My Chat with Diana Buttu

I met PLO spokeswoman and legal advisor Diana Buttu last Friday evening (Nov. 8). She spoke at an event in San Francisco, sponsored by Global Exchange. Buttu started with a talk on the situation in the West Bank, then there was Q&A followed by a reception where we chatted one on one for a few minutes. In her presentation she repeated a number of the exaggerations and creative reinterpetations of fact that she's made in previous appearances. For example:

Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza is "illegal" She didn't mention that Israel ended up with the territories after successfully defending itself in the unwanted war of 1967. She also didn't mention that Israel was rebuffed in its attempt to return the land after the war in exchange for peace. Nor did she explain how the occupation can be "illegal" when no actual laws are being broken.

30% of Palestinian children are malnourished I disposed of that canard here

Palestinian children are no longer being "innoculized" [sic] against diseases. She didn't cite a source for this so who knows how many more or fewer children are being immunized now than were a few years ago, or the reason for the change. But it has been documented that one of the things that Israel did to improve living conditions in the West Bank and Gaza after 1967 was to immunize a substantially larger number of Palestinian children than were immunized under Jordanian and Egyptian rule.

1.5% of the Palestinian population has been killed or injured during the recent conflict. This would a remarkable increase over the 1% figure she cited three months ago, which is itself an astounding exaggeration. In fact, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS), 1,867 Palestinians had been killed and 21,014 injured in the period Sep. 29, 2000 to Nov. 8, 2002. According to Buttu, there are 3.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza (this number is consistent with estimates given by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics(PCBS)). That means only 0.05% were killed and 0.6% were injured, far short of "1.5%". Most of the Palestinian casualties, by the way, were combatants, but Buttu didn't mention this. Incidentally, the PCBS estimates that the Palestinian population is growing by 4.5% annually, which is among the highest rates of population growth in the world.

50% of the Palestinian are unemployed and another 50% are being sustained only by relief organizations -and- 70% of Palestinians live on $2 a day while the average salary in Israel is $24,000 a year "$2 vs. $24,000" Comparing daily per-capita consumption to annual pre-tax salary is hardly a relevant comparison, but the innumerate Global Exchange audience seems to love this sort of thing. Buttu omitted to mention the reasons why unemployment is so high, such as the tens of thousands who lost their jobs in Israel because of the bombings; or the diversion of the Palestinian Authority's foreign aid money into terrorism and corruption, starving the productive economy and preventing the funding from trickling down to those who need it most.

East Jerusalem is "completely cut off" from the rest of the West Bank and Palestinians are no longer allowed to worship at the holy mosques in Jerusalem.(Not true)

"There is a connection between Palestinian's freedom and Israeli security", in the context that terror attacks on civilians is a natural reaction to the "loss of freedom" and a rational strategy to "end the occupation". Which to me sounded an awful lot like extortion and just as reprehensible and dumb as saying that "there is a connection between sexual disappointment and rape", and suggesting that women wouldn't be raped as often if they only consented to having sex more often.

The two-state solution isn't going to work any more and the Palestinians were considering demanding rights as Israeli citizens! This proposal is dead on arrival. The Israelis are no more likely to agree to that as we Americans are likely to erase the border with Mexico and grant full statehood to every country between the Rio Grande and Tierra del Fuego.

Then came the Q&A. I got to ask the first question. I thanked her for her visit and gently reminded the audience that although some people might think the Israelis are brutal, they can't be all that bad because they keep allowing Buttu to leave and come back whenever she wants to. I mentioned my connection to, and support for Israel and said that although she and I might appear to be diametrically opposed on the surface, we're closer than it might seem. As a humanitarian I feel badly for the suffering of the Palestinians and hope to see peace for both sides. And in that spirit I said that I feel frustrated with the PLO and PA which repeatedly engage in self-defeating tactics. I pointed out that most Israelis are not intent on holding on to all of the West Bank and Gaza, and are amenable to a two-state solution. I suggest that it's not Americans she should be talking to, but the Israeli swing voters, who previously supported Rabin and Oslo and now support Sharon because of the terrorism. The single most important thing for her to do is to persuade the Israeli center that the Palestinians can be a viable partner for peace.

