The Israel-Arab Reader

by Walter Laqueur

  Sons of our people, let us concert all efforts. Let all national key figures, organizations, and popular committees be united by a common will to escalate the uprising. Let all suitable organizations such as committees and units be formed in every area, on every street, and in every city, village, and camp in order to pave the road toward general civil disobedience as a more advanced struggle action. Disobedience means boycotting all enemy organs. It means boycotting the enemy economically and not paying taxes.

  Therefore, let us climb another rung of the ladder by declaring this disobedience. Let us reinforce the spirit of sacrifice and common action following the war of molotov cocktails, stones, and the raising of flags. The disobedience will be a strong blow to the enemy, its economy, and its plunder of our people’s wealth and resources. This lifeline must be cut off.

  To pave the way for the implementation of this organized process, the Unified National Leadership of the Uprising calls on our workers to stop work immediately in the Israeli settlements of the Palestinian West Bank and Gaza Strip. It calls on our workers in institutions and factories to abide by the days of the general strike and to be prepared to declare a go-slow strike for a few days in all Israeli places and institutions.

  O our heroic people, the Unified National Leadership of the Uprising, while greeting your heroism, sacrifices, and the epics of struggle being recorded by our people in Nabulus and in all parts of the homeland, and while emphasizing that struggle will continue, calls for the following:

  The immediate resignation of the appointed municipal councils as a prelude to holding democratic elections at the appropriate time;

  The [words indistinct] and abstain from paying taxes as a prelude to force the Zionist occupation authorities to cancel their [word indistinct] taxes; abstain from paying exorbitant and unfair fines imposed by the Zionist courts against the uprising detainees . . . the owners of real estate not to demand rents from shopowners due to the current circumstances;

  Abidance by the boycott of the agent al-Nahar newspaper as mentioned in the previous call; and

  Urging our masses to encourage the national economy and to boycott the Israeli goods and markets and use national goods instead.

  O masses of the glorious uprising, let the confrontation escalate, let demonstrations and marches be staged next week, let the popular sit-in strikes and the burning of tires continue on every street, let the stones of the uprising and the molotov cocktails pour down on the heads of the Israeli occupation soldiers, let all the lines of settlements be cut off, let crowded prayers be performed in mosques and churches as a prelude to declaring a comprehensive strike on Sunday and Monday, 7 and 8 February 1988, to mark the elapse of 2 months of the successful uprising and commemorate the fall of the first group of uprising martyrs. . . .

  U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz: Plan (March 6, 1988)

  The agreed objective is a comprehensive peace providing for the security of all the States in the region and for the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people.

  Negotiations will start on an early date certain between Israel and each of its neighbors which is willing to do so. Those negotiations could begin by May 1, 1988. Each of these negotiations will be based on United Nations Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, in all their parts. The parties to each bilateral negotiation will determine the procedure and agenda of their negotiation. All participants in the negotiations must state their willingness to negotiate with one another.

  As concerns negotiations between the Israeli delegation and Jordanian-Palestinian delegation, negotiations will begin on arrangements for a transitional period, with the objective of completing them within six months. Seven months after transitional negotiations begin, final status negotiations will begin, with the objective of completing them within one year. These negotiations will be based on all the provisions and principles of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 242. Final status talks will start before the transitional period begins. The transitional period will begin three months after the conclusion of the transitional agreement and will last for three years. The United States will participate in both negotiations and will promote their rapid conclusion. In particular, the United States will submit a draft agreement for the parties’ consideration at the outset of the negotiations on transitional arrangements.

  Two weeks before the opening of negotiations, an international conference will be held. The Secretary-General of the United Nations will be asked to issue invitations to the parties involved in the Arab-Israeli conflict and the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. All participants in the conference must accept United Nations Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, and renounce violence and terrorism. The parties to each bilateral negotiations may refer reports on the status of their negotiations to the conference, in a manner to be agreed. The conference will not be able to impose solutions or veto agreements reached.

  Palestinian representation will be within the Jordanian-Palestinian delegation. The Palestinian issue will be addressed in the negotiations between the Jordanian-Palestinian and Israeli delegations. Negotiations between the Israeli delegation and the Jordanian-Palestinian and Israeli delegations. Negotiations between the Israeli delegation and the Jordanian-Palestinian delegation will proceed independently of any other negotiations.

  This statement of understandings is an integral whole. The United States understands that your acceptance is dependent on the implementation of each element in good faith.

  PLO Executive Committee: Statement on the Intifada (April 1988)

  O masses of our great people, our people, through their continuous struggle and their blessed revolutionary uprising that is entering its 5th month, have scored additional achievements and victories. This has led to a deepening of the crisis of the Zionist occupation and its protectors in Washington. The entire world is now certain that this great people are determined to continue the way of jihad and struggle until, with the help of God, they achieve full victory and establish an independent Palestinian state on our sacred national soil.

