palestine-israel primer

8/12/2019 Palestine-Israel Primer

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Introduction

The conflict between Palestinian Arabs and Jews is a mod-ern phenomenon, which began around the turn of theth century. Although these two groups have differentreligions (Palestinians include Muslims, Christians andDruze), religious differences are not the cause of the con-flict. It is essentially a struggle over land. Until , thearea that both groups claimed was known internationally

as Palestine. But following the war of -, this landwas divided into three parts: the state of Israel, the WestBank (of the Jordan River) and the Gaza Strip.

This is a small area: approximately , square miles,or about the size of the state of Maryland. The competingclaims are not reconcilable if one group exercises exclusivepolitical control over the total territory.

Jewish claims to this land are based on the biblicalpromise to Abraham and his descendants, on the fact thatthis was the historical site of the Jewish kingdom of Israel(which was destroyed by the Roman Empire), and on Jewsneed for a haven from European anti-Semitism. Palestinian

Arabs claims to the land are based on continuous residencein the country for hundreds of years and the fact that theyrepresented the demographic majority. They reject the no-tion that a biblical-era kingdom constitutes the basis for avalid modern claim. If Arabs engage the biblical argumentat all, they maintain that since Abrahams son Ishmael isthe forefather of the Arabs, then Gods promise of theland to the children of Abraham includes Arabs as well.They do not believe that they should forfeit their land tocompensate Jews for Europes crimes against them.

The Land and the People

In the th century, following a trend that began earlierin Europe, people around the world began to identifythemselves as nations and to demand national rights,foremost the right to self-rule in a state of their own (self-determination and sovereignty). Jews and Palestiniansboth began to develop a national consciousness, and mo-bilized to achieve national goals. Because Jews were spread

across the world (in diaspora), their national movement,Zionism, entailed the identification of a place where Jewscould come together through the process of immigrationand settlement. Palestine seemed the logical and optimal

place, since this was the site of Jewish origin. The Zionistmovement began in with the first wave of European

Jewish immigration to Palestine.At that time, the land of Palestine was par t of the Otto-

man Empire. However, this area did not constitute a single

Palestine, Israel and the Arab-Israeli ConflictA PrimerBy Joel Beinin and Lisa Hajjar

Palestinians do not believe thatthey should forfeit their land tocompensate Jews for Europescrimes against them.

M I D D L E E A S T R E S E A R C H

& I N F O R M A T I O N P R O J E C T


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political unit. The northern districts of Acre and Nabluswere part of the province of Beirut. The district of Jerusa-lem was under the direct authority of the Ottoman capitalof Istanbul because of the international significance ofthe cities of Jerusalem and Bethlehem as religious centersfor Muslims, Christians and Jews. According to Ottomanrecords, in there were , subject inhabitants ofthe Jerusalem, Nablus and Acre districts: , Muslims

(including Druze), , Christians and , Jews. Inaddition, there were perhaps , Jews with foreigncitizenship (recent immigrants to the country), and severalthousand Muslim Arab nomads (bedouin) who were notcounted as Ottoman subjects. The great majority of the

Arabs (Muslims and Christians) lived in several hundredrural villages. Jaffa and Nablus were the largest and eco-nomically most important Arab towns.

Until the beginning of the th century, most Jewsliving in Palestine were concentrated in four cities withreligious significance: Jerusalem, Hebron, Safad and Tibe-rias. Most of them observed traditional, orthodox religious

practices. Many spent their time studying religious textsand depended on the charity of world Jewry for survival.Their attachment to the land was religious rather than na-tional, and they were not involved in or supportive of

the Zionist movement which began in Europe and wasbrought to Palestine by immigrants. Most of the Jews whoimmigrated from Europe lived a more secular lifestyle andwere committed to the goals of creating a Jewish nationand building a modern, independent Jewish state. By theoutbreak of World War I (), the population of Jewsin Palestine had risen to about ,, about , ofwhom were recent settlers. The Arab population in

was ,.

Zionism

Zionism, or Jewish nationalism, is a modern politicalmovement. Its core beliefs are that all Jews constitute onenation (not simply a religious or ethnic community) andthat the only solution to anti-Semitism is the concentra-tion of as many Jews as possible in Palestine/Israel and theestablishment of a Jewish state there. The World ZionistOrganization, established by Theodor Herzl in , de-clared that the aim of Zionism was to establish a national

home for the Jewish people secured by public law.Zionism drew on Jewish religious attachment to Jerusa-

lem and the Land of Israel (Eretz Israel). But the politicsof Zionism was influenced by nationalist ideology, and bycolonial ideas about Europeans rights to claim and settleother parts of the world.

Zionism gained adherents among Jews and support fromthe West as a consequence of the murderous anti-Jewishriots (known as pogroms) in the Russian Empire in the lateth and early th centuries. The Nazi genocide (mass

murder) of European Jews during World War II killedover six million, and this disaster enhanced internationalsupport for the creation of a Jewish state.

There are several different forms of Zionism. From thes until the s, the dominant form was Labor Zion-ism, which sought to link socialism and nationalism. Bythe s, Labor Zionists in Palestine established the kib-butz movement (a kibbutz is a collective commune, usu-

ally with an agricultural economy), the Jewish trade unionand cooperative movement, the main Zionist militias (theHaganah and Palmach) and the political parties that ulti-mately coalesced in the Israeli Labor Party in .

The top leader of Labor Zionism was David Ben-Gurion,who became the first Prime Minister of Israel.

David Ben-Gurion reading the proclamation of Israels establishment, May 14,1948, in Tel Aviv. The photo is of Theodor Herzl.

