From prehistory to the Ottoman era British mandate period The rise of
Zionism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries saw a growing stream of
Jewish immigration into Palestine. In 1917, during
World War I, the British Government issued the
Balfour Declaration which declared British support for the creation in Palestine of a "
national home for the Jewish people". While the declaration was enthusiastically received by many Jews worldwide, the British Government was quick to point out that it spoke of a
home, making no promise of a
state. It was nevertheless opposed by Palestinian and Arab leaders, who later claimed that the objective was a breach of promises made to the
Sharif of Mecca in 1915, in exchange for Arabs helping to fight the
Ottoman Empire during the war. The
defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War I resulted in the dismantling of their rule. In 1920, the
League of Nations granted
Britain the mandate to govern Palestine, leading to the subsequent period of British administration. Many different proposals have been made and continue to be made to resolve the dilemma of the competing objectives, including an Arab state, with or without a significant Jewish population, a Jewish state, with or without a significant Arab population, a
single bi-national state, with or without some degree of cantonization, two states, one bi-national and one Arab, with or without some form of federation, and two states, one Jewish and one Arab, with or without some form of federation. At the same times, many Arab leaders maintained that Palestine should join a larger Arab state covering the imprecise region of the
Levant. These hopes were expressed in the
Faisal–Weizmann Agreement, which was signed by soon-to-be Iraqi ruler
Faisal I and the Zionist leader
Chaim Weizmann. Despite this, the promise of a Pan-Arab state including Palestine were dashed as
Syria,
Lebanon, and
Jordan declared independence from their European rulers, while western Palestine festered in the developing Arab-Jewish conflict. In light of these developments, Arabs began calling for both their own state in the British Mandate of Palestine and an end to the British support of the
Jewish homeland's creation and to
Jewish immigration. The movement gained steam through the 1920s and 1930s as Jewish immigration picked up. Under pressure from the arising nationalist movement, the British enforced the White Papers, a series of laws greatly restricting Jewish immigration and the sale of lands to Jews. The laws, passed in
1922, 1930, and
1939, varied in severity, but all attempted to find a balance between British sympathies with the Jews and the Arabs.
McMahon–Hussein Correspondence (1915–16) under the
Ottoman Empire, until c. 1918 In the early years of
World War I, negotiations took place between the
British High Commissioner in Egypt
Henry McMahon and
Sharif of Mecca Husayn bin Ali for an alliance of sorts between the Allies and the Arabs in the Near East against the Ottomans. On 24 October 1915, McMahon sent to Hussein a note which the Arabs came to regard as their "Declaration of Independence". In
McMahon's letter, part of the
McMahon–Hussein Correspondence, McMahon declared Britain's willingness to recognise the independence of the Arabs, both in the Levant and the Hejaz, subject to certain exemptions. It stated on behalf of the Government of Great Britain that: The two districts of Mersina and Alexandretta and portions of Syria lying to the west of the districts of Damascus, Homs, Hama and Aleppo cannot be said to be purely Arab, and should be excluded from the limits demanded. With the above modification, and without prejudice of our existing treaties with Arab chiefs, we accept those limits. As for those regions lying within those frontiers wherein Great Britain is free to act without detriment to the interest of her ally, France, I am empowered in the name of the Government of Great Britain to give the following assurances and make the following reply to your letter: • Subject to the above modifications, Great Britain is prepared to recognize and support the independence of the Arabs in all the regions within the limits demanded by the Sherif of Mecca. The exemptions from Arab control of certain areas set out in the McMahon note were to seriously complicate the problems of peace in the Near East. At the time, the Arab portions of the Ottoman Empire were divided into administrative units called
vilayets and
sanjaks. Palestine was divided into the
sanjuks of Acre and Nablus, both of which were a part of the
vilayet of Beirut, and an independent
sanjak of Jerusalem. The areas exempted from Arab control by the McMahon note included "Syria lying to the west of the districts of Damascus, Homs, Hama, and Aleppo." Between 1916 and 1920, the British government interpreted these commitments as including Palestine in the Arab area. However, in the
Churchill White Paper they argued instead that "Damascus" meant the
vilayet and not the city of Damascus, and accordingly virtually all of Palestine was excluded from Arab control. The British entered into the secret
Sykes–Picot Agreement on 16 May 1916 and the commitment of the
Balfour Declaration, for example, on that understanding. The Arabs, however, insisted at the
1919 Paris Peace Conference at the end of the war that "Damascus" meant the city of Damascus – which left Palestine in their hands. However, in 1915, these problems of interpretation did not occur to Hussein, who agreed to the British wording. Despite Arab objections based in part on the Arab interpretation of the McMahon correspondence noted above, Britain was given the
League of Nations Mandate for Palestine. The Mandate was administered as two territories:
Palestine and
Transjordan, with the Jordan River being the boundary between them. The boundaries under the Mandate also did not follow those sought by the Jewish community, which sought the inclusion of the east bank of the Jordan into the Palestinian territory, to which the objective of the Mandate for a
homeland for the Jewish people would apply. It was made clear from before the commencement of the Mandate, and a clause to that effect was inserted in the Mandate, that the objective set out in the Mandate would not apply to Transjordan following the passing of the
Transjordan memorandum. Transjordan was destined for early independence. The objective of the Mandate was to apply only to territory west of the Jordan, which was commonly referred to as Palestine by the British administration, and as
Eretz Israel by the
Hebrew-speaking Jewish population.
