Yousef Munayyer
34 μ¢¤³£ ¬μμ¬
Having led the armed struggle against
Israel for decades, Yasir Arafat’s Palestine
Liberation Organization was known and
accepted by ordinary Palestinians. By the
late 1980s, however, the group had
become a shell o its former self. Already
isolated by its exile in Tunisia, the §¢
became even weaker in 1990 after its
wealthy patrons in the Gul cut funding
when Arafat backed Saddam Hussein’s
grab for Kuwait. On the ground in the
territories, meanwhile, the Ärst intifada—
a grassroots revolt against the occupa-
tion—was making news and threatening
to displace the §¢ as the face o Palestin-
ian resistance. By embracing the Oslo
process, Arafat and his fellow §¢ leaders
found a personal path back to inÁuence
and relevance—while trapping the
Palestinian community in a bind that has
held them back ever since.
The §¢’s decision was all the more
regrettable considering the global context
in which it was made. The Soviet Union
had just collapsed, fueling a global wave
o democratization. South Africa was
dismantling apartheid, demonstrating that
a country could willingly abandon a
system o racist oppression in favor o
democracy. The §¢ could not have asked
for a more favorable moment in which to
demand equal rights in a democratic state.
Instead, the leaders o the §¢ grasped at
immediate relevance and allowed Pales-
tinians’ fundamental rights to be the
subject o three-way negotiations in which
they would always be the weakest party.TIME TO MOVE ON
The §¢’s choice condemned the Palestin-
ians to still more oppression under
military occupation and misery in refugee
camps as they waited for a mythical deal.
Decades later, even after everybody elseactually represented a return to a
historical norm o ruling the land as a
single unit. But it did so with two
systems, one for Jewish Israelis and the
other for the people living on the land
that the Israelis had conquered.
ARAFAT’S ERROR
What is the problem that the two-state
solution seeks to solve? As the Oslo
process has dragged on, the answer has
become clear: not so much a conÁict
between Israelis and Palestinians but
one among Israelis themselves. Israel
likes to consider itsel a democracy even
as it rules over millions o subjects
denied basic political rights. Endless
negotiations have only obscured that
fundamental fact. Actual progress in the
talks would threaten Jewish control o
the land, something that has proved
more important to Israel than democ-
racy. That is why the Israelis have
favored Oslo-type negotiations, which
make it appear they are earnestly trying
to deal with the Palestinian issue but
never force them to actually do so.
The Palestinian leadership, on the
other hand, has devoted itsel to the
two-state solution, even though any
state it could conceivably win through
the existing negotiating process would
fall far short o minimal Palestinian
needs. Such a state would not allow
Palestinian refugees to return to their
ancestral towns and villages, or oer
full equality to Palestinian citizens o
Israel, or grant Palestinians genuine
independence and sovereignty. Accept-
ing a role in this misbegotten exercise
was a giant strategic mistake, one driven
less by the basic needs o Palestinian
nationalism than the personal interests
o Palestinian leaders.