bonne Sante Health Foods in Chicago).

Out on the street, unbeknownst to us, vigilante "justice" was taking place. A Palestinian suspected of collaborating with the Israelis was gunned down by three masked men. When we left Angelo's, the fire trucks were busy hosing away the blood. Once again we remain baffled that this stuff doesn't happen more often in the vacuum that is Palestinian law and order these days.