A second form of Zionism was the Revisionist move-ment led by Vladimir Jabotinsky. They earned the name

Revisionist because they wanted to revise the boundar-ies of Jewish territorial aspirations and claims beyondPalestine to include areas east of the Jordan River. In thes and s, they differed from Labor Zionists bydeclaring openly the objective to establish a Jewish state(rather than the vaguer formula of a national home) inPalestine. And they believed that armed force would berequired to establish such a state. Their pre-state organi-zations that included the Betar youth movement and theETZEL (National Military Organization) formed the core

of what became the Herut (Freedom) Party after Israeliindependence. This party subsequently became the cen-tral component of the Likud Party, the largest right wingIsraeli party since the s.

Although many Jews became Zionists by the ear ly thcentury, until the rise of Adolf Hitler in Germany andthe institution of a Final Solution to exterminate world

Jewry, most Jews were not Zionists. Most orthodox Jewswere anti-Zionist. They bel ieved that only God should re-unite Jews in the Promised Land, and regarded Zionism as


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3PALESTINE, ISRAEL AND THE ARAB-ISRAELI CONFLICT: A PRIMER

a violation of Gods will. Some Jews in other parts of theworld, including the United States, opposed Zionism outof concern that their own position and rights as citizens intheir countries would be at risk if Jews were recognized asa distinct national (rather than religious) group. But thehorrors of the Holocaust significantly diminished Jewishopposition or antipathy to Zionism, and following World

War II most Jews throughout the world came to support

the Zionist movement and demand the creation of anindependent Jewish state.

Although orthodox Jews continued to oppose the cre-ation of a Jewish state for several more decades, they sup-ported mass settlement of Jews in Palestine as a meansof strengthening and protecting the community. Andfollowing the Arab-Israeli War, most orthodox Jewswho previously had resisted Zionism adopted the beliefthat Israels overwhelming victory in the war was a signof Gods support, and a fulfillment of Gods promise tobring about the Messianic era. The areas captured and oc-cupied in , especially the West Bank, were important

to religious Jews because they are the core of the biblicalLand of Israel (Judea and Samaria). Consequently, Israelsvictory in gave rise to a more religious variation ofZionism. Some existing political parties representing or-thodox Jews came to embrace religious nationalism, andnew parties and movements formed to advocate Israelspermanent control and extensive Jewish settlement in the

West Bank and Gaza.The religious-nationalist parties and groups that

constitute the far right of the Israeli political spectrummaintain a hard line on matters relating to territory andthe Arab-Israeli conflict. They have al lied with the Likud

Party. Although the Labor Party also has supported Jew-ish settlement in the West Bank and Gaza, a key differ-ence is a willingness to consider a territorial compromise

with Pales tinians as a means of ending the conflict. TheLikud and its allies oppose any territorial withdrawal. In, the Likud won the national election, for the firsttime unseating the Labor Party that had governed Israelsince independence. Since then, Likud and Labor havealternated as the governing party, sometimes formingcoalition governments when neither could achieve a clearelectoral victory.

A minority of Jewish Israelis belongs to left-wing Zion-

ist parties, which formed a political coalition known asMeretz in the s. Meretz often joins Labor-led govern-ments. Leftist Zionists are fully committed to maintainingIsrael as a Jewish state, but tend to be more willing thanthe Labor Party to compromise on territorial issues, andhave relatively greater sympathy for Palestinian nationalaspirations for a state of their own. A tiny minority ofultra-leftist Jewish Israelis identify themselves as non- oranti-Zionists. Some of them aspire to see all of Israel/Palestine transformed into a single state with citizenship

and equal rights for all inhabitants, and others advocatethe creation of a Palestinian state in all of the West Bankand Gaza Strip.

The British Mandate in Palestine

By the early years of the th century, Palestine was be-coming a trouble spot of competing territorial claims andpolitical interests. The Ottoman Empire was weakening,and European powers were entrenching their grip on areas

in the eastern Mediterranean, including Palestine. During-, as World War I was underway, the British HighCommissioner in Egypt, Sir Henry McMahon, secretlycorresponded with Husayn ibn `Ali, the patriarch of theHashemite family and Ottoman governor of Mecca andMedina. McMahon convinced Husayn to lead an Arab re-volt against the Ottoman Empire, which was aligned withGermany against Britain and France in the war. McMahonpromised that if the Arabs supported Britain in the war,the British government would support the establishmentof an independent Arab state under Hashemite rule inthe Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire, including

Palestine. The Arab revolt, led by T. E. Lawrence (Law-rence of Arabia) and Husayns son Faysal, was successfulin defeating the Ottomans, and Britain took control overmuch of this area during World War I.

But Britain made other promises during the war thatconflicted with the Husayn-McMahon understandings. In, the British Foreign Minister, Lord Arthur Balfour,issued a declaration (the Balfour Declaration) announc-ing his governments support for the establishment of a

Jewish national home in Pales tine. A third promise, inthe form of a secret agreement, was a deal that Britain andFrance struck between themselves to carve up the Arab

provinces of the Ottoman Empire and divide control ofthe region.

After the war, Britain and France convinced the newLeague of Nations (precursor to the United Nations),in which they were the dominant powers, to grant themquasi-colonial authority over former Ottoman terri-tories. The British and French regimes were known asmandates. France obtained a mandate over Syria, carvingout Lebanon as a separate state with a (slight) Christianmajority. Britain obtained a mandate over the areas

Britain made other promises dur-ing the war that conflicted withthe Husayn-McMahon understand-ings.


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which now comprise Israel, the West Bank, the GazaStrip and Jordan.

In , the British divided this region in two: east ofthe Jordan River became the Emirate of Transjordan, tobe ruled by Faysals brother Abdullah, and west of the

Jordan River became the Palestine Mandate. This was thefirst time in modern history that Palestine became a uni-fied political entity.

