Section Two
The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: 1967-1993
There are two clear dimensions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: the international
dimension (involving Israel, the PLO, and nations in the region and beyond) and the
domestic dimension (involving Israel, the PLO and Palestinians in the occupied
territories). In reality, these two dimensions should not be separated, but for our purposes
it is best to divide the post-1967 period into two sections. This section will mainly
examine the conflict at the international level. Until the first intifada (or ‘uprising’) in the
occupied territories beginning in 1987, most initiatives to end Israeli occupation came
from the PLO leadership in exile.
Other important actors at the international level discussed here, aside from Israel and the
PLO, include the US, Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon. To keep this unit brief, we will give
less attention to the roles of Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and other Arab states. Students,
however, are strongly encouraged to further investigate the role of these states in
influencing the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the domestic-level IsraeliPalestinian peace negotiations covered in Section Three.
Before we examine the major international issues, actors and events of the post-1967
period, it is a good idea to briefly highlight the important role of the US in the conflict.
Following the 1967 war, the US and Israel developed a close partnership. During the
Cold War (1946-1991), US strategic goals in the Middle East focused on containing
Soviet influence, in addition to maintaining regional political stability and Western access
to oil resources. These last two goals continue into the present, and often mean that the
US supports authoritarian Arab leaders who can contain their citizens’ opposition to US
policies—leading to regional ‘stability’ but also to frustration among Arab citizens who
desire both a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and greater democracy in their
own countries.
Israel, on the other hand, is the only full-fledged democracy in the region, although as we
will see, there are problems for Israeli Arabs in achieving equal citizenship. Israel has
long supported US strategic interests in the region, and in return, Israel enjoys US
political support at the UN and in the region, and receives the highest amount of US
foreign aid of all countries in the world (followed by Egypt, after signing the Camp
David accords).
During the following discussion of the international dimensions of the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict, it is important to keep thinking about the US-Israel partnership. It is also a good
idea to remember that when we discuss international relationships (or relationships
between states), the opinions and activities of state leaders do not necessarily represent
the opinions of all of their citizens. This is also true of leaders of the PLO, the Palestinian
organization that seeks a state for the Palestinian people. More broadly, while it may
seem easier to think that ‘all Israelis’ or ‘all Palestinians’ think or behave in a certain
way, it is very important to realize that these generalizations contribute to misleading and
sometimes dangerous stereotypes. As we will see, Palestinians and Israelis often strongly
disagree among themselves about their own leaders’ choices and actions.
13
UN Security Council Resolution 242
In the 1967 war Israel captured the West Bank (from Jordan), Gaza and the Sinai
Peninsula (from Egypt) and the Golan Heights (from Syria). Palestinians, who did not
receive the independent state mandated by the 1947 UN partition plan, now found
themselves under Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza (Map 2).
The UN Security Council adopted Resolution 242, which established a framework for
future peacemaking and the principle of ‘land for peace’ (Document 5). Resolution 242
notes the “inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by force,” and calls for Israeli
withdrawal from lands seized in the war and the right of all states in the area to peaceful
existence within secure and recognized boundaries. The grammatical construction of the
French version of Resolution 242 says that Israel should withdraw from “the territories,”
whereas the English version of the text calls for withdrawal from “territories.” [Both
English and French are official languages of the UN.] Israel and the US use the English
version to argue that Israeli withdrawal from some, but not all, the territories occupied in
the 1967 war satisfies the requirements of this resolution.
Resolution 242 placed Israeli leaders in an excellent bargaining position. After 1967
Israeli leaders sought diplomatic recognition from neighboring Arab states, and
normalization of regional economic and social relationships. Israel’s advantage, and the
disadvantage to the leaders of the Arab states and to the PLO, was that 242 required that
Arab states first recognize Israel, and then negotiate for peace.
The leaders of neighboring Arab states in the post-1967 period faced domestic public
opinion that overwhelmingly supported the Palestinian cause. The identities of many
Arab states were long bound up with the goal of attaining justice for the Palestinians, and
leaders of these states could not easily recognize Israel before achieving some kind of
clear solution to the Palestinian problem. If they recognized Israel but failed to achieve a
just solution, they would be deeply vulnerable to regional and domestic criticism.
Naturally, Israeli withdrawal from the territories before recognition and negotiation
seemed more reasonable to them, and to their domestic constituents.
For many years the Palestinians rejected Resolution 242 because it does not acknowledge
their right to national self-determination, or the right to return to their homeland. It calls
only for an unspecified “just settlement of the refugee problem”, and does not detail the
specifics of future Israeli withdrawal or the status of territories after that withdrawal.
Palestinians also distrusted the resolution’s requirement that the Arab states recognize
Israel without Israeli withdrawal or recognition of Palestinian national rights. Because
Israel did not recognize the PLO until 1993, Palestinians could not negotiate for
themselves. For this reason, Palestinians were understandably suspicious of any efforts
by the Arab states to negotiate peace. They worried that Arab states might either seek
Palestinian land for themselves (Jordan after 1948, see below), or make peace without
resolving Palestinian demands for a just solution (Egypt’s failure at Camp David, see
below).
14
The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)
It is important to understand how Palestinian views have changed over the years. Keep in
mind two points as you read this section and those that follow. First, people respond to
the circumstances in which they live. If you are rich, you see problems one way; if you
are unemployed, you see them a second way; if you own a small shop or farm the land,
you see them a third and fourth way. Similarly, opinions among members of the same
national or ethnic group may vary for other reasons, including gender, age and education.
We must understand the circumstances in which Palestinians (and Israelis) live if we are
to understand their positions and actions as individuals and as members of groups.
Second, there are at least eight million Palestinians—in Israel, the occupied territories
and abroad. Palestinians are the largest refugee group in the world—one in three refugees
is Palestinian. Like Americans, Mexicans, Canadians and Israelis, they disagree on
political issues. They also change their minds as new circumstances develop. It is a
mistake to think Palestinians have a common view that remains unchanged. As we will
see, their views have changed considerably over the years.
In the immediate aftermath of 1948, Palestinians took two different paths. One group,
under a leader named Amin Husseini, called for the end of partition and the creation of a
secular state in all of Palestine that would include Muslims, Jews, and Christians. A
second group, led mainly by Palestinian elites living in exile in Jordan, agreed to unite
the West Bank and East Jerusalem with Jordan to form one country under Jordanian
leadership. Many Palestinians were so angry at Jordan’s apparent attempt to grab their
land that they came to view Jordan as an enemy almost as much as Israel. No Arab state
recognized the unification with Jordan as a permanent solution, nor did the US. By the
early 1950’s, however, Palestinian leaders seemed ineffective and unable to speak for
their people.
The Arab League established the PLO in 1964 in an effort to control Palestinian
nationalism while appearing to champion their cause. Although it was supposed to
represent the Palestinians, the PLO really represented the views of President Nasser of
Egypt. Its first leader, Ahmad Shuqairi, made wild and irresponsible threats to drive
Israelis into the sea. He had little support among Palestinians for he was seen as a puppet
of the Egyptians. In fact, early PLO leaders were selected by the Arab League based on
their commitment to containing radical nationalism and limiting guerilla activity against
Israel. Leaders of the Arab states sought to expand Arab unity and build up stronger
military forces so as to better negotiate with Israel. Some Palestinians, however, refused
to wait for Arab unity and military strength, and tried instead to stimulate popular support
in the region for a war of liberation.
In the 1960s Palestinian students began to form their own organizations independent of
control by Arab governments (although the Syrians, Libyans, and Iraqis continued to
fund and control particular groups). From 1965-1967 Yasser Arafat’s group, Fatah,
abstained from joining the PLO and chose instead to conduct guerilla raids into Israel
from neighboring Arab states. These activities proved so popular among Palestinians that
groups within the PLO soon began to organize paramilitary activities, and younger, more
militant Palestinians began to take over the PLO.
