Meet Ambassador Afif Safieh
Head of PLO Mission to the U.S.A.
One of the messages that should be ours vis-à-vis American public opinion is: We have no dispute around values and principles. What we want is the American Administration to reconcile its power with its principles.

Ambassador Afif Emile Safieh in late 2005 was appointed as the head of the PLO mission to the U.S. following completion of a 15-year stint as the Palestinian representative to the United Kingdom and the Vatican. An impressive orator, he brings new Palestinian communication strategy to the U.S.
Ambassador Afif Safieh was born in Jerusalem in 1950, he later studied in Jerusalem at the College Des Freres. In 1972, he obtained his degree in political science and international relations from the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium.
Between 1976 and 1978, he was deputy director of the Palestine Liberation Organization Observer Mission to the United Nations in Geneva. Later he became a staff member in President Arafat’s office in Beirut, where he was in charge of European affairs and U.N. institutions.
Between 1981 and 1985, he was a researcher at the Center for European Studies in the Catholic University of Louvian, Belgium. After that until 1987, he was a visiting scholar at the Center for International Affairs at Harvard University.
From 1987 until 1990, Safieh was the PLO representative to the Netherlands, and he was also involved in the November-December 1988 negotiations in Stockholm that led to the official and direct American-Palestinian dialogue.
From September 1990 to 2005, he was the Palestinian General Delegate to the United Kingdom.
In January 1995, he was invited to join the International Board of Trustees of Bethlehem University, the Vatican-sponsored university in Palestine.
Nominated Palestinian General Delegate to the Holy See, Safieh presented his letter of credentials to His Holiness Pope John Paul II in 1995.
A compilation of Safieh’s articles have been published in two different books: "Self-determination," published in 1986 by Al-Fajr Printing Press and "One People Too Many?" published in the Hague in 1987.
He is married with two daughters, Diana and Randa.
Since his arrival in Washington, D.C., Safieh has given several meetings with the U.S. Administration and lawmakers officials, diplomats, Arab-American organizations, the press and gave many lectures.
The following are some of his comments about current developments of Palestinian issues:
"The U.S., and the European Union, are threatening to cut off all aid to the Palestinian Authority, and the U.S. has gone further, ordering all contact with the Palestinians to be cut off - whether by U.S. government officials or by U.S. agencies or companies working in the Palestinian territories.
"Hamas is not monolithic even here, there are several schools of thought in the U.S. Republican party, ranging from a more liberal school to the evangelical Christian school. International relations are carried out between governments, not parties. Others must take Hamas on their pragmatic program. For example, that Hamas has rigorously held to a 14-month ceasefire, and has agreed to continue it indefinitely – but that Israel has not reciprocated, and has gone so far as to launch missile strikes on Gaza and to invade the Jericho prison. I respect Ismail Haniyeh, the new Hamas Prime Minister, he is a decent, respectful, open-minded man…though I may not have the same view of some of his colleagues.
For the Palestinians there will be no Israeli-Palestinian peace without the vocal role of third parties, whether the U.S. or the "Quartet," that is, the U.S., EU, U.N. and Russia.
In large measure, this is due to the Palestinians’ experience of the past 14 years – Madrid, Oslo and all that followed. If you analyze the years of theoretical peace-making, too much was left to the local parties. Israel had a state, the most powerful army of the region, a highly developed public relations program, and the knowledge of nearly unstinting U.S. support. The Palestinians had no such advantages. The Quartet, with two major political powers and two international organizations, bring a wider range of views to the table and the hope of greater impartiality.
The key to peace making is that the U.S. should never consider Israel to be its moral compass. There is no partner with whom to make peace. Israel has broken numerous U.N. resolutions, effectively annexed East Jerusalem, expanded settlements in the Palestinian occupied territories, elected racist parties and Jewish fundamentalists to the Knesset – parties that support and demand the "transfer" of Palestinians from their homeland – yet no one has ever thought of cutting ties or aid to Israel. Why does an outside party put more pressure on one side than on the other? I must remind you: Israel occupies Palestine, not the other way around.
Israel’s hopes for a diplomatic solution as resting on six principles: Israeli power and intransigence, American constant alignment with Israeli preferences, Russian decline, European abdication, Arab impotence, and what they hope will be Palestinian resignation.
