THE PALESTINE NATIONAL CHARTER 1968: AN ANALYSIS

[Lo and behold! Another piece of juvenilia, this time on the Palestine National Charter. With such a controversial subject, it is hard to know how to view what one has previously written. Hopefully, time will resolve this deadlock, inshallah].

The Palestine National Charter of 1968 must be viewed within two historical contexts. The first of these is the Six Day War (1967) and the history of bitter conflict - two Arab-Israeli Wars waged between 1947-49 and 1956 - which preceded passage of the Charter, and the Charter’s profoundly ‘Arab', military and nationalist/revolutionary sentiments. In terms of the historiography in Palestine, the language of the Charter can be judged according to two, exclusive views: the Israeli interpretation and the Arab interpretation. Despite the document's international perspective, the 1968 Charter must be understood as an instrument of political expedience and predominantly nationalist feeling.

1

The Arab occupants of Palestine were implacably opposed to the expanding Jewish state of Israel, which was founded in May, 1948. The reasons for Arab 'hatred' were manifold. Once the British Mandate had been terminated, the Balfour Declaration had unilaterally established the Jewish 'nation' and permitted an influx of Jewish settlement (aliyah) into Palestine. Upon termination of the Mandate, approximately 80% of the population of Palestine was Arab. Upon the UN's ratification of Israel's sovereignty, thousands of Palestinian Arabs fled or were expelled ITom Palestine in what the Times History deems a 'large scale Arab emigration'. In Rafah, for instance, Jewish 'extremists' built 11 Jewish settlements in order to found a Jewish presence on former Arab territory. Furthermore, 250 Palestinian men, women and children were massacred by the Jewish military detachment, Irgun or were forced to flee their homes in 1948 at Deir Yassin in accordance with similar political, though more brutal strategic goals.

Before passage of the 1968 Charter, Palestinian guerrillas fought in two major Arab­Israeli wars (and they would figlit another contest in 1973, the Yom Kippur War). In a climate of racial violence and terrorist activity, Palestinian freedom-fighters - 'Fedayeen' - ioined with Arab forces of the 'Rescue Army' (comprising Egypt, Syria and Jordan) in mutual pursuit of the destruction of Israel. In the second Arab-Israeli conflict of 1956, Israel, in league with the imperialist concerns of Britain and France, occupied the Sinai Peninsula in order to forestall President Nasser's plan to nationalise the Suez Canal, expelling Jewish and foreign interests.

Nasser had previously styled himself 'saviour' of the Arab peoples. In the minds of disgruntled Palestinian workers, settlers and particularly guerrillas, Israel was indelibly linked with the' Judenstadt' of founding Zionist, Theodor Herzl, the Jewish activism of Chaim Weizmann's World Zionist Organisation and with the belligerent sponsorship of the Zionist Organisation of America and the Democrat Party's patronage of the fledgling Israeli State. With Soviet backing and in consequence of Nasser's 'pan-Arabist' aims, Palestinian guerrillas once again joined Egypt in an effort to 'liberate' Palestine and the Arab 'world' from 'imperial-colonialist' and particularly Israeli control.

Most importantly during six days in 1967, the Israeli Defence Force defeated the military triumvirate of Egypt, Jordan and Syria (and additional forces from Iraq, Algeria and Kuwait), the force totalling 465,000 men, in three theatres of operation. As a result of her astonishing victory, Israel gained Judea and Samaria, Bethlehem and Hebron, an area amounting to 5000 square kilometres in excess of the UN Plan of 1947. In summoning every man and woman to the military 'self-defence' of the Arab 'nation' of Palestine and the spiritual 'protection' of Jerusalem and the Holy Sites, the PLO, through its Charter, engendered mass revolutionary feeling. By provision of the Charter, Palestinian 'culture' and education was entrusted to the PLO and its 'revolutionary' organs.

The culture of the PLO Charter is summarised in 'Modem Arab History and Contemporary Problems, Part Two, for Tenth Grade Students': 'The colonial powers regarded the Zionist Movement as the means for the attainment of their greedy colonial aspirations and saw Palestine as the base for the setting up of a Jewish state, thus tearing the Arab Homeland asunder'. -The goal of the 1968 Charter, therefore, was the destruction of Jewish expansionism, invalidation of the international agreements founding Israel and political resistance to a Jewish state.

2

Amending the national charter of 1964, the Palestine National Charter of 1968 was passed in the wake of massive Arab losses during the third Arab-Israeli - 'Six Day' ­War of 1967. The initial Palestine National Charter was adopted at Port Sa' ed, Egypt. At the conference, the Arab League appointed a new organisation, the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, as 'representative' of the Palestinian people, including those in 'exile'. Under the tutelage of Ahmed Shoquaire, the PLO convened a Palestinian National Council which met in Jerusalem between 5 May and 2 June J964. The Fourth Palestinian National Council adopted the 1968 charter on 10-17 August - effecting minimal changes to the founding principles - but renewing their commitment to the armed 'annihilation' of Israel and the recapture of Eastern Jerusalem ('Al-Quds'), which had been occupied by General Ariel Sharon during the 1967 war. 500 Arab members were appointed to the PNC, incorporating the Executive Committee and the Central Committee. Specifically, the Fourth Session in Cairo inserted the sentence, 'Armed struggle is the only way of liberating Palestine' into the original Charter. Along with antipathy to the existence of Israel, this PLO clause has constituted the Gordian knot of Israeli-Palestinian 'coexistence' and an obstacle to the Middle East Peace Process.