15
After 1967 Egypt, Syria and Jordan suffered serious domestic and regional
embarrassment because of their military defeat at the hands of Israel, and Israel’s
occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. At a time when Arab states and citizens felt so
powerless against Israel, the PLO achieved regional popularity for its paramilitary efforts
to ‘liberate’ Palestine. PLO guerilla raids into Israel from neighboring Arab states,
however, destabilized the region, brought negative international attention to host
countries, and credible threats of Israeli reprisal. For these reasons the Arab states often
arrested PLO activists, and generally sought to redirect the PLO into diplomatic channels.
The PLO includes different political and armed groups with varying ideological
orientations. Yasser Arafat is the leader of Fatah, the largest group, and has been PLO
chairman since 1968. However, neither he nor Fatah can ‘control’ other groups in the
PLO. The other major groups are the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
(PFLP), the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) and, in the occupied
territories, the Palestine Peoples Party (PPP, formerly the Communist Party). Over time,
these factions have differed sharply in their relative support for violence versus
negotiations, and what sort of outcome to the conflict they were willing to accept.
Although Fatah first emerged as an organization promoting guerilla incursions into Israel,
it soon moved into the mainstream as other, more radical groups, began to undertake
hijackings and assassinations outside of Israel and the occupied territories. These acts,
especially the taking of hostages at the 1972 Munich Games, resulted in substantial
international shock and anger.
Arafat, seeking to maintain PLO unity and international respectability, had to try to limit
these terrorist activities and maintain some sort of control over the movement. Arafat was
often successful in keeping these factions together around a more moderate approach
supported by Fatah, but not always. As we will see, sometimes more extreme factions
succeeded in dragging the PLO away from a moderate position. Arafat had a difficult
balancing act: to keep the factions together, Arafat could not appear too moderate. To win
broad international support, however, Arafat had to become more moderate. Despite
factional differences, the majority of Palestinians still regard the PLO as their
representative.
In the 1960s, the PLO’s primary base of operations was Jordan. In 1970 a brutal attack by
the Jordanian army drove the PLO leadership out of the country, forcing it to relocate to
Lebanon. When the Lebanese civil war started in 1975, the PLO became a party to the
conflict. After the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, the PLO leadership was expelled
from the country, relocating once more to Tunisia. It is important to note that until 1994,
the PLO leadership in exile was focused on advancing Palestinian goals from the
‘outside’ through international diplomatic and military activities, while Palestinians on
the ‘inside’, or in the occupied territories, often faced rather different issues. Although the
majority of Palestinians on the ‘inside’ always supported the PLO, they would
demonstrate a certain independence from the PLO leadership in Tunis during the intifada,
beginning in 1987.
16
The 1968 PLO charter considered the partition of Palestine and the creation of Israel
illegal (Document 6). Arafat’s efforts toward moderation, and apparent willingness to
negotiate with Israelis, contributed to the PLO’s diplomatic successes, most notably when
the PLO gained observer status at the UN in 1974 after Arafat’s speech (Documents 7, 8).
From the 1970s to the 1980s, the PLO engaged in military and diplomatic activities with
the goal of creating a secular democratic state for Jews, Christians and Muslims in all of
former Palestine (Document 9).
As it gained recognition at the UN, the PLO lost the possibility for recognition by the US.
In 1975, in order to extract concessions from Israel to Egypt regarding removal of Israeli
forces from the Sinai, the US promised Israel not to recognize the PLO until it explicitly
accepted UN resolution 242 and recognized Israel’s right to exist. This created serious
problems for PLO diplomacy: if the US, the major peace broker in the Middle East,
refused to associate with the PLO, then the PLO was excluded from important
negotiations, most notably Camp David I.
Although many Palestinians, including some PLO leaders, had said for several years that
they accepted a ‘two-state’ solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it was not until
1988 that a clear official PLO declaration was made. At this important meeting in
Algiers, the Palestine National Council accepted the partition of Palestine, accepted Israel
as a permanent and legitimate state, and renounced terrorism.
From 1948 until 1993, Israel did not acknowledge Palestinian national rights or recognize
the Palestinians as an independent party to the conflict. Israel refused to negotiate with
the PLO, arguing that it was nothing but a terrorist organization, and insisted on dealing
only with Jordan or other Arab states. It rejected the establishment of a Palestinian state,
insisting that Palestinians should be incorporated into existing Arab states. This
intransigence ended when Israeli representatives entered into secret negotiations with the
PLO, which led to the Oslo Declaration of Principles.
There have been three main Palestinian opponents to Yasser Arafat’s PLO:
1. On the left various socialist groups think Arafat is too close to business and banking
interests, and too willing to negotiate with Israel and cooperate with the US. The Popular
Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) is one of these. It is led by George Habash, a
Christian doctor. The PFLP left the PLO Executive Committee in 1974 and rejoined it in
1981. It opposes negotiations with Israel.
2. On the right some Islamist groups feel that the PLO is too willing to cooperate with
socialists and is too willing to negotiate with Israel. They feel there should be a united
Palestine where Jews could live, but which would not be governed by Jews. The largest
of these groups is called Harakat Al-Mouqawama Al-Islamiyya (Hamas, or the Islamic
Resistance Movement). ‘Hamas’ is an acronym meaning ‘enthusiasm’ or ‘zeal’.
3. Several Palestinian radicals maintain their own military organizations. Abu Nidal was
one of these. He bitterly and violently opposed the PLO for what he considered its
moderate positions. He carried out airplane bombings and attacks on civilians and tried to
assassinate Arafat. He opposed any negotiation with Israel, and was probably funded by
Iraq. Abu Nidal died in Iraq in August 2003. Iraqi officials claimed he committed suicide,
but Abu Nidal’s supporters say the Iraqis killed him.
17
The October 1973 War
The bulk of US assistance to participants in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the post1967 period falls on the Israeli side. In fact the US never strongly backed the
understanding of 242 that most of the rest of the world supported: ending Israel’s
occupation of territories seized in 1967. For years following the 1967 war, the UN voted
over and over in favor of an international UN-sponsored peace conference, with all
parties to the conflict (including the PLO, which emerged as a serious force after 1967) to
solve the Israel-Palestine conflict once and for all. But the US always voted no.
Instead, US diplomatic initiatives were devised to keep Washington in control of regional
peacemaking activities. The first US initiative was the Cold War-driven Rogers Plan,
which was not welcomed by Israeli leaders, who felt that the plan sought to appease Arab
states at Israel’s expense. Based on the same approach as 242, it was designed largely to
win individual Arab governments away from Soviet influence and into the US orbit. It
offered Arab leaders the return of some occupied territory, in exchange for recognition of
Israel. The Palestinians, however, would get nothing.
Jordan was a major target of US diplomacy, but King Hussein was uneasy about the large
and increasingly activist Palestinian community in his country, and implementing the
Rogers Plan would undermine Palestinian national claims. Another US goal was to woo
Egypt away from Soviet influence by promising the return of Egypt’s Sinai peninsula,
then occupied by Israel. Under significant pressure at home to win back the Sinai, Nasser
agreed to future discussions following the Rogers Plan in July 1970.
Nasser’s abandonment of his long-standing support for the Palestinians encouraged
Jordan’s King Hussein to go even further. A low-intensity conflict had been brewing
between the Jordanian government and the PLO. During the 1960s the PLO’s primary
base of operations was in Jordan, and the PLO had established itself as an increasingly
autonomous political organization in that country—performing police activities and
organizing mass demonstrations. Yasser Arafat and Fatah had counseled and promised
nonintervention in Jordan’s affairs, but more radical groups within the PLO, especially
the PFLP, wanted to overthrow King Hussein. The PFLP’s goals expanded in popularity
among PLO supporters in Jordan, and Fatah’s desire for nonintervention was increasingly
ignored.
