Ghaith: I am a lawyer by training so I feel a very strong professional compulsion to start my presentation with a caveat; the caveat here being that you said I worked for the Palestinian Authority, and I did, but that was a long time ago, I don’t speak for them, I am not an official anymore. I am here in my personal capacity, and what I present are views which are mine, but of course which reflect those of my organization. I will not be addressing any of the specific motions and resolutions which you have in front of you, I’m not part of the Church I’m not part of the movement, rather I’ll present where I see the general view, the general approach to some of the issues that you have to deal with, and maybe I’ll start with the issue of BDS. Before that of course I would be remiss not to thank you John, not to thank the Presbyterians for Middle East Peace and the Presbyterian Church itself. Someone told me you have been involved in the Holy Land for one hundred and eight years. That’s a long time and it’s an involvement that is deeply appreciated.

 

Now when it comes to the whole issue of BDS, the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions, our approach to it really, well my approach to it stems from my view about a two state solution. I believe the two state solution is the only viable dignified solution available and I will get to that point in a minute, but from that position I look at the issue of boycott and divestment and my view of that is the following: the occupation is illegitimate, the occupation has to end to create a Palestinian state next to Israel and therefore adding cost to the occupation is something that I find acceptable, I find intellectually consistent with that view, I support the European approach of labeling settlement products and things of this sort. However, what I find completely unacceptable is the attempt to boycott, divest, and sanction Israelis. It doesn’t fit with the idea of a two-state solution. It doesn’t recognize that Israelis are a very textured community, among them there are many who are pro-peace, there are many who are partners, and if we treat them all as one, and if we sanction them all as one, and if we treat an extremist the same way as a peace-seeking individual we drive those who want peace in the same camp as the others, we disempower them, we empower the shrill voices, we empower the voices that say that no one, you know, that Palestinians aren’t interested in a two-state solution. We reinforce the worst possible narrative. So that’s really in short how I approach BDS but I’m not spending too much time on it because for me BDS or where you stand on it is a matter of tactics. Ultimately we have to be very clear about the solution, about the goal, and the goal in this case can only be a two-state solution.

 

Now many will tell you from around the Palestinian community that a two-state solution is a pragmatic option, we had no other choice but to accept and therefore we accepted without really being emotionally and intellectually invested. I disagree; I think that a two-state solution is the only one that brings Palestinians dignity, it is the only one for creating Palestinian self-determination, it’s the only one that will allow Palestinians to finally, after decades of dispossession and decades of being under occupation to have mastery over their own fate. When I look at the world today, I look at the Palestinians today, I look at the Palestinians in Syria, you’re all aware of the situation in Syria, there are millions of refuges escaping Syria, if you’re a Syrian refugee and you get say to the Jordanian or to the Lebanese border you’re allowed in. If you’re a Palestinian refugee living in Syria and have been displaced from a refugee camp and you get to one of these borders you’re not allowed in. Ultimately the Palestinians have learned, you know, conflict after conflict, trauma after trauma, that if you do not have a country that is yours, a country that you own, ultimately you are always at someone else’s mercy and this has not been a very kind history to the Palestinian people. Therefore a two-state solution is really the only way in my view to approach it and any motion that would undermine it, any motion that would make reaching it difficult, any motion that will harden positions on the Israeli or Palestinian side is one that I cannot be in support of. 

 

The Palestinian people if you look at poll after poll in the West Bank and Gaza and East Jerusalem, all support a two-state solution as a desirable end game, yet many of them feel there is no hope of reaching the two-state solution, and I think today, after the collapse of negotiations after the collapse of diplomacy, what we really have to start thinking about is how do we generate hope among Israelis, I think Rachel will speak to that, but also amongst Palestinians, and here I need to zoom out a little and maybe look a bit at how we approach Palestinians. I did not grow up in the West Bank, in Palestine, I grew up in Jordan. My first time that I went to the West Bank was in Ninety-nine, to actually take a job there in the negotiation field. When I first went there I always thought of Palestinians in terms of the hardships that they face, in terms of the victimization. I went to Ramallah, and all that I thought was true, living under the occupation is, you know, to put it very diplomatically, not a very pleasant experience. There are hardships, there are human rights violations etcetera but I expected that, that was not a surprise to me. What was really a surprise was to see that under all of this hardship you had the people who managed to be creative, who managed to maintain energy, who managed to invest, who managed to generate their own hope and energy, and that is what really got me hooked on the whole issue.  This is what today, continues to animate and to energize my involvement in the issue, and I think we do the Palestinians a disservice if we look at them only as victims, because one of the results of looking at the Palestinians only as victims is we tend to see pro-Palestinian advocacy in terms of how can we inflict pain or pressure on Israel, and only that, we look at them really as a secondary object that can only be seen through the lens of Israel. I think that does them no service, and does no justice to Palestinian people. I think and I believe if we want to generate hope, if in these dark times we want to help the Palestinians stay in their land, we need to think of how we can invest in Palestinians, how can we invest in Palestine, how can we look at someone like the former prime minister Salam Fayyad, who said we are going to build a Palestinian state under occupation and despite the occupation. How can we look at these initiatives, and how can we support them, how can we support them in investment, how can we support them politically, and how can we support that voice in Palestine that talks about hope, that talks about overcoming hardship, rather than those that basically take the victimization and use it as a way of maintaining the status quo, If you want to support Palestinians, invest in Palestine, invest in the Palestinians. 