Peel Commission (1936–37) During the
1936–39 Arab revolt in Palestine the British government formed the
Peel Commission, which recommended the formation of a Jewish and an Arab state. It called for a small Jewish state in the Galilee and maritime strip, a British enclave stretching from
Jerusalem to
Jaffa, and an Arab state covering the rest. The Commission recommended the creation of a small Jewish state in a region less than 1/5 of the total area of Palestine. The Arab area was to be joined to
Transjordan. The Arab population in the Jewish areas was to be removed, by force if necessary, and vice versa, although this would mean the movement of far more Arabs than Jews. The Zionist Congress rejected the proposal, while allowing the leadership to continue negotiating with the British. The Arab leadership rejected the proposal outright. It all came to nothing, as the British government shelved the proposal altogether by the middle of 1938. In February 1939, the
St. James Conference convened in London, but the Arab delegation refused to formally meet with its Jewish counterpart or to recognize them. The Conference ended on March 17, 1939, without making any progress. On May 17, 1939, the British government issued the
White Paper of 1939, in which the idea of partitioning the Mandate was abandoned in favor of Jews and Arabs sharing one government and put strict quotas on further Jewish immigration. Because of impending
World War II and the opposition from all sides, the plan was dropped.
World War II (1939–1945) gave a boost to the Jewish nationalism, as the
Holocaust reaffirmed their call for a Jewish homeland. At the same time, many Arab leaders had even supported
Nazi Germany, a fact which could not play well with the British. As a result, Britain pooled its energy into winning over Arab opinions by abandoning the Balfour Declaration and the terms of the League of Nations mandate which had been entrusted to it in order to create a "Jewish National Home". Britain did this by issuing the 1939 white paper which officially allowed a further 75,000 Jews to move over five years (10,000 a year plus an additional 25,000) which was to be followed by Arab majority independence. The British would later claim that that quota had already been fulfilled by those who had entered without its approval.
The Arab League and the Arab Higher Committee (1945) The framers of the Arab League sought to include the Palestinian Arabs within the framework of the League from its inception. An annex to the League Pact declared: Even though Palestine was not able to control her own destiny, it was on the basis of the recognition of her independence that the Covenant of the League of Nations determined a system of government for her. Her existence and her independence among the nations can, therefore, no more be questioned
de jure than the independence of any of the other Arab States... Therefore, the States signatory to the Pact of the Arab League consider that in view of Palestine's special circumstances, the Council of the League should designate an Arab delegate from Palestine to participate in its work until this country enjoys actual independence. In November 1945, the
Arab League reconstituted the Arab Higher Committee comprising twelve members as the supreme executive body of Palestinian Arabs in the territory of the British Mandate of Palestine. The committee was dominated by the
Palestine Arab Party and was immediately recognised by Arab League countries. The Mandate government recognised the new Committee two months later. The Constitution of the League of Arab States says the existence and independence of Palestine cannot be questioned
de jure even though the outward signs of this independence have remained veiled as a result of
force majeure. In 1946, Jewish leaders – including
Nahum Goldmann,
Rabbi Abba Silver,
Moshe Shertok, and
David Ben-Gurion – proposed a union between Arab Palestine and Transjordan. Also in 1946, leaders of the Zionist movement in the U.S. sought the postponement of a determination of the application by Transjordan for United Nations membership until the status of Mandate Palestine as a whole was determined. However, at its final session the League of Nations recognized the independence of Transjordan, with the agreement of Britain. In April 1947, during the activity of the
United Nations Special Committee on Palestine, the Arab Higher Committee articulated its demands in the solution for the Question of Palestine: • A complete cessation of the Jewish migration to Palestine. • A total halt to the sale of land to Jews • Cancelation of the British Mandate in Palestine and the Balfour Declaration. • Recognition of the right of Arabs to their land and recognition of the independence of Palestine as a sovereign state, like all other Arab states, with a promise to provide minority rights to the Jews according to the rules of Democracy.
