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July 1, 2004: Professor Sari Nusseibeh, the President of Al-Quds University, speaks with host Mishal Husain.
MISHAL HUSAIN:
Sari Nusseibeh, welcome to WIDE ANGLE. We've just seen in the film some chilling firsthand accounts of suicide bombing. As a Palestinian, how would you explain what we've just seen?
PROFESSOR SARI NUSSEIBEH:
Well, it's a very tragic story. It's really depressing actually to see those pictures and to hear those stories of those people involved, both the potential suiciders as well as the people who were behind them. The only consolation I have for myself as a Palestinian is that the majority of the Palestinians, I don't believe, share that particular ideology.
MISHAL HUSAIN:
But it certainly seems that the people who carry out suicide bombings seem to be celebrated by their community in many ways. Money flows to their families, their faces go up on posters. They get recognition from their community.
PROFESSOR SARI NUSSEIBEH:
Unfortunately, I have to accept that. There's a lot of support in the community for the idea of martyrdom, and the money comes in primarily for the families of those people. There's a kind of idolization of death which happens perhaps when life itself seems to have very little to offer, as we heard one of the potential suiciders say. And it is in such a context that people begin to think that death is better, that life after death is better, that life on earth is not good.
MISHAL HUSAIN:
But that can't be the full explanation. There are people in many parts of the world whose lives are very difficult, who are suffering, and they don't go out and do things like this.
PROFESSOR SARI NUSSEIBEH:
But this is suffering of, perhaps, a different kind. I realize there's a lot of suffering in terms of hunger, for example. Some wars take place in different parts of the world, massacres take place in different parts of the world, but perhaps they take shorter durations. You have to realize this is an ongoing conflict that's been going on for the better part of the last century, actually.
MISHAL HUSAIN:
But would you say then this is happening for political reasons or because of a failure of other alternatives or a failure of Palestinian society?
PROFESSOR SARI NUSSEIBEH:
There's a failure and this is the result of the failure in the peace process. We haven't been able to advance in this process to a point where in fact Palestinians will feel that there's some investment to be made and to be saved in the peace process. If you look back at the first few years of the Oslo process -- that's to say after '94 -- you'll find in general that the rate of people who were supporting violence or the activities of violence, in fact, subsided. And the support for the people supporting violence was going down. And only when the negotiations faltered did the support increase.
MISHAL HUSAIN:
But nevertheless, we've already seen in the peace process that at key moments where, say there's going to be a big meeting between a key Palestinian a key Israeli, that is the day when suicide bombers choose to take action.
PROFESSOR SARI NUSSEIBEH:
But you have to distinguish between what seems to you to be a major step forward, like a major meeting, and life in general, as people feel. And what I'm talking about is how people feel concerning their own lives -- how they interact with soldiers, how soldiers interact with them, what's happening to their land, to their houses, to their families, are they able to go out to work, are they able to go out to school. These are the things that are measured by normal Palestinians to be the way in which peace is actually calculated, whether it's advancing or not. When you have a major meeting it's not a breakthrough for the average Palestinian.
MISHAL HUSAIN:
But it still seems a quantum leap from your life being very difficult to being prepared not just to kill yourself, but to take as many Israelis and Jews with you as you can.
PROFESSOR SARI NUSSEIBEH:
I don't claim to be an expert on this. But it looks like you reach the point where you begin to -- you're treated or you feel that you're treated like less of a human being. Not quite like a human being. And you begin to think of others in that way. You begin to think less of others as human beings. And the minute that perception changes, like in that film we saw one of the potential suiciders glimpsing some children playing. So suddenly there's a glimpse of real life. It changes. You see human beings as they are and you come back to life. But for as long as you feel totally suppressed, you no longer feel that you're a human being. You stop seeing other people as human beings. And I think this is how people have to think who go and kill themselves and kill others as they do.
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Professor Sari Nusseibeh, President of Al-Quds University
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