Small-scale attacks by Jordan’s army on Palestinian guerrillas in the refugee camps had
been going on for some time, and tensions were high. In July 1970, following Nasser’s
lead, King Hussein endorsed the Rogers Plan. In August the Palestine National Council
condemned this move, and the PFLP attempted to assassinate King Hussein. The PFLP
then hijacked four jumbo jets and blew up three of the empty planes in Jordan. The PLO
denounced these activities and suspended the PFLP, but could not prevent an
intensification of the conflict with the Jordanian government—which was what the PFLP
wanted in the first place. Less than two weeks later, on September 15, King Hussein
launched a major assault on the Palestinians in his country. In ten days an estimated
5,000 were killed and 20,000 wounded, most of them civilians—in what Palestinians
describe as ‘Black September’. The Palestinian guerrillas, their families, and many more
Palestinian civilians were forced into another exile, this time to Lebanon.
18
After the death of Nasser in September 1970, Egypt’s new president, Anwar al-Sadat,
began strong peace overtures to the US, believing only Washington could pressure Israel
to return the occupied Sinai. In late 1970, President Sadat told UN envoy Gunnar Jarring
that he was willing to sign a peace agreement with Israel in return for Egyptian territory
lost in 1967. Sadat tried to attract Washington’s support by opening Egypt to Western
investments and allowing US oil companies to explore for oil and build pipelines. By the
summer of 1972, Sadat went even further: he expelled 15,000 Soviet military advisers
from Egypt, providing Washington with an unmistakable signal of Cairo’s intentions. But
it proved insufficient and Egyptian diplomats, even after the dramatic Soviet expulsion,
received an icy reception in Washington.
When Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir returned from Washington a month later with
promises of new Phantom jets for Israel’s air force, Sadat decided that only a limited war
could create the necessary pressure for an Israeli-Egyptian settlement. Egypt and Syria
decided to act together to break the political stalemate. They attacked Israeli forces in the
Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights in October 1973, on the Jewish holy day of Yom
Kippur. The surprise attack caught Israel off guard, and the Arabs achieved some early
military victories. This prompted US political intervention, along with sharply increased
military aid to Israel.
19
The Aftermath
From 1967 to the present, Israeli leaders consistently sought, and succeeded at
negotiating peace with their Arab neighbors bilaterally (on a ‘one on one’ basis). In this
way, Israel could negotiate the best deal with each Arab state and gain the maximum
concessions possible. If Israel was forced to participate in multilateral talks, Arab states
would have more power through a unified bargaining position. After the 1973 war, US
Secretary of State Henry Kissinger pursued a diplomatic strategy of limited bilateral
agreements to secure partial Israeli withdrawals from the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan
Heights while avoiding negotiations on more difficult issues important to Palestinians,
especially the fate of the West Bank and Gaza.
Kissinger’s approach, which focused on strengthening ties with Arab governments and
dealing with the Palestinians only as refugees, was fatally flawed. Palestinian opposition
to the US-promoted ‘Jordanian option’ of placing the Israeli-occupied West Bank under
King Hussein’s rule was virtually universal. One result was a major escalation in
international support for and recognition of the PLO, culminating in Yasser Arafat’s
appearance in November 1974 at the UN General Assembly (Documents 8, 9). The UN
voted 105 to 4 to recognize the right of the Palestinians to self-determination, and to grant
the PLO observer status at the UN. Only Israel and the US, along with US-dependent
Bolivia and the Dominican Republic, voted against the resolution. It was a major defeat
for US policy.
By late 1975 US peacemaking efforts had exhausted their potential, and there was no
prospect of achieving a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace settlement. In September 1975
the US brokered an agreement between Egypt and Israel. Israel promised to return part of
the Sinai peninsula to Egypt, while Egypt signed a non-aggression pledge. Implementation of the agreement stalled, however, as each side defined its responsibilities
differently. On November 19, 1977, President Sadat moved to break the stalemate. In an
historic visit, the first by any Arab leader, he traveled to Jerusalem to address the Israeli
Knesset. The US hailed the surprise visit as an important step, but Palestinians, Arab
leaders and their people worried that Sadat would give away too much in his negotiations
with Israel.
20
Camp David I
Sadat’s November 1977 visit to Jerusalem led to the Camp David accords and the signing
of an Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty in 1979. In his Knesset speech Sadat focused on the
need for a comprehensive peace to end all wars in the Middle East. He spoke of the need
for Israel to withdraw from all occupied Arab territories, including East Jerusalem, and to
recognize the legitimacy of Palestinians’ efforts to regain their lost rights. Prime Minister
Menachem Begin’s position, however, was quite different. While asserting that “everything was negotiable,” Begin made it clear that Israeli security was the primary goal, and
claimed that UN resolutions 242 and 338 did not require Israeli withdrawal from all the
territories occupied in 1967 (especially the West Bank and Gaza), that Israeli settlements
in the territories would remain in place and under Israeli jurisdiction, that Jerusalem
would remain united under Israeli rule, and that Israel was not prepared to recognize the
PLO—although it would consider some kind of autonomy for West Bank and Gaza
Palestinians.
There was clearly a wide gap between Sadat and Begin. Negotiations continued after
Begin paid a return visit to Egypt, but after some months Sadat broke off the talks. In
response, the US moved in to take control of the diplomacy, promising Israel in no
uncertain terms that regardless of the results of the talks, the US would continue to
provide military assistance and would not use that assistance to pressure Israel. In
September 1978 President Jimmy Carter invited Sadat and Begin to Camp David, a
presidential retreat in Maryland. Sequestered for 13 days, Begin and Sadat finally
emerged with the Camp David accords. They worked out two agreements: a framework
for peace between Egypt and Israel, and a general framework for resolution of the Middle
East crisis, i.e., the Palestinian question.
The first agreement formed the basis of the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty signed in 1979.
The second agreement proposed to grant ‘autonomy’ to the Palestinians in the West Bank
and the Gaza Strip, and to install a local administration for a five-year interim period,
after which the final status of the territories would be negotiated. As Palestinians had
feared, only the Egyptian-Israeli part of the Camp David accords was implemented. The
Palestinians and other Arab states criticized Sadat for destroying Arab unity and playing
into Israeli hands, and Egypt was expelled from the Arab League.
Egypt, Israel and the US hoped other Arab countries would follow suit and accept USbrokered bilateral agreements with Israel. The Arab states, however, continued to hold
out for multilateral negotiations. Jordan’s King Hussein, for example, condemned the
Camp David accords and called for comprehensive regional negotiations under UN
auspices. The Palestinians also opposed the accords, seeing them as a surrender to Israeli
power, and an acceptance of the US-Israeli view that Middle East peace could be crafted
without the Palestinians.
21
These critics rejected the Palestinian ‘autonomy’ concept because it did not guarantee full
Israeli withdrawal from areas captured in 1967, or the establishment of an independent
Palestinian state. Their fears came true during subsequent negotiations between Egypt
and Israel on Palestinian autonomy. Israel sabotaged the talks by continuing to confiscate
Palestinian lands and building new settlements in violation of Begin’s commitments at
Camp David. In a strange twist, Begin insisted that the Palestinians would have the right
only to limited self-rule in the occupied territories, but that this did not include rights to
the land, water or other resources. Finally, Begin made it clear that Israel would not agree
to a Palestinian state.
As for Sadat, he was increasingly isolated in his own country and throughout the Arab
world for what was viewed as a betrayal of regional hopes for multilateral peace
negotiations by signing a separate peace with Israel. Sadat paid the ultimate price: on
October 6, 1981, President Sadat was assassinated by a member of his own military, who
saw the Egyptian leader as a traitor to the Arab and Muslim cause.
22
Lebanon
The civil war in Lebanon, begun in 1975, escalated rapidly in the early 1980s. Central to
this conflict were internal Lebanese struggles for power and resources between the
various religious, political and clan-based factions. To compound the internal conflict,
hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees lived in Beirut and southern Lebanon.
After expulsion from Jordan in 1970, the PLO founded a new base of operations in
Lebanon, and took over many governance activities, from schools and hospitals to
licensing and legal systems.