  The glorious Land Day, on which a total strike was observed throughout our occupied homeland, has proven that the solid and firm unity of our nation, the cohesion and solidarity of our ranks, and the firm insistence on the singleness of representation [wihdaniyat al-tamthil ] are the strongest factors in confronting all Zionist-U.S. plots and all forms of oppression, slaughter, and destruction perpetrated by the Zionist occupation troops and the herds of the armed fascist settlers. Land Day was a day of cohesion and national solidarity among all the masses of our Palestinian people in the steadfast Galilee, the Triangle, and the Negev and in a position of clash and struggle in Lebanon and its south and in all areas of the diaspora.

  It was another day of glory and confrontation in the steadfast West Bank and Gaza against all methods of fascist terrorism invented by Israel’s rulers and generals including the war of starvation, the economic and media blockade, the perpetration of crimes and acts of slaughter against women, children, and defenseless citizens, and the demolishing of houses and communal arrests. Our heroic and faithful people have shown that these crimes can never weaken their escalating resistance or extinguish the flame of the uprising which is shaking the earth under the feet of the occupants and invaders.

  The PLO Executive Committee, having discussed in detail all developments, tasks, and ways to escalate and develop the struggle of our people and their great uprising, stresses the following: 1. Extending a salutation of pride and appreciation to the struggling masses of the Palestinian people in the Galilee, the Triangle, and the Negev for their great actions on Land Day and throughout all of the days of the blessed uprising as they firmly and faithfully joined the masses of the West Bank and Gaza and their escalating continuous revolution which constitutes, through our nation inside and outside the occupied homeland, this unified innovative revolutionary fabric. The Executive Committee calls for further consolidation, entrenchment, and adherence to national
unity and to further cohesion of the ranks of our peoples masses—children, men, and women; cadres, heroes, and revolutionaries—on the path of liberation, return, and victory.

  2. Emphasizing great appreciation for the role of the democratic forces which support the mammoth uprising of our people and firmly condemn the Nazi terrorism of Israel’s rulers against our uprising masses who demand freedom and independence, the PLO Executive Committee calls for deepening and developing this role in all fields—political and media—to break the blockade that the Israeli rulers impose with the aim of concealing their barbaric crimes from the eyes of the world.

  3. The PLO Executive Committee expresses, in the name of our entire people in all locations, the highest pride in the legendary steadfastness embodied by the blessed popular uprising through its daily epics in all sites. Every village, camp, neighborhood, and city in our occupied territory has provided its share of martyrdom, heroism, and sacrifice. They stood as a strong barrier before the enemy forces at a time when our masses in Lebanon and its south continue to pay the price of the confrontation and the clashes with more martyrs and sacrifices. All of our people proved that the banner of jihad will continue to fly high [words indistinct] with our blood, the souls of our martyrs, our captives, wounded, and detainees until the establishment of our independent state and the liberation of the precious soil of our homeland from the aggression and occupation of the Zionists.

  4. The PLO Executive Committee emphasizes the need to continue to develop all forms of revolutionary cohesion, empathy, and support by the groupings of our Palestinian people outside the homeland for the blessed popular uprising and harness all struggle, political, media, and material capabilities and resources for that purpose on the Palestinian, Arab, and international levels.

  5. The PLO Executive Committee emphasizes the need to adopt all measures and means to develop all forms of mass organization and action to maintain and escalate the uprising and to develop the role of the popular national committees in all positions under the banner of the PLO, the Unified National Command of the Uprising, until the uprising achieves its objectives of shattering the fascist racist terrorism inflicted upon the masses of our people and eliminating the abhorrent Zionist occupation and until the inalienable national rights of our struggling and persevering people are achieved.

  6. The PLO Executive Committee emphasizes the stand on which our people are unanimous in confronting the serious U.S. plans: that a just and comprehensive solution must be based on the achievement of the national rights of our people and their right to national independence under the leadership of the PLO, their sole and legitimate representative. The PLO reaffirms its complete rejection of all liquidatory plans and all forms of autonomy and the sharing of roles whatever their color and under whatever name. The PLO believes that the appropriate framework for a just solution is a UN-sponsored international conference with effective powers attended by the five permanent members of the Security Council and all the parties to the conflict in the region including the PLO, on an equal footing with the other parties and on the basis of international legality and UN resolutions on the Palestine question and the Middle East.

  We are confident that U.S. imperialism and its ally the Zionist enemy, which is squatting on our land and sanctities, will not be able to bring our people to their knees or deprive them of their legitimate right to self-determination. Our people will wrest their inalienable national rights through blood and enormous sacrifices. Foremost among these rights are their right to repatriation, to self-determination, and to establish a free and independent state with Jerusalem as its capital.

