Suad Amiry
Posted on | October 27, 2008 | No Comments
Author, architect, and architectural conservator
I feel that our conflict with the Israelis can be reduced to one word: land. I cannot trust an Israeli who is always trying to confiscate my piece of land.
Nothing can change the reality that my father’s house is in Jaffa. If Israelis want peace, they must apologize for what they did to the Palestinians in 1948. I think they don’t want to acknowledge what happened because they are afraid it means there won’t be an Israel. That is not true, there is a simple solution—divide the land into two states, Israel and Palestine. But the Israelis want their portion of the land and for us to share our portion with them.
The other solution is one state, where Israelis and Palestinians live together. However, the Israelis don’t want that either. So, I don’t know what the Israelis want.
As a participant in the peace process, how do you view the Palestinian state?
At the end of the day, every problem has a solution. Morality is on our side, history is on our side. Our characteristics of being stubborn and loving life are a tremendous advantage. We are portrayed as loving death. On the contrary, we prevail because we are resilient. We celebrate daily life and build institutions because we want to live. Our stubbornness makes me feel no injustice can go on forever.
What kind of work did you do in the peace process, and what did you learn from it?
I was a delegate member in the Oslo negotiations that were taking place in Washington, DC. After the Oslo Agreement, I worked with the Palestinian Authority as an advisor on culture and cultural heritage.
During the first intifada, I took an active role in dialogues with Israeli women. We established an organization called Reshat, which means ‘network’ in Hebrew. The idea was to go to Israeli homes and inform them why the Palestinians are having an uprising, and advocate the two state solution. Unfortunately, many times I became frustrated when I didn’t see anything happening on the ground.
Now, I feel that we must first deal with one issue, which is the occupation. It’s a reverse equation to say that we must build confidence and then peace will come. Rather, you must make peace first and then everything else will flow from it.
How did you write a best selling book?
I am an architect by training, a writer by pure accident. In 2003, when the Israelis reoccupied Palestine, my mother-in-law had to stay with us and drove me crazy. For 34 days, I had to deal with the Israeli army in the garden and my mother-in-law inside. I wrote emails to friends describing this insane situation. Little did I know that I would come to publish this as Sharon and My Mother-in-Law. It gives me a new way of talking about Palestine. Writing, cinema, theater are extremely powerful.
Can women bring peace?
Because of the army, men don’t see the world through the eyes of justice. Women have strength because we think of the Other, we put ourselves in the place of the Other, and we can sympathize with the weak. We can see the tragedy and work to end the tragedy no matter the cost. A state like the United States or Israel has to see itself as the winner. That’s where all tragedies in the world come from—wars come from people wanting to win.
What would you say to the leaders of the Arab nations and the United States?
The Middle East 30 years ago was a multicultural, multi-religious place of tolerance. We had Jews, Armenians, Arabs, Christians, and Muslims. I am an Arab, Palestinian, Mediterranean, a woman, and an architect. The problem with today’s leaders is they only deal with one layer of our identity, the layer of being Palestinian. The word “Palestinian” was dehumanized for so many years that we had to struggle just to show the world we are ordinary human beings. Our identity is interesting because it is complex and multi-layered. Help us keep that complexity.
Suad Amiry uses humor in her international best-seller Sharon and My Mother-in-law to describe living under occupation. Raised in Jordan after her parents left Ramallah, Amiry earned her architectural degree in Beirut, Lebanon. Returning to Ramallah as a tourist, she fell in love, married, and stayed. Amiry founded the RIWAQ Center for Architectural Conservation. She has been active in initiatives with Palestinian and Israeli women.