Palestinian guerrillas and Israeli troops also traded rocket fire across the Israeli-Lebanese
border. Since 1978 Israel had occupied a strip of southern Lebanon, in defiance of UN
Resolution 425, which called for Israel to immediately and unconditionally withdraw
(Document 10). Instead, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) paid, armed, trained and
supported an anti-Palestinian Christian-led militia, called the South Lebanon Army, in its
occupied zone. Much of Israel’s strategy involved trying to turn the Lebanese against the
Palestinians. Because of Palestinian involvement in their civil war, Israel had some
success among wealthier Lebanese disturbed by Palestinian influence in the South, and
among the poor classes of Lebanese. Israel’s real goal was to destroy the PLO
infrastructure—social as well as military—in Lebanon, and to arrange for a compliant,
pro-Israel regime in Beirut. When it appeared that Lebanon’s civil war could drag on
forever without those goals being achieved, Israel decided to move on its own. But first
Israel needed to be sure its allies in Washington would approve.
This was a bit tricky because there wasn’t an obvious provocation on which to claim that
a direct Israeli invasion was ‘necessary for self-defense.’ In May 1982, Israel’s Defense
Minister Ariel Sharon went to Washington to meet with Reagan’s Secretary of State
Alexander Haig. Former President Jimmy Carter said after a national security briefing
that “the word I got from very knowledgeable people in Israel is that ‘we have a green
light from Washington’.” Haig denied that, but admitted that “the Israelis had made it
very clear that...at the next provocation they were going to react. They told us that.
President [Reagan] knew that.”
On June 3, Abu Nidal’s anti-PLO Palestinian faction attempted to assassinate Israel’s
ambassador in London in order to spark Israeli military action against the PLO. The
British police immediately identified Abu Nidal’s forces as responsible, and revealed that
the PLO leaders were among the names on the would-be assassins’ ‘hit list.’ The PLO
had nothing to do with it, but Israel claimed the attack (the ambassador was unhurt) was a
justification for war. Three days later the Israeli army invaded Lebanon in operation
“Peace for Galilee,” crossing the Litani River and moving almost as far north as Beirut,
destroying feeble resistance from local villagers and from UN peacekeeping troops swept
aside in the assault. Israel remained in virtually uncontested control of the air, and had
overwhelming military superiority on land and sea. Beirut was besieged and subjected to
merciless bombing for two months. Casualties were enormous, hospitals were hit, and
Palestinian refugee camps were leveled in massive bombardment.
23
Condemnation poured in from around the world. Even the US, which supported Israel’s
goals of forcing the PLO out of Lebanon, issued a mild criticism of the bombing. A
ceasefire was soon achieved, and the US brokered the terms, which centered on the PLO
leaving Beirut—its guerrillas, doctors, civilian infrastructure, and officials would board
ships heading for Tunis. The US promised to serve as guarantor of Israel’s promises,
especially as protector of the Palestinian civilians left behind, primarily women, children
and old men. US Marines were deployed as the centerpiece of an international force with
a 30-day mandate to guard Beirut during the withdrawal of the PLO fighters.
On September 11, 1982, two weeks before the end of their official mandate, the last US
Marines were withdrawn from Beirut. Three days later, the Israeli-supported Christian
president Bashir Gemayel was assassinated. Within hours, Israel responded by invading
Muslim (and formerly Palestinian) West Beirut. They first claimed it was to ‘protect’ the
Palestinians from revenge from Gemayel’s Christian supporters, but it was in complete
violation of the agreement negotiated with the PLO. After a few hours Defense Minister
Sharon announced that the Christian Phalangists, the most anti-Palestinian of all the
Christian militias, would actually enter the Palestinian camps, rather than the Israelis
themselves. The senior Israeli commander met with the top Phalangist leaders and told
them, he said, “to act humanely, and not to harm women, children and old people.”
On Thursday, September 16, Israeli troops surrounded the Sabra and Shatila refugee
camps on the outskirts of West Beirut, and lit flares to light the way for their Phalangist
allies to enter the camps. Mass rape, torture and murder lasted for three days and resulted
in the deaths of 1,000-2,000 Palestinians, mostly children, women and old men, whose
bodies were left piled up or hastily buried in mass graves. The Red Cross later said it
would be impossible to know the exact number who died.
There was no question that the Israeli soldiers, and their military and political leaders,
knew what was going on inside—it was visible from the IDF post at the edge of the
camp, and the sound of machine-gun fire continued for three days and nights. The US
finally pushed Israel to withdraw the Phalangists. US Special Envoy Morris Draper told
the Israeli officers: “You must stop the massacres. They are obscene. I have an officer in
the camp counting the bodies...They are killing children. You are in absolute control of
the area and therefore responsible for that area.”1
The Sabra-Shatila Massacre, as it quickly became known, transformed public perceptions
about the war, especially inside Israel (Document 11). Israeli officials first denied
knowing anything about the ‘alleged massacres’, but 400,000 Israelis (nearly 10 percent
of Israel’s population) marched in protest, and eventually Israel established the high-level
Kahan Commission to investigate (Document 12). Among other things, it found Defense
Minister Sharon personally “responsible for ignoring the danger of bloodshed and
revenge when he approved the entry of the Phalangists into the camps as well as not
taking appropriate measures to prevent bloodshed”. The UN General Assembly voted 147
to 2 to condemn the massacres; but the US joined Israel in voting against the
condemnation. Many voices in the US pointed out that the massacres might not have
happened if Washington had kept its word and its troops in Lebanon.
1
Testimony of Israeli Foreign Ministry official Bruce Kashdan before the Commission of Inquiry; Norman
Kempster, Los Angeles Times (Nov. 22, 1982).
24
The Reagan administration’s response was quick: the decision to send US troops back to
Beirut, just two weeks after they had been withdrawn, was made during the weekend of
September 18-19, just as the massacre was ending. According to the Middle East
specialist on the National Security Council Geoffrey Kemp, the decision to return US
troops to Lebanon was influenced “by the feeling that the United States had assumed
responsibility for the safety of the Palestinians and that our friends, the Israelis, had
allowed the worst to happen.”2
The 3,800 troops of the Multi-National Force, with French and Italian soldiers joining the
Americans, returned to Beirut with awesome military power. They became the real power
in the city, but the Lebanese civil war was not over. Thirty-three Lebanese and foreign
militias and armies still vied for control of the country. In March 1983 small-scale attacks
on the US and other Western forces began. Then, on April 18, the US embassy compound
was destroyed by a powerful car bomb, killing 63 people, of whom 17 were Americans,
and wounding 100 more. The civil war intensified, with the Israeli-backed Phalangist
government challenged by Syrian-backed Muslim, Druze and secular militias.
Cold War politics came into play, as the Soviet Union increased its support to Syria and
the US took a harder line in backing Lebanese ‘sovereignty’ under the existing Christianbased government. Israel withdrew its forces from the Chouf Mountains overlooking
Beirut, and fierce fighting broke out there between the government and the MuslimDruze militias. On September 19, one year after the Sabra-Shatila massacre, the US
military joined Lebanon’s civil war. The warships of the American Sixth Fleet were
firing into the Chouf, aiming at the Druze fighters near the tiny town of Souq al-Gharb.
The giant battleship USS New Jersey led the attack, firing 2,000-pound shells the size of
Volkswagens. Washington was now officially a partisan in Lebanon’s civil war.
Quickly the fighting increased, with other parts of the Multinational Force drawn in. On
October 23 the US Marine Corps barracks and headquarters, as well as the headquarters
of the French paratroopers, were destroyed by a truck bomb; 241 American service
people and 58 French paratroopers were killed. The Italians, whose troops had not
engaged in fighting, were not harmed. The US and French troops surrounded their
compounds with defensive walls. The fighting continued, and the US began air strikes
from the carrier Eisenhower against Druze and Muslim militias above Beirut. Fighting
increased again, and on February 6 Reagan announced that the Marines in Beirut would
retreat to their ships. The US mission to Lebanon was over.
In 1985 Israel’s partial withdrawal from Lebanon—while maintaining its occupation of a
nine or ten-mile-wide strip of south Lebanon along the Israeli border—finally set the
stage for the civil war to come to an inconclusive end some five years later. The UN’s
1978 demand in resolution 425 that Israel withdraw “forthwith” from Lebanon remained
unfulfilled until Israel fully withdrew in 2000. The withdrawal of US troops in 1984
signaled a shift in Washington’s policy emphasis from Lebanon back to Israel and the
occupied Palestinian territories. The PLO leadership was now banished to Tunis, far from
its homeland, and Palestinians inside the territories began considering how to take more
initiative on their own.
