The war in Iraq and the ongoing crisis in the Middle East have placed international news in the forefront of Canadian interests. How should the world respond, and what is Canada's role in these times? More than ever, the debate over international affairs in the 21st century has become an urgent Canadian concern. CBC Newsworld is presenting this unique, high-profile weekly interview program hosted by CBC Senior Correspondent Brian Stewart to examine these timely issues.
Future Palestine... democratic activist Mustafa Barghouthi
Brian Stewart
Welcome to World View, I’m Brian Stewart. Our subject today, Palestinian society. What state is it in? What future might it have, what democratic reforms are yet possible? Obviously these questions are linked with the ongoing struggle with Israel over lands in the West Bank and Gaza - perhaps the greatest ongoing news story of our age. But we want to look beyond this clash and the headlines to deal more directly with Palestinians, and what future state they may have. And we are talking to a leading Palestinian reformer, and democratic critic of the current Palestinian administration.
Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi is the renowned human rights activist, a doctor who has seen the effects of conflict up close for over two decades. Dr. Barghouthi has campaigned for civil reform within Palestinian areas, and has criticized not only Israel but also Palestinian administrators. He’s currently secretary of the Democratic Movement, the Palestinian National Initiative, and president of the Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees.
Dr. Barghouti, welcome. I’d like to step back from the headlines a minute, and talk to you about how society in the Palestinian areas is coping with the years of stress, the checkpoints, just the sort of stressful aspects of life.
Mustafa Barghouthi
It is extremely difficult. And I don’t think we would have been ever able to survive if we didn’t manage to build this powerful network of civil society organizations, which were built during the last 35 years. But it is hard. Just to give you an example. There are 734 Israeli checkpoints cutting the country into pieces. It is not possible anymore for any of us to drive a car from one city to another. A trip that would usually take 45 minutes from Ramallah to Hebron will take now nine hours. And you would have to change the car 11 times on the way, because you have to stop at every checkpoint and then get off... step off the car, cross walking or cross around the checkpoint, risking sometimes being shot at.
Brian Stewart
So even day to day activities, going to visit relatives, going out to see a part of farmland you might own or something like that, becomes an all day process sometimes.
Mustafa Barghouthi
Not only because of the checkpoint, but because of the building of the wall. And the wall is not being built on the borders, as some people might assume. The wall goes inside the West Bank, transforming many communities into clusters of (unclear), dividing many communities basically. A city like Qalquilya, which is 46 thousand people, is now surrounded by the wall from all the directions, with one little entrance, which is only eight metres width. And the entrance has a gate. And the gate has a key. And the soldiers shut off the city at six p.m. every day. Sometimes they shut it for several days.
Brian Stewart
You have mentioned that civil society actually has grown, and not only survived, but grown over 35 years of stress, and even during the years of the intifada. But is that so? Normally in a conflict like this, there's a great deal of fragmentation within society. But you think this is a pulling together?
Mustafa Barghouthi
Well, both processes are happening at the same time. From one side there is a great need for people to be together. There is a great need for building... I mean there are a greater number of Palestinians in the occupied territories who want Palestinian not only to be free, but to be a country that is democratic, that is modern, that has transparent, accountable systems. A country which can provide proper health care and social services to its own people, a good education to the kids. And that’s why our movement is growing, because, if you look at polls during the last ten years, you would notice that the support of and his Fatah and the Authority has gone down from 60 percent to 25 percent, due to the failure in having a real peace process, I mean an outcome of the peace process, a real peace, and due to bad governance. At the same time support for Hamas has grown from 9 percent to 25 percent, but there is a huge chunk, a huge majority between 45 percent and 50 percent of people who want a third democratic alternative.
Brian Stewart
So the Palestinian Authority, President Arafat declining in popularity. Hamas, the fundamentalist group, the activist group increasing in popularity. But in the middle, this third force, you think, is a democratic reform and you think it is gaining strength.
Mustafa Barghouthi
And it is the only solution. It is the only solution to prevent fundamentalists from taking over. A competition between the Authority and Hamas would make Hamas always win. But if there is a third democratic choice, and that’s what we are promoting, then there would be a difference.
Brian Stewart
I’m interested in the kind of work that’s being done on the grass roots level, because very often we see obviously television reports of stress and the rock throwing incidents and the intifada, and conflict. Obviously that’s what we tend to see most. But what about for instance, let’s take health services in Palestinian areas right now. You're a doctor, you've been a doctor for 25 years. What state are they in now?
