Palestinian National Charter

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The Palestinian National Charter ( Arabic الميثاق الوطني الفلسطيني, DMG al-mīṯāq al-waṭanī al-filasṭīnī ) or PLO Charter is the program of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). It was written by Ahmad Shukeiri in the spring of 1964, decided by the Palestinian National Council at its founding meeting from May 28 to June 1, 1964 in East Jerusalem , and supplemented on July 17, 1968 in Cairo . This version has remained unchanged to this day.

The main objective of the PLO is the establishment of a secular Palestinian nation state on the entire former British mandate of Palestine . She strictly rejects the UN partition plan for Palestine from 1947, calls the founding of the state of Israel "completely illegal" and calls for the expulsion of the Jews who immigrated to Palestine since 1917 . These goals should be achieved through "armed struggle".

In the Oslo Peace Process (1988–1998), the PLO recognized Israel's right to exist , promised several times to delete passages hostile to Israel and Jews from its charter and passed this change in 1998 with the necessary two-thirds majority in the National Council. In the following years, various PLO representatives made the deletion of preconditions dependent. Contrary to the resolution, the wording of the 1968 Charter was not changed.

Emergence

Ahmad Shukeiri represented the Palestinians in the Arab League in 1964 and supported Egypt's President Gamal Abdel Nasser in his attempt to establish the PLO as the political umbrella organization for all Palestinians fighting against Israel . Nasser wanted to bring terrorist attacks by Palestinians under his control in order to reduce the risk of war after Egypt's military defeat in the Suez War of 1956, and at the same time to distinguish himself as a supporter of the Palestinians. Thirteen Arab leaders approved the founding of the PLO at a summit meeting in Cairo and previously elected Shukeiri as the first PLO chairman. He was supposed to prepare the founding conference and, above all, to get King Hussein of Jordan to approve, which he succeeded in doing. On May 28, 1964, 422 delegates from all over the Middle East founded the PLO and adopted its constitution, army and the national charter drafted by Shakeiri. In the same year, the PLO was admitted to the Arab League as the official representative of the Palestinians.

Fatah , led by Yasser Arafat , did not adhere to the guidelines of the PLO and, with its military arm Al-Assifa, committed numerous terrorist attacks against Israel and its citizens, including in Israel itself. PLO leader Ahmad Shukeiri condemned these attacks in 1965 and ensured a resolution the Arab League, which obliged its member states to take action against Al-Assifa. Arafat and other Fatah leaders were temporarily imprisoned, but forced their release and the attacks continued for years without the support of the Arab states and against the will of many Palestinians.

After the Six-Day War of June 1967, in which the attacked Israel militarily occupied the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank , Fatah and the PLO grew closer. Now the PLO also saw the “armed struggle” as the only remaining means of achieving its goals. In July 1968, at the instigation of Fatah leader Yasser Arafat, the National Council included Article 9 in its charter, thereby enshrining the armed struggle against Israel as its method. In February 1969, Arafat had the charter tightened again and the goal of eradicating Israel clearly formulated. Under his chairmanship, the PLO carried out numerous terrorist attacks against Israel, Israeli and Jewish institutions in the Middle East and Europe in the decades that followed.

content

The charter consists of 33 articles.

  • Article 1 calls Palestine “the homeland of the Arab, Palestinian people”. It is "an inseparable part of the entire Arab fatherland and the Palestinian people are an integral part of the Arab nation".
  • According to Article 2, Palestine is "an indivisible territorial unit within the boundaries it had at the time of the British mandate".
  • According to Article 3, the Arab Palestinian people have "legal entitlement" to this area and "the right, after the liberation of their country, to determine their fate according to their wishes and exclusively according to their own decision and will".

The Charter thus laid claim to a Greater Palestine that encompassed the entire British Mandate, including Transjordan. It declared on the one hand a special ethnic identity of the Palestinians, on the other hand their membership of a pan- Arab nation in the sense of pan-Arabism . From the outset, the Charter only grants the Arab population of Palestine the right to self-determination and excludes any claim by Jews to the area in which Jews have lived for a good 3200 years.

