Palestinian Arab Sovereignty and Peace in the Middle East: A Reassessment

Abstract

1. Introductory remarks The evolutionary pace of the Palestinian Arab nationalist movement has quickened considerably since the Arab-Israeli war of June 1967. Despite setbacks, the movement has done much to increase the level of international awareness concerning the plight of the Palestinian refugees, and has managed, more than ever before, to make consideration of Palestinian nationalism fundamental in any hopes for resolution of the continuing Arab-Israeli conflict. On the other hand, the failure of Palestinian nationalism to achieve political sovereignty and territorial expression remains the single most encumbering element in the Palestine question. The absence of Palestinian sovereignty characterizes the Arab-Israeli conflict in all facets and ultimately determines much of the behavior of those states and parties involved in the conflict. The Palestinians, for reasons discussed below, have been unable to muster the international support needed to realize the goal of sovereignty. The behavior of militant Palestinians, determined in large measure by the inability of the movement to garner international support, further alienates Palestinian Arab nationalism from those parties whose influence is essential to realization of nationalist objectives.' The Palestine conflict, in which two movements of differing cultural, historical, and ethnic backgrounds confront each other over the same piece of territory, is novel in the annals of nationalism. The culmination of Zionist nationalism in the State of Israel in 1948 aborted the nationalist movement of the Palestinian Arabs and, in a sense, drove it underground to function in quasi-national exile and in the realm of terrorism, circumstances not unlike those which Zionists themselves endured prior to 1948. As a result, Zionist nationalism in the form of Israel is represented in the international community of sovereign states while Palestinian nationalism is not, except in the rather capricious policies of some of the established Arab states. The unequal status of Zionist and Palestinian Arab nationalism since 1948 renders dialogue between the two virtually impossible, and is responsible for the transferral of the conflict onto the level of established states in the region. Thus elevated, the Arab-Israeli confrontation attracts major powers, which widen the scope of the conflict and its inherent dangers. After a quarter century of these circumstances the question of the Palestinian Arab community is liable to become obscured by the preoccupation of the established states with the consequences of the conflict to themselves.