Arafat and the anatomy of a revolt

Survival

Volumn 43, Issue 3, 2001, Pages 47-60

  Sayigh, Yezid ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0038254028     PISSN: 00396338     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/00396330112331343045     Document Type: Article

References (11)

1. The 'Green Line' is the 1949 Armistice Line that defined the effective border between Israel and the neighbouring West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and Gaza Strip until 4 June 1967.
2. The term intifada (uprising) is used by Palestinians to describe their confrontation with Israel since autumn 2000. I do not regard it as an accurate or appropriate description, given the marginality of civilian resistance and unarmed mass protests, and use it here for convenience only. For an example of Israeli accounts of Arafat's behaviour, see 'Sharm El-Sheikh Fact-Finding Committee, First Statement of the Government of Israel', 28 December 2000, paragraphs 21 and 22 (inter alia).
3. The term 'Oslo framework' refers to the series of interim agreements, protocols, and memoranda of understanding signed between the Palestine Liberation Organization and Israel, starting with the Oslo Accords of September 1993.
4. The notion that Arafat could not bring himself to sign peace with Israel is curious, given the historical record: in pursuit of a negotiated settlement with Israel, Arafat persuaded the PLO to adopt diplomacy as a central strategy in 1974, fought a civil war launched by hard-line opponents of his diplomacy in 1983, signed the Oslo Accords and recognized Israel formally in 1994, and took decisive action against Islamist groups following the bombings inside Israel of spring 1996. I have studied this evolution elsewhere, in Armed Struggle and the Search for State: The Palestinian National Movement, 1949-1993 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997).
5. The relaxed rules of engagement concerning use of live and rubber-coated ammunition formed part of the IDF's 'Field of Thorns' operational plan for quick suppression of stone-throwing protests.
6. By summer 2000, there were growing calls in Israel for precisely such a wholesale onslaught. Leaked reports (such as 'The Israeli generals' plan', Foreign Report, 12 July 2001) suggest that the IDF expected reoccupation of all PA-controlled areas to cost 100-300 Israeli and at least 1,000 Palestinian deaths, and to be accompanied by the mass internment of PA police and some civilian personnel and expulsion to neighbouring Arab countries of the PLO 'returnees'. Rightwing Israeli politicians have suggested re-installing Israeli military governors in every Palestinian city or town, to rule through local civilian administrators.
7. Sari Nuseibeh, head of the Jerusalem Open University, gave rare public confirmation of PA abdication of its responsibility towards East Jerusalem in a speech commemorating Faisal Huseini on 17 July 2001.
8. The mass turnout and informal provision of law and order by PA security agencies for Faisal Huseini's funeral showed, for one day, what could be done to assert the Palestinian claim to East Jerusalem peacefully.
9. The fact that this failing was mirrored on the Israeli side by no means exonerates the Palestinian leadership for its own shortcomings.
10. Notable exceptions include roundtable discussions and public petitions organized by Miftah, the NGO headed by former Palestinian spokeswoman Hanan Ashrawi, and a panel discussion among four left-of-centre figures published in Majallat al-Dirasat al-Filastiniyyah (Beirut), Summer 2001 (no. 47), pp. 42-59).
11. The contours of such a peace deal might well be identical to the so-called Beilin-Eitan Agreement (National Agreement Regarding the Negotiations on the Permanent Settlement with the Palestinians), published on 22 January 1997. Drafted by a leading figure of the Labour left and the then-head of the Likud parliamentary faction (with then-prime ministerial candidate Netanyahu's blessing), its main elements and guiding principles resurfaced almost exactly in Barak's Camp David proposals.