1947 UN Partition Plan In 1947, the
United Nations created the
United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) to find an immediate solution to the Palestine question, which the British had handed over to the UN. The report indicated that the Arab state would be forced to call for financial assistance "from international institutions in the way of loans for expansion of education, public health and other vital social services of a non-self-supporting nature." A technical note from the Secretariat explained that without some redistribution of customs from the Jewish state, Arab Palestine would not be economically viable. The committee was satisfied that the proposed Jewish State and the City of Jerusalem would be viable. The majority of the members of UNSCOP proposed certain recommendations for the
UN General Assembly which on 29 November 1947 adopted a resolution recommending the adoption and implementation of the
Partition Plan, based substantially on those proposals as Resolution 181(II). PART I: Future constitution and government of Palestine: A. Clause 3. provided as follows:-
Independent Arab and Jewish States and the Special International Regime for the City of Jerusalem, set forth in part III of this plan, shall come into existence in Palestine two months after the evacuation of the armed forces of the mandatory Power has been completed but in any case not later than 1 October 1948. The resolution noted Britain's planned termination of the
British Mandate for Palestine and recommended the partition of
Palestine into two states, one
Arab and one
Jewish, with the Jerusalem-Bethlehem area being under special international protection, administered by the United Nations. The resolution included a highly detailed description of the recommended boundaries for each proposed state. The resolution also contained a plan for an economic union between the proposed states, and a plan for the protection of religious and minority rights. The resolution sought to address the conflicting objectives and claims to the Mandate territory of two competing nationalist movements,
Zionism (Jewish nationalism) and Arab nationalism, as well as to resolve the plight of Jews displaced as a result of the
Holocaust. The resolution called for the withdrawal of British forces and termination of the Mandate by 1 August 1948, and establishment of the new independent states by 1 October 1948. The leaders of the
Jewish Agency for Palestine accepted the plan, while Arab leaders refused it. In the October 1947 Arab League conference in
Aley, the Arab states rejected the option of establishing an interim Palestinian Arab government and the Lebanese prime minister
Riad Al Solh in particular told Hajj Amin al-Husseini that if a Palestinian Arab government will be established, he couldn't be part of it.
Abdul Rahman Hassan Azzam wanted the Arab League to manage the Arab struggle in Palestine.
King Abdullah I of Jordan met with a delegation headed by
Golda Meir (who later became Prime Minister of Israel in 1968) to negotiate terms for accepting the partition plan, but rejected its proposal that Jordan remain neutral. Indeed, the king knew that the nascent Palestinian state would soon be absorbed by its Arab neighbors, and therefore had a vested interest in being party to the imminent war.
Civil war 1947–48 Soon after the UN resolution, less than half a year prior to the expiration of the British Mandate, large-scale fighting broke out between the Arab and Jewish communities in Palestine. By the time Israel declared its independence on 14 May 1948, the result of these five and a half months of fighting was, according to historian
Benny Morris, a "decisive Jewish victory". On one side, the "Palestinian Arab military power was crushed" and most of the Arab population in the combat zones was fleeing or had been driven out. On the other side, the "
Haganah transformed from a militia into an army" and succeeded "in consolidating its hold on a continuous strip of territory embracing the Coastal Plain, the Jezreel Valley, and the Jordan Valley". The
Yishuv (the Jewish community and its "state-in-waiting"-type organisations) proved it had the capability to defend itself, persuading the United States and the remainder of the world to support it and the "victory over the Palestinian Arabs gave the Haganah the experience and self-confidence [...] to confront [...] the invading armies of the Arab states." On 12 April 1948, the Arab League announced:The Arab armies shall enter Palestine to rescue it. His Majesty (King Farouk, representing the League) would like to make it clearly understood that such measures should be looked upon as temporary and devoid of any character of the occupation or partition of Palestine, and that after completion of its liberation, that country would be handed over to its owners to rule in the way they like.
