Well, that thread is not correct. Article 15 and others were proposed to be abrogated but never were. Some excerpts from the Charter, which has never been amended follows.
Article 9: “Armed struggle is the only way to liberate Palestine and is therefore a strategy and not tactics…”
Article 15: “The liberation of Palestine, from the Arab viewpoint, is a national duty to repulse the Zionist Imperialist invasion from the great Arab homeland and to purge the Zionist presence from Palestine.”
Article 19: “The partition of Palestine in 1947 and the establishment of Israel is fundamentally null and void, whatever time has elapsed, because it is contrary to the wish of the people of Palestine and its natural right to its homeland…”
Concerning last week’s bombing in Israel, Colin Powell stated that terrorists have set back the vision of the Palestinian people to live in peace with Israel. The only vision of the Palestinian people does not include Israel.
Israel signed agreements creating a framework for peace at Oslo (1993) and Wye (1998). The PLO has used those agreements to pressure Israel into more concessions, while it refuses to live up to its own obligations. Barak offere Arafat most of what he wanted during Clinton’s last year in office. Arafat refused without using the proposition as a basis for negotiation.
If Israel occupation is the cause of recent terrorism, what was the cause of terror before the wars of 1973 and 1967 when Israel occupied less (1973) or none (1967) of the land in dispute. Why was Israel attacked three times prior to 1967 by a coalition of Arab states? (And would have been attacked a fourth time if it did not make the preemptive strike in 1967.)
Ok as I said in the other thread, the offending portions of the plo charter have been revoked.
That’s from the Likud website, btw, hardly a bastion of anti-Israel bias. (Likud finds the above insufficient, btw).
Permit me to quote from the letters exchanged 9/9 - 9/10/93:
Emphasis added. I also got that from the Likud website: http://www.likud.nl/viol10.html I must also note that I thought I covered this here. Maybe I wasn’t explicit enough though.
If those represent official changes in the charter, why is it still on the PA website, after 9 years? In need of a good HTML coder? Hell, I’ll do it for free. Maybe I’ll email Arafat.
Could it be that the proclamation was passed but the action was never taken? From what you have listed, it seems as if the proclamation was a call to a redrafting, to be done by a committee at a later date. Do you know off hand if the legal committee ever got around to rewriting it? Do you know if the revised charter was ever ratified by the PNC or the Central Council?
No bloody idea. (And, btw, in the thread devoted to this issue, I mentioned this fact). Let me know how your correspondence with Arafat goes. (Dear Mr. Arafat… )
Still, none of this changes the fact that the offending phrases have been abrogated. If the PLO chooses to put an abrogated document on their website, they can be accused of hypocracy and dishonest dealing, but that does not change the reality of the, um, abrogation.
As I stated in the orginal link, the PLO charter has not been rewritten. But so what? I don’t recall the Oslo agreement calling for a new PLO charter. (And you can’t claim that Israel has kept up its end of the Oslo agreement anyway.)
I need to study up on the Oslo agreement, so I may be wrong. However all the things that Israel has been accused of not living up to were conditional IIRC. “If Palestine shows good faith, then Israel will…”
Note it says that the PLO will submit to the PNC for formal approval. The PNC has never approved the changes. Arafat has promised on numerous occasions that those provisions will be abrogated, but they never have been.
Gosh darn it, we really have a failure to communicate here. Hey, it might be me. Don’t think so though. Let me mouth the words slowly.
(1) Oslo agreement. The PLO and Israel agree to exchange letters.
(2) They exchange letters. The letters say that the elements of the Palestinian charter that deny Israel’s right to exist will be abrogated. (Other letters, IIRC, actually specify some of the abrogated components of the charter.)
(3) Look at my post again. The PNC did convene. They stated that, “all that stuff that we referred to in the letters earlier - those parts in the charter are cancelled”. See (1) above (and below).
(4) The PNC also said, “Oh, and we’ll make a new charter when we get around to it”.
barbitu8 has stated repeatedly that the PNC has not approved the changes. Let me quote the relevant part again:
April, 1996. That was an official PNC decision. Now, I would say that it took them long enough. But to say that the Palestinian Charter still calls for the destruction of Israel blatantly spreads ignorance, IMO, and is unworthy of the SDMB.