Buttu said that I made some good points and that she does in fact speak with ordinary Israelis. She has been inside "60 or 70 homes and was very well received" but that the Likud government has no interest in dismantling the settlements. To that I responded that "Arafat has three months to give the Israelis a reason to vote for the Labor Party". A surly woman from Global Exchange woman then cut me off to let other people ask their questions. Among the other questions were:

Q: "Is it getting easier or harder to criticize Israel without being labeled as anti-Semitic?"
Buttu said that it's getting harder. The New York Times, she claimed, is reframing the debate. It no longer calls the West Bank "occupied territories", but "disputed territories" [which is indeed more accurate]. And she lamented, but could not explain, the fact that advocates of university divestment were being labelled as anti-Semitic. [perhaps it's because the Jewish state is being singled out for capturing territory in an uninvited defensive war, while many other countries which acquired territory in wars of aggression and commit gross human rights violations (e.g. Syria, China) are NOT being singled out].

Q: "Regarding the idea of demanding Israeli citizenship for all Palestinians. Have you thought about a specific plan for how this might play out?"
Buttu admitted that she didn't have a plan. Which is not surprising, because it is inconceivable that any such plan could succeed.

Q: A Palestinian man in the audience gave a long-winded and rambling diatribe where he excoriated Arafat for agreeing to the Oslo Agreements in the first place. He said that it would only leave the Palestinians "submissive and subservient" and it didn't matter whether the Palestinians were ruled by Israelis or Jordanians, they were both the same, "although the Israelis are in many ways more decent" he admitted.
Buttu acknowledged that Oslo was a flawed agreement, 1000 pages long and nearly impossible for the average person to understand and that "the Palestinians didn't have any lawyers to look it over before they signed it".

Q: Someone asked whether the Right of Return for "refugees" is still an important demand [it's a stretch to call them refugees, because they have been living in Arab countries for the last 54 years].
Buttu made clear that this is not negotiable, the rights of the refugees have to be respected . And they need to be given options, she said, among them must be "moving to Palestine or moving to Israel, or receiving compensation". It would be inconceivable, she said, for the rights of the refugees not to be honored. If they're not, it would "cause the creation of another PLO that we couldn't control". This is really no different from the "Israeli citizenship for anybody who wants it" proposal, and has about as much chance of success.

After the Q&A period the surly Global Exchange staffer appealed for donations to support the Global Exchange education program about Palestine. Someone asked if it would be possible to designate their donation "to go directly to the people Palestine" and the embarassed Global Exchanger said yes, you can mark your donation to go to some of the NGOs they work with there. I was tempted to ask if we could designate the cash to go to the Tanzim militia for weapons and explosives so they can blow up some more Israeli bus passengers, but I held my tongue.

After the talk I went up to Buttu and humbly offered her some free PR advice, and she eagerly said "Sure!". I reiterated my suggestion that the Palestinian leadership needs to address the Israeli silent majority. Because most Israelis do want peace and will accept a Palestinian state, but a very large number who previously voted for Rabin and Barak are now supporting Sharon. Largely, I think, because the Palestinians send too many signals that they won't be satisfied with just the West Bank and Gaza, that they want the whole country. If the Palestinians want peace with Israel they need to be very clear that they will not be a threat to Israel's security. I pointed out a few examples of things that the Palestinians do to signal their unwillingness to accept Israel's existence, thereby defeating their own chances of a peaceful settlement: The ubiquitous maps that show Palestine encompassing all of Israel, and the terrorist attacks that occur inside Israel. She responded by saying that just as she wouldn't deny the Jewish historical claims to Eretz Yisrael, the Palestine maps are just an expression of Palestinian connection to historical Palestine. The flaw in this argument is that Palestine has only had this particular shape since 1922 when the British and French drew some new lines on the map of what used to be the Ottoman Empire. It is disingenuous to pretend that this map of Palestine has a deep historical meaning or represents anything other than territorial ambition.