2
Cited in Robert Fisk, Pity the Nation: The Abduction of Lebanon (London: Andre Deutsch Ltd., 1990).
25
On the diplomatic front the US proposed several initiatives, all aimed at establishing
some kind of partial autonomy for the Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza.
Some envisioned links with Jordan as well. But none broke new ground, and none were
taken seriously. Israel continued to build and expand settlements in the occupied
territories, and Palestinians endured daily life under the harsh rule of the Israeli army.
Social, political, and economic conditions deteriorated, and the US did little to respond or
to pressure Israel to change its policies.
26
The Occupied Territories
Section Three, so far, has focused on the international dimension of the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict. To help understand why Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza spontaneously
participated in the intifada, or ‘uprising’ beginning in 1987, it is time to examine the
domestic conflict in the occupied territories. We will then reconsider this domestic
conflict in terms of the US-Israel partnership and its focus on Israel’s security. Finally,
Section Three will conclude with a discussion of the intifada and the subsequent Madrid
conference.
The West Bank and the Gaza Strip became distinct geographical units as a result of the
1949 armistice that divided the new Jewish state of Israel from other parts of Mandate
Palestine. From 1948-67, the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, was ruled by Jordan,
which annexed the area in 1950 and extended citizenship to Palestinians living there.
During this period, the Gaza Strip was under Egyptian military administration. In the
1967 war, Israel captured and occupied these areas, along with the Sinai Peninsula (from
Egypt) and the Golan Heights (from Syria) (Map 2).
Israel first established a military government, and later a ‘civil’ administration to govern
the Palestinian residents of the occupied West Bank and Gaza. Under these arrangements
Palestinians were denied many basic political rights and civil liberties, including freedom
of expression, freedom of the press and freedom of political association. Palestinian
municipal councils were tightly controlled by the Israelis. After many Palestinian leaders
expressed support for pro-PLO Palestinian nationalism, Israeli authorities began to
appoint and recognize only those leaders who would assist the occupation. At the same
time, the economy of the occupied territories developed with close links to Israel as
Palestinians traveled into Israel, offering cheap labor for construction and factory work.
Israel claimed that its occupation resulted in a rising standard of living and a reduction in
unemployment for Palestinians, and indeed, the economy of the occupied territories
expanded at a faster rate than that in Israel in the post-1967 period, and unemployment
declined.
Critics of the occupation, however, argued that economic growth in the territories was
characterized by a dangerous dependency on Israel that worked to Israel’s benefit. They
noted that industrial output as a share of economic activity actually declined after 1967,
and that subsequent growth was due to the export of cheap labor to Israel for lack of any
job opportunities in the territories. Critics noted that long-term, secure economic
development in the territories required an investment in infrastructure, such as roads,
airports, seaports, telecommunications—that Israel refused to make. Although
unemployment in the territories declined after 1967, critics argued that Israel benefited
more. Because Israel did not invest in development of the territories, Palestinians were
forced to offer their labor cheaply to the Israeli market, and also purchased most of their
consumer goods from Israel. Israel was in a win-win situation, and Palestinian leaders
worried about the increasing economic dependency of the territories on Israel.
27
Meanwhile, Palestinian nationalism was criminalized as a threat to Israeli security, which
meant that even displaying the Palestinian national colors was a punishable act. All
aspects of Palestinian life were regulated, and often severely restricted by the Israeli
military administration. Israeli policies and practices in the West Bank and Gaza included
extensive use of collective punishments such as curfews, house demolitions and closure
of roads, schools and community institutions. Hundreds of Palestinian political activists
were deported to Jordan or Lebanon, tens of thousands of acres of Palestinian land were
confiscated, and thousands of trees were uprooted. Since 1967 over 300,000 Palestinians
were imprisoned without trial, and over half a million were tried in the Israeli military
court system. Torture of Palestinian prisoners has been a common practice since at least
1971, and dozens of people have died in detention from abuse or neglect. Israeli officials
claimed that harsh measures and high rates of imprisonment were necessary to prevent
terrorism.
Israel has confiscated Palestinian land, built hundreds of settlements and permitted
hundreds of thousands of its own Jewish citizens to move to the West Bank and Gaza,
even though this constitutes a breach of international law. Israel justified violations of the
Fourth Geneva Convention and other international laws governing military occupation of
foreign territory on the grounds that the West Bank and Gaza are not technically
‘occupied’ because they were never part of the sovereign territory of any state
(Documents 4, 13). According to this interpretation, Israel is not a foreign ‘occupier’ but
a legal ‘administrator’ of disputed territory whose status remains to be determined. The
international community rejects the Israeli official position that the West Bank and Gaza
are not occupied, and maintains that international law should apply there. But little effort
has been mounted to enforce international law, or to hold Israel accountable for its
numerous violations since 1967.
Israeli Settlements
Small Jewish communities existed in what is now the West Bank prior to the 20th century
in Hebron, the Old City of Jerusalem, Safed and Tiberias. The Hebron community
disappeared after a massacre of Jews in the communal fighting in 1929 (described in
Section One). The Jewish Quarter in the Old City was evacuated in the 1948 war. When
Israel conquered and occupied the West Bank and Gaza in 1967, there were virtually no
Jewish people living in this area, and the land was owned by Palestinians.
From 1967-77, settlements under Labor governments emphasized security following
Israel’s ‘Allon Plan’. Labor wanted outposts along the Jordan River and on the strategic
high points in the West Bank and the Golan Heights. The Allon Plan divided up the West
Bank and encircled Jerusalem to enable Israeli annexation of the city and its outskirts, or
‘Greater Jerusalem’, and to isolate Palestinians in East Jerusalem from those in the West
Bank (Maps 3-6). The Labor party avoided settling in the dense population centers of the
West Bank and Gaza, and did not openly support new religious settlements. However,
Labor tolerated these settlements because they found it politically difficult to remove
Jewish settlers who took over Palestinian land and then called for Israel’s protection and
support. Labor leaders like Rabin and Peres generally supported the idea of ‘land for
peace’, although they hoped that Jordan, and not an independent Palestinian body, would
ultimately take control of the West Bank.
28
In the 1977 elections Menachem Begin, leader of the right-wing Likud Party became
Prime Minister of Israel. This was the first time since Israel’s founding that Labor did not
control the government. In contrast to Labor, Likud hoped to prevent any future exchange
of ‘land for peace’, and any independent Palestinian state. The Likud party, which held
power in 1977-1992, in 1996-1999 and again in 2001, planted settlements close to centers
of Palestinian population and were more active in demolishing Palestinian homes. The
Likud was supported by radical religious settler groups, and Begin shared their
commitment to hold the occupied territories permanently and settle them with Jews. This
was a way to establish ultimate control over the West Bank, just as Jewish settlements
were the basis for establishing Israel in 1948.
Begin felt that the land belonged to the Jewish people and always referred to it using their
Biblical names, Judea and Samaria. Begin began an aggressive settlement campaign, led
and designed partly by Ariel Sharon, that confiscated private- and state-owned land
farmed by Palestinians for centuries, and established Jewish settlements on it. Sharon’s
changes to Labor’s Allon Plan involved the construction of Jewish settlements around
and between Palestinian population centers, dividing the West Bank into three
noncontiguous, or disconnected areas (Map 6).
Begin’s partners in the territories were the right-wing religious settler groups. After 1967
these groups articulated a religious and land-focused nationalism that considered Israel’s
seizure of territory as a sign of divine favor, and a first step in their religious duty to
reclaim the land of Israel and hasten the Messiah’s arrival. Gush Emunim, a settler lobby
founded in 1974, consolidated many private Israeli groups seeking to expand settlement
activity and to pressure their government to approve those settlements, often after they
were established illegally. Gush’s direct action to establish settlements in the occupied
territories drew IDF protection, thus expanding the IDF’s presence in the territories. The
settlers often engaged in deliberate actions aimed at provoking Palestinian anger and
violence—thus expanding popular Israeli support for more IDF troops and further
settlement in the territories.
