Roofgardener
Critical Thinker
- Joined
- Oct 14, 2015
- Messages
- 417
Hello everyone. I hope you'll forgive the impertinance of a new member creating this thread. I couldn't help but notice that most threads discussing Israel/Palestine tend to get diverted onto the issue of the Palestinian/PLO Covenant.
This originally called for the destruction of Israel of a State by violent revolution. The controversy is that the PLO where required to ammend this covenant as a precondition to inclusion in the Oslo peace negotiations. They where required to strip out the various conditions about the illegality of the State of Israel, and its destruction. The question is... was it ever actually ammended ?
This is not a dry historical issue; if the Covenant was never ammended, then the PLO is at war with Israel, and the Palestinian Authority is invalid.
So I thought I'd create this thread as a 'lightening conductor' to prevent the discussion clogging up all the OTHER "Israel" threads.
OK... here's the situation as I see it. Feel free to tear me to shreds.
Firstly, the original Palestinian National Charter.
(actually, this is the SECOND edition, formally approved by the Palestinian National Council in 1968. The FIRST edition was created in 1964. A copy can be found here
Neither look particularly condusive to peace.
Then, in the early 1990's, we had the so-called "Oslo" peace negotiations. As a pre-condition, both parties (the PLO and Israel) had to recognise each other. This led to the famous " letters of recognition"
This was truly groundbreaking stuff. Could peace TRULY be on the horizon ?
For the Israeli side, the Knesset ratified Yitzhak Rabin's commitment to recognising the PLO, albeit by a slim majority.
Yasser Arafat took the proposal to the Palestinian National Council - the only body authorised to change the Covenant. In 1996, they voted to ammend the charter, and stated that a legal team would draft a new version, with the hostile paragraphs removed, as per Arafat's letter.
And now it gets interesting.
The legal committee was never appointed. It never sat. It produced no draft, and - obviously - the PNC never voted to ratify the (non-existent) ammended version.
The old Charter is still in force.
In 1988 the Israeli Delegation to the second round of the Oslo accords complained about this. Arafat assured them that the delay was purely an administrative/beurocratic issue, and that the Covenant WOULD be ammended.
It never was.
The issue was somewhat overclouded when Arafat stormed out of the 2000 Camp David summit, and initiated the second Intifada. A few years later, HAMAS won the PA elections, triggering a chrisis for the international community, and ultimately resulting in the takeover of Gaza. Then there was the war with Hezbollah in Lebannon. Then TWO incursions into Gaza against HAMAS. With no substantive peace talks on the horizon, the issue has been somewhat sidelined. But it still exists, and would cloud any future peace talks.
And thats where we are today !
This originally called for the destruction of Israel of a State by violent revolution. The controversy is that the PLO where required to ammend this covenant as a precondition to inclusion in the Oslo peace negotiations. They where required to strip out the various conditions about the illegality of the State of Israel, and its destruction. The question is... was it ever actually ammended ?
This is not a dry historical issue; if the Covenant was never ammended, then the PLO is at war with Israel, and the Palestinian Authority is invalid.
So I thought I'd create this thread as a 'lightening conductor' to prevent the discussion clogging up all the OTHER "Israel" threads.
OK... here's the situation as I see it. Feel free to tear me to shreds.
Firstly, the original Palestinian National Charter.
(actually, this is the SECOND edition, formally approved by the Palestinian National Council in 1968. The FIRST edition was created in 1964. A copy can be found here
Neither look particularly condusive to peace.
Then, in the early 1990's, we had the so-called "Oslo" peace negotiations. As a pre-condition, both parties (the PLO and Israel) had to recognise each other. This led to the famous " letters of recognition"
This was truly groundbreaking stuff. Could peace TRULY be on the horizon ?
For the Israeli side, the Knesset ratified Yitzhak Rabin's commitment to recognising the PLO, albeit by a slim majority.
Yasser Arafat took the proposal to the Palestinian National Council - the only body authorised to change the Covenant. In 1996, they voted to ammend the charter, and stated that a legal team would draft a new version, with the hostile paragraphs removed, as per Arafat's letter.
And now it gets interesting.
The legal committee was never appointed. It never sat. It produced no draft, and - obviously - the PNC never voted to ratify the (non-existent) ammended version.
The old Charter is still in force.
In 1988 the Israeli Delegation to the second round of the Oslo accords complained about this. Arafat assured them that the delay was purely an administrative/beurocratic issue, and that the Covenant WOULD be ammended.
It never was.
The issue was somewhat overclouded when Arafat stormed out of the 2000 Camp David summit, and initiated the second Intifada. A few years later, HAMAS won the PA elections, triggering a chrisis for the international community, and ultimately resulting in the takeover of Gaza. Then there was the war with Hezbollah in Lebannon. Then TWO incursions into Gaza against HAMAS. With no substantive peace talks on the horizon, the issue has been somewhat sidelined. But it still exists, and would cloud any future peace talks.
And thats where we are today !
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