In September 1993, the P.L.O., as an organization, became a signatory to the Declaration of Principles and Israel's negotiating partner. This meant that on a broad set of issues, formal commitments were needed -- to try and ensure, as much as possible, that the P.L.O. leadership had clearly broken with past positions, practices and patterns of bad faith, which had marked its conduct as a coalition of "Fedayee" (i.e. terrorist) organizations.
At various points in their history, the P.L.O. and its constituent organizations were committed to a strategy of eliminating Israel as a state. (This strategy was embodied, at the time, in the Palestinian National Covenant.) They were implicated in:
* Extensive terrorist activity;
* Breach of agreements and understandings reached with host Arab states;
* Abuse and misgovernment in the zones which their "State within a State" controlled in Lebanon.
It is against this background that Israel felt obliged to demand formal commitments on some of the most basic and presumably obvious aspects of the process. Such commitments were indeed obtained; but more often than not, they were interpreted in a slippery way, particularly as regards the key issues of security, the use of violence, and the prevention of terrorism.
Against the mounting evidence of bad faith, as detailed below, Israel -- and other parties engaged in the negotiations -- kept alive the hope for a stable peace, based on the assumption that the process, and its momentum, would modify Arafat's stance on compliance and on the question of violence as an option. This hope has now been shattered.
As early as Arafat's own speech on the White House lawn, on September 13, 1993, there were indications that for him, the D.O.P. did not necessarily signify an end to the conflict. He did not, at any point, relinquish his uniform, symbolic of his status as a revolutionary commander; moreover, in terms of the broader historic "narrative," as distinct from the official position at the negotiating table, the map of "Palestine" remained as it has always been for him, the entire territory of pre-1948 mandatory Palestine.
On various occasions, Arafat continued to use the language of Jihad, literally a "Struggle," but in the specific (religiously colored) context of the Palestinian struggle, a clear reference to the violent option....Of special interest, in this context, are Arafat's repeated references to the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah, signed by the Prophet Muhammad with his Meccan enemies when they were still stronger than him, and then abandoned (as he conquered the city) within a much shorter time than the Treaty itself warranted. The first such reference made public came shortly after the signing of the Interim agreement, in the "Jihad" speech he made at the Mosque in Johannesburg (obtained by the Jewish community, and broadcast in Israel in May 1994).
What Hudaybiyyah means for him was made
To Arafat, the map of "Palestine" remained as it has always been, the entire territory of pre-1948 mandatory Palestine.
"Did the Prophet, Allah's Messenger, the Last of the Prophets, really accept a humiliation [as "umar bin al-khattab blamed him?] No, and no again. He did not accept a humiliation. But every situation has its own circumstances" (Palestinian Television, August 21, 1995).
The reference to the Hudaybiyyah treaty resurfaced in 1998, coupled with the warning that "all the options are open to the Palestinian people." (Orbit Television, April 18, 1998). In essence, here was a rationale for accepting Oslo and the place at the negotiations, and the various commitments involved, not as the building blocks of trust and cooperation but as temporary measures, to be shed off when circumstances allow.
To Muslim audiences, such as the one he had
in the Mosque in Johannesburg in May 1994 (one of
the first such speeches in the post-Oslo phase) Arafat --
a former Muslim Brother, forced to leave Nasser's Egypt
[(Continued on p.6)]
December 2000 - 5 - Outpost