You might be searching for a role in the Middle East but we in the region have a role looking for an "actor." That role is impartial, honest interlocutor.
Following the 1973 war the Palestinians looked to make peace with the Israeli state and Israeli society. Our demands do not vary. We rely on international law, and most agree on a settlement founded on, grosso modo, a return to the 1967 lines. Israeli policy is based on how to gain the maximum land with the minimum people. There are 450 checkpoints in the West Bank where most person-to-person contacts are made. These checkpoints, and the "security barrier" are major hindrances to possible peace - beyond being in contravention of international law.
Society is measured by its performance. That is a basic idea of political science. There are roughly 3.6 million Palestinians in the West Bank. If two million must travel to work, and each loses three to four hours a day at the checkpoints. Israel has a policy of development of Palestinian society.
Ariel Sharon’s withdrawal of Israeli settlers from the Gaza Strip last year was not a peace-loving action. He saw the Palestinians as a demographic threat. Withdrawing from Gaza, Sharon thought, would "allow him to increase his grip on the West Bank." It also allowed him "to get rid of 1.4 million Palestinians and gain 30 years in demography by giving up 1.3 percent of Mandatory Palestine. It showed Sharon’s excellent public relations skills. There was so much hand-wringing over removing 8,000 settlers in Gaza, the world community, suffering from self-inflicted impotence applauded Sharon, forgetting that there are 450,000 settlers in the West Bank, the Palestinian occupied territories.
And always ready to provide ideas to improve the quality of life for Palestinian society, Safieh encourages Palestinian-Americans to help bring Palestinian goods into the American market, such as olive oil, soap, and embroidery. Safieh also stressed the importance of volunteer work with NGOs in Palestine to assist with education, medicine, and technology because "it would help our society there to remain hopeful; to let them know that people care and are not isolated."
The Palestinian/Arab/Muslim communities need to be more persuasive and visible/vocal on the American scene. America is a fascinating society; a nation of nations with an addition of ethnic communities with specific cultures and their authentic origins, etc. America is a country where one can keep one’s identity and aspire to further integrating into society.
On matters of communities and ethnic minorities, one has to give time to the factor of time. I believe now is the right moment, and we need to have our Palestinian-American/Arab-American/ Muslim-American communities better integrated and more visible in the political arena.
My main message to American Jews will be that as Americans and as friends of Israel, they have both the moral duty and the strategic interest to help in the creation of a prosperous Palestinian state. It is the duty of Israelis and Jews who support Israel to help us. The Gaza disengagement has taught us that a territory that was occupied in six days can also be evacuated in six days so that the Israeli side can rest on the seventh and we can engage in the fascinating journey of nation-building and economic recovery.
The self-inflicted impotence of the international community, in my opinion, is what has made the peace process for the last 12-13 years a farce. Too much was left to the negotiating partners to sort it out between themselves, but since we are speaking of two asymmetrical players – Israel the Occupier and the Palestinians the Occupied – the stronger partner was constantly tempted to dictate conditions, and the weaker party was left by itself to sort it out at the mercy of a very unfavorable military balance of power.
I have profound respect for the Palestinian people, for their steadfastness and capability to endure pain and suffering, "I bow in respect to this collective hero."

The following is a highlight of a lecture delivered by Afif Safieh, while the Palestinian General Delegate to the U.K. at The Royal Institute for International Affairs on July 13-2005:
"Let me first give a short history of the Palestinian diplomatic representation in London.
From the early 1970s until 1986 the Palestinian diplomatic representation was part of the Arab League Office in Green Street. In 1986 it moved to independent premises in South Kensington For austerity measures, in 1996 we moved again to a smaller but more modern office in a lesser neighborhood-Hammersmith.
From the early 1970s until 1988 the mission was called PLO Information Office. Then in 1988, because of our peace initiative based on our acceptance of the two-state solution, and in agreement with Her Majesty’s government, the Delegation was upgraded to PLO General Delegation. In 1993, just after the Oslo breakthrough, the delegation was renamed Palestinian General Delegation, representing the PLO and the PNA at the same time. We were then authorized to fly the Palestinian flag which we did at a very moving ceremony.