 

These are very difficult times for those of us who are engaged in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Just recently, the major push for peace, many have termed this push as the last chance for peace, the push by Sec. Kerry collapse, not out of any lack of effort from Sec. Kerry, he was extremely committed, he was actually exceptionally and surprisingly committed and was even willing to put his own credibility on the line, but it failed, and we find ourselves right now in a very difficult position. We find ourselves right now at a time where the opponents of peace and opponents of a two-state solution are very triumphant. You listen to what you hear from someone like Danny Danon in the Israeli government or Navtani Bennett, and they’re happy about it. You listen to Hamas and you listen to some of the voices that are only about boycotting and delegitimizing Israel in the Palestinian community and they are happy about it, and they are using this momentum to further reinforce these dynamics that separate the two peoples, and I think it is up to us right now, people of good faith, people who want the best for Palestinians and Israelis to look at ways of how we can build partnerships between Palestinians and Israelis, and by extension, between the pro-Palestinian community in the United States and the pro-Israel community in the United States, because that’s the only way of countering those other voices, and that’s the only way of creating and maintaining the political viability, not only there but also here, of a two-state solution. A two-state solution is in the American national interest, this is what Bush said, this is what President Obama said, it is well established policy right now, but how can we create a voice and create a constituency for our leaders who want to move forwards towards that, and again, it goes back to the very premise of the two-state solution. If we think a two-state solution is good for Palestinians, is good for Israelis, we work towards the same goal. If you work towards the same goal, this entails a sense of partnership, and we have to find people within the other camp, the pro-Israel or pro-Palestine camp to build partnerships, now partnerships does not mean that we have to agree on everything.

 

Last week I was actually in San Francisco for the J-street national conference. I do not agree with every policy decision of J-street but it doesn’t matter. I don’t agree with everything with my wife, at the end of the day, you have the same goal, when you have disagreements you can look at them one of two ways: either as an excuse to go to your corner, entrench, and throw mud on the other side, or as a problem that has to be overcome, and I think if we establish this approach, this approach where we don’t agree on everything but there are commonalities, let’s build on these commonalities, and see how we can resolve the differences I think this is a way to move forward and to maintain this momentum at a very difficult time. At the end of the day, and I want to leave you with, this maybe a truism of sorts, but I think one that’s often forgotten, at the end of the day If you want to be pro-Palestine you do not have to be anti-Israel, if you want to be pro-Israel you don’t have to be anti-Palestine. We are partners; we have the same goal and if we don’t work together towards it then those who don’t want that goal, you can be sure, are going to work very hard and very vigorously towards achieving it.

Thank you very much for giving me the floor, thank you for your time, and have a great day.

 

Divestment is clearly seen as a silver bullet by some that we can fire in frustration and anger. One of the things I heard a lot yesterday sitting in our group was people saying, “Well, we have to do something. I know divestment may not work, I know divestment may not be the best choice, but we have to do something.” So my question to the three of you, and Gaith, you may want to start again, you’re an advocate for building coalitions. Where have you seen that work? How can we become a part of that process?...What can we do? People are angry and frustrated and they want to do something.