The Palestine National Charter of 1968 invokes three values as the basis of Palestinian identity: the right of Palestinian Arabs to self-determination in respect of their 'homeland', the obligation of Arab unity and the forcible 'Arab' expulsion of Zionism. The three mottoes of Palestinian identity are national unity, mobilization and liberation from Israeli and Western domination (article 11). In declaring Palestine an 'integral regional unit' which cannot be dissolved by any treaty or political personality (article 2, 3-4), articles 1-6 provide that Palestine is fundamentally an Arab nation, in which persons born to Palestinian Arab fathers express a permanent, historic 'affiliation' with the region. In spite of the continued habitation of Jewish immigrants, the 1968 Charter proclaims the State of Israel to be illegitimate, and in adverse possession of Palestinian soil. As a result, Palestinian Arabs' spiritual attachment to their Arab homeland renders liberation of Palestine from' Zionist', Israeli government a national duty (article 7). The 'national struggle' for independence enjoins all Palestinians and refugees (‘mahajir’) to participate in armed struggle (article 9), and the 'forging' of revolutionary consciousness is incumbent upon the citizenry (especially youth). 

  The critical values of the 1968 Charter concern the demand for Arab unity and the defeat of Zionism. Israeli commentator, Professor Louis Rene Beres has argued that the paramount goal of the Palestine National Charter is the destruction of Israel, the Jewish state being invariably linked with Zionism and despoliation of the 'great' Arab homeland. In this sense, Beres maintains that Israel is embroiled in a 'zero-sum' conflict with the PLO and its 'Popular Army'. As the Israel Report and Israeli intelligence suggests, the Palestine National Charter's association of Zionism and Imperialism may decry international Zionist influence in obtaining the Balfour Declaration (ie. Chaim Weizmann, Lord Rothschild) and the political activity of American Zionist circles during the Arab-Israeli wars. Irrespective of the vague Arab designation of Zionism, the 1968 Charter's emphasis on Arab unity must be viewed in an historical perspective. Although fedayeen fought with their Egyptian, Jordanian and Syrian comrades against the Israeli Defence Force, the Arab 'commitment' to Palestinian freedom was not always altruistic. Under King Hussein, for instance, Jordan vied with Palestinian settlers for possession of the West Bank, the Golan Heights and the Huleh Valley.

Although the 1964 Charter precluded the PLO from exercising sovereignty over the Hashemite Kingdom of the West Bank (article 24: 1964), the 1968 Charter removed that clause. Moreover the economic might of Saudi Arabia was opposed to radical, popular revolution, the EI-Saud dynasty being ultimately conservative and 'traditionalist'. As one may observe in hindsight, the Arab sphere has been destabilised by the accession of radical leaders such as Ayotollah Khomeini in Iran (following the deposition of Reza Shah), and by the growth of militant Islam in Egypt and the Sudan. By way of 'armed revolution', the 1968 Charter -intended to enlist the unconditional support of every Muslim nation, monarchical or socialist, in the cause of Palestine's liberation and Arab nationalism (article 14). Indeed, the 1964 Charter emphasised that ideological orientation was of no consequence to the wider national national struggle (article 9). Since the 1970s-80s, the militant tactics of Hamas, Hezbollah, the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamic Jihad.

In the light of Arab hostility to Israel's control of the Holy Land (article 16), the bases of 1968 Palestine National Charter invokes are not colonial or internationalist in character (article 21). Article 1 proclaims Palestine to be the homeland exclusively of the Arab people. Although it is the 'basic' or paramount law of the PLO, and contains reference to the universal right of 'self-determination' and the sovereign right of power, the Charter embeds profoundly nationalist - as opposed to constitutional ­– aims. Drawing on the revolutionary premises of the French Revolution -loyalty to one's state expressing the profound dignity and independence of citizenship and the obligation to one’s fellow men - the Charter nominates the 'citizen army’ of the PLO, the Fedayeen, as the vanguard of Arab liberation in Palestine (articles 10, 30). Evidently, the Charter likens the PLO 'national struggle' for freedom ('watani') to the exertions of revolutionary organisations in Africa, Cuba and Hungary etc (articles 21, 24, 26). Although the original Charter seeks in the Preamble to comprehend 'international political relations, with its various ramifications and dimensions', it remains to be seen how the 1968 Charter will affect the PLO's commitment to Holy War, 'AI-Jihad'. The Middle East situation is still unfurling through the recent Oslo I and II Accords, UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, the Wye River Memorandum, Gaza-Jericho Agreement, Hebron Agreement and Permanent Status negotiations.