How many more times can one beat this dead horse?
When the Palestinians reached the lowest point of their nationalexistence, they did what the Jews had done in similarcircumstances: They found solace in composing prayers of rage.The Palestinians have been expelled and scattered throughout adozen states, their homeland divided up among Israel, Jordan andEgypt, their national identity wiped out from the face of the earth.Jews prayed, “Pour your wrath upon the goyim,” and claimed that thegoyim were worse than beasts. The Palestinians decided to destroythe State of Israel and to send the Jews back to where they hadcome from. That is how the “Palestinian Charter” was born.
I doubt whether the Palestinians have ever derived any use out ofthis document. Perhaps it has lifted their morale in some of theirdarkest moments. However, the Jews have most certainly made gooduse of it. This wretched Charter has been put to use as thecentral tool in Israeli propaganda. Every time the Palestinianscomplain about a new wrong done to them, the Charter is taken outof the drawer. You want to eliminate Israel, so you deserve it!
The Charter was voided de facto a mere year after its finalformulation. In 1969 the PLO adopted a newplatform: “The establishment of a democratic,non-denominational state, where Moslems, Christians and Jewswould live in equality.” This was and has remained an untenableprogram, but at least it expressed the premise ofacceptance of Jews to stay on the land.
Throughout the years I have asked hundreds of Palestinians, amongthem PLO activists, to tell me what the Charter says.Often, the responses were rather amusing: Practically none of thoseasked knew what it actually said, and a few provided utterlyfictional responses. On the other hand, the late ProfessorYehoshaphat Harkavi devoted many years of his life to thepropagation of this Charter, so that every Israeli child wouldknow it by heart (until his day of revelation one Yom Kippur, when heinstantly turned from a devouring hawk into a cooing dove).
When the Palestinian National Council declared in 1988, by anoverwhelming majority, a Palestinian State on a portion of the landof Palestine, the Charter finally died. Dead but not buried. Whichis why Israelis still imagine this horse to be alive. For Arafat itis a very lucrative deal: He keeps selling this dead horse to Israelover and over again, with Israel willing to pay a very high pricefor the carcass every single time.
And now it is happening once again. The dead horse seems to be waggingits tail. So instead of discussing serious political and securityissues, the debate, once again, turns to the issue of abolishing theabolished Charter.
I do not know the particular circumstances in which PresidentClinton told Netanyahu, “You are ridiculous!” — butI would not be surprised if it was in connection with the subject ofthe Charter. To placate members of his party who had not yet heardof the horse’s demise, Netanyahu once again demanded that the Charterbe abolished. Not by the PLO Executive Committee, nor by thePLO Central Committee, but by two-thirds of the membership of the”Palestinian National Council” in another vote. And that istruly ridiculous.
- First of all, in the world of politics, there is no custom of abolishing declarations. New declarations simply come in their place. Russia did not abolish the Communist Manifesto.
Britain did not abolish the Balfour Declaration, which assured therights of non-Jews in Palestine. The Likud and its predecessors didnot abolish the platform demanding “a Jewish state on both sides ofthe Jordan.” The U.N. did not abolish the partitionresolution of 1947, according to which, among others, Ramleh and Lodbelong to the Palestinian Arab state.
- Second: The “Palestinian National Council” represents all Palestinians around the world. If Israel demands that it be convened, 3 million Palestinians in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan are automatically brought in, and that means the Right of Return. It would be comparable to Israel being told to convene the Zionist
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Congress in order to change the Basel program.
- Third: This Council has never been elected. It was arbitrarily appointed many years ago. Every organization belonging to the PLO nominated representatives. It includes organizations serving Syria and Iraq, as well as guerilla organizations
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which have long since ceased to exist. The important Islamic factions are not represented at all. It gives a significant voice to bodies once considered important, such as the Popular Front of Habash amd the Democratic Friont of Hawatmeh, which have since become far less important.
- Fourth: The opposition within the Council (including agents of Assad and Saddam Hussein) wields there much more power than it currently holds on the Palestinian street. Contrary to the Legislative Council of the Palestinian Authority, which was democratically elected under strict international supervision, the
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Palestinian National Council is a relic of the past.
Clinton understands this. Because he wants peace and understandsthat only Arafat can deliver it, he sees in the Israeli demand aninsufferable folly. Unless (and I think that Clinton suspectsas much), the goal is precisely to prevent the abolition of theCharter and to cripple Arafat’s attempts to eliminate terrorism.
Following Clinton’s demand, the agreement states that members ofthe Palestinian National Council will be invited to a mass conventionalong with many others wishing to attend, Clinton would speak, andin the end, those present would express their “support” of peaceand of Arafat’s declaration regarding the abolition of theanti-Israeli paragraphs of the Charter.
Netanyahu signed this, but now he is disavowing it. The dead horse isstill galloping around the Likud meadows. It has to be killed onceagain.