Hanan Mikhail-Ashrawi

She is, without a doubt, the second most widely recognized Palestinian in the Western world after Yasser Arafat--and considerably more attractive. Hanan Mikhail-Ashrawi, 49, also is more articulate in English than the Palestinian leader, which has made her the unofficial spokeswoman for the cause of an independent Palestinian state.

Ashrawi arrived on the world stage in 1991, with the beginning of Arab-Israeli peace talks in Madrid. Suddenly, here was an elegant Christian woman, well-dressed and eloquently putting forth the positions of what most Americans had seen as a band of Arab terrorists. Ashrawi caught the world’s attention and has held onto it ever since.

Today, Ashrawi is minister of higher education in Arafat’s ruling Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and an independent member of the Palestinian Legislative Council. Independent means that she did not run on the slate of Arafat’s Fatah organization in the elections last January--not that she is opposed to his leadership. In her case, however, it also means she is willing to challenge Arafat’s views.

Ashrawi spoke for Arafat before his famous handshake on the White House lawn with Israei Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in September, 1993, but then turned down Arafat’s offer for a job when he returned to the Gaza Strip a year later under the peace accords. She preferred to set up an independent human-rights commission.

In April, when the parliament of Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization voted to annul chapters of its 32-year-old charter calling for the destruction of Israel, Ashrawi was one of a handful of dissenters. She felt Arafat was making the move precipitously to help the election of Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres. To revise the covenant while Palestinians were living under Israeli military closure, she and others argued, made it look as though they were caving in to Israeli blackmail.

Peres lost to the right-wing Benjamin Netanyahu, who is at logger heads with the Palestinians. So Ashrawi has no public differences with Arafat now. This is a time for Palestinians to close ranks, she says, to get permanently out from under an Israeli military “siege” and salvage the endangered peace accords after armed fighting between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian police left at least 75 dead and 1,000 wounded.

Ashrawi, who is married with two daughters, spoke in her office Friday at the Ministry of Higher Education as Palestinian police patrolled the streets of Ramallah to keep people calm and at a distance from Israeli army checkpoints. Most Palestinians were prohibited from leaving the town, which was surrounded by Israeli troops under a military state of emergency.

Despite a week of round-the-clock appearances on world television to explain the Palestinian point of view regarding the violence, Ashrawi looked typically handsome in a summer suit and silk scarf. She smoked cigarettes and drank coffee as she spoke forcefully about the tense situation between Israel and the Palestinians.

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Question: What is the priority of the Palestinian Authority as negotiations begin at the Erez checkpoint Sunday?

Answer: The main priority continues to be the same--which is to save the peace process. . . . We have to ensure that the peace process has the integrity of implementation. What’s the point of negotiating and planning agreements if [the Israelis] are going to refuse to implement them?

This includes issues like the redeployment from Hebron--which was supposed to take place on March 28; the redeployment from [other parts] of the West Bank--which was supposed to take place on Sept. 7; the safe passage [between the West Bank and Gaza]--which was supposed to take place in 1994, and, of course, the release of prisoners, as well as the airport [in Gaza] and other issues.

We would like Israel to refrain from collective, punitive measures. This is a kind of pressure and blackmail for the sake of exercising undue influence over the political decision-making process--when they hold the whole Palestinian people hostage, when they impose a closure like this, when they create conditions of extreme volatility due to economic depravation and all sorts of hardships, including a real crisis in health, medical affairs, education and even food and supplies.

We also would like Israel to refrain from carrying out acts of provocation-- further provocations--like the amassing of the army at the entrances of cities, towns and villages, and curfews. Tanks, armored personnel carriers and the cobras flying overhead certainly do not induce trust among the Palestinians.

Simultaneously, we would like to see a general commitment to permanent-status negotiations, according to an agenda: We already have an agenda that has been agreed upon. It has been signed, and witnessed, by the sponsors and the international community. Jerusalem is at the top of the agenda. Settlements are at the top of the agenda. We are not going to accept a unilateral amendment by Israel, nor a unilateral policy to decide on permanent-status issues. And within all these things, we would like to see a binding timetable.

Q: Did the summit in Washington last week change your view of the peace process?

A: We always judge by actions and not by words. We have had lots of words, that’s the problem with the peace process. The talks became talks as an end in itself. . . .

Netanyahu is required to come to grips with reality, rather than with images, illusions, tone, fiction and public relations. We really need a clear Israeli policy based on a genuine understanding of conditions, and we don’t need Israeli verbal manipulation and public-relations exercises. Netanyahu is involved in precisely such an exercise. When he speaks, he somehow seems to be looking in a mirror at reality. I would like him to look at real causes--not to abrogate responsibility, not to find scapegoats. And, at the same time, all the tone has to be translated into substance . . . . It is as if he is saying that all we need is trust . . . .

Q: In the streets of Ramallah, people judged the summit a failure, but said they were willing to postpone action until seeing the results of Sunday’s meeting. What do you think they are expecting on Sunday?

A: As far as Palestinian public opinion is concerned, the Palestinians are people who are very political . . . and they do not jump to conclusions or act on the spur of the moment. They are also a people who are very critical and, as such, they are willing to suspend judgment until they have all components of the equation. There is a sense of growing frustration and anger. It is there, it has been there, and it is building up. The summit certainly did not erase this and did not respond to people’s fears, as well as people’s needs.

They want to see concrete actions and tangible results, and they will judge on that basis. . . . They also feel that now we need to readjust our sights in terms of the peace process. Everybody expects a long and difficult period ahead. Even before the summit, people said that, given all the conditions and given the attitude of the Israeli government and given what has happened on the ground and in the American election situation, we do not expect to see sudden changes or resolutions.

