The November 1988 Palestine national council resolutions in Algiers and their aftermath

Abstract

Although Arafat's 14 December 1988 statement in Geneva was described by PLO spokesmen as an accurate interpretation of the resolutions adopted in Algiers on 15 November by the PLO's Palestine National Council, the disparity between the two statements calls for a detailed examination of the PNC resolutions to determine the current posture and intentions of the PLO. At the Algiers session, a Palestinian Declaration of Independence and a Political were approved. This study examines the PNC resolutions included in those documents in light of Arafat's Geneva Statement and other pronouncements made by top PLO leaders subsequently to the Algiers session. Despite claims to the contrary, nowhere in the PNC resolutions themselves is there any explicit recognition of Israel. Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, which may be construed as implying recognition of Israel's to exist, were accepted by the PNC only tangentially as a basis for an conference. And that oblique acceptance was further eroded by additional preconditions: acceptance of the Palestinians' right to self‐determination--i. e., an independent state--and of all relevant UN resolutions--some of which contradict 242/338. It has been argued that by partially basing its Declaration of Independence on UN Resolution 181 of 1947, which partitioned Palestine into an Arab state and a Jewish the PNC implicitly accepted Israel's to exist. But the PNC referred to 181 exclusively as a source of international legitimacy for the Palestinian not the Jewish state. Nowhere in its resolutions did the PNC define the borders of the Palestinian state it declared, which by implication would have also defined the borders of Israel it was ready to accept. Subsequent statements by PLO leaders suggest that the PNC may still intend to revitalize its 1974 phase program for the liberation of all Palestinian soil. Furthermore, the PNC rejected direct negotiations with Israel, derogated Israel's sovereign to determine admission and exclusion of would‐be immigrants by insisting on the Palestinians' right of return to all of Palestine, described Israel as a fascist, racist, colonialist state, and took no steps to amend its 1968 Palestine National Covenant, which calls for Israel's destruction. And other than Arafat's Stockholm and Geneva statements to the Western press, virtually all subsequent pronouncements by top PLO leaders--particularly in Arabic--further aggravate the doubts that the PNC genuinely intended to recognize Israel. Just five days after clearly and unambiguously renouncing terrorism in Geneva, Arafat stated that he had meant to condemn, not renounce, terrorism and essentially only to repeat the PNC resolutions on that issue. The PNC had predicated its rejection of terrorism in all its forms on the reaffirmation of several previous formulations, each of which leaves the PLO with complete freedom to conduct terrorist attacks. Language: en