By Vivienne Porzsolt
Dr Gabriel Baramki, president of Bir Zeit University, in Sydney on a recent visit, spoke to Green Left Weekly about the prospects for peace following the signing of the Declaration of Principles on September 13.
Dr Baramki explained his own experience: "Our family left Jerusalem in '48, only after there was some shooting in the quarter where my family were living. So they decided to leave temporarily to a neighbouring place in Bir Zeit, and they didn't take any of their belongings. They left their house fully furnished and then when the armistice took place, they were not allowed to go back.
"My family went from Bir Zeit to Gaza and from Gaza to Beirut, where I was studying. And then we settled finally in Ramallah, where I started working at Bir Zeit College at the time and my father was also working as an architect."
He sees the accord between Israel and the PLO "certainly as a breakthrough". It is "a good starting point, and I hope the time will come when this will end up with a Palestinian state side by side with Israel and Jordan".
A Palestinian state "would allow all Palestinians to come back if they so wished. Hopefully there will be some agreement with Israel on the status of the refugees who left their homes in Jerusalem; also the settlers, they would have to do something about that."
What are the keys to the success of the peace process?
"It has to be more Israelis than the Palestinians, but both have to fully take this seriously and do everything possible to make it work. The Israelis will have to consider the question of withdrawal from the West Bank, total withdrawal, because that is the only way there can be peace. And when we have peace, then security would come with it. Perhaps for a time, they will have to be aware of their security, but in the final analysis, the only security that both countries will have is when there is peace and understanding."
Obstacles include "that on both sides there are extremists who might not want this to work and who therefore will try to sabotage it.
"Other fears are greed on Israel's side, that whatever they have taken, they are going to try to maximise their gains. These are not gains that they should stick to, because in the final analysis, at least they have a state of their own which is in fact part of Palestinian land. That should be sufficient, and [with the Israelis] out of the West Bank and peace, that would really satisfy the people in the West Bank.
"Many people, even living outside, once there is understanding and there is a state, would settle for that. Some people would like to go to Israel and live as Israelis, and I think Israel should look at this also very seriously."
Everyone who lives in Israel, he believes, should live in equality under the law "as an Israeli citizen, a law-abiding citizen. And the same thing would go for Israelis who want to live in the West Bank as Palestinian citizens and be law-abiding and accepting of [Palestinian] laws."