Permanent retention of the territories meant that the sizable Palestinian population would
threaten the Jewish character of Israel. To address this problem, the Kach party favored
expulsion of the Palestinians. American Rabbi Meir Kahane formed the Kach party after
he moved to Israel in 1971 (Document 14). Kahane described Palestinians as a cancer
and vermin that had to be expelled because the presence of non-Jews in Israel was a
corrupting force that compromised Jewish civilization. His position (not supported by
historical evidence) was that Palestinians were not truly a people but were just
Jordanians, Syrians, Egyptians, or Lebanese who had come across the border to work.
Above all, the Kach party hoped to destroy any possibility for peacemaking between
Israelis and Palestinians through often violent action, and advocated elimination of
Israeli-Arab citizenship in Israel, and the expulsion of Palestinians from the occupied
territories. Many Kach party members also moved to the occupied territories to found or
join religious settlements there. Although Kahane was assassinated in 1989, some Israeli
parties and organizations continue to advocate the expulsion of Palestinians.
29
Many Israelis are not supportive of religious settlers who, they believe, are responsible
for the increased tension between the Palestinian and Jewish populations, making lasting
peace more difficult. Because Jewish settlements focused on annexing Palestinian land
are controversial in Israel and unlikely to appeal to the average Israeli, in 1981 Sharon
and Begin decided that Israel should subsidize bedroom communities in the occupied
territories near Tel Aviv and Jerusalem (Document 15). In this way, relatively
inexpensive housing appealed to the pocketbooks of average, even secular Israelis who
would not otherwise support or participate in this activity. It has been estimated that
today perhaps 25% of the settlers come to the West Bank and Gaza for religious or
nationalist reasons, while 75% move in response to the generous government financial
subsidies.
The maps in this section tell the story of the establishment of settlements (Maps 5-10,
12). Militant religious settlers call this ‘redeeming the land.’ The Palestinians, on the
other hand, see this as a steady takeover of their homeland. By 1990 half the land in the
West Bank, and a third of Gaza was reserved for exclusive Jewish use. Today some
60%-70% of the West Bank and Gaza is reserved exclusively for Jewish use as military
reserves, bypass roads, or housing settlements. Bypass roads and settlements are
generally only open to Jews, not to Palestinian Muslims or Christians.
Some settlers believe that the land they now occupy was empty before their development
was built. They may not have seen the previous owners, Palestinians say, because the
Jewish National Fund ‘acquires’ the land and clears it of its Palestinian owners before
turning it over for development as a Jewish settlement. Thus new settlers are usually
insulated from seeing the Palestinians who they have displaced, almost always without
compensation.
Some Israelis claim there is a need for more housing for Israelis, but others say that there
is a high vacancy rate in these new settlements because most Jews do not want to live
there. The US State Department investigated, and confirmed a high vacancy rate existing
in the new developments already built. Palestinians also point out that their population,
denied building permits for so many years, is far more in need of housing units than are
Israeli Jews. Palestinians also point out that US tax money, and funds that are deemed
tax-exempt by the US government for charitable reasons, are being used to build housing
with the sort of religious restrictions that would be illegal under US law.
The Israeli government has claimed that it has a perfect right to build wherever it wants
on ‘its own land,’ but Palestinians, under international law—especially the Fourth
Geneva Convention, challenge the authority of the occupier to confiscate the land of the
occupied, and to move its own population into the occupied area (Document 4).
30
SETTLEMENT FACTS 2002 (from Foundation for Middle East Peace)
Number of settlements in the West Bank (5,640 sq. km.): 130
Number of settlements in the Gaza Strip (360 sq. km.): 16
Number of settlement areas in East Jerusalem: 11
Total settler population in the West Bank and Gaza Strip:
1972: 1,500
1983: 29,090
1992: 109,784
2001: 213,672
Total settler population in Palestinian East Jerusalem:
1972: 6,900
1992: 141,000
2000: 170,400
Palestinian population [CIA Factbook, 2002]:
--2.2 million in 650 locales in the West Bank (including 200,000 in East Jerusalem)
--1.2 million in 40 locales in the Gaza Strip
Jerusalem
Historically Jerusalem was divided into four ‘Quarters,’ one each for Christians,
Muslims, Jews, and Armenians (Armenians are Christian but were given a separate
quarter for historical reasons) (Map 3). The quarters were created not to discriminate, but
to reassure each group that their rights would be respected. If a Jew wanted to live in the
Christian Quarter, for example, that person would petition Christian religious leaders for
an exemption, with the understanding that if the Jew ever sold the land the Christian
leaders would have the right to repurchase the property.
The 1947 UN partition plan called for Jerusalem to become an international zone,
independent of both the proposed Jewish and Palestinian Arab states (Map 1). In the 1948
Arab-Israeli War, Israel took control of the western part of Jerusalem, while Jordan took
the eastern part, including the old walled city containing important Jewish, Muslim and
Christian religious sites. The 1949 armistice line cut the city in two. In June 1967, Israel
captured East Jerusalem from Jordan and almost immediately annexed it. It reaffirmed its
annexation in 1981, in spite of UN Security Council Resolution 465 (1980) deploring
settlements in the occupied territories and Jerusalem (Document 13; Maps 3-5). Israel
regards Jerusalem as its ‘eternal capital’. Arabs consider East Jerusalem part of the
occupied West Bank and want it to be the capital of a Palestinian state. After 1967 Israel
began to place Jewish settlements in the Old City of Jerusalem in areas that had
traditionally been reserved for the use of Christians and Muslims.
Refugees and Displaced Persons
At least four million Palestinian refugees and their descendants now live outside
Palestine/Israel. Another four million Palestinians live inside the pre-1948 territory of
Palestine, now divided into Israel (with almost one million Palestinians), and the
Palestinian territories of the West Bank (including Arab Jerusalem) and Gaza (with a
combined total of more than three million Palestinians).
31
In 1947-49, during the battles of the First Israeli-Palestinian War, around 750,000
Palestinians were driven from their homes, or left because of the atmosphere of violence.
Very few of these people were allowed back into the land controlled by Israel. Fifty years
later they and their descendants now number about four million, living mainly in
Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan, though some live farther away in Europe and America.
Previously Israelis claimed that the refugees left willingly, and should not be allowed to
change their minds and return, or even to be compensated for their lost homes and lands.
But recently Israeli historians have admitted that most of the departures were carried out
by Israeli force of arms, or in an atmosphere of violence.
Israel calls those who left or were forced out in 1947-49 ‘refugees’, and those who left or
were forced out in 1967 or in days since ‘displaced persons’. Many Palestinians who are
still living inside Israel or in the West Bank were made refugees at least once, and may
have lost their lands, homes, and other possessions without compensation. They could be
living in Israel or the West Bank and Gaza as refugees from their original homes.
Another wave of departures occurred after Israel captured the West Bank and Gaza in
1967. Several hundred thousand men from Jerusalem were forced across the border to
Jordan. In addition, in the weeks following the occupation, local Palestinian leaders,
including the mayor of Jerusalem, the president of Bir Zeit University, doctors, lawyers
and religious leaders, were transported to various spots in the Jordanian desert against
their will and without any judicial process. We will discuss settlements, Jerusalem and
refugees more extensively in Section Three.
32
The US-Israeli Partnership, and the Question of Peace and Security
After the 1967 war Israeli leaders, both Labor and Likud, followed a strategy of winning
regional peace on Israel’s terms: by exchanging some land for peace, and discouraging
any Palestinian opposition to Israeli goals through overwhelming Israeli military force.