Throughout the region, Arabs were angered by Britainsfailure to fulfill its promise to create an independent Arabstate, and many opposed British and French control as aviolation of their right to self-determination. In Palestine,the situation was more complicated because of the Brit-ish promise to support the creation of a Jewish nationalhome. The rising tide of European Jewish immigration,land purchases and settlement in Palestine generatedincreasing resistance by Palestinian Arab peasants, jour-nalists and political figures. They feared that this wouldlead eventually to the establishment of a Jewish state inPalestine. Palestinian Arabs opposed the British Mandate

because it thwarted their aspirations for self-rule, and op-posed massive Jewish immigration because it threatenedtheir position in the country.

In and , clashes broke out between Arabs andJews in which roughly equal numbers of both groups werekilled. In the s, when the Jewish National Fund pur-chased large tracts of land from absentee Arab landowners,the Arabs living in these areas were evicted. These displace-ments led to increasing tensions and violent confrontationsbetween Jewish settlers and Arab peasant tenants.

In , Muslims and Jews in Jerusalem began to clashover their respective communal religious rights at the Wail-

ing Wall (al-Buraq in the Muslim tradition). The WailingWall, the sole remnant of the second Jewish Temple, is oneof the holiest sites for the Jewish people. But this site isalso holy to Muslims, since the Wailing Wall is adjacentto the Temple Mount (the Noble Sanctuary in the Muslimtradition). On the mount is the site of the al-Aqsa Mosqueand the Dome of the Rock, believed to mark the spot from

which the Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven on awinged horse.

On August , , members of the Betar youth move-ment (a pre-state organization of the Revisionist Zionists)demonstrated and raised a Zionist flag over the Wailing

Wall. Fearing that the Noble Sanctuary was in danger, Ar-abs responded by attacking Jews throughout the country.During the clashes, sixty-four Jews were killed in Hebron.Their Muslim neighbors saved others. The Jewish commu-nity of Hebron ceased to exist when its surviving membersleft for Jerusalem. During a week of communal violence, Jews and Arabs were killed and many wounded.

European Jewish immigration to Palestine increaseddramatically after Hitlers rise to power in , leadingto new land purchases and Jewish settlements. Palestin-

ian resistance to British control and Zionist settlementclimaxed with the Arab revolt of -, which Britainsuppressed with the help of Zionist militias and the com-plicity of neighboring Arab regimes. After crushing the

Arab revolt , the British reconsidered their governing poli-cies in an effort to maintain order in an increasingly tenseenvironment. They issued a White Paper (a statement ofpolitical policy) limiting future Jewish immigration and

land purchases. The Zionists regarded this as a betrayal ofthe Balfour Declaration and a particularly egregious act inlight of the desperate situation of the Jews in Europe, who

were facing extermination. The White Paper markedthe end of the British-Zionist alliance. At the same time,the defeat of the Arab revolt and the exile of the Palestin-ian political leadership meant that the Palestinian Arabswere political ly disorganized during the crucial decade inwhich the future of Palestine was decided.

The United Nations Partition Plan

Following World War II, escalating hostilities betweenArabs and Jews over the fate of Palestine and between theZionist militias and the British army compelled Britain torelinquish its mandate over Palestine. The British request-ed that the recently established United Nations determinethe future of Palestine. But the British governments hopewas that the UN would be unable to arrive at a workablesolution, and would turn Palestine back to them as a UNtrusteeship. A UN-appointed committee of representativesfrom various countries went to Palestine to investigate thesituation. Although members of this committee disagreedon the form that a political resolution should take, there

was general agreement that the country would have to bedivided in order to satisfy the needs and demands of both

Jews and Palestinian Arabs. At the end of , ,,Arabs and , Jews resided within the borders ofMandate Palestine. Jews had acquired by purchase to percent of the total land area of Palestine amounting toabout percent of the arable land.

On November , , the UN General Assemblyvoted to partition Palestine into two states, one Jewishand the other Arab. The UN partition plan divided thecountry in such a way that each state would have a majorityof its own population, although some Jewish settlements

would fal l within the proposed Palestinian state and manyPalestinians would become part of the proposed Jewishstate. The territory designated to the Jewish state wouldbe slightly larger than the Palestinian state ( percent and percent of Palestine, respectively) on the assumptionthat increasing numbers of Jews would immigrate there.

According to the UN par tition plan, the area of Jerusalemand Bethlehem was to become an international zone.

Publicly, the Zionist leadership accepted the UN parti-tion plan, although they hoped somehow to expand the


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borders allotted to the Jewish state. The Palestinian Arabsand the surrounding Arab states rejected the UN planand regarded the General Assembly vote as an interna-tional betrayal. Some argued that the UN plan allottedtoo much territory to the Jews. Most Arabs regarded theproposed Jewish state as a settler colony and argued thatit was only because the British had permitted extensiveZionist settlement in Palestine against the wishes of the

Arab majority that the question of Jewish statehood wason the international agenda at all.

Fighting began between the Arab and Jewish residentsof Palestine days after the adoption of the UN partitionplan. The Arab military forces were poorly organized,trained and armed. In contrast, Zionist military forces,although numerically smaller, were well organized, trainedand armed. By the spring of , the Zionist forces hadsecured control over most of the territory allotted to the

Jewish state in the UN plan.On May , , the British evacuated Palestine, and

Zionist leaders proclaimed the state of Israel. Neighbor-

ing Arab states (Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Iraq) then in-vaded Israel claiming that they sought to save Palestinefrom the Zionists. In fact, the Arab rulers had territorialdesigns on Palestine and were no more anxious to see aPalestinian Arab state emerge than the Zionists. DuringMay and June , when the fighting was most intense,the outcome of this first Arab-Israeli War was in doubt.But after arms shipments from Czechoslovakia reachedIsrael, its armed forces established superiority and con-quered territories beyond the UN partition plan bordersof the Jewish state.