 

 

Thank you, John. Let me start with the silver bullet and then go to the main question. There is no silver bullet! I look around the room and I am not the youngest person here, by far, and I think that many of you have been involved in this for years, and there is no silver bullet. I think one of the drags on progress is this image of peace that we’ve always had and this historic handshake on the south lawn of the White House and everything is solved. It’s not going to happen this way. For many reasons, nothing is going to happen this way. It is going to require some very hard, very unglamorous, very tedious work to get there. Working on the ground, bit by bit. We have to go from the bottom up as we look at things moving from the top down. And if we sit back and think, just a couple of leaders like Sadat and Begin did it, changing the history like that, well we don’t have these leaders right now. Now its time for us to take things into our own hands, and I really am bothered by this whole thinking that one big move is going to change everything. 

 

But your question, and I think I’m going to answer your question, John, in a round about way by actually commenting on a couple of themes that were raised by Rachel, and with Rachel I was really shocked in the Torah portion that you read, shocked into kind of an epiphany there, when you talked about how they couldn’t fathom a good life. And I think that one of the biggest problems facing Israelis and Palestinians is that they can’t imagine a good life. How long has the occupation been going on? My math is bad, 40 years? Most Palestinians and Israelis were born and grew knowing nothing but the occupation. And therefore, naturally, like any human being, they can only see the future in terms of their own experience. And when I talk to Palestinians about peace, they don’t really think about peace. They give me a slightly nicer version of today. And with Israelis it’s the same. They have deep-rooted fears. And they have real fears borne by experience, and frankly fears which have been perpetuated by the leaders. 

 

There are very, very few leaders on the Israeli and Palestinian sides who took the time to imagine what peace looks like.  We have no Mandela in Palestine or Israel. We have individuals like Fayyad and individuals in Israel who do the same, but by and large, leaders actually reinforce this. And the reality of being in the middle of the active conflict, and I was there myself for a long time, the reality of it makes it hard to think of a better future. And I left Palestine/Israel and came here hoping that we’ll be able in this country to create a model to inspire people back there and show them what it could look like. And sadly, what I have seen with the divisive nature of the debate is that we are recreating and reproducing the same negative things. 

 

If a Palestinian looks at the debate here, he or she will be convinced that the future that is held and advocated by the extreme “Pro-Israel” people who are more pro-Israel than Israel itself sometimes, the future they imagine is a continuation of this occupation. Why would the Palestinian want that? And if I look at some of the “Pro-Palestine”, one state advocates who really want the destruction of Israel, they reinforce some of Israel’s biggest fears. Whether in terms of security, acceptance, existence, what have you. As we build partnerships we have to look at what debates we encourage. Do we encourage that debate and discourse or something different? 

 

And it goes to the point that Gustav raised, the point about media and perception. I’ve learned through my career dealing with the media is that the media doesn’t like a good story. A good story almost never makes it to the front page of the New York Times. It might make it to the human-interest section, but who reads that? There will be coverage of stories that indicate, “Look how heated things are between Palestinians and Israelis and pro-Israeli people and pro-Palestinian people.” There will be coverage of what will be I’m sure sometimes a heated debate on the proposals in front of you. I myself have been a victim of this media.

 

 Over the last 3 years, I did around 70 or 80 campuses around the country talking to students. One of the first ones was going to the University of California, Irvine. I don’t know if many of you know it, but it is one of the biggest examples of the viciousness between the debate of pro-Palestine and pro-Israel. And as I was flying there I was thinking, “What am I doing? Why am I coming here? Just to have mud thrown at me from every direction?” I went and I spoke to a crowd nearly as big as the one here and I was shocked the majority of them were in support of two states, of getting together, of peace, etc. And I was thinking about it and I realized something. Those of us who want to do the right thing and those of us who want to get along, we get along! We don’t scream about it, we don’t shout about it, we just do it. That doesn’t make it to the news. What makes it to the news are those who are shouting and screaming and they end up defining the main stream and we start looking like we are the margins.

 

 And I think this is our biggest failing: our inability to stand in an aggressive way, a loud way, and say we want to get along together. We don’t do it in salons and what have you, we have to do it in public. When we do it in public…Why am I here? I don’t agree with everything on your website, I don’t agree with everything you stand for. But it is important to stand and show everyone that we stand and we try to find solutions for our problems, not to deepen our problems.

 

How do we do that? Every relationship, every interaction, there are things that we agree on and that we do not agree on. It’s our choice. We focus on what we agree on, build on it, create an example on it, push it forward as an example of things that can be done. As we do this we actually engage in resolving our differences. It doesn’t mean we mask our difficulties. I think Rachel was very clear how hard the occupation is. We have to deal with that. WE have to deal with some of the anti-Semitism coming from my community in Palestine as well. 