  • According to Article 4, there is an “innate” Palestinian identity that parents pass on to children. The " Zionist occupation and the dispersion of the Arab Palestinian people by the disasters that struck them" would not have destroyed or annulled this identity.
  • Article 5 affirms hereditary national identity: Palestinians are “Arab nationals who were regularly resident in Palestine until 1947, regardless of whether they were expelled from there or remained there.” Every child of a Palestinian who has since lived in or Born outside of Palestine is also a Palestinian.
  • According to Article 6, on the other hand, only those “Jews who were regularly resident in Palestine before the start of the Zionist invasion” are to be regarded as Palestinians.

Arab Palestinians therefore have an ethnic and therefore hereditary identity, whereas Jews do not. That is why the Charter only gives Arab Palestinians and their descendants a legal right to Palestine. She hides the war of aggression of the Arab states against Israel of 1948, which was the main cause of the loss of homeland of many Palestinians ( Nakba ). In doing so, she established an image of history that portrays the Palestinians as pure victims of "catastrophes" that have befallen them. When the “Zionist occupation” or “invasion” began, she leaves open; in any event, the state of Israel would have to be eliminated and millions of Jews and their descendants who had immigrated to Palestine would be expelled or deported.

  • Articles 8 to 10 accordingly declare that “the armed struggle”, especially guerrilla warfare , is “the only way to liberate Palestine” through “an armed people's revolution”. This is a strategic, not a tactical question, also for the Arab states.
  • The other articles deal with the relationship of the aspired Greater Arabia to the liberation of Palestine and emphasize that the latter takes precedence over the self-interests of the Arab states.
  • Accordingly, Article 15 makes the liberation of Palestine a “national duty of all Arabs”. Its aim is "to counter the Zionist and imperialist aggression against the Arab homeland and to eradicate Zionism in Palestine".
  • Article 19 describes the partition of Palestine according to the UN partition plan of 1947 and the creation of the state of Israel as "completely illegal". Both were done “contrary to the will of the Palestinian people and their natural rights to their homeland”.
  • Article 20 elaborates on what Articles 4-6 left open: The 1917 Balfour Declaration , the British Mandate for Palestine, and everything based on it, are injustice. “Claims of Jews to historical and religious ties with Palestine do not match historical facts and the true concept of statehood.” Judaism is “a religion”, not an “independent nationality”. Jews are not “a single people with their own identity”, but “citizens of the states to which they belong”. Therefore, Jewish Palestinians do not have the same right of self-determination for the Charter as Arab Palestinians.
  • Article 21 rejects all international proposals or compromises "which constitute a substitute for the complete liberation of Palestine through an armed Arab revolution".
  • Article 22 declares that Zionism is "organically linked to international imperialism " and therefore contradicts all progressive liberation movements in the world. Zionism is "of a racist and fanatical nature", its goals are "aggressive, expansionist and colonialist ", its methods are " fascist ". Israel was founded as a "geographic base of imperialism" in the middle of Palestine against the "hopes of the Arab people for liberation, independence and progress" and is "a constant source of threats to peace in the Middle East and around the world". Therefore, the Palestinians expected "the support of all progressive and peaceful forces" for their liberation struggle.
  • Article 33 makes changes to the Charter dependent on a two-thirds majority of all representatives of the National Congress.

Promise of change

On January 12, 1976, the PLO Foreign Minister Faruq al-Qadumi reaffirmed the demands of the PLO Charter before the UN Security Council . The "tragedy" of the Palestinians began with the "unjust and infamous" UN partition plan in 1947. For 50 years the “Zionist enemy” has made malicious attempts to “liquidate” the Palestinians and take their land away from them. He committed acts of "extermination", be it through attempted genocide or assimilation . In order to end this aggression, the PLO had taken up armed struggle. This is directed against Israel's existence because (as Qadumi alleged, contrary to the facts), the UN had not allowed the Palestinians to express their will before the partition plan in 1947. He did not mention the 1948 war of aggression. It is "natural" for Zionism to expel the Palestinians with all available forms of terror. In order to force Israel's withdrawal from illegally occupied territories, the 1973 Yom Kippur War had become inevitable. Since then, the PLO has been in a permanent state of war with Israel, like the Arab states since 1948. At the same time, the PLO wants to achieve its goals through a majority of the UN member states. The armed struggle is not directed against the Jews in Palestine, but against the Zionist movement. Most of the Israelis of the PLO did not believe this distinction between Jews and Zionists, because their attacks affected Jews indiscriminately, the PLO charter provided for the expulsion of most Jews from Palestine and massive loss of life and property.