In , the war between Israel and the Arab states

ended with the signing of armistice agreements. Thecountry once known as Palestine was now divided intothree parts, each under separate political control. TheState of Israel encompassed over percent of the terri-tory. Jordan occupied East Jerusalem and the hill countryof central Palestine (the West Bank). Egypt took controlof the coastal plain around the city of Gaza (the GazaStrip). The Palestinian Arab state envisioned by the UNpartition plan was never established.

The Palestinian Arab Refugees

As a consequence of the fighting in Palestine/Israel between and , over , Palestinian Arabs becamerefugees. The precise number of refugees, and questionsof responsibility for their exodus are sharply disputed.Many Palestinians have claimed that most were expelledin accordance with a Zionist plan to rid the country of itsnon-Jewish inhabitants. The official Israeli position holdsthat the refugees fled on orders from Arab political andmilitary leaders. One Israeli military intelligence docu-ment indicates that at least percent of the refugees left

due to Zionist or Israeli military actions, psychologicalcampaigns aimed at frightening Arabs into leaving, anddirect expulsions. Only about percent left on orders from

Arab authorities. There are several wel l-documented casesof mass expulsions during and after the military opera-tions of - and massacres and atrocities that led tolarge-scale Arab flight. The best-known instance of massexpulsion is that of the , Arabs of the towns of Lyddaand Ramle. The most infamous atrocity occurred at Deir

Yasin, a vil lage near Jerusalem, where est imates of thenumber of Arab residents killed in cold blood by Israelifighters range from about to over .

Palestinians

Today this term refers to the Arabs Christian, Muslim

and Druze whose historical roots can be traced to theterritory of Palestine as defined by the British mandateborders. About million Palestinians now live within thisarea, which is divided between the state of Israel, and the

West Bank and Gaza; these latter areas were captured andoccupied by Israel in . Today, over , Palestin-ians are citizens of Israel, living inside the countrys armistice borders. About . million live in the West Bank(including , in East Jerusalem) and about one mil-lion in the Gaza Strip. The remainder of the Palestinianpeople, perhaps another million, lives in diaspora, out-side the country they claim as their national homeland.

The largest Palestinian diaspora community, ap-proximately . million, is in Jordan. Many of them stilllive in the refugee camps that were established in ,although others live in cities and towns. Lebanon andSyria also have large Palestinian populations, many ofwhom sti ll l ive in refugee camps. Many Palestinians havemoved to Saudi Arabia and other Arab Gulf countriesto work, and some have moved to other parts of theMiddle East or other parts of the world. Jordan is theonly Arab state to grant citizenship to the Palestinians

Girls at school in a refugee camp.


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who live there. Palestinians in Arab sta tes generally donot enjoy the same rights as the citizens of those states.The situation of the refugees in Lebanon is especiallydire; many Lebanese blame Palestinians for the civil warthat wracked that country from -, and demandthat they be resettled elsewhere in order for the Leba-nese to maintain peace in their country. The Christianpopulation of Lebanon is particularly anxious to rid the

country of the mainly Muslim Palestinians because of afear that they threaten the delicate balance among thecountrys religious groups.

Although many Palestinians still l ive in refugee campsand slums, others have become economically successful.Palestinians now have the highest per capita rate of uni-versity graduates in the Arab world. Their diaspora expe-rience has contributed to a high level of politicization ofall sectors of the Palestinian people.

The Palestinian Arab Citizens of Israel

In , only about , Palestinian Arabs remainedin the area that became the state of Israel. They weregranted Israeli citizenship and the right to vote. But inmany respects they were and remain second-class citizens,since Israel defines itself as the state of the Jewish peopleand Palestinians are non-Jews. Until most of them

were subject to a military government that restricted theirmovement and other rights (to speech, association and soon). Arabs were not permitted to become full members

of the Israeli trade union federation, the Histadrut, until. About percent of their lands were confiscated bythe state and used for development projects that benefited

Jews primari ly or exclusively. All of Israels governmentshave discriminated against the Arab population by allocat-ing far fewer resources for education, health care, publicworks, municipal government and economic developmentto the Arab sector.

Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel have had a difficultstruggle to maintain their cultural and political identity

in a state that officially regards expression of Palestin-ian or Arab national sentiment as subversive. Until ,they were entirely isolated from the Arab world and wereoften regarded by other Arabs as traitors for living in Is-rael. Since , many have become more aware of theiridentity as Palestinians. One important expression of thisidentity was the organization of a general strike on March, , designated as Land Day, to protest the continu-

ing confiscation of Arab lands. The Israeli security forceskilled six Arab citizens on that day. All Palestinians nowcommemorate it as a national day.

Many Palestinian Arabs have also come to understandthat their political status as Israeli citizens and their pro-tracted contact with Israeli society has differentiated themfrom other Palestinians. Although most of them supportthe establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bankand the Gaza Strip, few would pursue the possibility ofrelocating there if such a state comes into existence.

The June 1967 War

After , although there was an armistice between Israeland the Arab states, the conflic t continued and the regionremained imperiled by the prospect of another war. Thiswas fueled by an escalating arms race as countries bui ltup their military caches and prepared their forces (andtheir populations) for a future showdown. In , Israeljoined with Britain and France to attack Egypt, ostensiblyto reverse the Egyptian governments nationalization of theSuez Canal (then under French and British control). Israeliforces captured Gaza and the Sinai Peninsula, but wereforced to evacuate back to the armistice lines as a result

of UN pressure led by the US and the Soviet Union (inan uncharacteristic show of cooperation to avert furtherconflict in the Middle East). By the early s, however,the region was becoming a hot spot of Cold War rivalryas the US and the Soviet Union were competing with oneanother for global power and influence.