 

Yet this is not what we build the coalition on. We build the coalition on specific joint interests, specific joint points of action, we take it public. We will endure lots of pushback from friends, family and acquaintances. But we are grown-ups here. We deal with that.

 

The last thing I would want to say on this issue, you know, I look around the room, I see people who look established, who have gone through experiences in life. I’m not worry about you. I’m worried about the 18 year old who goes to campus. I’m worried about the Palestinian girl who wants to hang out with Jewish friends and gets pushback from the community. “You are going out of the community, cavorting with the enemy, etc. etc.” She will feel bullied and walk out of the relationship. Or the Jewish boy going through the same. It is our job as established figures, as elders, as the authority, to provide the cover for these people. 

 

We have to be vocal so that someone who wants to interact feels that they are not a lone voice but there are people out there providing and umbrella of legitimacy. And if we are not loud about it, these people will end up being pushed away from this issue. I’ve seen so many well-intentioned Israeli and Palestinian young people leaving these issues altogether to work on other environmental and social justice issues and leaving these issues to the crazies. Its not good for me, its not good for our country here, itsnot good for Palestinians and Israelis. We need to reclaim the narrative. Thank you.

 

 

On addressing your members of congress. My experience: there is nothing more powerful than if two individuals show up to your congressman’s office and say: “I am pro-Palestine, he is pro-Israel and we’re are here on a joint message”. So find people in your community who define across lines and see what you can do together to push an issue. I think it can be very powerful for our congressional leaders. 

 

 

Here’s another thing that we hear. We have started a process of positive investment through the Presbyterian foundation. There are people asking legitimate questions about it. One thing that I’ve heard is that we’re simply building up an economy inside a jail, the jail being the West Bank. Do you think that positive investment is a strategy that’s positive, or is it a sham?

 

 

OK, I will start with the negative and move to the positive. Palestinians will never be able to create a full, functioning, thriving, complete economy under occupation. The occupation creates obstacles. I’m not going to sit here and recount them for you, they’re very well documented, go to the World Bank website and you’ll see that. Yet it is not an all or nothing proposition. I think you often see this as a straw man argument: you can’t build an economy under an occupation so don’t even try. I refuse that. And I look at, I keep on bringing up the name because he really inspires me, at what Salam Fayyad did as the Prime Minister, and what effect that had on the Palestinian public. When a prime minister says: “Yes the occupation is wrong.” But rather than sitting there and complaining about how unfair life is, what can we do about it? 

 

I repeat my experience when I went to Palestine. My biggest shock is when I go to Ramallah, Nablus, Hebron, Jerusalem, Gaza, you always forget about Gaza, and we find people saying “How can we better ourselves? How can we move forward”. Partly out of a natural personal impulse (everyone wants their kids to have a better future, wants themselves to have a better future), partly out of a nationalistic patriotic impulse. How do we stay on our land? Palestinians are leaving, and not only Christians. They find no hope, they go elsewhere, this is not good for Palestinians. So investment in Palestinians is key. 

 

Again, I repeat, Palestinians are not an object. We are not just a tool used to batter Israel whenever it’s convenient. Palestinians are a real people. And you don’t have to go and force them to invest in themselves. They’re doing it. As Rachel said, go to Ramallah. Ramallah, everyone talks about it as a bubble. Go to Hebron! See how entrepreneurial people are there. Everyone you talk to has a project. Everyone you talk to has an idea for investment. Most of them make no sense, but every now and then you come across something that makes sense. You don’t have to invest in a major project that will suddenly create “the new Singapore in the middle east”. But you can invest in small projects that keep communities in place, families in place, and keep the hope for the future, self-respect and dignity that Palestinians need, as we move forward to a two state solution.

 

One last point about this: One thing that I find fascinating when dealing with what Salam Fayyad was doing was talking to Israelis, Israelis who were skeptical about if Palestinians were partners for peace, can we trust a future with them? When they started to see Palestinians building their own future, when stories of Palestinians building new cities like Rawabi or having small IT projects here and there, they started saying: you know what? There might be something there. They remind us of the old Jewish story of how we overcame adversity and built something out of nothing. Maybe we have partners there. And you started seeing amazing partnerships across the two societies. This is what I think we should be working on. To me as a Palestinian, this is what will reaffirm my agency and my worth as a person, not only being treated as a victim worthy of pity. So yes, I think investment is good in practical concrete financial terms but also in bigger identity and nationalistic ways. So yes, I urge you very strongly to do that.