Arab Israeli Conflict

The territorial entity known as Palestine has been the object of contending religious attachments and political claims for centuries. Palestine has been the object of no less than six major wars, and countless other conflicts in between. The conflict is of such magnitude that it has been elevated to an issue of global concern. At its root, however, the conflict is a bilateral one; it persists between the Jews and Arabs of Palestine and their respective leadership: the State of Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

The PLO's demands throughout its conflict with Israel have evolved significantly over the years. The organization's overarching goal remains, as it was originally devised, the creation of a Palestinian state. However, its conception of such a state, its objectives in achieving this state, and the means sought to attain it have been modified in light of changing events. The most significant shifts, of which there are three, occurred in between the 1967 War, with the ascendancy of Fateh and Yasser Arafat, and the signing of the Oslo Accord, or Declaration of Principles, in 1993. The evolving policy of the PLO during these years shows an increasing tendency towards moderation.

This paper will trace and explain the causes of the PLO's moderation. It will examine the shifts in objective and strategy mentioned above, considering the historical and political context of each. Originally dedicated to the complete annihilation of Israel, the PLO has since come to accept the partition of historic Palestine as the ultimate solution to the conflict. This reversal of policy can be attributed to a crisis of survival, in which the two-state solution became the only means for ensuring the permanence of the PLO. The two-state solution was embraced at a "ripe" moment in order not to maximize gains, but to minimize and preclude losses.

The Question of Palestine

The "Arab-Israeli conflict" did not begin as an inter-state conflict, but originated at first between the inhabitants of mandated Palestine: the Palestinian Arabs and Zionist Jews. The conflict is, at its root, a clash between two nationalist movements (Harkabi 35). However, Palestine became an issue of greater Arab concern in the late 1940s, and remained at the center of inter-Arab politics for decades to come. In the crisis that developed in Palestine over the Balfour Declaration, heightened Jewish immigration, and ultimately, the creation of the State of Israel, the Arab states assumed responsibility for the Palestinian cause within the framework of pan-Arabism. As a result, the Palestinians relied mainly on the Arab states to defend their rights, and during this time, uniquely Palestinian organizations, parties, and leadership were subordinated to a myriad of larger Arab political movements (Cattan 115, Quandt 49). Between 1948 and 1967, then, Palestinian nationalism was relatively dormant, and the struggle for Palestine was dominated by the Arab states. In its earlier conceptions, Palestinian nationalism lacked a momentum of its own, and was merged in the general Arab nationalist movement (Cattan 115).

The Creation of the Palestine Liberation Organization

The Arab League, dominated by Egypt's Gamal Abdel-Nasser, created the PLO in 1964 (Quandt 50). On May 28, a Palestinian National Congress was convened at Jerusalem, where it proclaimed the establishment of the organization and set out an official charter, the Palestinian National Covenant. The Covenant delineated the Palestinian national program, and thus, the organization's mandate (Cattan 115). Although the conflict continued to be dominated by the Arab states under Egypt's leadership, the PLO was recognized by the larger Arab community as the "official representative of the Palestinian people" (Quandt 50).

Soon after, the 1967 War "created a new geopolitical and strategic situation in the Middle East"(Kelman 184). The new circumstances created a "gradually evolving process of change" which may be described as the "Palestinization (or re-Palestinization) of the Arab-Israeli conflict" (Kelman 184). The humiliating defeat suffered by the Arab regimes at the hands of Israel in the war, in which Israel seized more territory- and all of Palestine- accelerated the development of a Palestinian national movement free from the control of Arab governments (Quandt 50). The Palestinians, disillusioned by the Arab regimes, forsaken by the United Nations, and deprived of their national homeland, became convinced that they should take matters into their own hands, and became ever more determined to "liberate their country" (Quandt 50, Cattan 115). The Palestinians, observing the military failures of the Arab states, concluded that they could not rely on them to liberate Palestine, and decided to assume responsibility for their own struggle (Kelman 185). The "passive policy of reliance on the Arab states and their armies" was replaced by a "new, active strategy" in which the Palestinians and their cause- rather than the Arab states and their interests Ð'- became the center of the struggle (Gazit 86).

As such, pan-Arab nationalism and unity was superceded by a distinct, uniquely Palestinian nationalism, which became the legitimate basis for political organization (Cattan 150). The conflict became "Palestinianized" after 1967 in the sense that it once again became a conflict between Arabs and Jews in Palestine (Kelman 185, Gazit 85). The locus of the conflict shifted, back to its origins. It was no longer an inter-state conflict, but instead one of an intra-state nature- one between a government and a subjugated people struggling for national liberation. One of the pivotal consequences of the 1967 War, especially for the Palestinian movement was thus a re-emergence of Palestinian nationalism.

The Legitimate Rights of Palestinians

The 1967 War, as seen, marked the first significant shift in the policy of the PLO. This shift occurred in the form of greater emphasis on Palestinian nationalism and decreased emphasis on pan-Arabism. The PLO, as "sole representative of the Palestinian people", became responsible for the "legitimate rights of the Palestinian people". The Palestinians themselves, not the Arab states, would defend them. The Thirteenth Palestinian National Council established these rights as those of "return, self-determination and establishing their international state on their national soil". These had to be achieved "without any conciliation or recognition of Israel" (Yodfat 57). The rights of return, self-determination and establishing a national state, as encompassed in the notion

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