Posted on 10/23/2003 7:04:05 AM PDT by Pokey78
The selection of long-time PLO advocate and Arafat ally Hanan Ashrawi for the Sydney Peace Prize makes a mockery of the award.
Dr Ashrawi doesn't meet the key criteria nominated by those behind the prize – a commitment to the principles and philosophy of non-violence.
Commitment to non-violence means a total rejection of armed struggle and Dr Ashrawi has not done this. Mahatma Gandhi must be spinning in his hand-spun dhoti.
She doesn't fulfil the other major element either – having made no significant contributions to global peace.
In fact the selection of Hanan Ashrawi by the Sydney Peace Foundation (SPF), itself a creature of Sydney University's rabidly left-wing Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies (CPACS), is a ploy by pro-Palestinian elements to radically politicise what should be a universally accepted decision.
Dr Ashrawi, whom I met during a trip to the Middle East sponsored by the Jewish Board of Deputies two years ago, has long been put forward by the PLO and later the Palestinian Authority as the acceptable face of terror.
A former English professor, she is articulate and polished, as anxious to hide her chain-smokers' habit as she is to disguise her vile views.
Her apologists, among them Premier Bob Carr, should review her record. She supported the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990, she also backed the attempted military coup against Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991.
As the popular face of Palestine on Western television, she used her position to vehemently deny that Palestinians on the West Bank and in Gaza had celebrated the suicide hijackers' attacks on New York and Washington on September 11, 2001.
Nazi propAgandist Joseph Goebbels would have been proud of her steadfast denials in the face of the video footage showing wild and cheering crowds firing their AK-47s into the night sky.
As the Palestine Authority's Minister for Higher Education, she voted against the Oslo Treaty's amendment to remove clauses nominating "armed struggle [that is, terrorism] as the only way to liberate Palestine" from the Palestine National Covenant.
She has declared that Israeli civilians are legitimate targets for Palestinian terrorists.
She says she doesn't think of Hamas as a terrorist group.
She doesn't believe a two-state solution to Israeli-Palestinian problem is a moral solution, a rejection of Israel's legitimacy.
She's also declared that former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak's peace offer – the most generous ever – was a sham and indicated that she regards all of Israel as Palestinian territory.
Given her study of the English language, her clumsy attempts to evade confronting Holocaust deniers make for pathetic reading.
She is a serial abuser of the truth, whether it's to justify the lynching of Israeli soldiers, Palestinian terrorism, the recruitment of children as suicide bombers, or the deceits of her old friend and sometime adversary Yasser Arafat, the corrupt father of Middle Eastern terrorism. All this, and opposition to the recent US-backed road map to peace.
Lord Mayor Lucy Turnbull is right to refuse to dignify the award, although the Sydney City Council is a backer of the prize. Attempts to smear her actions with charges they are part of her husband's political campaign are nonsense.
In his defence of his presentation of the award to Dr Ashrawi, Premier Carr made the point that he supports the need for a dialogue – but what is the point of supporting a dialogue when a nominated participant is so mired in opposition to a moral outcome?
He says he doesn't advocate militancy on the part of the Palestinian leadership, but Dr Ashrawi does. He says he supports plurality, the two-state solution, Dr Ashrawi does not.
In fact her organisation's website (www.miftah.org) is devoted to Palestinian propaganda.
There is no mention of Israeli human rights, of the terrorism inflicted by Palestinians on Israelis, of the Palestinian Authority's horrific campaign to recruit children as suicide bombers.
There is no evidence that Dr Ashrawi is dedicated to peace with justice, just rabid support for radical Palestinian thought.
Mr Carr says he didn't select her for the prize – and that is true. However he should show some moral courage by standing up for decency, and refuse to attend.
Emeritus Professor Stuart Rees, who is president of both SPF and CPACS, where he teaches a course called Non-violence and Social Change, must take the blame for selecting Dr Ashrawi for the prize.
If he audited his own course, examined and accepted as valid the content of his lectures on non-violence, he would understand how shameful his selection of Hanan Ashrawi must appear to outsiders.
This award to an individual who supports terrorism reflects the manner in which the very word "peace" has been appropriated by radical elements.
Opposition to Dr Ashrawi's award is a not merely an issue for Sydney's small Jewish community. No one of any conscience or consequence stands against peace, but decent people oppose awarding a peace prize to an apologist for terrorism.
akermanp@dailytelegraph.com.au
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