It is extremely difficult to tell what the Palestinians want. The extremists want every Jew in Israel thrown into the sea. The moderates want a state in the West Bank and Gaza, maybe a capital in the big J. There don’t seem to be any liberals, at least ones that live there. Right now, the extremists are quite popular, despite the impracticality of their dreams. It beats thinking about how poor and oppressed you are. Arafat sits between these groups, appeasing both.
The Israelis want to be left alone. They differ somewhat in how their solitude is to be accomplished, but they all agree that they would like to feel very, very safe. If someone came along selling an invincible shield wall that would seal off the outside world, I have a feeling Israel would be the top bidder.
Sdimbert, what I was originally saying there (darnit, for some reason the quote that you referenced is not showing up!) is that I believe there should be an Israel and a Palestine and that I could certainly understand if Palestinians wanted some land to themselves. The key phrase there that a lot of people missed was "If this is true…
I assume that I can restate the underlined portion to mean, “If it is true that the Palestinians are trying to end Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, then I support their efforts.”
Again, I ask, why in the world are you supportive?
The “Palestinians” living in “Occupied Territories” are the decendents of the indiginous Arab Population of the area the British called Palestine. When the British, The Peel Commision, the League of Nations, the United Nations (later), the Syrians, the Egyptians and others all gave the new State of Israel the rights to those lands, early Zionists bought the land from its owners.
Those are historical facts. I’ve shmushed a lot together, but the basic fact remains: if you believe that, as far as “ownership of the land called Palistine” is concerned, time began when the British took it from the Ottomans, then the State of Israel has full right to the West Bank and Gaza Strip, as well as the Golan Heights, the Negev, etc, etc, etc.
They paid for it.
The unfortunate people who lived there had no idea that their absentee landlords in Syria and Jordan had sold the land out from under them. But, that’s not the fault of Israel. The current residents of these “Occupied Territories” are a dispossesed population - the Syrians, Jordanians and British have all, at various points in history, washed their hands of them.
I’ve admittedly jumbled a lot of history together here. I’d be happy to sort through it, step by step, when I have some references in front of me. I am also confident that there are a number of people here that can help me.
booklover, suffice it to say this: When I asked you why you support the “Palestinians,” I was really asking if you are familiar with the unfortunate history of the region and those people. If not, you should become so.
That’s Likud’s legal interpretation. I linked to the Likud site site because I wanted to show that even Likud grants that the PLO has amended their charter, though (in Likud’s opinion) the PLO didn’t go far enough. In their conclusion, Likud states:
The PLO has not fulfilled their Oslo obligations. [Pot-Kettle-Black, guys. Or maybe pot-serving spoon-black]
The PLO is in violation of its specific commitment to change the Covenent by 5/7/96. Emphasis added.
That is Likud’s interpretation: the actual words coming out from the PLO is what I quoted. And those words show (1) cancelling of certain articles consistent with (2) specific letters sent by Arafat.
Now maybe Arafat agreed to rewrite the Covenant. I see no evidence for this (and I don’t care). The point is that articles that call for the elimination of Israel have been omitted.
The PLO executive committe has not ratified the amendments. Hence, they are not binding. They still appear on the PA website. To me, this is just another sleight-of-hand on the PA’s part.
barbitu: Sigh. The PNC has "Amend[ed] the National Charter by canceling the articles that are contrary to the letters exchanged between the PLO and the Government of Israel, on September 9 and 10, 1993. "
Those letters (as well as 3 others; I quoted one above) specified that "those articles of the Palestinian Covenant which deny Israel’s right to exist, and the provisions of the Covenant which are inconsistent with the commitments of this letter are now inoperative and no longer valid. "
The quote that barbitu gave merely said that the executive committee has not referred to a different letter by Arafat. This different letter specified that actual articles of the Pal. Cov. that had been abrogated.