As a result of the First Intifada in 1987, Jordan withdrew completely from the West Bank. Thereupon the PLO chairman Yasser Arafat proclaimed the state of Palestine in Algiers on November 15, 1988 . The declaration left open which area this should encompass, but referred to "all UN resolutions since 1947" and thus indirectly recognized the UN partition plan of 1947 for the first time. It declared a renunciation of force, but at the same time proclaimed the right to resistance in the areas occupied by Israel. In an additional declaration, the PLO called for international negotiations on the basis of UN Resolution 242 and UN Resolution 238, "supplemented by the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination".

This was understood as a covert but factual recognition of Israel's right to exist. Arafat reaffirmed the willingness to negotiate and the renunciation of force in December 1988 before the General Assembly of the United Nations . However, he denied the explicit aim of the Charter, which he himself affirmed in 1968, to eradicate Zionism, and claimed that the Israelis had misunderstood the Charter: the PLO had always strived for a democratic state of Palestine with equal civil rights for Jews, Christians and Muslims and then was shocked to find "that some Israeli politicians interpreted this Palestinian dream as a plan to destroy and displace their structure".

Israel's governments had always refused to negotiate with the PLO, referring to its charter. PLO politicians had often evaded media inquiries about their validity. During a state visit to France on May 2, 1989, when asked whether the PLO charter with the aim of destroying Israel was still in force , Arafat replied: "It's called 'caduc', I believe." With that, he declared the charter to be, according to the French meaning "Obsolete, outdated, void". This was widely understood in western states as a departure from the goal of destroying Israel and recognition of UN resolution 242. The PLO vice chairman Salah Khalaf contradicted this : “There was no PLO recognition of Israel.” Arafat himself declared together with Libya's dictator Muammar al-Gaddafi at the end of 1989: “The so-called State of Israel was a consequence of the Second World War and should disappear like the Berliners Wall ". Other PLO representatives denied the interpretation of the interview statement and stressed that Arafat did not have the authority to speak for the entire PLO anyway. Arafat himself stated in January 1990: An adviser had advised him to describe the Charter as obsolete ("outdated"); but he refused.

In September 1993 Arafat wrote in a private letter to Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin : "The PLO recognizes the right of the State of Israel to exist in peace and security." The PLO hereby undertakes to achieve a peaceful conflict resolution through bilateral negotiations with Israel. This made the Oslo peace process possible. In the same letter, Arafat assured on behalf of the PLO that “the articles of the Palestinian National Charter, which deny Israel's right to exist, and the contents of the Charter that contradict the assurances of this letter, are now repealed and no longer valid are. As a result, the PLO will submit the necessary amendments to the Charter to the Palestinian National Council for approval. "

The National Council delayed the promised change several times. In the 1995 Wye Agreement brokered by US President Bill Clinton , Arafat once again promised to have the provisions on the destruction of Israel in the PLO charter annulled. On April 24, 1996, the National Council decided with an unexpectedly clear majority of 504 votes in favor, 54 against and 14 abstentions to delete these passages from the charter. At the time, this was perceived as a breakthrough across all parties in Germany. But the PLO issued various versions of the resolution passed. On the official website of the National Council it was first said: They had "decided to change / correct the charter". In the official version of the PLO, however, it said: “The Palestinian National Charter is hereby corrected by the deletion of the articles that contradict the letters that were sent between the PLO and the government of Israel on 9/10. September 1993 were exchanged. ”Neither version stated which articles should be changed in the future or have already been deleted.

After severe terrorist attacks by the PLO with over 60 Israeli deaths, Benjamin Netanyahu won the elections for prime minister in Israel in 1996. He had strongly criticized the Oslo Accords during the election campaign and made the actual amendment of the PLO charter a condition for US President Bill Clinton to continue talks with the PLO.

In December 1998, a large majority in the National Council, in the presence of Bill Clinton, reaffirmed the deletion of the anti-Israel passages from the PLO charter in a hand vote in Gaza . At the same time, ten Palestinian opposition groups declared that they would continue the armed struggle against Israel and viewed it as a legal defense.

