‘Arafat was not corrupt. He slept in his office’

Suad Amry, 59, is the author of two funny books, rather two books of black humour, which can only be written by people who live in a state of political siege and there is no hope. The titles tell all. The title of the first books is Sharon And My Mother-in-Law, and the second, Menopausal Palestine Women At the Edge. Her third book is Murad, Murad. Suad is lively, graceful and lives on in Ramallah without abandoning the hope that there will be a Palestinian state. She is beautiful and stately, which she attributes to her Syrian mother but she is extremely attached to her father’s inheritance of the land of Palestine. She was in Delhi recently for the launch of her book, Menopausal Palestine (Kali for Women/Women Unlimited), which is an elegy for the decline of the secular, democratic values of the PLO and the rise of religious fanaticism of the Hamas. In an interview with DNA, she spoke of about the politics of her life.

Is English the lingua franca among the Palestinians?  
No. It is Arabic. The majority use only Arabic. The younger generation may inject English words into their Arabic. But Arabic remains the language of communication.

If you have to write your books in Arabic, can you do it?   
Yes. I can. But then I will have to translate them into English again. If the book is to reach people of different nationalities, then it has to be in English. My first book, Sharon And My Mother-in-Law was in the form of emails. The emails are all in English. My Italian publisher wanted me to write the book in English. It has now been translated into 20 languages.

You stay in Ramallah?   
 Yes. I live in Ramallah. I work as an architect for 70% of the time.
I work for an NGO, Riwaq, which is for the preservation of old monuments. We create jobs. Because of the tense political situation, it is difficult for people to get jobs. This is one of way of doing it.  When I have to write I go away to Italy for three months, where I do my first draft. Then I come back and work at it on the weekends.

You are really writing non-fiction but you are doing through the fiction mode.
Yes. In Arabic we call it ‘hakawati’, story-telling. Right from my childhood I always liked to narrate jokes, tell a story. I did not realise that this could be transformed into writing. I was surprised when my books became a success. My friends tell me that I am lucky. I do not agonise over the writing. If I know a story I just write it. I do not ever rewrite it, revise it. My husband is a sociologist. He is also a writer. But he writes more of the academic stuff.
I wrote my first book, Sharon And My Mother-In-Law at the time of the occupation by Israel. At that time I was sick and tired of politics. Writing created an outlet for me. First, I was politically active but I never wanted to be a public figure. I never cared for public life. 

How were you drawn into politics?
I was always politically close to the Democratic Front, a faction of the PLO. I was never a political activist. I was involved in the Palestine-Israeli dialogue. This was during the first intifada, which was from 1987 to 1991. There was a lot of talk at the time between Israelis and Palestinians. I was part of a Palestinian-Israeli women’s group called Network. We wanted to understand each other and how to get to peace. There were also informal negotiations under the supervision of Arafat.

Arafat wanted to send people from Palestine who could sit and talk to the Israelis and not be intimidated by them. He also wanted someone who would understand what the Israelis were thinking. I was also a woman and it helped.

Were the Americans neutral in the negotiations between Israel and Palestine?
Dennis Ross, who represented the US State Department, did his PhD thesis which was an advice to the American government not to talk to the PLO. All the State Department officials involved in the negotiations were Jewish. How would you feel as a Palestinian if all of them were Jews even if they are neutral?

Ross was very unhappy when Arafat came to Washington to sign the Oslo Accords. Arafat sent us to talk directly to the Israelis at Oslo. On the Israeli side, there were Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres. On the Palestinian side, there were Mahmoud Abbas, and Abu Ala. It was in Oslo that the Israelis first recognised there is a Palestinian state. Americans resented these direct talks. Rabin was killed in 1994. He should have moved quickly to implement the accords. But he did not.

What happened then? Was Benjamin Netanyahu the problem?
I will tell you. Ehud Barak, who was in the Labour Party, the party of Peres and Rabin, was the problem. He was the only one to have voted against the Oslo Accords. Netanyahu was in the Likud and it was natural that he was opposed to the accords. It was Barak who has messed up things. According to the Oslo Accords, there is the transitional period of five years after which West Bank was to be handed over to the Palestinians. Barak told Rabin, “If we give away West Bank, what do we have to negotiate with?

Is it the case that the PLO lost out to Hamas because of corruption or because the peace accords did not move forward?
Exactly. PLO lost out to Hamas because the Oslo Accords were not implemented. What will weaken Hamas is a peaceful solution.  Arafat, at the personal level, was not corrupt. After he died and they opened his cup board, there were just two costumes he wore. He slept in his office. He was not like Mrs Marcos.