1948 war until 1988 Arab–Israeli War (1948) On May 14, 1948, at the end of the British Mandate, the
Jewish People's Council gathered in Tel Aviv and the chairman of the Jewish Agency for Palestine,
declared the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz-Israel, to be known as the State of Israel. U.S. President Harry Truman recognised the State of Israel
de facto the following day. The Arab countries declared war on the newly formed
State of Israel heralding the start of the
1948 Arab–Israeli War. Armies of the neighbouring Arab states entered the former Mandate territories the next day starting the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. But some of the leaders of these countries had plans of their own for Palestine. As the Palestinian writer
Hisham Sharabi would observe, Palestine had "disappeared from the map". As a result of the war, Egypt
occupied the Gaza Strip, and on September 22, 1948, formed the
All-Palestine Government in Gaza, partly as an Arab League move to limit the influence of Jordan over the Palestinian issue. The former mufti of Jerusalem,
Haj Amin al-Husseini, was appointed president. The
Palestinian National Council declared an independent Palestinian state on October 1, 1948 in all of Palestine region with Jerusalem as its capital. This government was recognised by Egypt,
Syria,
Lebanon,
Iraq,
Saudi Arabia, and
Yemen, but not by
Jordan or any non-Arab country. However, it was little more than a facade under Egyptian control and had negligible influence or funding. Egypt did not permit unrestricted entry of Palestinians from Gaza into Egypt proper, and vice versa. In 1959,
Gamal Abdel Nasser, president of Egypt, dissolved the All-Palestine government to rule the Gaza Strip directly. King
Abdullah I of Jordan sent the Arab Legion into the West Bank with no intention of withdrawing it following the war. Jordan
annexed the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, granting citizenship to the Arab refugees and residents living in the West Bank against the objection of many Arab leaders who still hoped to establish an Arab state of Palestine. The country's name was changed in 1949 from Transjordan to Jordan and Palestinians were given seats in the Jordanian Parliament. A royal decree in March 1949 forbade the use of the term "Palestine" in legal documents, and other measures were designed to emphasize that there would not be an independent Palestine. He also banned any opinion contrary to unification of the two territories and outlawed all All-Palestine Government activity within territories under his control. After the war, which the Israelis call the War of Independence and the Palestinians call the Catastrophe, the 1949 Armistice Agreements established the separation lines between the combatants, leaving Israel in control of some of the areas which had been designated for the Arab state under the Partition Plan, Transjordan in control of the West Bank, Egypt in control of the Gaza Strip and Syria in control of the
Himmah Area. The Arab League "supervised" the Egyptian trusteeship of the Palestinian government in Gaza after and secured assurances from Jordan that the 1950 Act of Union was "without prejudice to the final settlement".
Jordanian West Bank King
Abdullah I of Jordan annexed the West Bank, granting citizenship to the Arab refugees and residents against the wishes of many Arab leaders who still hoped to establish an Arab state. Under Abdullah's leadership, Arab hopes of independence were dealt a severe blow. In March he issued a royal decree forbidding the use of the term "Palestine" in any legal documents, and pursued other measures designed to make the fact that there would not be an independent Palestine clear and certain. was held in Jericho on 1 December 1948 at the end of the war. The delegates proclaimed
Abdullah King of Palestine and called for a union of Arab Palestine with the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan. Avi Plascov says that Abdullah contacted the Nashashibi opposition, local mayors, mukhars, those opposed to the Husaynis, and opposition members of the
AHC. Plascov said that the Palestinian Congresses were conducted in accordance with prevailing Arab custom. He also said that contrary to the widely held belief outside Jordan the representatives did reflect the feelings of a large segment of the population. The Transjordanian Government agreed to the unification on 7 December 1948, and on 13 December the Transjordanian parliament approved the creation of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. The change of status was reflected by the adoption of this new official name on 21 January 1949. Unification was ratified by a joint Jordanian National Assembly on 24 April 1950 which comprised twenty representatives each from the East and West Bank. The Act of Union contained a protective clause which preserved Arab rights in Palestine "without prejudice to any final settlement". A political union was legally established by the series of proclamations, decrees, and parliamentary acts in December 1948. Abdullah thereupon took the title King of Jordan, and he officially changed the country's name to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in April 1949. The 1950 Act of Union confirmed and ratified King Abdullah's actions. Following the annexation of the West Bank, only two countries formally recognized the union: Britain and Pakistan. Thomas Kuttner notes that de facto recognition was granted to the regime, most clearly evidenced by the maintaining of consulates in East Jerusalem by several countries, including the United States. Joseph Weiler agreed, and said that other states had engaged in activities, statements, and resolutions that would be inconsistent with non-recognition. Joseph Massad said that the members of the Arab League granted
