Palestinian National Covenant - The Charter and The Question of Israel's Right To Exist

The Charter and The Question of Israel's Right To Exist

Israel has always strongly objected to the Charter, which describes the establishment of the state of Israel as "entirely illegal" (Art. 19), considers Palestine, with its original Mandate borders, as the indivisible homeland of the Arab Palestinian people (1-2), urges the elimination of Zionism in Palestine and worldwide (Art. 15), and strongly urges the "liberation" of Palestine throughout.

On 14 December 1988, following an outcry from his 13 December General Assembly speech, Yasser Arafat called a press conference in Geneva to clarify his earlier statement by specifically mentioning the right of all parties concerned in the Middle East conflict to exist in peace and security, including the State of Palestine, Israel, and their neighbours. He also renounced terrorism.

Israel dismissed these statements of moderation from Arafat and the PNC resolution in Algiers, 1988 (which had been sufficient to open a dialogue with the United States) as "deceptive propaganda exercises" because (among other objections), "the PLO Covenant has not changed." (Shlaim, p. 466) In May 1989, Arafat, in a statement later criticized by Edward Said as being beyond his authority, and properly a matter for the PNC, told a French TV interviewer "C'est caduc", meaning that it, the Charter, was null and void. (transcript in Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 19, No. 2 (Winter, 1990), pp. 133–188)

In August 1993, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin insisted on changes to the Charter as part of the Oslo Accords. Following Yasser Arafat's commitment to "submit to the Palestinian National Council for formal approval" the changes to the Charter confirming that "those articles of the Palestinian Covenant which deny Israel's right to exist, and the provisions of the Covenant which are inconsistent with the commitments of this letter are now inoperative and no longer valid" in the September 9, 1993 letters of mutual recognition, the PNC met in Gaza and voted on 24 April 1996. The decision was adopted by a vote of: 504 in favor, 54 against, and 14 abstentions. The official English translation used by Israel, the PLO and the United States reads:

A. The Palestinian National Charter is hereby amended by canceling the articles that are contrary to the letters exchanged between the P.L.O. and the Government of Israel 9–10 September 1993. B. Assigns its legal committee with the task of redrafting the Palestinian National Charter in order to present it to the first session of the Palestinian Central Council."

At one time the text of the Charter at the official website of the Palestinian National Authority appended these amendments to the text of the 1968 charter; the redrafting process referred to in the second amendment still remains uncompleted.

An earlier version of the above translation is still available on the website of Palestinian American Council. The relevant text reads:

The PNC held a special session on April 24, 1996 and listened to the report made by the legal committee, reviewed the current political conditions, which the Palestinian people and the Arab nations encounter, and so the PNC decided: "Depending on the Independence Declaration and the political statement adopted by the PNC in its 19th session in Gaza on November 11, 1988 which stressed resolving conflicts by peaceful means and adopting the principle of two states, the PNC decides to:

First: Amend the articles in the National charter that contradict with the letters exchanged between the PLO and the government of Israel on Sept. 9-10, 1993.

Second: The PNC authorizes the Legal Committee to draft a new charter to be presented at the first meeting to be held by the Central Council."

This earlier version had appeared on the Palestine Minister of Information's website. Many commentators noted that the text only indicated a decision to amend the charter, not an actual amendment. Official Palestinian websites have since replaced the vague translation with the concrete version quoted above.

Yitzhak Rabin said in a speech to the Knesset on 5 October 1995, at the time of the ratification of the Oslo II Interim Agreement: "The Palestinian Authority has not up until now honoured its commitment to change the Palestinian Covenant ... I view these changes as a supreme test of the Palestinian Authority's willingness and ability, and the changes required will be an important and serious touchstone vis-à-vis the continued implementation of the agreement as a whole".

When this government was replaced by Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud government, the issue again became even more controversial, with Israel's demand for greater clarity and precision eventually expressed in the Wye River Memorandum. (See below, Events of 1998)