However, the PLO did not subsequently publish a new version of the charter. It therefore remained unclear whether the passages contradicting the Oslo Accords and any negotiated peace were actually suspended. The Palestinian Mission in Germany made the 1968 version available unchanged as an official document of the PLO on the Internet. Several PLO officials have declared since 1998 that the charter had not been changed. Faruq al-Qadumi said in an interview with a Jordanian newspaper in 2004: “The Palestinian National Charter has not been amended. […] It was said that some articles were no longer effective, but they were not changed. ”This is why the Charter remained a point of contention in Israel's relationship with the PLO. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues to demand their change.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Matthias Bengtson-Krallert: The GDR and international terrorism. Tectum Wissenschaftsverlag, Baden-Baden 2017, ISBN 9783828866621 , p. 50f.
  2. ^ Matthias Bengtson-Krallert: The GDR and international terrorism. Baden-Baden 2017, p. 54f.
  3. ^ Helga Baumgarten: Arafat: between struggle and diplomacy. Ullstein, 2002, ISBN 3548364195 , p. 54
  4. ^ Matthias Bengtson-Krallert: The GDR and international terrorism. Baden-Baden 2017, p. 58
  5. ↑ a b Jeffrey Herf: Unexplained Wars against Israel: The GDR and the West German Radical Left, 1967-1989. Wallstein, Göttingen 2019, ISBN 9783835344174 , pp. 77-80
  6. ^ Leila S. Kadi (Ed.): Basic Political Documents of the Armed Palestinian Resistance Movement. Palestine Liberation Organization, Research Center, Beirut 1969, pp. 137-141; Full text by David C. Rapoport (Ed.): Terrorism: Critical Concepts in Political Science III: The third or new left wave. Routledge, London 2006, ISBN 0415316537 , pp. 447-452
  7. ^ Benny Morris: One State, Two States: Resolving the Israel / Palestine Conflict. Yale University Press, New Haven 2009, ISBN 9780300156041 , pp. 302f.
  8. ^ Friedrich Schreiber: Uprising of the Palestinians: The Intifada. Springer VS, Wiesbaden 1989, ISBN 978-3-322-97220-0 , p. 159
  9. ↑ Anthony H. Cordesman: After The Storm: The Changing Military Balance in the Middle East. Taylor & Francis, London 2019, ISBN 9780429037313 , p. 328
  10. ^ Friedrich Schreiber: Uprising of the Palestinians: The Intifada. P. 162
  11. ↑ Bleeding wound. The PLO is struggling to get rid of its charter, which seeks to "eliminate" Zionism. Der Spiegel, May 8, 1989
  12. ^ Evelien Gans: Israel - Source of Divergence. In: Evelien Gans (Ed.): The Holocaust, Israel and 'the Jew': Histories of Antisemitism in Postwar Dutch Society. Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam 2017, ISBN 9462986088 , p. 230
  13. ^ Paul Bogdanor: The Devil State. In: Edward Alexander, Paul Bogdanor (eds.): The Jewish Divide Over Israel: Accusers and Defenders. Routledge, London 2017, ISBN 9781351480499 , p. 102
  14. ^ Benjamin Netanyahu: A Durable Peace: Israel and its Place Among the Nations. Grand Central Publishing, 2009, ISBN 9780446564762 , p. 149
  15. ↑ Margret Johannsen: The Middle East Conflict: An Introduction. Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2017, ISBN 978-3-658-16088-3 , p. 54
  16. ↑ Tilman Tarach: The Eternal Scapegoat. 5th edition, Telok, Berlin 2016, p. 191
  17. ^ Todd G. Shields, Jeannie M. Whayne, Donald R. Kelley: The Clinton Riddle: Perspectives of the Forty-Second Presidency. University of Arcansas Press, 2004, ISBN 1557287805 , p. 105
  18. ↑ Bruno Schoch, Friedhelm Solms, Reinhard Mutz (eds.): Friedensgutachten 1996. LIT Verlag, Münster 1996, ISBN 3-8258-2829-8 , p. 259
  19. ^ A b Benny Morris: One State, Two States , New Haven 2009, pp. 131f.
  20. ↑ George J. Mitchell, Alon Sachar: A Path to Peace: A Brief History of Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations and a Way Forward in the Middle East. Simon & Schuster, 2017, ISBN 1501153927 , p. 75
  21. ↑ Clinton loosens fronts in the Middle East conflict. Tagesspiegel, December 14, 1998
  22. ↑ Remko Leemhuis: "I must therefore urgently advise against any additional action for Israel ...": The Foreign Office and Israel between 1967 and 1979. LIT Verlag, Münster 2020, ISBN 3643145632 , p. 224, fn. 718