In the spring of , the Soviet Union misinformedthe Syrian government that Israeli forces were massing innorthern Israel to attack Syria. There was no such Israelimobilization. But clashes between Israel and Syria hadbeen escalating for about a year, and Israeli leaders hadpublicly declared that it might be necessary to bring down

the Syrian regime if it failed to end Palestinian commandoattacks against Israel from Syrian territory.

Responding to a Syrian request for assistance, in May Egyptian troops entered the Sinai Peninsula borderingIsrael. A few days later, Egyptian president Gamal Abdel-Nasser asked the UN observer forces stationed betweenIsrael and Egypt to evacuate their positions. The Egyptiansthen occupied Sharm al-Shaykh at the southern tip of theSinai Peninsula and proclaimed a blockade of the Israeliport of Eilat on the Gulf of Aqaba, arguing that access

Palestinian Arab citizens of Israelhave had a difficult struggle tomaintain their cultural and politi-cal identity in a state that officially

regards expression of Palestinianor Arab national sentiment as sub-versive.


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to Eilat was through Egyptian territorial waters. Thesemeasures shocked and frightened the Israeli public, whichbelieved it was in danger of annihilation.

As the mili tary and diplomatic crisis continued, on June, Israel preemptively attacked Egypt and Syria, de-stroying their air forces on the ground within a few hours.

Jordan joined in the fighting belatedly, and consequentlywas attacked by Israel as well . The Egyptian, Syrian andJordanian armies were decisively defeated, and Israelcaptured the West Bank from Jordan, the Gaza Strip andthe Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, and the Golan Heightsfrom Syria.

The war, which lasted only six days, establishedIsrael as the dominant regional military power. The speedand thoroughness of Israels victory discredited the Arab

regimes. In contrast, the Palestinian national movementemerged as a major actor after in the form of thepolitical and military groups that made up the PalestineLiberation Organization (PLO).

The Occupied Territories

The West Bank and the Gaza Strip became distinct geo-graphical units as a result of the armistice that dividedthe new Jewish state of Israel from other parts of MandatePalestine. From -, the West Bank, including East

Jerusalem, was ruled by Jordan, which annexed the area in

and extended citizenship to Palestinians living there.During this period, the Gaza Strip was under Egyptianmilitary administration. In the war, Israel capturedand occupied these areas, along with the Sinai Peninsula(from Egypt) and the Golan Heights (from Syria).

Israel established a military administration to governthe Palestinian residents of the occupied West Bank andGaza. Under this arrangement, Palestinians were deniedmany basic political rights and civil liberties, includingfreedom of expression, freedom of the press and freedom of

political association. Palestinian nationalism was criminal-ized as a threat to Israeli security, which meant that evendisplaying the Palestinian national colors was a punishableact. All aspects of Palestinian life were regulated, and oftenseverely restricted by the Israeli military administration.For example, Israel forbade the gathering wild thyme(za`tar), a basic element of Palestinian cuisine.

Israeli policies and practices in the West Bank and Gaza

have included extensive use of collective punishmentssuch as curfews, house demolitions and closure of roads,schools and community institutions. Hundreds of Pales-tinian political activists have been deported to Jordan orLebanon, tens of thousands of acres of Palestinian landhave been confiscated, and thousands of trees have beenuprooted. Since , over , Palestinians have beenimprisoned without trial, and over half a million havebeen tried in the Israeli military court system. Torture ofPalestinian prisoners has been a common practice sinceat least , and dozens of people have died in detentionfrom abuse or neglect. Israeli officials have claimed that

harsh measures and high rates of imprisonment are neces-sary to thwart terrorism. According to Israel, Palestinianterrorism includes all forms of opposition to the occupa-tion (including non-violence).

Israel has built hundreds of settlements and permittedhundreds of thousands of its own Jewish citizens to moveto the West Bank and Gaza, despite that this constitutes abreach of international law. Israel has justified the violationof the Fourth Geneva Convention and other internationallaws governing military occupation of foreign territory onthe grounds that the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are nottechnically occupied because they were never part of the

sovereign territory of any state. Therefore, according tothis interpretation, Israel is not a foreign occupier but alegal administrator of territory whose status remains tobe determined. The international community has rejectedthe Israeli official position that the West Bank and Gazaare not occupied, and has maintained that internationallaw should apply there. But little effort has been mountedto enforce international law or hold Israel accountable forthe numerous violations it has engaged in since .

Jerusalem

The UN partition plan advocated that Jerusalem becomean international zone, independent of both the proposed

Jewish and Palestinian Arab states. In the Arab-Is-raeli War, Israel took control of the western part of Jeru-salem, while Jordan took the eastern part, including theold walled city containing important Jewish, Muslim andChristian religious sites. The armistice line cut thecity in two. In June , Israel captured East Jerusalemfrom Jordan and almost immediately annexed it. It reaf-firmed its annexation in .

Jewish settlement on a hill top in the West Bank.


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Israel regards Jerusalem as its eternal capital. Arabsconsider East Jerusalem part of the occupied West Bankand want it to be the capital of a Palestinian state.

The Palestine Liberation Organization(PLO)

The Arab League established the PLO in as an ef-

fort to control Palestinian nationalism while appearingto champion the cause. The Arab defeat in the warenabled younger, more militant Palestinians to take overthe PLO and gain some independence from the Arabregimes.

The PLO includes different political and armed groupswith varying ideological orientations. Yasser Arafat is theleader of Fatah, the largest group, and has been PLO chair-man since . The other major groups are the PopularFront for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), the Demo-cratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) and,in the occupied territories, the Palestine Peoples Party

(PPP, formerly the Communist Party). Despite factionaldifferences, the majority of Palestinians regard the PLOas their representative.