For better or worse, the Israeli choice to follow this strategy is strongly influenced by the
fact that the US supports it as well. Supporters and critics of the US-Israel partnership,
and Israel’s continuing possession of the territories seized in 1967, differ on one major
question: How to best secure Israel’s long-term security among its neighbors in the
Middle East. Just as Americans don’t always agree with their leaders on how to address
the Middle East in general, or Israel in particular, Israelis also sometimes disagree with
their leaders over how Israel should respond to peaceful and violent Palestinian efforts to
achieve national self-determination.
Most of those who support ‘hawkish’ Israeli military responses toward the Palestinians
argue that US assistance is necessary to Israel’s very survival in a hostile region. They
argue that Palestinians will never accept Israel’s existence and will continue to attack it
even if Palestinians gain full control, and even statehood, in the territories captured by
Israel in 1967. From this perspective, Palestinian statehood is undesirable, and hawks
from the Likud to the far right promote the building of settlements and the continuing
presence of Israeli forces in the territories to either prevent an independent state, or to
prevent a viable state (one that could conceivably attack Israel) from emerging.
Israeli supporters of the US-Israel partnership argue that the US should stop demanding
that Israel make any concessions to Palestinians. For them, such concessions make Israel
appear weak, and the appearance of weakness invites Palestinian attacks (Document 16).
Rather, the US should allow Israel to force Palestinians to submit to Israel’s demands
through military actions that demonstrate that they can never win any conflict with Israel,
and that all attacks against Israelis are doomed to failure. From this perspective, actions
against the Palestinians in the territories are justified on the basis of Israeli security, as
they define it. Supporters of this method to achieve Israel’s long-term security sometimes
call their critics, even other Jews and Israelis, ‘anti-semitic’.
It is important to note here that the goals of the Israeli far-right are the mirror image of
the goals of Palestinian radicals, who call for the destruction of Israel, and whose attacks
against Israel are justified as legitimate actions against an occupying force. For both
Palestinian radicals and the Israeli far-right, force is the solution to the Palestinian
problem, and in some ways they are indirectly allied in their efforts to obstruct peace
negotiations and prevent the emergence of a Palestinian state in the occupied territories.
33
Critics of Israel’s policies in the occupied territories argue that Palestinians want peace
and security just like Israelis, but that desperation is born among people with nothing left
to lose: as Palestinians confront more settlements and settlers in the occupied territories,
as well as curfews, border closures, house demolitions and military force—violent
responses have become more frequent. In 1999 Ehud Barak, who would soon become
prime minister of Israel, seemed to agree with this ‘dovish’ perspective when asked what
he would do if he were born a Palestinian. He replied: “I would have joined a terrorist
organization”. Critics of past Israeli policy want Israel to make the concessions that they
feel are necessary to accomplish peace—such as the removal of Israeli settlements and
military forces, and ultimately the formation of a viable Palestinian state. In sum, the
‘hawks’ assume that Palestinians will continue to attack Israel even after they have an
independent state, and ‘doves’ argue that if Palestinians receive an acceptable peace deal,
they will stop attacking Israel.
Critics of the US-Israeli partnership argue that the US can never be a fair peace broker in
the Arab-Israeli conflict because it has in fact permitted, encouraged and even funded
(through continuous aid to Israel) the building of settlements in the territories and Israeli
military responses to Palestinian aspirations for self-determination. They argue that
official US protests against Israel’s policies in the occupied territories, such as settlement
building and human rights abuses, are not backed up with credible threats to cut foreign
aid to Israel. From this perspective, loyal US support for Israel means that the US is also
responsible for the human rights abuses committed by Israel (Document 17).
To some of these critics, unwavering US support, and US-sponsored peace negotiations,
mean that Israeli leaders will never have to comply with peace terms that would satisfy
the aspirations of the Palestinian people. As a result, many argue that partnership with the
US is actually hurting Israel—that Israel’s efforts to hold onto the territories by creating
settlements and maintaining military control over these areas means that Israel will never
make a lasting peace with its neighbors, and will always be endangered. From this
perspective, an international UN-sponsored peace initiative would offer more peaceful,
long-term results.
The scope of action for leaders, both hawkish and dovish, is strongly influenced by the
actions of individuals and groups on the ground. Sadly, the hawks have an advantage in
this regard: the rising violence between Israelis and Palestinians means that Israeli hawks
can find more evidence to support their arguments that all Palestinians, and not just
smaller radical groups, seek the destruction of Israel. Any Palestinian attack on any
Israeli results in popular support for Israeli retribution (hawkish policies), and attacks on
Palestinians. Because Palestinian violence against Israelis leads to popular support for the
hawks, some critics wonder whether hawkish leaders order IDF military actions and
assassinations of Palestinian leaders in the territories—especially during ceasefires—in
order to stimulate further violence from Palestinians and slow the peace process
(Document 31).
34
As we will see below, in the first intifada, or mass ‘uprising’ (1987-1993), Palestinians
mainly used rocks against Israeli guns. In the second intifada (2000-present), the violence
has escalated on both sides. In both intifadas, Israeli leaders (both Labor and Likud) have
demanded an end to demonstrations and violence before negotiations could begin or
continue. Palestinians, who desperately need the unity found in intifada activity to raise
international support and pressure on Israel, and who feel that Israel is not negotiating in
good faith, cannot rationally cease their protests without real incentives beyond Israeli
promises of further negotiations. For their part, Palestinian radicals usually want the
negotiations to fail. Thus, Israeli leaders’ demand to end violence before negotiations
often means that they can delay hard decisions on removing settlers and military forces
from the occupied territories—and the ultimate creation of a Palestinian state. If the
doves are right, this can only lead to a prolonged war of attrition.
All parties to the conflict presumably seek security, but at their most extreme, the Israeli
far-right and Palestinian radicals see both the problem and the solution as violence. The
current cycle of violence probably began in 1980 with the killing of six religious Jews in
Hebron and visibly accelerated in 1994 after the killing of 29 Palestinians (Hebron
Massacre). After the Hebron Massacre, Hamas claimed credit for the first suicide
bombing against Israel. In the spiral of killing and revenge killing, provocation and
response, innocent victims on both sides suffered horribly—while the Israeli far-right and
Palestinian radicals ‘benefited’. For these reasons, except for acts of violence that
strongly influence the course of historical events, we will not dwell on violent activities
by either side. When you encounter information on these events, keep in mind that the
actions of Israeli or Palestinian individuals or groups are not necessarily condoned by all
other Israelis or Palestinians! Also remember that each side bears a measure of
responsibility for the escalation of violence.
35
The First Intifada (1987-1993)
In December 1987, Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza started a mass uprising
against the Israeli occupation. This uprising, or intifada (which means ‘shaking off’ in
Arabic), was not initiated or orchestrated by the PLO leadership in Tunis. Rather, it was a
spontaneous popular mobilization that drew on the organizations and institutions
developed under occupation. The intifada involved hundreds of thousands of people,
many with no previous resistance experience, including children, teenagers and women.
For the first few years, it involved many forms of civil disobedience by unarmed
participants, including massive demonstrations, general strikes, refusal to pay taxes,
boycotts of Israeli products, political graffiti and the establishment of underground
schools (since regular schools were often closed by the military during the uprising). It
also included stone throwing, Molotov cocktails and the erection of barricades to impede
the movement of Israeli military forces.
Intifada activism was organized through popular committees under the umbrella of the
United National Leadership of the Uprising (UNLU). The UNLU was a coalition of the
four PLO parties active in the occupied territories: Fatah, the PFLP, the DFLP and the
PPP. When known leaders of the uprising were arrested by Israeli soldiers, new, often
unknown people quietly stepped forward to take their place. This broad-based popular
resistance drew unprecedented international attention to the situation facing Palestinians
in the West Bank and Gaza, and challenged the occupation as never before. Images of
Palestinian children throwing rocks at armed Israeli soldiers created a wider sense of
sympathy for Palestinians, who were vastly unequal to the military might of their
occupiers.
