Tuesday, December 27, 2011

The disappearance and reappearance of Palestinian Arab nationalism, 1949-1968





Here is an interesting AP story from 1957:





The 1964 PLO Covenant is a very interesting document. Its Arabic name is "Al-Mithaq Al-Kawmee Al-Philisteeni," which roughly means The Palestinian Pan-Arabist Covenant. It is mostly wedded to the Nasserist vision, insisting on how the Palestinian cause is a pan-Arab cause, and it is replete with references to Arab unity and the Arab nation. (It also specifically excludes Gaza and the West Bank from areas wanted for "Palestine" - since those areas were considered "liberated!" Significantly, it also refers to Israel's pre-1967 existence as "occupation.")

The 1968 version of the document, in contrast, is called "Al-Mithaq Al-Watanee Al-Philisteeni" which more explicitly means "The Palestinian National Covenant." Which means that only after 1967, when hopes for an Arab military victory over Israel faded, did Palestinian Arab nationalism become reincarnated.

We see that the Palestinian Arab leadership went from Greater Syrian nationalism to Palestinian Arab nationalism to pan-Arab Nasserite nationalism and then back to Palestinian Arab nationalism, all in the course of fifty years.

All of those political movements boasted wonderfully written documents and passionate speeches explaining why their cause was the only logical, moral and legal means to justly deal with Palestinian Arabs. There were no apparent cases of whiplash as people moved from one to the next, contradictory political position. The reason is clear: all those disparate movements had one thing in common, the eradication of Jewish nationalism. Everything else was window dressing to put a polite face on what is really a philosophy of hate.

And it continues today, as Palestinian Arabs are seemingly torn between what appears to be completely different paths - the PLO's stated methods of declarations and popular resistance, or Hamas' newly stated method of embracing a strategy of stages that mimics Arafat's 1974 Phased Plan to destroy Israel, to Islamic Jihad's dedication to nothing but armed resistance, to Hezbollah's single-minded goal of utterly destroying Israel by any means possible. But in the end, they are all paper-thin veneers on top of the same underlying goal - to destroy Israel by whatever means makes the most sense at the moment.

Westerners cannot wrap their heads around the idea that an entire national movement is really not interested in liberty and freedom for their people, but rather is meant solely to destroy another people. It is literally unbelievable that Arab leaders would hold millions of people hostage simply to use them as human weapons against Israel. But like it or not, it is the truth, and it is what needs to be understood before any real progress can be made.