Palestinian prime minister: Jews would be welcome in future state
by Brent Gardner-Smith, Aspen Daily News Staff Writer
Sunday, July 5, 2009
www.aspendailynews.com/section/home/135325

Palestinian National Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said Saturday
that Jews would enjoy freedom and civil rights in a future Palestinian
state.

Fayyad addressed the subject in response to a question from former CIA
director James Woolsey at the Aspen Institute's Aspen Ideas Festival, which
included a day of panels on different aspects of the current state of the
Middle East.

Woolsey said there are a million Arabs in Israel, accounting for one-sixth
of the Israeli population, and that "generally they enjoy the guarantees
that Americans look for in the Bill of Rights."

"Now, if there is to be the rule of law in a Palestinian state, and if Jews
want to live in someplace like Hebron, or anyplace else in a Palestinian
state, for whatever reasons or historical attachments, why should they not
be treated the same way Israeli Arabs are?" Woolsey asked. "That would be,
there could be a sixth of the population consisting of them. They could vote
for real representatives in a real Palestinian legislature, freedom of
religion, freedom of speech, and most importantly, be able to go to the
sleep at night without worrying someone is going to kick down the door and
kill them."

Fayyad responded by saying, "I'm not going to disagree with you. And I'm not
someone who will say that they would or should be treated differently than
Israeli Arabs are treated in Israel.

"In fact the kind of state that we want to have, that we aspire to have, is
one that would definitely espouse high values of tolerance, co-existence,
mutual respect and deference to all cultures, religions. No discrimination
whatsoever, on any basis whatsoever.

"Jews to the extent they choose to stay and live in the state of Palestine
will enjoy those rights and certainly will not enjoy any less rights than
Israeli Arabs enjoy now in the state of Israel," Fayyad said.

The crowd at the Greenwald Pavilion applauded enthusiastically.

Then Tom Friedman of The New York Times, who had been interviewing Fayyad
before taking questions, recognized Martin Indyk, the former American
ambassador to Israel, who was in the audience.

Indyk complimented Fayyad on his plans to build up Palestinian government
institutions en route to statehood, which Fayyad has set a goal of achieving
in two years. He asked Fayyad if "final stage" political negotiations should
also now be underway.

Fayyad answered that there was a risk for "this to be seen as an effort to
make the occupation work better, and not to end it, and thereby doing away
with any political viability that our political leadership still has."

"What we are counting on is a meaningful political process that is capable
of ending the occupation, because building the institutions of the state, by
itself, is not going to end the occupation. It is a necessary condition, but
it is not sufficient ... . Both have to work together," Fayyad said.

Earlier in the interview, Fayyad said that Palestinian elections set for
January should definitely be held as scheduled.

"That is an absolute right for the people," he said, adding that, "it is no
secret that Hamas does not want elections."

"Because they think they will lose?" asked Friedman.

"I don't know of what other reason they may have," Fayyad said.

"That's usually a pretty good reason not to have elections," Friedman said.

The event was Fayyad's second public discussion of the day. Earlier he sat
on a panel in Paepcke Auditorium that included U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein
(D-Calif.) and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

During that discussion, Sen. Feinstein said, "Hamas is a big problem. And I
don't pretend to know how the Palestinian Authority should deal with it.

"But I can tell you the reflection in the rest of the world is, that here
still is a militaristic/terrorist organization that still believes Israel
should be driven into the sea, that does not admit Israel's right to exist.
And really, when faced with the opportunity to make the change, has refused
to do so. So that's a big problem out there," Feinstein said.

Fayyad said the answer is to get Palestinians to support "that which is done
to affect a meaningful change for the better in people's lives. I think we
stand a much better chance of winning that debate than going about it in a
war of words, which has typified much of the argument over the divide."

For Fayyad, who has a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Texas at
Austin, Saturday was an opportunity to meet with current and former U.S.
government officials in Aspen.

On Thursday, he met with current Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the
State Dept. in Washington and according to the Ma'an News Agency of
Palestine, also with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Defense
Secretary Robert Gates.

Fayyad was not the only high-ranking official from the Middle East in Aspen
speaking on the Fourth of July.

Syrian ambassador to the U.S. Imad Moustapha was interviewed by The Atlantic
magazine Editor James Bennett, and he had some thoughts to share about
democracy.

"Democracy is an ideal state that is never attainable," Moustapha said,
pointing out that the U.S. is more democratic today than it was before the
Civil War. "It is a process. It is an evolution."

When asked about the state of democratic freedoms in Syria, Moustapha said
that U.S. policy seemed to be that the Arab people should only elect those
candidates and parties supported by the U.S.

He referenced the U.S. response in 2007 when the majority of Palestinians
voted for the Hamas party, which the U.S. considers a terrorist
organization.

"When the Palestinian people went and democratically elected their
government, on the very same day the United States of America applied
draconian sanctions and embargoes on them to add layers to already existing
layers of suffering," Moustapha said.

And he said the current administration had a similar approach to the recent
elections in Lebanon.

"A month ago, the vice president of the United States of America went to
Lebanon, explicitly, on the record, he said, 'I hope the Lebanese people
will elect the right government in Lebanon, so that we can continue to give
support and aid to the Lebanese,'" Moustapha said. "What he didn't say is,
'If you elect the other side, then you will face very dire consequences.'
And we understood this in our region."

In regard to U.S. policy in Syria, the Syrian ambassador said, "You need to
leave us to evolve into a more democratic state from within. Don't try to
impose anything on us from without."

bgs@aspendailynews.com