Q: Palestinians say that one problem with Arafat is that he is too willing to believe the U.S. government, and they do not come through. Do you agree?

A: I don’t think so. Actually, there were no promises made by the Americans. And we read the situation objectively. I think one aspect of Palestinian policy is that the leadership doesn’t want a confrontation with the Americans. But it doesn’t mean they’re willing to swallow everything that the Americans dish out. And there has been tension, critical assessments, situations where there were real disagreements . . . .

We know American alliances, we know its strategic alliance with the Israelis. We know domestic American policies and we know that careers can be made or broken on the basis of ambition vis-a-vis Israel. We know the power of special-interest groups. And in the pre-election period, we know how the peace process has become an American election issue.

Q: But Palestinians say that Arafat was strong before he went, and that he came out of the summit weakened.

A: I think Arafat could not afford not to go. We’ve always said that whenever there is a meeting, a summit, a forum that is addressing the issues of Palestine and the region, we should be there to present the Palestinian point of view and we should defend it convincingly, credibly, and not allow people to take decisions on our behalf.

Q: President Clinton said the summit won a commitment from both sides to nonviolence. Is that your perception of what happened, and can Arafat guarantee that?

A: I always would like to ask the other side. People create the fictitious situation of symmetry. Where is the violence? This state of siege is violence. The army is violence. Total imprisonment of the Palestinians is violence. It is an act of extreme provocation. . . .

Nobody can guarantee the actions [of the people]. We can try to contain them. We can try to express policy in ways that are serious and responsible. But we’re not going to sit back and accept Israeli violence, and say we are guilty because we exist. This is the kind of situation they want us to accept, to blame the victim. If we react, then automatically we have the label of rioting Palestinians. . . .

Palestinians can demonstrate, march, express their opinions freely, and should be able to without Israeli interference. The fact that there was stone throwing is due to the fact that Israel itself violated the agreement. There is no reason to have those Israeli checkpoints at the entrance of every city. The agreement was supposed to remove the army from population centers, not to place them at every entrance as a visible invitation to confrontation.

If you mean resistance, a spirit that has not been defeated and broken, the Palestinians still have that. But that is not their only source of strength. We also have a very active and very responsible critical decision-making process.

Q: Can we expect more of this intifada?

A: I stay away from labels. I don’t know whether you can call it an intifada or not. Some people call it confrontation, an explosion. I believe that this eruption is another expression of the human will, because you cannot create a pressure cooker without expecting some kind of explosion. It took some time. It’s been building up for a while, and it didn’t come from a vacuum.

We’ve been warning against this repeatedly. . . . I don’t know if you can expect more of the same. It doesn’t only depend on the Palestinians. If we can have a real courageous move to rescue this peace process and to lift it to a new and qualitatively different phase, then I don’t think there would be the motivation for such a popular movement.

But if Israel persists in these irresponsible and dangerous policies, then it would be preparing the foundations for more drastic instability and confrontations that would not just involve the Palestinians. The ripple effect would be strong. The Arab world and the region--and, of course, Israel itself--have a lot to lose.

Q: So you feel international debate has focused on the fact that Palestinian police fired on Israelis without taking Israeli actions into account?

A: It’s a very typical red herring. Israel is good at finding side issues to play with--to always blame the victim . . . . There is a willful attempt at distortion. I was there and I can tell you. For hours, the Palestinian police stayed out of it. They saw innocent people being shot, wounded and killed. All you have to do is look at the Israeli press reports themselves. Only later on in the evening did they say there has been an alarming development . . . .

And who are they to strip the Palestinians of their humanity? People cannot stand aside and watch civilians being killed and wounded, and allow the Israeli army to shoot and kill them and wound them without shooting back. Their orders were clear: self-defense. And that’s exactly what happened. Frankly, I thought that they exercised tremendous restraint.

Q: And what does the Palestinian Authority think about the Israeli demand that it prosecute those police?

A: I think that the blame falls squarely on the Israeli army and those who gave them the orders to shoot to kill. I would like to see the Israeli government try those soldiers who killed Palestinians and who shot at civilians. I believe they’re guilty of murder . . . . The violence was Israeli-initiated and they have an army which should be disciplined . . . .

People don’t understand that the Palestinian police is not in the service of the Israeli army. The Palestinian police is here to protect the Palestinian people . . . .

Q: You said the Hebron redeployment is at the top of your agenda. What issues regarding the Hebron redeployment is the Palestinian Authority willing to discuss?

A: The Hebron redeployment is already set. It’s not a subject for negotiation. That has been one of the ongoing problems for months. They have been saying that they want to discuss, renegotiate, amend, change the redeployment agreement. The Taba agreement on the redeployment from Hebron is already a painful compromise. Within it, there are also security arrangements for joint patrols and so on. So, we don’t need to renegotiate a negotiated agreement. . . . The question is when do we begin implementing what has been agreed upon and signed.

Q: What could come out of the meeting on Sunday?

A: I’m not placing much faith in miraculous transformations. . . . Realistically, I think we are going to have a very tough period ahead. We mustn’t panic and we mustn’t lose faith. We are committed to peace. We have already paid a very heavy price. But it’s not going to happen by itself. The important thing is to not allow this Israeli government to destroy the prospects for peace. I don’t think we can rescue the peace alone because we are constantly on the receiving end of this government’s policies. That’s why I think we should pull all the peace forces together to see whether it can be rescued.