  7. The PLO Executive Committee, while it salutes the masses of our Arab nation, all of its forces, parties, institutions, and national bodies for their sincere stands in support of our people and their struggle, calls on the Arab masses to develop their support for our people’s uprising and to stand firmly in opposing liquidatory U.S.-Israeli plans which they are trying to impose on our Arab nation and the entire region. The PLO Executive Committee appeals with confidence and faith to the entire Arab nation to achieve effective Arab solidarity based on implementing the resolutions that reject separate solutions and deals. The PLO Executive Committee calls for the consolidation of the inalienable national rights of the Palestinian people on the basis of Arab commitment and Arab resolutions.

  8. The PLO Executive Committee affirms its great appreciation for the extensive solidarity with our people’s valiant and just struggle which has embarrassed and isolated the rulers of Israel and exposed official U.S. collusion with the crimes of the racist Zionists and their savage terrorism against our people, children, and women. In this regard the PLO Executive Committee salutes all friends and honorable people in the world who support our people and just cause, particularly in the African, nonaligned, and Muslim states as well as the socialist states, led by the Soviet Union and the PRC, and the friendly European countries.

  9. In accordance with its responsibilities, the PLO Executive Committee will continue its efforts through all means, forms, and capabilities to maintain the continuity of our revolutionary march and to escalate our people’s valiant uprising. The PLO Executive Committee calls upon international and friendly bodies to provide more support and backing for our struggling masses and our just cause, particularly in confronting the organized and official war of terrorism and the crimes perpetrated against our people by the fascist and racist Zionist occupation authorities. O masses of our proud people, thanks to your enormous sacrifices the day of victory is approaching. With your great unity we face the enemy and his bloody terrorism. More struggle, more unity, and more organization. Dawn is definitely coming. Our independent state is definitely coming. Our victory will be achieved with God’s blessing. In the name of God, the merciful, the compassionate. Say work, for God, His messenger, and the believers will see your work. [Koranic verse]

  Long live our people’s great uprising. Glory and immortality to the martyrs. Greetings to our detainees, prisoners, and wounded. Greetings to our valiant children, our struggling women, and our heroic men. Revolution until victory!

  United National Command of the Intifada: Calls No. 12, 16, and 18 (April-May 1988)

  Call No. 12 (April 1988)

  In the name of God, the merciful, the compassionate. Call, call, call. No voice can rise above the voice of the uprising; no voice can rise above the voice of the Palestinian people, the voice of the PLO. Call No. 12, [word indistinct] issued by the PLO—the Unified National Leadership. We will die standing, we will not submit. They will not pass, and the uprising will triumph. O masses of our heroic people; O people of stones and Molotov cocktails; you are recording in blood and light the history of your Arab nation. You are making light with your blood to brighten the long darkness of the Arabs. O children of the triumphant uprising, our uprising is continuing, baptized in chaste blood day after day, watering the beloved soil of the homeland, realizing important achievements, and strengthened by the little triumphs which are accumulating one above the other to make great victories and establish the independent Palestinian state.

  Despite the harshness of the Zionist enemy and its machine of repression and tyranny, the strong arms are challenging all military orders. The Zionist arrogance, which boasts of repressing the uprising, is being defied by our children, women, youths, and old men whose sacred stones and generous wrath are burning the occupation and its henchmen. . . .

  Our triumphant uprising and popular revolution is in its 5th month. Our Palestinian masses are facing more than two-thirds of the Israeli Army and all the herds of the Zionist settlers whom the enemy sent to the streets of our camps, villages, and towns to confront our unarmed people. This overwhelming revolution cannot be ended or liquidated by the breaking of bones, fascist killing and terrorism, mass arrests, or economic harassment. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians across our beloved homeland declare today there is no going back, that the stone revolution will not stop before the establishment of our independen
t state. This was demonstrated in the immortal Land Day when 2 million Palestinians identified themselves with the united people. Now they are rising united behind the banner which will never fall, the banner of the PLO, the banner of the unified national leadership, the banner of liberation and the independent homeland. To raise this banner over the hills of Jerusalem, the Palestinians in all towns, villages, camps, and streets are rising as one man.

  O people of Palestine, O people of the PLO, O people of the unified national leadership. After its failure to put out the fires of the revolution through repression and terror, the occupation today is resorting to rumors and to spreading lies and forged statements allegedly signed by the Unified National Leadership in an attempt to cast doubt over our people—individuals and groups. The occupation is trying to sow the seeds of factionalism and sectarianism. It is spreading rumors about arresting the editors of the calls of the Unified National Leadership. All this is aimed at weakening the front of the burning uprising. The Unified National Leadership is certain that our people will be able to confront all the false rumors of the occupation. It affirms that the Unified National Leadership is the people of the uprising, represented by all its strata, groups, and sectors.

  The Unified National Leadership includes the great martyrs whose blood is daily watering the soil of the homeland. This leadership consists of the children and youths of the stones and Molotov cocktails, the women who miscarried from the gas bombs and poison gas, the women whose husbands and sons are languishing in the Nazi prisons. The leadership consists of thousands of peasants and workers who stopped work in the Zionist settlements and who are protecting their villages, camps, and towns day and night against the tyranny and repression of the settlers and occupation soldiers.