Mustafa Barghouthi
It’s very hard. You know we spent 25 years trying to build a modern health system. And we did succeed in many places. For instance, we brought down infant mortality rate from 15 per thousand, to less than 20 per thousand. One source of those will still die, or these children die because of checkpoints. During the last couple of years, 55 women had to give birth at checkpoints. 33 of them lost their babies. 95 people have died at checkpoints because they couldn’t cross to receive medical care, because this Israeli checkpoints, or the wall are preventing people with heart attacks, women who are in need for kidney dialysis, from reaching the hospitals. We are also attacked as medical services. There has been 1,020 cases of attacks of the Israeli army on ambulances. Many of our offices have been raided more than once. My office personally was destroyed completely in 2002, but, we are trying our best and the way we deal with this problem is by mobilizing the community. For instance, our organizations have managed to train about 30 thousand volunteers, who provide first aid to the people...
Brian Stewart
So paramedics are working...
Mustafa Barghouthi
Yes. Because we cannot reach everywhere at every moment, because of the checkpoints. We train people in the local villages, in the local communities. We are the only organization probably in the Middle East, which introduced the new concept, modern concept of women health workers. We train them for two years, and they play a fantastic role in supporting the needs of the health at the local community level.
Brian Stewart
A story often talked about in the Palestinian areas is the amount of administration corruption that has existed, and perhaps grown and flourished during a period of turmoil. Do you find that a serious threat to medical services? I mean certainly you’ve been critical yourself, of corruption.
Mustafa Barghouthi
Of course. It is a problem, but more than that, there is another problem, which is incompetence, in dealing with many of the issues. For instance, health care system and how they should be developed. That’s why we say, we’re not only struggling to get rid of occupation and to be free, but also we’re struggling to have a proper government, a proper health care system. That means proper insurance system, a proper social security care. And of course, we didn’t have a Ministry of Health except for the last seven or eight years, but already this Ministry of Health needs a lot of reform.
Brian Stewart
What about education? I know you're very concerned about future education too.
Mustafa Barghouthi
Yes, very much so. I personally... You see, please understand that 80 percent of the Palestinian community are below the age of 33.
Brian Stewart
Eighty percent below 33.
Mustafa Barghouthi
Yes. And about 46.5 percent are below the age of 15. So the future depends on these young people. And that’s why one of our major emphasis is how to concentrate on education, proper education, to these young people, introducing them to modern technology. Computer education is something we’re very concerned with. Allowing them to use the internet. Having accessibility to all information. This is all part and parcel of what we are trying to do.
Brian Stewart
Are you getting enough help from the outside world in these areas, leaving aside the sort of emergency help because of the civil turmoil?
Mustafa Barghouthi
No.
Brian Stewart
Why aren’t you getting more help, strictly in areas of civil society, like health care, like education for instance? Which I think everyone would agree is so important.
Mustafa Barghouthi
We’re not getting enough help for two reasons. First of all because there is a very serious combined... compound ethic of emergency and means of development, and many groups that used to help us are exhausted because it’s been three years of intifada and three years of suffering, and the emergency needs did not go away, they are actually increasing. But also I think there is little attention from the world international community to how much civil society is important in Palestine, and how vital it is, not only in terms of pushing for democracy and democratic reforms but also in terms of sustaining people’s needs. For instance, 62 percent of primary health care in Palestine is done by civil society. About 90 percent of care for people with disability is done by civil society. And that’s why our movement is also trying to bring attention to this issue.
I think the international community is paying more attention to one dimension only, which is security, without paying enough attention to social needs, security social needs, or health needs, or educational needs. They forget that the most important way of getting to security is by providing the needs of the people.
Brian Stewart
Doctor, you've seen this conflict over so many years. I’d like to ask you about the psychological impact on people. I remember Beirut in the eighties during the civil war there, the enormous increase in the use of Valium, and tranquilizers that people had to rely upon. What is the sort of psychological effect that you have in a situation like this on people, both Israelis and Palestinians, but what does it mean for getting along with each other?
Mustafa Barghouthi
It’s hard. Definitely we have an epidemic of psychological stress in the country. I mean, we’ve done several surveys, and more than 95 percent of the children we surveyed have reported having serious distress. Of course it affects most societies. And I will speak about two particular reasons why people have terrible psychological stress. Of course Israelis have lost about 914 people so far, but Palestinians have lost 2,840 during the last three years. And about 48,500 people who were injured. This is a huge number for a community that is only 3.6 million people. If we had the population of the United States, you would be talking about 240 thousand people killed, and approximately what would be equal to four million people injured, in the Palestinian...
Brian Stewart
So a national trauma that would affect just about everybody family at one stage.
Mustafa Barghouthi
There isn’t a family that has not been affected by that. The other thing that in my opinion represents a major stress to children in particular, is the loss of homes. Sixty thousand houses, up 'til now, have been either demolished completely, by the Israeli troops, or partially. And of course I cannot describe to you how much this affects the psychology of a child. For the child, the home is their ultimate protection. Losing the home is like losing the only place where they feel protected.
