As the daughter of Holocaust survivors and the only Jewish Israeli reporter living in the Palestinian Occupied Territories, these days there is perhaps no one better placed to understand the Middle East conflict than Amira Hass. True to form, on the Toronto stop of her lecture tour Wednesday night she delivered a nuanced picture of the region free from the slogans or dogmatic narratives usually presented by both sides.
Over the course of her twenty-year career as the Palestine correspondent for left-leaning Tel Aviv-based newspaper Ha’aretz, Hass has angered leaders on both sides of the Arab-Israeli divide by reporting stories that clash with official versions of events on the ground. But just because she raises ire in Jerusalem and Gaza alike doesn’t mean she’s neutral.
“The trouble with BBC and CNN is they look at conflicts like football matches, and these are not football matches,” she told her audience at U of T. “We have the full right to side with one side and say who is right and who is wrong.”
Hass is not shy in declaring that Israel’s policies towards Palestinians, which she witnesses first hand on a daily basis from her home in Ramallah, are immoral. But neither does she fall prey to simplistic characterizations of Israel as villain.
She argues that a state of apartheid exists in Israel-Palestine, but also that there are important differences between Israel and apartheid South Africa, where dissent was crushed and white opponents of racism were jailed. As an Israeli Jew, she enjoys the right to free speech, and it’s that freedom guaranteed by her government that she believes compels her to speak out against the oppression of the Palestinians.
“Since we are not in danger as South Africans were or as human rights activists in the Soviet Union were, the responsibility is much higher,” she said. “The responsibility for present Israeli academics, intellectuals, and artists is very heavy. Because if they protest, if they object, if they demand a change, they are being heard. And if they don’t use this opportunity, they are culprits.”
Hass’s speech, scattered at times, touched on the broader challenges of achieving peace in the Middle East, but she eschewed any personal anecdotes about reporting from the West Bank, although she did explain her remarkable decision to move there (“If I was sent to be a correspondent in France, I wouldn’t live in Berlin,” she said matter-of-factly).
Neither did she address the Palestinian bid for statehood at the UN, perhaps an indication of how little she thinks the much-publicized diplomatic maneuvering will change facts on the ground.
Hass believes one of the greatest obstacles to finding a solution to the conflict is that Israelis have come to view the suppression of Palestinian rights as normal, and it may take international intervention of some kind to convince them change is overdue. Boycotts and activist campaigns may ultimately be effective in doing that, she argues, but the key is forging some kind of unity between Arabs and Israelis in order to break the “policy of separation” that has dominated Israeli politics for twenty years.
Asked whether she supported a one- or two-state solution, Hass said she was skeptical either Israelis or Palestinians would be willing to share a country with one another, but at this point the details are not important. “I think we waste too much time speaking about the solution in detail,” she said. “It’s not about logistical obstructions or about technical problems, it’s about the lack of will on the part of Israel to give up hegemony, to give up its privileges.”
“I can end this talk more optimistically or less optimistically, and both will reflect what I feel. The more pessimistic ending, is I could see Armageddon war taking place in the region. … But we have to accept this fact: there are two peoples in this land, and without the principle of equality there is no chance for life in this land. Because the future of the two peoples is one future.”