The first PLO representative was the late Said Hamami, from the early seventies until he was assassinated in 1978. I never met Said but he was undeniably a very effective representative and I still feel the impact of his passage in London. He was succeeded by Nabil Ramlawi, from 1978 to 1983, who was then transferred to the U.N. in Geneva. He is now in our Foreign Ministry in charge of the unit for diplomatic training. Faisal Oweida followed from 1983 till 1990 and from here was transferred to Austria.
I am the 4th Palestinian representative in London. I do not know if there were any assassination attempts. Any way, if there were, they passed totally unnoticed by me.
In 1990, I inherited an office with 12 employees including the secretary, the receptionist and the driver. Then, because of budgetary constraints, the number was brought down to 5, to rise again gradually up to 8.
In those 15 years, I have dealt with 3 Prime Ministers: Margaret Thatcher, John Major, and Tony Blair. With 4 Secretaries of State: Douglas Hurd, Malcolm Rifkind, Robin Cook and now Jack Straw, and with eleven Ministers of State.
During these 15 years I have arranged and organized 10 Arafat visits to London, three of them mainly connected to meetings with Madeleine Albright. We have more recently arranged a visit for our Prime Minister Abu Ala’a last year and this year for President Mahmoud Abbas for the London conference on the 1st March.
The upgrading was gradual. Landing in town in September 1990, it was prohibited for me to have any ministerial level contacts. Since then I have become familiar to 10 Downing Street, to the Foreign Office and to Westminster-Whitehall in general. Christ’l and I started being invited to the Tea Garden Party by Her Majesty the Queen, first with the crowd, then we were upgraded to the Diplomatic Tent, which is for junior diplomats and then to the Royal Tent itself. We have been invited to a Royal Banquet in Buckingham Palace for a visiting Head of State.
And when Palestinians were made aware after the First World War that we would not have the independence promised, but rather, foreign rule, we had a preference for an American Mandate rather than a British Mandate. This fact is little known around the world, in America, or even among contemporary Palestinians.
The reasons for this expressed preference is:
1) The American anti-colonial experience;
2) President Woodrow Wilson went to the Versailles Conference after WWI, upholding the principle of self-determination; and
3) An American congressional delegation, called the King-Crane Commission, which went on a fact-finding mission to Palestine 1918-1919. They came back with a report advising against the implementation of the Balfour Declaration because the Declaration could not be implemented without overwhelming force being used against the indigenous population. This was seen as a sympathetic report to our aspirations, and it was very perceptive insight.
One of the messages that should be ours vis-à-vis American public opinion is the following: We have no dispute around values and principles. What we want is the American Administration to reconcile its power with its principles.
I personally believe that Americans need to know that it was an Arab country that was the first to recognize American independence. It wasn’t France. Yes, France deployed General Lafayette whose input and contribution was decisive for the favorable American outcome on the battlefield, but the first country to recognize American independence was Arab (Morocco, 1777).
In the House of Commons we have 5 institutional interlocutors and channels of communication.
The Holy See was a fascinating assignment, and I’ve always said that the relations of the Palestinian people with the Vatican are probably the oldest relationship in diplomatic history because Christ and the Christian message were born in our country.

The broader picture: evolution of European perceptions
1948: European public perceptions of the Palestinian problem passed through a variety of phases. European anti-Semitism was decisive in the birth, then the success of Zionism in Palestine. Without the "Dreyfus Affair" there would not have been Theodore Herzl’s manifesto: "The Jewish State". Without Hitler’s accession to power in the early 1930’s and Nazi atrocities, Zionism would have remained a minority tendency within Jewish communities. Both Abba Eban and Nahum Goldman wrote in a variety of books that the "exceptional conditions" of the birth of Israel wouldn’t have been possible without "the indulgence of the international community" as a result of the World War II. "Exceptional conditions" meant the atrocious conditions in which the majority in Palestine became the minority and the minority a majority.
Alas the Palestinian dispossession and dispersion, the Nakba, took place with Europe… applauding. We were the victim of the victims of European history and were thus deprived of our legitimate share of sympathy, solidarity and support.
