The Politics of Peace Prize: Israel and Hannan Ashrawi

[dudeness]

http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/1797/?PHPSESSID=da9c584baf2bc30f56a25107ce5fffb4

In the Sydney Morning Herald, dated October 23, 2003, Mr. Peter Wertheim, a past president of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, was quite upset about Premier Bob Carr’s decision to present this year’s ‘Sydney Peace Prize’ to the Palestinian activist and founder of the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH) - Professor Hannan Ashrawi. (http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/10/22/1066631499913.html?from=storyrhs). He applauds Sydney’s lord Mayor Lucy Turnbull’s decision to withdraw the city’s support for the prize.

Such a disgruntled voice from Mr. Wertheim was not unexpected given the fact that people like him have not been able to rise above their ‘boxes’ and see the world as it is from a neutral point. As far as the Palestinian-Israeli crisis is concerned, his views are arrogantly partisan and myopic. Under ordinary circumstances, such partisan views don’t deserve much deference and would probably have been trashed by most editors. However, since his organization is a powerful one, especially in a country that has been very supportive of Bush’s invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, and Sharon’s government, we can guess why his views were published. (And I am sure letters like mine to the SMH editor that differ from his views will simply be discarded.) <1>

For years, the leaders and diehard supporters of the rogue state of Israel have tried everything – from planting the myth - ‘land without a people to a people without a land’ to mass murder - to obliterate the Palestinian identity. To their dismay, however, nothing seemed to have worked. The Palestinians are a bunch of ‘difficult’ and ‘uncompromising’ people: neither would they go away nor would they give up on their rights to statehood on the 20% of historical Palestine! Nearly 80% of their territory was snatched away from them, hundreds of thousands uprooted from their ancestral homes, basic human rights denied, schools, colleges, commercial centers, homes and hospitals demolished, Palestinians killed like ‘vermin’ and ‘cockroaches;’ still they like to hang on to that tiny piece of land – the pre-’67 West Bank and Gaza - truncated by settlements and settler-roads, road-blocks and Apartheid walls that have reduced the territory to ‘Bantustans.’

snip...

[bluesoul]

1. Well

I guess in the eyes of Mr. Wertheim, Ariel Sharon is the "Man of peace". :crazy:

[ForestsBeatBushes]

2. Why should anyone object to this?

If Arafat can be awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in December 1994, it makes perfect sense that Hanan Ashrawi be awarded the Sydney Peace Prize in October 2003.

[bluesoul]

3. Nice try

Love your comparisons, but Hanan was only a spokesperson for the PLO and didn't have anything to do with the actions of the militant organisations.. Just as the Israelis have Dore Gold. Or is every Palestinian automatically a member of a "terrorist" organization? Just wonderin....

[GabysPoppy]

4. Of course when an article or editorial begins with these words

"For years, the leaders and diehard supporters of the "rogue state of Israel" have tried everything"

you can expect an unbiased viewpoint worthy of consideration in your eyes.

The extra (") were inserted by me, lest you wonder which part of the sentance I was referring to. Should this writer ever lose his job, his resume should be picked up by Faux news as representative of "fair and balanced".

:shrug:

[DuctapeFatwa]

5. While she has condemned suicide bombings, she has not praised Sharon

And of course no Palestinian could be considered for any peace prize if they oppose the Man of Peace himself!

[GabysPoppy]

6. Those are your words and not mine

And I think you are incorrect in that assessment. I think a Palestinian leader who strives for peace should get a peace award regardless whether he likes or dislikes Sharon.

So you have added a ridiculous standard to anyone who might be so eligible for a peace award.

[The Magistrate]

7. Without The Comedic Stylings Of Mr. Fatwa, Sir

The place would just not be the same....

[GabysPoppy]

8. No it wouldn't

And yet some think Carrothead funny.

:shrug:

[ForestsBeatBushes]

11. Go figure!

Me, I prefer the anger of Louis Black.

[Adalah]

9. I doubt we would agree on everything

but he's gotten a laugh from me more than once. The comments and sarcasm of several posters are clever.

[Violet_Crumble]

15. Same here...

Apart from being really fond of DTFs posting style partly out of having a soft spot for some degree of sophisticated and subtle humour, I think they add many valuable contributions to the discussions here. Now I must wander off and find out what this carrothead is that GP is referring to, though I've got no doubt it'll be some little kids cartoon aimed at the pre-school set or something like that...

Violet...

[DuctapeFatwa]

12. yo, dude. In this room, I'm the straight man

[ForestsBeatBushes]

10. Huh?

She was awarded the Sydney Peace Prize AND she opposes Sharon. Are you missing something or am I?

[Classical_Liberal]

13. Everyone who believes in peace should oppose Sharon.

.

[ForestsBeatBushes]

16. Referring you to the 'straight man's' message #5

[Gimel]

17. She doesn't recognize them

Hannan Ashwari doesn't even notice that there were suicide attacks, how can she condemn them?

[Darranar]

18. What are you talking about?

[Violet_Crumble]

19. Not true at all...

She discussed them in the interview I saw her in, and most definately has condemned them...

Here's just one example:


http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/06/20/1023864469813.html

Violet...

[Violet_Crumble]

14. Rogue states...

A rogue state is a state that behaves in a way that repeatedly shows it has no desire to comply with international law and thinks itself above it. Both the US and Israel fall into that category, as do several other nations that the US propagandists don't stick the rogue state label on. While those that fall for the quick and easy soundbites of the Bush administration on this matter may well think someone calling Israel a rogue state makes everything he says not worth bothering with, he's not being any more outrageously biased in using that comment than those who proclaim that the IDF is the most moral army in the world and some of the comments made in the article he was replying to...

Getting back to the topic of the Sydney Peace Prize, do you have any real objections to Hanan Ashrawi being awarded the prize? I've been doing a bit of searching this afternoon to see if there was any substance to the complaints made about her and have come away with the strong impression that the objections raised are because she's Palestinian. There's an element of 'waaah! If THEY get an award, WE want one too!!' to the whole thing, which is really childish, imo. I expect these same people claiming that they wouldn't object if there was an award made jointly to a Palestinian and an Israeli would be just as loud in their objections if that Israeli happened not to be Sharon or one of his henchmen, but was someone like Uri Avnery, who in my opinion well and truly deserves any prize going for peace that's out there...

Violet...

[Matilda]

20. Many objections are based - supposedly - on the fact

that Ashrawi does not agree with the "roadmap". It seems that anyone
who isn't prepared to just roll over is automatically against peace.
Unless the name happens to be Sharon, and in that case, complete
intransigence on any and every point under discussion can be
overlooked.

[Darranar]

21. She doesn't agree with the roadmap?

Why not?

[Matilda]

22. She herself is not opposed to the roadmap, or any other peace

plan, but she has denounced as hypocritical such things as Israel
continuing to build the dividing wall even as negotiations are
officially continuing, dismantling some small settlements, only to
put up others in their place, etc. But some hardline right-wingers, have seized on this as an excuse to say that she is opposed to peace.
That is what I've read in letters and articles printed in the Sydney
Morning Herald, and if that's the best reason they can come up with
for not awarding her the Peace Prize, I think they're scraping the
bottom of the barrel.

Here is a link to the transcipt of a television interview with
Hanan Ashrawi by "Foreign Correspondent", which explains where she
really stands:

http://www.abc.net.au/foreign/stories/s947788.htm