The Forgotten Palestinians: A History of the Palestinians in Israel by Ilan Pappe

Author:Ilan Pappe [Pappe, Ilan]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, mobi, epub
Tags: Human Rights, Israel & Palestine, Social Science, Regional Studies, 20th Century, Modern, 21st Century, Middle East, Political Science, Yale University Press, Discrimination & Race Relations, History
ISBN: 9780300134414
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 2011-06-28T23:59:39.936472+00:00

tude of the state to its Palestinian citizens. What it did do, however, was 1

to expose, and very forcefully so, the fragility of the fabric of coexistence 2

in Israel.

3

At the beginning of the crisis, when Saddam Hussein invaded 4

Kuwait in August 1990, no particular tension was felt in the relation-5

ship between the two communities; despite the animosity of most of 36x

192

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T H E F O R G O T T E N PA L E S T I N I A N S

1

the Palestinian political bodies to the al-Sabah dynasty in Kuwait, the 2

legitimacy of the princedom was not challenged. Saddam Hussein too, 3

until the outbreak of the crisis, was not one of the popular Arab leaders 4

in the eyes of the local community. The Communist Party, in partic-5

ular, had not forgotten Saddam Hussein’s cruel treatment of the 6

Iraqi Communists throughout his rule.25 Even the Islamic movement 7

did not seem very impressed by Saddam Hussein’s alleged return to 8

religion in the early days of the war.

9

But the American declaration of Operation Desert Storm in January 10

1991 changed this picture. Al-Sirat, a new publication of the Islamic 1

movement, was the first organ to transform its attitude as soon as the 2

US forces arrived in Saudi Arabia.26 In less than two weeks Saddam 3

Hussein was rehabilitated in the local press and even inside Hadash 4

there were sharp divergences of opinion, quite visible in the various 5

articles written in al-Ittihad. Incidentally, the paper was much democ-6

ratized as a public arena after that debate, in the sense that it was much 7

more open to printing various viewpoints.

8

It is also important to mention that the Iraqi crisis coincided with 9

the demise of the USSR. Zo Haderech, the Hebrew weekly of the 20

Communist Party (‘This is the way’ in Hebrew), adopted the Russian 1

stance in the crisis, less out of obedience as in the past, and more as a 2

reasonable and cautious position that eventually was accepted by the 3

Israeli non-Zionist left as the best take on the crisis.27 The gist of this 4

position was a sharp condemnation of the USA for a cynical manipu-5

lation of the Kuwait crisis, while at the same time refraining from 6

supporting the Iraqi occupation. And yet it accepted Saddam Hussein’s 7

famous linkage between the withdrawal of his forces with the Israeli 8

withdrawal from the occupied territories – that is, he promised to 9

withdraw his army from Kuwait if the Israeli army left the Palestinian 30

occupied territories.28

1

In hindsight, it seems that the crisis contributed to the consolidation 2

of the Arab national position as a much-preferred option to the 3

Arab–Jewish solidarity promised by the Zionist left and Hadash. The 4

Progressive List for Peace, and politicians such as Abd al-Wahhab 5

Darawshe who proposed a politics of identity evolving around 36x

Palestinian and even pan-Arab issues, became more popular – ironically

A F T E R T H E F I R S T I N T I FA D A

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at the time when Hadash succeeded for the first time in significantly 1

enlarging its support among the Jewish electorate.

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