First, let’s drop the propagandistic “quotes’ around Palestinians. It’s every bit as childish and ahistorical as the idiotic Zionist Enemy and Entity bullshit the Arab extremists liked to bandy about.
Which is to say, Palestinians.
What an odd reading of history.
A rather less biased reading might go as follows.
Zionist – here let me note that the usage is in the technical and historical sense and to in the silly abusive manner that the Arabs have liked to use for Jews in Israel period – settlers started coming to the Palestinian Mandate Area (which was set up by the Great Powers for Great Britain from the Ottoman provinces of the area post. WWI) in good numbers. They followed in a line of Zionist project settlers running back to the end of the 19th century approximately, funded at various times by wealthy European Jews such as the Rothschilds. Bought up lands where possible.
Nothing unique there, find the same damn thing throughout the developing world to this day.
Certainly most land was probably bought in something resembling good faith, but there is no small amount of room for dispute about title and the like. Keep in mind that there were strong disincentives for locals to challenge land claims by Grandees with the army behind them at tax/rent time: (a) registering ownership of your land exposed you to army levies (b) exposed you more to governal whims in re taxation and other nasty things. In such a world, one can easily see a situation rather like one finds elsewhere in the third world to this day – the Land Register titles of Rent Extracting lords, and the traditional ownership world where land was handed down according to local rules.
Painting the picture otherwise rather abstracts away from a number of important issues.
Bullshit, fucking bullshit.
(a) “Israel” did not buy the land, Zionist settlers bought lands. If one takes a look at 1948 maps in re Jewish/non-Jewish holdings it is rather clear that Jewish holdings were not the entire area, where not even the majority area of the 1948 Jewish state (say 60%ish of that area if I recall correctly).
(b) It is equally clear that since that time Israel has made strategic use of sovereign eminent domain to seize lands, which while often eminently understandable also has occurred in areas where by Int’l law they don’t have right to do so.
So keep the bloody etc, etc for the agitprop sheets.
Israel has not internationally full rights to West Bank or Gaza (where historically there were few if any settlers circa 48. How one gets Golan into this I have no fucking clue, there’s one claim that is just fantastical on its face. The Greater Israel propaganda doesn’t hold water.
That being said, I entirely understand the strategic reasons for holding Golan and sympathize with the Israeli refusal to hand it over. Syria is untrustworthy under its current regime, although give a hand back they’re unlikely to do more than be obnoxious. However until there is some sign that this is the case, I wouldn’t expect them to hand back.
As for WB-Gaza, there’s not a good claim and regardless of that, the Palestinians – no childish quotes for a people who aren’t going away whatever agitprop one spins – are there and they ain’t going anywhere.
Bullshit. Parts were paid for, parts were expropriated, parts were won in war…. It may not be the cleanest tale, but Israel has given as good as it got. I have not a problem with that. Mythologizing the tale, however, I do have serious problems with.
Lebanon and Egypt actually, if one want to reference the modern countries, most of the absent ones lived there. However, these folks did know what was going on, that’s what the violence of the early Mandate was about, lashing out against a situation out of their control.
[quote]
But, that’s not the fault of Israel. The current residents of these “Occupied Territories” are a dispossesed population - the Syrians, Jordanians and British have all, at various points in history, washed their hands of them.
[/qutoe]
Whitewashing…. The Occupied Territories, no fucking quotes, were disposed by more than the Lebs, Egyptians or Brits – who in fact did precious little dispossessing in the proper sense of the term. Expulsions did occur, and within the territories expropriations have occurred.
I have grown rather tired of this spinning. I have no problem with Israel being given props for trying to be a good actor in a tough neighborhood, but I see no reason to whitewash history.
Preferably from non-propagandistic sources.
Morris might be nice. Bickerton and Klausner’s Concise History strikes me fair, even-handed and up to date.