In the s, the PLOs primary base of operationswas Jordan. In -, fighting with the Jordanian armydrove the PLO leadership out of the country, forcing it torelocate to Lebanon. When the Lebanese civil war startedin , the PLO became a party in the conflict. After theIsraeli invasion of Lebanon in , the PLO leadershipwas expelled from the country, relocat ing once more toTunisia.

Until , Israel did not acknowledge Palestinian na-

tional rights or recognize the Palestinians as an indepen-dent party to the conf lict. Israel refused to negotiate withthe PLO, arguing that it was nothing but a terrorist orga-nization, and insisted on dealing only with Jordan or other

Arab s tates. It rejected the establishment of a Palestinianstate, insisting that Palestinians should be incorporatedinto the existing Arab states. This intransigence endedwhen Israeli representatives entered into secret negotia-tions with the PLO, which led to the Oslo Declaration ofPrinciples (see below).

UN Security Council Resolution 242After the war, the UN Security Council adoptedResolution , which notes the inadmissability of theacquisition of territory by force, and calls for Israeli with-drawal from lands seized in the war and the right of allstates in the area to peaceful existence within secure andrecognized boundaries. The grammatical construction ofthe French version of Resolution says Israel shouldwithdraw from the territories , whereas the English ver-sion of the text calls for withdrawal from territories.

(Both English and French are official languages of theUN.) Israel and the United States use the English versionto argue that Israeli withdrawal from some, but not all,the territory occupied in the war satisfies the require-ments of this resolution.

For many years the Palestinians rejected Resolution because it does not acknowledge their right to nationalself-determination or to return to their homeland. It callsonly for a just settlement of the refugee problem. By call-

ing for recognition of every state in the area, Resolution entailed unilateral Palestinian recognition of Israelwithout recognition of Palestinian national rights.

The October 1973 War

After coming to power in Egypt in late , PresidentAnwar Sadat indica ted to UN envoy Gunnar Jarring thathe was willing to sign a peace agreement with Israel inexchange for the return of Egyptian territory lost in (the Sinai Peninsula). When this overture was ignoredby Israel and the US, Egypt and Syria decided to act to

break the political stalemate. They attacked Israeli forcesin the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights in October, on the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur. The surpriseattack caught Israel off guard, and the Arabs achievedsome early military victories. This prompted Americanpolitical intervention, along with sharply increased mili-tary aid to Israel. After the war, US Secretary of StateHenry Kissinger pursued a diplomat ic strategy of limitedbilateral agreements to secure partial Israeli withdrawalsfrom the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights while

Palestinians in Ramallah demonstrating against Israeli ocuppation forces.


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avoiding negotiations on more difficult issues, includingthe fate of the West Bank and Gaza. By late theseefforts had exhausted their potential, and there was noprospect of achieving a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peacesettlement.

In late , Sadat decided to initiate a separate overtureto Israel. His visit to Jerusalem on November , ledto the Camp David accords and the signing of an Egyp-

tian-Israeli peace treaty in .

Camp David I

In September , President Jimmy Carter invited Sadatand Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin to CampDavid, a presidential retreat in Maryland. They workedout two agreements: a framework for peace between Egyptand Israel, and a general framework for resolution of theMiddle East crisis, i.e. the Palestinian question.

The first agreement formed the basis of the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty signed in . The second agreement

proposed to grant autonomy to the Palestinians in the WestBank and the Gaza Strip, and to install a local administra-tion for a five-year interim period, after which the finalstatus of the territories would be negotiated.

Only the Egyptian-Israeli part of the Camp David ac-cords was implemented. The Palestinians and other Arabstates rejected the autonomy concept because it did notguarantee full Israeli withdrawal from areas captured in or the establishment of an independent Palestin-ian state. In any case, Israel sabotaged negotiations bycontinuing to confiscate Palestinian lands and build newsettlements in violation of the commitments Menachem

Begin made to Jimmy Carter at Camp David.

The Intifada

In December , the Palestinian population in theWest Bank and Gaza started a mass upris ing against theIsraeli occupation. This uprising, or intifada (whichmeans shaking off in Arabic), was not started or or-chestrated by the PLO leadership in Tunis. Rather, it wasa popular mobilization that drew on the organizationsand institutions that had developed under occupation.The intifada involved hundreds of thousands of people,

many with no previous resistance experience, includingchildren, teenagers and women. For the first few years,it involved many forms of civil disobedience, includingmassive demonstrations, general strikes, refusal to paytaxes, boycotts of Israeli products, political graffiti andthe establishment of underground schools (since regu-lar schools were closed by the military as reprisals forthe uprising). It also included stone throwing, Molotovcocktails and the erection of barricades to impede themovement of Israeli military forces.

Intifada activism was organized through popular com-mittees under the umbrella of the United National Lead-ership of the Uprising. The UNLU was a coalition of thefour PLO parties active in the occupied territories: Fatah,the PFLP, the DFLP and the PPP. This broad-based resis-tance drew unprecedented international attention to thesituation facing Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza,and challenged the occupation as never before.

Under the leadership of Minister of Defense YitzhakRabin, Israel tried to smash the intifada with force,power and blows. Army commanders instructed troopsto break the bones of demonstrators. From to Israeli forces killed over , Palestinians, includingover under the age of sixteen. By , most of theUNLU leaders had been arrested and the intifada lost itscohesive force, although it continued for several moreyears. Political divisions and violence within the Palestin-ian community escalated, especially the growing rivalrybetween the various PLO factions and Islamist organiza-tions (HAMAS and Islamic Jihad). Palestinian militants

killed over Palestinians suspected of collaboratingwith the occupation authoriti es and about Israelisduring this period.