Brian Stewart
Let’s look ahead, and presume that there is a settlement some time say in the next five years, or say a sovereign Palestine with the West Bank and Gaza somehow connected. Israel has security guaranteed. The right of return issue is settled to some satisfaction. And there's major financial support for Palestinian society rebuilding, a sort of Marshall Plan for the future. Do you think the Palestinians might really have good relations with Israel?
Mustafa Barghouthi
Yes.
Brian Stewart
Or even generations of this kind of strife doesn’t rule out the fact that Palestine could be a bridge for Israel to the Arab world.
Mustafa Barghouthi
Absolutely, and that’s what the Israelis must be aware of. The Palestinians could be their bridge to normal relations with the Arab world, or could be their obstacle.
Brian Stewart
But how could they be, after all this animosity, all this hatred? How could they really have those relations?
Mustafa Barghouthi
I believe in one thing, which is that... I believe in many things, but this is one thing that I believe a lot in, which is that democracy is a pre-condition for peace. I think we have to learn from the experience of Europe. And only when the Israelis accept us as an equal entity, that has the right to democratically choose - then we will have peace. And I think... Well what I mean by that, that peace should not be imposed, but should be agreed upon, between both sides. And it should not be decided by the existing severe imbalance of power. At the same time, the best guarantee from Palestinian perspective to peace, that Palestinians would respect the agreements they would sign, if that they are democratically approved. And that’s why I believe that democracy is a pre-condition for peace.
Brian Stewart
I’d like to look ahead. Say there is peace. What will Palestine make of peace? It’s largely an agricultural society now. It has an enormous amount of rebuilding to do. But when you look ahead five or ten years, what will it make of that peace? What’s your dream?
Mustafa Barghouthi
My dream is that Palestine will be a place where, first of all people will feel that they have complete citizenship, full citizenship. Which means that what Palestinians want more than anything else is to be respected and dignified. We have had so much humiliation during the last 55 years, by Israel, but not only by Israel. We’ve been humiliated all over the world. And in the Arab world sometimes. And we need to have our own entity, we need to get respected, we need to have our dignity. And believe me, there is so much positive energy in the Palestinian community. We could become a rather developed industry in electronics that can really help in the whole region. We have such a high level of education among Palestinians, we have such a wonderful number of experts who have helped building for many countries in the Gulf and in the Middle East, and even here in Canada, you have so many Palestinians who wouldn't mind coming back and helping build the Palestinian state.
Brian Stewart
People say, well it’s so small, but so is Singapore. There are many examples in the world of very small entities that have been able to, especially in the new global technological world...
Mustafa Barghouthi
Absolutely. The possibilities are huge. If we just have the chance, if we just have the chance to concentrate on building our country. If we just have the chance to have Palestinians feel that they finally have a homeland. And that they finally have normal passports, and they have a normal life, and they can travel from one place to another. And they can use their land, and have good agriculture, and good health care system. There is so much positive energy there, and so many people who want to have an opportunity, believe me.
Brian Stewart
Dr. Barghouthi, thanks very much for joining us. Very interesting to talk to you.
Mustafa Barghouthi
Thank you, sir.
Brian Stewart
Don't go away. When we come back, we open our Intelligence File - things we need to know about.
Brian Stewart
Welcome back to World View’s Intelligence File. The file has been closed for several weeks while we were doing shows in Britain. Well, I was interested to see what’s raising eyebrows in Europe’s intelligence world. There's fascination, for example, over India’s growing strategic ambitions, not just for economic clout, but to emerge as the dominant military power in its part of the world.
Two military developments are watched closely. First, India has launched a massive upgrade of its already impressive land, sea and air forces. It’s on a buying binge. New missiles, top line combat aircraft, and 20 billion dollars to boost naval power. It’s just bought a third aircraft carrier from Russia, more may follow. Along with surface ships and subs, these will give India the ability to project power and strength from the African coast and Middle East, to Southeast Asia.
Secondly, India wants closer military ties with the United States. A week ago, they held major joint naval exercises. And take note of India’s request to be included within the area of the US central command, which covers the Middle East and Pakistan. Why? Well, to signal clearly that India may be a key American ally in future conflicts.
This is a stunning departure for once neutralist India. What concerns European intelligence is that this alliance will alarm Islamic nations, who won’t wish to see the fleet of mainly Hindu India off their coast.
India has added to Euro and Arab concerns recently, with moves to also strengthen ties with Israel, creating a so far quiet US-India-Israeli round-table that was utterly unexpected by diplomats in Europe.
And that is this week’s Intelligence File on World View. I’m Brian Stewart.