de facto recognition and that the United States had formally recognized the annexation, except for Jerusalem. The policy of the U.S. Department, was stated in a paper on the subject prepared for the Foreign Ministers meetings in London in May was in favor of the incorporation of Central Palestine into Jordan, but desired that it be done gradually and not by sudden proclamation. Once the annexation took place, the department approved of the action "in the sense that it represents a logical development of the situation which took place as a result of a free expression of the will of the people.... The United States continued to wish to avoid a public expression of approval of the union." The United States government extended
de jure recognition to the Government of Transjordan and the Government of Israel on the same day, 31 January 1949. U.S. President Truman told King Abdullah that the policy of the U.S. as regards a final territorial settlement in Palestine had been stated in the General Assembly on 30 November 1948 by the American representative. The U.S. supported Israeli claims to the boundaries set forth in the UN General Assembly resolution of 29 November 1947, but believed that if Israel sought to retain additional territory in Palestine allotted to the Arabs, it should give the Arabs territorial compensation. Clea Bunch said that "President Truman crafted a balanced policy between Israel and its moderate Hashemite neighbours when he simultaneously extended formal recognition to the newly created state of Israel and the Kingdom of Transjordan. These two nations were inevitably linked in the President's mind as twin emergent states: one serving the needs of the refugee Jew, the other absorbing recently displaced Palestinian Arabs. Truman was aware of the private agreements that existed between Jewish Agency leaders and King Abdullah I of Jordan. Thus, it made perfect sense to Truman to favour both states with
de jure recognition." Sandra Berliant Kadosh analyzed U.S. policy toward the West Bank in 1948, based largely on the Foreign Relations Documents of the United States. She noted that the U.S. government believed that the most satisfactory solution regarding the disposition of the greater part of Arab Palestine would be incorporation in Transjordan and that the State Department approved the Principle underlying the Jericho resolutions. Kadosh said that the delegates claimed to represent 90 percent of the population, and that they ridiculed the Gaza government. They asserted that it represented only its eighty-odd members.
All-Palestine In Gaza, the
All-Palestine Government was formed prior to the war's end in September 1948. The government, under the leadership of the Mufti of Jerusalem
Mohammad Amin al-Husayni, declared the independence of the
Palestinian state, An Egyptian Ministerial order dated 1 June 1948 declared that all laws in force during the Mandate would continue to be in force in the Gaza Strip. Another order issued on 8 August 1948 vested an Egyptian Administrator-General with the powers of the High Commissioner. The All-Palestine Government had very limited power however, as Egypt maintained control over Gaza's administration. The All-Palestine Government was under official Egyptian protection, but on the other hand it had no executive role, but rather mostly political and symbolic. The Congress called for the union of Arab Palestine and Transjordan and Abdullah announced his intention to
annex the
West Bank. The other Arab League
member states opposed Abdullah's plan. The U.S. advised the Arab states that the U.S. attitude regarding Israel had been clearly stated in the UN by Dr. Jessup on 20 November 1949. He said that the U.S. supported Israeli claims to the boundaries set forth in the UN General Assembly resolution. However, the U.S. believed that if Israel sought to retain additional territory in Palestine it should give the Arabs other territory as compensation. The Israelis agreed that the boundaries were negotiable, but did not agree to the principle of compensation as a precondition. Israel's Foreign Minister
Eban stressed that it was undesirable to undermine what had already been accomplished by the armistice agreements, and maintained that Israel held no territory wrongfully, since her occupation of the areas had been sanctioned by the armistice agreements, as had the occupation of the territory in Palestine held by the Arab states. In a diplomatic conversation held on 5 June 1950 between