Although the intifada did not bring an end to the oc-cupation, it made clear that the status quo was untenable .The intifada shifted the center of gravity of Palestinianpolitical initiative from the PLO leadership in Tunis tothe occupied territories. Palestinian activists in the oc-cupied territories demanded that the PLO adopt a clearpolitical program to guide the struggle for independence.In response, the Palestine National Council (a Palestin-ian government-in-exile), convened in Algeria in No-

vember , recognized the state of Israel, proclaimedan independent Palestinian state in the West Bank andthe Gaza Strip, and renounced terrorism. The Israeligovernment did not respond to these gestures, claimingthat nothing had changed and that the PLO was a ter-rorist organization with which it would never negotiate.The US did acknowledge that the PLOs policies hadchanged, but did little to encourage Israel to abandonits intransigent stand.

The Madrid Conference

US and Israeli failure to respond meaningfully to PLOmoderation resulted in the PLOs opposition to the US-ledattack on Iraq during the Gulf War. The PLO did notendorse Iraqs annexation of Kuwait, but it saw SaddamHusseins challenge to the US and the Gulf oil-exportingstates as a way to alter the regional status quo and focusattention on the question of Palestine. After the war, thePLO was diplomatically isolated. Kuwait and Saudi Arabiacut off financial support they had been providing, bring-ing the PLO to the brink of crisis.


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After the Gulf War, the US sought to stabil ize i ts po-sition in the Middle East by promoting a resolution ofthe Arab-Israeli conflict. Despite their turn against thePLO, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia were anxious to resolvethe Arab-Israeli conflict and remove the potential forregional instability it created. The administration ofPresident Bush felt obliged to its Arab allies, and presseda reluctant Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir to

open negotiations with the Palestinians and the Arabstates at a multilateral conference convened in Madrid,Spain, in October . Shamirs conditions, which theUS accepted, were that the PLO be excluded from thetalks and that the Palestinian desires for independenceand statehood not be directly addressed.

After the 1991 Gulf War, the PLOwas diplomatically isolated and on

the brink of crisis.

In subsequent negotiating sessions held in Washing-ton, DC, Palestinians were represented by a delegationfrom the occupied territories. Participants in this del-egation were subject to Israeli approval, and residentsof East Jerusalem were barred on the grounds that thecity is part of Israel. Although the PLO was formallyexcluded from these talks, its leaders regularly consulted

with and advised the Pal estinian de legation. Although

Israeli and Palestinian delegations met many times,little progress was achieved. Prime Minister Shamirannounced after he left office that his strategy was todrag out the Washington negotiations for ten years, by

which time the annexation of the West Bank would bean accomplished fact.

A new Israel i Labor Par ty government led by YitzhakRabin assumed office in June and promised rapidconclusion of an Israel-Palestinian agreement. Instead,the Washington negotiations became stalemated afterDecember , when Israel expelled over Pales-tinian residents of the occupied territories who were

accused (but not tried or convicted) of being radicalIslamist activ ists. Human rights condi tions in the WestBank and the Gaza Strip deteriorated dramati cally afterRabin assumed office. This undermined the legitimacyof the Palestinian delegation to the Washington talksand prompted the resignation of several delegates.

Lack of progress in the Washington talks and de-terioration of the economic and human rights condi-tions in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip acc eleratedthe growth of a radical Islamist challenge to the PLO.

Violent attacks against Israeli targets by HAMAS (Is-lamic Resistance Movement) and Islamic Jihad furtherexacerbated tensions. Ironically, before the intifada,Israeli authorities had enabled the development ofIslamist organizations as a way to divide Palestiniansin the occupied territories. But as the popularity ofIslamists grew and challenged the moderation of thePLO, they came to regret their policy of encouraging

political Islam as an alternative to the PLOs secu-lar nationalism. Eventually, Yitzhak Rabin came tobelieve that HAMAS, Jihad and the broader Islamicmovements of which they were a part posed more ofa threat to Israel than the PLO.

The Oslo Accords

The weakness of the PLO after the Gulf War, thestalemate in the Washington talks, and fear of radicalIslam brought the Rabin government to reverse thelong-standing Israeli refusal to negotiate with the PLO.

Consequently, Israel initiated secret negotiations inOslo, Norway directly with PLO representatives whohad been excluded from the Madrid and Washingtontalks. These negotiations produced the Israel-PLO Dec-laration of Principles, which was signed in Washingtonin September .

The Declaration of Principles was based on mutualrecognition of Israel and the PLO. It established thatIsrael would withdraw from the Gaza Strip and Jericho,with additional withdrawals from further unspecif iedareas of the West Bank during a five-year interim pe-riod. During this period, the PLO formed a Palestinian

Authority (PA) wi th self -gove rning (i .e . municipal)powers in the areas from which Israeli forces were re-deployed. In January , elections were held for aPalestinian Legislative Council and for the presidencyof the PA, which was won handi ly by Yasir Arafat. Thekey issues such as the extent of the territories to beceded by Israel, the nature of the Palestinian entityto be established, the future of the Israeli settlementsand settlers, water rights, the resolution of the refugeeproblem and the status of Jerusalem were set aside tobe discussed in final status talks.

The PLO accepted this deeply flawed agreement with

Israel because it was weak and had little diplomatic sup-port in the Arab world. Both Islamist radicals and localleaders in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip challenged

Arafats leadership. Yet only Arafat had the prest ige andnational legitimacy to conclude a negotiated agreementwith Israel .

The Oslo accords set up a negotiating process with-out specifying an outcome. The process was supposedto have been completed by May . There were manydelays due to Israels reluctance to relinquish control


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over the occupied territories, unwillingness to makethe kinds of concessions necessary to reach a finalstatus agreement, and periodic outbursts of violenceby Palestinian opponents of the Oslo process, espe-cially HAMAS and Jihad. During the Likuds return topower in -, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahuavoided engaging seriously in the Oslo process, whichhe distrusted and fundamentally opposed.