[quote]
[from the Likud site] PNC Chairman Selim Zaanoun asserted that the Covenant had been amended but acknowledged that “there are no specific articles” which were cancelled. (An-Nahar, May 16, 1996) By contrast, Sufian Abu Zaidah, head of the PA’s Israel desk, claimed that all 33 of the Covenant’s articles had been “cancelled” and that it had been replaced by the PNC’s 1988 Algiers declaration. (interview with Israel Radio, April 25, 1996)
PA Planning Minister Nabil Shaath said after the vote that 16 articles had been altered while other PNC members claimed that 4, 7 or 10 articles had been changed (Jerusalem Post, May 1, 1996).
Faisal Hamdi Husseini, head of the PNC’s judicial committee, said on May 5 that he would submit a new Covenant for approval at a later date in which 21 articles would be changed or cancelled, thereby implying that none had actually been amended. (Jerusalem Post, May 6, 1996) [snip]
So, the PNC has adopted a resolution abrogating certain articles in the Charter calling for the destruction of Israel, but no specific articles, or portions thereof, were listed. Different members of the PNC state different things concerning what as purportedly abrogated.
All that Israel asked was that the PLO specifically issue its new amended Charter showing specifically what was abrogated, as there is obvious ambiguity in that regard, the PNC members themselves disagreeing as to that. Certainly PLO has the right to amend its own Charter as it sees fit when it sees fit, but all that was asked was to officially amend it for the time being by showing what was removed. Now, six years later, that has not been done and the original Charter is on their website.
Now, you may say that’s Likud’s interpretation. Sounds reasonable to me. Normally when an offical document is amended by abrogating certain provisions, the specific provisions are noted to be abrogated. A general statement that, “Oh, yeah, references to Israel’s right to exist are abrogated” is not the way official papers are amended.
From the charter
There’s nothing in those two Articles, out of some others, which specifically deny Israel’s right to exist. That may be a reasonable interpretation, but it may mean that Israel may exist, just not where it exists now. So, to repeat, was it so much to ask that the specific articles and portions thereof which are to be removed be so stated? Especially when the members of the PNC don’t know themselves what they did? And to repeat, six years later, the original Charter is on the PLO website. Any court would hold that such an ambiguous amendment is null and void.
My only point was that the PNC has abrograted portions of their National Charter that denied Israel’s right to exist, as reflected in letters exchanged in 1993, during Oslo I.
The PLO’s actions, on this point, satisfied both sides who negotiated Oslo I.
The actions did not satisfy, Likud, who came to power later.
Note the petulance of Likud’s website: they emphasize how the PLO did not satisfy the Oslo conditions (in their opinion) by a 1996 deadline. It smacks of score settling, as the PLO obviously cannot turn back the clock.
In general, I don’t think its too much to ask for the PLO to write another letter. But Likud seems to want them to write another letter before 1996.
At the same time, I aknowledge that Arafat currently seems to be unable / unwilling to put forward a constructive stance towards Israel. And frankly, it is my nonexpert opinion that constructive forces predominate in Israeli society while intransigent ones dominate among the Palestinian populace. But that doesn’t justify mangling the facts.
It is better to aknowledge the constructive forces and behaviors within Palestinian society than to deny them IMO. I hasten to add though, it is fair and appropriate to expose examples of the PLO speaking out of both sides of its mouth.
Flowbark has admirably captured my sentiments here.
Now, I would also like to refer readers to Mandel’s The Arabs and Zionism Before World War I for an early (1976) notation on the presence of a nascent Palestinian identity (if not quite nationalism) c. 1914. e.g. “In the years before 1914 a discrete Palistinian ‘patriotism’ (rather than full nationalism) emerged in large part as a reaction to Zionism.” (preface, xxii) Now that is not the same as nationalism and the book develops this further, however what one gets even from this early scholarship is a keen sense of the ideological, as opposed to objective, drive in placing “quotes” around Palestinian. More recent scholarship which I have read in the past has made a stronger case for a nascent regional identity. Not Euro national identity per se, but neither can one deny a P identity either.
The same work also notes the problematic nature of land title and tenure – much of its Imperial fiat for and by the state, for example. Again, the purpose of this note is to emphasize the degree to which a spin has been put on the facts as it were to delegit P complaints. There are ample factual grounds to argue on.