Regarding the terror attacks against Israeli civilians, she denied that they have the effect of telling Israelis that the Palestinians want to drive them from their homeland. Instead, she continued to rationalize them as "responses to a lack of freedom arising from a political context". And at that point another guest, a short little guy with an abrasive manner who identified himself as a Jewish San Franciscan, interrupted me and demanded that I explain why people commit suicide bombings. I countered that it was like asking why some men rape women, it's completely irrational. He said that it was a legitimate response to oppression. (I'll devote another posting to him at a later time)

Buttu then drew moral equivalence between the Palestinians who support terrorism and the Israelis who elected Ariel Sharon, "who commits one war crime after another", she said, such as Sabra and Shatila, (which was actually committed by Lebanese Christian Arabs). I mentioned that a majority of Israelis support a two-state solution, while a majority of Palestinians support terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians. She claimed that Rabbi Ovadia Shas [sic], "the head of the 3rd largest party" incites violence against Arabs, apparently refering to Ovadia Yosef, religious leader of the Shas Party. And she shrugged it off, saying "both sides have their extremists". I said yes, but it's a matter of what percentage on each side supports extremists, and a much smaller percentage of Palestinians than Israelis seems to be prepared to accept the other's existence. She didn't accept this and turned her head to speak with someone else. (I didn't have these exact figures handy at the time, but the following numbers are indicative: one recent poll of Israelis says that 78% believe that Israel should be willing to evacuate at least some of the settlements as part of a peace agreement, and that in the meantime 68% believe the Israel Army should protect Palestinian farmers from belligerent Israeli settlers. On the other hand, a recent Palestinian poll says that 64% support suicide bombings against Israeli civilians.)

I thanked her again for the chance to speak with her and she agreed to have her picture taken with me. I said that I hope to have peace some day, for her people as well as for mine and she agreed. "But I'm not sure your present strategies are going to work very well", I said, and she answered an inconclusive but self-deprecating sigh.

I walked home from the event feeling sorry for the Palestinians. After listening to Buttu their violence and propaganda seemed less scary than pathetic, as pathetic as it is repulsive. Because few national liberation / terrorist movements in the last 50 years have enjoyed more funding, more support from more countries, more attention from the United Nations, more press coverage, or more sympathy from the world's Useful Idiots. And for all of those advantages they have accomplished so little, and left so many people dead and so many others living in misery. And they only have themselves to blame for denying reality and literally blowing up their best opportunities.

And Buttu? She is an attractive, intelligent and personable young woman. As a spokesperson she has proven herself in the superficial aspects of the job -- being likeable, appearing believable, and thinking on her feet. But she is too careless with the facts to be credible to a knowledgeable audience. And as far as strategy goes -- the fundamental demands of a right of return for refugees and/or Israeli citizenship for Palestinians are not only non-starters, but dead ends from which there are no fallback positions. Trying to appeal to many Americans by rationalizing suicide terrorism won't go very far, neither will singling out the Jewish state for divestment on human rights grounds. And besides, anybody who thinks they're going to have a meaningful impact on American public opinion let alone government policy by working with irrelevant fringe groups like Global Exchange, does not have a full deck of clues. Then again, building American popular support for the PLO is only slightly more feasible than winning friends for Al-Qaeda or the Sicilian Mafia. There's not a lot that can be done until the Palestinian institutions clean up their own act.

The only propaganda battle that Buttu should bother to fight right now is the internal battle within Palestinian society. To persuade her countrymen to come to terms with Israel's existence, to demand only that which Israelis are willing to give, and to stop giving Israelis a reason to believe that concessions will only reduce their security. Until that process succeeds, making speeches to the credulous fools of Global Exchange is merely a waste of time, while the body count and misery levels continue to rise on both sides, and especially on the Palestinian side. I have no idea how much Buttu, as a woman with North American sensibilities, would be able to influence Palestinian attitudes. But somebody on the Palestinian side needs to sit down with Israelis and listen to where they're coming from, and to understand and internalize the parameters of an agreement that would be acceptable to the Israeli center, and then use that as a realistic target for resetting Palestinian expectations. Diana Buttu is probably as likely to succeed in that role as anyone. And I wish her well. For everybody's sake.