A Labor-led coalition government led by Prime MinisterEhud Barak came to power in . Barak at first concen-trated on reaching a peace agreement with Syria. When hefailed to convince the Syrians to sign an agreement thatwould restore to them less than all the area of the GolanHeights occupied by Israel in , Barak turned his at-tention to the Palestinian track.

During the protracted interim period of the Osloprocess, Israels Labor and Likud governments builtnew settlements in the occupied territories, expandedexisting settlements and constructed a network of by-pass roads to enable Israeli settlers to travel from their

settlements to Israel proper without passing throughPalestinian-inhabited areas. These projects were un-derstood by most Palestinians as marking out territorythat Israel sought to annex in the final settlement. TheOslo accords contained no mechanism to block theseunilateral actions or Israels violations of Palestinianhuman and civil rights in areas under its control.

Final status negotiations between Israel and the Pal-estinians were to have begun in mid-, but only gotunderway in earnest in mid-. By then, a series ofpainfully negotiated Israeli interim withdrawals left thePalestinian Authority with direct or partial control of

some percent of the West Bank and percent ofthe Gaza Strip. The Palestinian areas were surroundedby Israeli-controlled territory with entry and exit con-trolled by Israel.

The Palestinians expectations were not accommo-dated by the Oslo accords. The Oslo process requiredthe Palestinians to make their principal compromises atthe beginning, whereas Israels principal compromisesbeyond recognition of the PLO were to be made in thefinal status talks.

Camp David IIIn July , President Clinton invited Prime MinisterBarak and President Arafat to Camp David to concludenegotiations on the long-overdue final status agreement.Barak proclaimed his red lines: Israel would not returnto its pre- borders; East Jerusalem with its ,

Jewish se tt lers would remain under Israel i sovereignty;Israel would annex settlement blocs in the West Bankcontaining some percent of the , Jewish set-tlers; and Israel would accept no legal or moral responsi-

bility for the creation of the Palestinian refugee problem.The Palestinians, in accord with UN Security Councilresolution and their understanding of the spirit ofthe Oslo Declaration of Principles, sought Israeli with-drawal from the vast majority of the West Bank and theGaza Strip, including East Jerusalem, and recognitionof an independent state in those territories.

The distance between the two parties, especially on

the issues of Jerusalem and refugees, made it impos-sible to reach an agreement at the Camp David sum-mit meeting in July . Although Barak offered a farmore extensive Israeli withdrawal from the West Bankthan any other Israeli leader had publicly considered,he insisted on maintaining Israeli sovereignty over East

Jerusalem. This was unacceptable to the Palest inians andto most of the Muslim world. Arafat left Camp Davidwith enhanced stature among hi s consti tuents becausehe did not yield to American and Israeli pressure. Barakreturned home to face political crisis within his owngovernment, including the abandonment of coalition

partners who felt he had offered the Palestinians toomuch. However, the Israeli taboo on discussing the fu-ture of Jerusalem was broken. Many Israelis began torealize for the first time that they might never achievepeace if they insisted on imposing their terms on thePalestinians.

The Fall 2000 Uprising

The deeply flawed peace process initiated at Oslo,combined with the daily f rustrations and humiliationsinflicted upon Palestinians in the occupied territories,

converged to ignite a second intifada beginning inlate September . On September , Likud leader

Ari el Sh aro n vis it ed th e Noble Sa nct uary (Templ eMount) in the company of armed guards; in thecontext of Julys tense negotiations over Jerusalemsholy places, and Sharons well-known call for Israeliannexation of East Jerusalem, this move provokedlarge Palestinian protests in Jerusalem. Israeli soldierskilled six unarmed protesters. These killings inaugu-rated over a month of demonstrations and clashesacross the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. For a briefperiod, these demonstrations spread into Palestinian

towns inside Israel.In relative terms, the second intifada is already

bloodier than the first. As in the previous intifada, Pal-estinians threw stones and Molotov cocktails at Israelisoldiers, who responded with rubber-coated steel bul-lets and live ammunition. But both sides have employedgreater force than in -. The militant wing ofFatah, which has coordinated many street actions, nowhas a substantial cache of small arms and has fired oftenon Israeli troops. The Israeli military response escalated


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dramatically after two soldiers, allegedly lost in thePA-controlled West Bank town of Ramallah , were killedOctober by a Palestinian mob returning from thefuneral of an unarmed young man whom soldiers hadshot dead the day before. The IDF attacked PA instal-lations in Ramallah, Gaza and elsewhere with helicoptergunships and missiles. Subsequently, the IDF has notalways waited for Israelis to die before answering Pal-

estinian small arms fire with tank shells and artillery,including the shelling of civilian neighborhoods in the

West Bank and Gaza .For these actions and the use of live ammunition

to control demonstrations of unarmed Palestinians,several international human rights organizations havecondemned Israel for use of excessive force. The UNSecurity Council passed a similar condemnation, fromwhich the US abstained, and on October , the UNGeneral Assembly approved a resolution condemning

Israel. Israel, the US and four Polynesian island na-tions voted no, and a third of the assembly abstained.Despite a truce agreement at Sharm al-Sheikh, a lateragreement to quell violence between Arafat and Shi-mon Peres and Bill Clintons attempts to restart nego-tiations in January , the second intifada did notlook like it would end soon. In December , Barakcalled early elections for prime minister to forestall a

likely vote of no confidence in the Knesset. He willface Ariel Sharon in the February election. To dateover people, about percent of them Palestinian,have been killed in the violence. While the outcomeof the uprising is very unclear, it is probably impos-sible to resume the Oslo peace process without majormodifications to its basic framework. The Palestinianstreet has definitively rejected Oslo, and top officialsof the PA now say that UN resolutions must form thebasis of future final status talks.

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