Let me say that London, for an Arab or a Palestinian diplomat, is an emotionally difficult posting, from the Balfour Declaration to the Gulf wars. Yet I have to commend all my interlocutors for their profound decency and extreme professionalism.
We were accused then to have bet on the wrong horse. My major concern was not to get politically marginalised. I detested Saddam, the occupation of Kuwait, the rapid deployment of foreign troops and the preparations for war. I kept my adherence to the diplomatic option that I favored. On a David Frost Sunday program I stated: "You have seen Yasser Arafat kiss the cheeks of Saddam but you did not bother to ask what he was whispering in his ear".
Meetings took place between the Palestinian Liberation Organization (P.L.O.) officials, Palestinian personalities from the occupied territories and Diaspora intellectuals like Edward Said and Ibrahim Abu Lughod. The British Government offered us facilitations so that Faisal Husseini and Hanan Ashrawi could "slip" through London to Tunis for consultations. My position was: the P.L.O. is, at the same time, an institution and an idea. If ten thousands work in the institution, the 9 million Palestinians are the powerful vehicle of the idea. The P.L.O. has represented the Palestinian people for over 25 years. Now it will be the Palestinians representing the P.L.O. I frequently repeated then that the P.L.O. had become "unreasonably reasonable" having accepted that in the Madrid conference the Palestinians were "half a delegation, representing half the people seeking half a solution".
The beginning of disenchantment with the peace process. My message was: Israel seeks a diplomatic outcome that would reflect: 1- Israeli power and intransigence, 2- The American constant alignment on the Israeli preference, 3- Russian decline, 4- European abdication, 5- Arab impotence, 6- and what they hope to be Palestinian resignation. My advice was: do not confuse realism with resignation.
The failure of Camp David heightens tensions. The provocative Sharon visit to the Dome of the Rock ignites the situation. The Mitchell report, some time later, admits that the second Intifada started by being non-violent and that the ferocious repression by the Israeli side, causing more than a hundred fatalities the first two weeks, pushed a few on our side to resort, unwisely, to using arms.
The previous September, Tony Blair, at the Labour annual conference, is very warmly applauded when he announces that he will convene an international conference to help resolve the conflict. The conference convened turns out to be more modest than expected: "on Palestinian reforms". Even that displeases Sharon who tries to sabotage the London gathering by preventing Palestinian ministers from travelling. Fortunately modern technology and video-conferencing salvage the day. Here in London, I have to carry the burden. The Message: "Reforms, meritocracy, transparency, accountability are not conditions to be imposed on us by the outside world. They are a Palestinian expectation, aspiration, a right and even a duty. Yet I warn: the issue of Palestinian reforms should not be the tree that hides the forest and in this case the forest is an ugly spectacle of occupation and oppression.
During the Labour party conference end of September, Tony Blair gets the loudest applause for his passage "Come November…. I will make it my personal priority…" I have, since then, often invoked this Blair speech to prove that Yasser Arafat was not the obstacle to peace. End of September, Arafat was not dead. He was not even ill. By "Come November", Tony Blair meant when we have the American presidential elections behind us."
Back to Washington, D.C., the Palestinian delegation in Washington handles and address 10 layers of work: Administration and the Administrative Departments, Political parties, House of Representatives and Senate, American media and multi-national media, the diplomatic core, the NGOs – the biggest basket and most demanding on the lecture circuit. (Churches, labor unions, college campuses, the think tanks, the solidarity movement, human rights institutions), the Palestinian community; the Arab-American community, the Muslim community, and the Jewish community.
This is in addition to some consular duties. It does not yet issue passports or visas but it deals with issues of Power of Attorney and signatures.
Sherri Muzher, writing in the Palestine Chronicle, describes H.E. Safieh as: "Articulate, modest, optimistic, and passionate for justice. He is all these things, but most of all, he is an unreasonably reasonable Palestinian."
H.E. Afif Safieh welcomes your comments by writing to him at: PLO Mission to the U.S., 1320 18th Street, NW, Suite # 200, Washington, DC 20036,Tel: (202) 974-6360, Fax: (202) 974-6278, e-mail: plomission1@aol.com

Editor’s note: H.E. Afif Safieh will be the keynote speaker at the U.S.Omen annual banquet in Orange County, California on June 3, 2006. For more details note ad on page 51.