The US hoped that the intifada would create a new generation of Palestinians who would
agree to talk with the US in a much more narrow framework—one that didn’t stress
international law and UN resolutions. The US still refused to talk to the PLO. But the
uprising’s leadership, who communicated with their own people through daily leaflets
distributed through streets and marketplaces across the territories, made one thing very
clear. Our diplomatic address, they told the world’s press and the world’s leaders, is in
Tunis, with the leadership of the PLO. Every effort by Israel, the US and others to find an
‘alternate’ leadership failed.
In the summer of 1988, Jordan’s King Hussein severed all administrative and economic
ties with the West Bank, and explained his move as an expression of support for the PLO.
He reminded the world that “Jordan is not Palestine,” dashing the hopes still floating
around in Washington for a ‘Jordanian solution’ to the Palestinian problem.
Under the leadership of Minister of Defense Yitzhak Rabin, Israel tried to smash the
intifada with ‘force, power and blows’, and army commanders instructed troops to break
the bones of demonstrators. From 1987 to 1991 over 1,000 Palestinians, including over
200 under the age of sixteen, were killed by Israeli forces. By 1990, most of the UNLU
leaders had been arrested and the intifada lost its cohesive force, although it continued for
several more years. Political divisions and violence within the Palestinian community
escalated, especially the growing rivalry between the various PLO factions and Islamist
organizations (Hamas and Islamic Jihad). Palestinian militants killed over 250
Palestinians suspected of collaborating with the occupation authorities and about 100
Israelis during this period.
36
Although the intifada did not bring an end to the occupation, it convinced many Israelis
that the occupation could not continue. The intifada also shifted Palestinian political
initiative from the PLO leadership in Tunis to the occupied territories. Palestinian
activists in the occupied territories demanded that the PLO adopt a clear political
program to guide the struggle for independence. In response, the PNC convened in
Algeria in November 1988, recognized the state of Israel, formally accepted a two-state
solution, proclaimed an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, and
renounced terrorism. The Israeli government did not respond to these gestures, claiming
that nothing had changed and that the PLO was a terrorist organization with which it
would never negotiate. The US did acknowledge that the PLO’s policies had changed and
opened diplomatic channels in Tunis, but did little to encourage Israel to abandon its
uncompromising position.
In December 1988 Arafat was invited to address the UN General Assembly. The US,
however, refused to grant him a visa to come to New York to speak at UN headquarters.
In response, the entire membership and staff of the UN General Assembly, including
translators, clerks, security guards and assistants as well as diplomats, packed up and
traveled to Geneva to hear Arafat speak. In his speech Arafat built on the Palestinian
peace initiative and formally recognized Israel, making official what had long been the
PLO’s unofficial support for a two-state solution. He also called for a UN-sponsored
international peace conference. Within hours, U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz
announced his intention to open talks with the PLO. It was the first break with
Kissinger’s 1975 commitment to Israel that the US would refuse to negotiate with the
PLO.
The US-PLO dialogue that followed was brief and unproductive. Washington wanted the
Palestinians to accept Israel’s plan for elections in the occupied territories, from which
the PLO would be excluded, with the best possible result a narrow version of autonomy.
The PLO refused, and the talks stalled. Then, in the spring of 1990, a group representing
a minor PLO faction directed by Abu Abbas, a known terrorist living in Iraq, tried to
attack Israel from the Mediterranean but was intercepted by the IDF. 3 Arafat asserted that
neither he nor Fatah had any advance knowledge of the attack, but the US insisted that
the PLO condemn the attack and punish those responsible in order to show clear
opposition to terrorism. The PLO issued a general statement repeating its policy of
opposition to any military actions targeting civilians. The US considered the PLO
response inadequate, called off the US-PLO dialogue, and refused further contact until
the PLO demonstrated, to US satisfaction, a more sincere opposition to terrorism.
At this time the international scene was in turmoil as the Soviet Union neared collapse.
The Berlin Wall had fallen, the Cold War was at an end, and a few months later Iraq
would invade and occupy Kuwait.
3
Abu Abbas, leader of the Palestine Liberation Front, gained notoriety for directing the 1985 hijacking of
the Italian cruise ship, the Achille Lauro. Leon Klinghoffer, a wheelchair-bound, 69 year-old American
Jew, was killed and thrown overboard during the highjacking.
37
The Madrid Conference
US and Israeli failure to respond meaningfully to PLO moderation resulted in PLO
opposition to the US-led attack on Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War. The PLO did not
endorse Iraq’s annexation of Kuwait, but it saw Saddam Hussein’s challenge to the US
and the Gulf oil-exporting nations as a way to alter the regional status quo and focus
attention on the question of Palestine. After the war the PLO was diplomatically isolated.
Kuwait and Saudi Arabia cut off financial support they had been providing, bringing the
PLO to the brink of crisis.
After the Gulf War, the US sought to stabilize its position in the Middle East by
promoting a resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Despite their turn against the PLO,
Kuwait and Saudi Arabia were anxious to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict and remove
the regional instability it created. The Bush administration felt obligated to its Arab allies,
and pressed a reluctant Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir (of the Likud party) to
open negotiations with the Palestinians and the Arab states at a multilateral conference
convened in Madrid, Spain, in October 1991.4 Shamir’s conditions, which the US
accepted, were that the PLO be excluded from the talks and that Palestinian desires for
independence and statehood not be directly addressed.
The Madrid conference was mainly non-substantive, intended only to launch the new
peace initiative. The substance came after the conference, in the form of separate ‘tracks’
of bilateral negotiations. This meant that Israel negotiated separately with Syria,
Lebanon, Jordan and the Palestinians. In subsequent negotiating sessions held in
Washington, D.C., Palestinians were represented not by the PLO but by a delegation
from the occupied territories. Participants in this delegation were subject to Israeli
approval, and residents of East Jerusalem were barred on the grounds that the city is part
of Israel. Although the PLO was formally excluded from these talks, its leaders regularly
advised the Palestinian delegation. Although Israeli and Palestinian delegations met many
times, little progress was achieved. Later, after leaving office, Prime Minister Shamir
publicly announced that his strategy was to drag out the Washington negotiations for ten
years, by which time the annexation of the West Bank would be an accomplished fact.
A new Israeli Labor Party government, led by Yitzhak Rabin, assumed office in June
1992 and promised rapid conclusion of an Israeli-Palestinian agreement. Instead, the
Washington negotiations became stalemated after December 1992, when Israel expelled
over 400 Palestinian residents of the occupied territories who were accused, but not tried
or convicted, of being radical Islamist activists. Human rights conditions in the West
Bank and Gaza deteriorated dramatically after Rabin assumed office. This undermined
the legitimacy of the Palestinian delegation to the Washington talks, and prompted the
resignation of several delegates.5
4
Because they had voted for his opponent in the previous presidential race, Bush felt relatively free of
potential domestic Jewish opposition. Bush’s willingness to compel Israeli leaders to the bargaining table,
and Clinton’s subsequent pro-Israel stance, explains why many in the Arab world supported and applauded
the election of Bush’s son, president George W. Bush, in 2000.
5
Madrid’s Israel-Jordan track led to a 1994 peace treaty between the two countries. Talks between Syria and
Israel bogged down over when Israel would withdraw from the Golan Heights, and what Syria’s ‘full peace’
would look like. Lebanon’s talks with Israel, largely derivative of the Israel-Syria track, also stalled.
38
Lack of progress on the Israeli-Palestinian track, and deterioration of the economic and
human rights conditions in the West Bank and Gaza, also accelerated the growth and
popularity of a radical Islamist challenge to the PLO. Hamas established a military arm,
the Izz al-Din al-Qassam brigade, committed to the assassination of Israelis and
Palestinian collaborators. Violent attacks against Israeli targets by Hamas and Islamic
Jihad further increased tensions. Ironically, before the intifada, Israeli authorities had
funded and facilitated Islamist organizations as a way to divide Palestinians in the
occupied territories, and to decrease popular support for the PLO’s secular nationalism.
As the popularity of Islamists grew and challenged the relative moderation of the PLO,
Israeli leaders came to regret their policy of encouraging political Islam. Eventually,
Yitzhak Rabin came to believe that Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the broader Islamic
movements of which they were a part posed more of a threat to Israel than the PLO.
39