The Palestine-Israel Conflict: A Basic Introduction by Harms Gregory & Ferry Todd M

Author:Harms, Gregory & Ferry, Todd M. [Harms, Gregory]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781849646871
Publisher: Pluto Press
Published: 2012-06-13T23:00:00+00:00

THE PLO AND PALESTINIAN NATIONALISM, PART II

Throughout the 1970s the PLO grew in reputation and recognition. Though still fractured and heterogeneous, Arafat attempted to steer the organization toward moderation and unity. Regardless of his efforts, the PLO was plagued with internal disputes among its divergent factions, as well as the violence and terrorism that it became notorious for in northern Israel and at the international level. Arafat did make diplomatic strides, and by 1974 the PLO was recognized at the Arab summit in Rabat, Morocco, in October of that year. The Rabat Declaration affirmed the right of the Palestinian people to “establish an independent national authority” under the PLO, which was to be their “sole legitimate representative.”20 A month later, Arafat was invited to New York to speak in front of the UN General Assembly.

On November 13, Chairman Arafat addressed the assembly with a review of Palestinian history, condemning Zionism as colonial and racist, and speaking about the hope of Jews and Arabs one day living in the “framework of a just peace in our democratic Palestine.” He then closed his speech with a now-famous admonition: “Today I have come bearing an olive branch and a freedom-fighter’s gun. Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand.”21 (His holster was empty, but the point was made.) A little over a week after Arafat’s address the General Assembly passed two resolutions, 3236 and 3237. The first affirmed the Palestinian “right to self-determination without external interference” and “the right to national independence and sovereignty.” It also stated the “right of the Palestinians to return to their homes and property from which they have been displaced and uprooted.” The second resolution conferred “observer status” (within the UN) upon the PLO.22 Needless to say, Israel and its supporters were furious. The General Assembly the next year passed Resolution 3379 (November 1975). This resolution determined that “zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination,” equating it with apartheid South Africa, the legally sanctioned policy of racial segregation in force in that country from the 1950s to the 1990s.23 The resolution was repealed in 1991.

The PLO’s achievements in the realm of international diplomacy reflected both its movement toward a more moderate stance and a changing international consensus. The resolutions passed in the General Assembly in 1974–75 indicated a larger UN, one more globally composed and not confined to looking through a predominantly European prism, though Western Europe started to change its stance as well. And while the PLO garnered its newfound attention, so too did the West Bank and Gaza. As Israel’s occupation and settlement policy continued, political consciousness in the territories grew by leaps and bounds, the vast majority of its citizens desiring independent statehood. A 1982 poll taken in Time magazine revealed that 98 percent of the people in the occupied territories wanted a state, while 86 percent thought the PLO should govern that state.24 But as noted, by the mid-1970s the PLO had pitched camp in Lebanon after being expelled from

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.