Stuart W. Rockwell of the State Department's Office of African and Near Eastern Affairs and Abdel Monem Rifai, a Counselor of the Jordan Legation. Rifai asked when the U.S. was going to recognize the union of Arab Palestine and Jordan. Rockwell explained the Department's position, stating that it was not the custom of the U.S. to issue formal statements of recognition every time a foreign country changed its territorial area. The union of Arab Palestine and Jordan had been brought about as a result of the will of the people and the U.S. accepted the fact that Jordanian sovereignty had been extended to the new area. Rifai said he had not realized this and that he was very pleased to learn that the U.S. did in fact recognize the union. The U.S. State Department published this memorandum of conversation in 1978. In 1957, the Basic Law of Gaza established a Legislative Council that could pass laws which were given to the High Administrator-General for approval. In 1959, Egyptian president
Gamal Abdul Nasser ordered the dismantling of the All-Palestine Protectorate for good. In March 1962, a Constitution for the Gaza Strip was issued confirming the role of the Legislative Council. unilaterally annexed
East Jerusalem and later applied Israeli civil law to the
Golan Heights. On 9 June 1967, Israeli Foreign Minister Eban assured the U.S. that it was not seeking territorial aggrandizement and had no "colonial" aspirations. U.S. Secretary of State
Dean Rusk stressed to Israel that no settlement with Jordan would be accepted by the global community unless it gave Jordan some special position in the Old City of Jerusalem. The U.S. also assumed Jordan would receive the bulk of the West Bank as that was regarded as Jordanian territory. The
international community considers the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, held under
military occupation by Israel subject to the
Fourth Geneva Convention. Israel does not accept that the Fourth Geneva Convention applies
de jure, but has stated that on humanitarian issues it will govern itself
de facto by its provisions, without specifying which these are. The Gaza Strip is still considered to be occupied by the United Nations, international human rights organisations, and the majority of governments and legal commentators, despite the 2005
Israeli disengagement from Gaza. On 3 November 1967, U.S. Ambassador
Goldberg called on King Hussein of Jordan, saying that the U.S. was committed to the principle of political independence and territorial integrity and was ready to reaffirm it bilaterally and publicly in the Security Council resolution. According to Goldberg, the U.S. believed in territorial integrity, withdrawal, and recognition of secure boundaries. Goldberg said the principle of territorial integrity has two important sub-principles, there must be a withdrawal to recognized and secure frontiers for all countries, not necessarily the old armistice lines, and there must be mutuality in adjustments. The U.S. President's Special Assistant,
Walt Rostow, told Israeli ambassador
Harmon that he had already stressed to Foreign Minister Eban that the U.S. expected the thrust of the settlement would be toward security and demilitarisation arrangements rather than toward major changes in the armistice lines. Harmon said the Israeli position was that Jerusalem should be an open city under unified administration, but that the Jordanian interest in Jerusalem could be met through arrangements including "sovereignty". Rostow said the U.S. government assumed (and Harman confirmed) that despite public statements to the contrary, the Government of Israel position on Jerusalem was that which Eban, Harman, and Evron had given several times, that Jerusalem was negotiable. Following the outbreak of fighting in Jordan in September 1970 between the Jordanian army and Palestinian guerilla, the US government began considering the creation of a separate Palestinian political entity. However, a Palestinian state was the least considered alternative. A State Department memo of 1970 stated in that regard: such a state would presumably have to be limited to the West Bank and Gaza, it would probably not be economically viable without the injection of large-scale outside financial assistance. Its political viability is also doubtful, since a large number of Palestinians would remain outside its borders and it would tend to be dominated by a larger and more powerful Israel.
PLO and the binational state solution Before the Six-Day War, the movement for an independent Palestine received a boost in 1964 when the
Palestine Liberation Organization was established. Its goal, as stated in the
Palestinian National Covenant was to create a Palestinian state in the whole British Mandate, a statement which nullified Israel's
right to exist. The PLO would become the leading force in the Palestinian national movement politically, and its leader, Egyptian-born
Yassir Arafat, would become regarded as the leader of the Palestinian people. In 1969, the Fatah movement, accepting as a
fait accompli the presence in Palestine of a large number of Jews, declared that it was not fighting against Jews, but against Israel as a racist and theocratic entity. The fifth national council of the Palestine Liberation Organisation in February 1969 passed a resolution confirming that the PLO's objective was "to establish a free and democratic society in Palestine for all Palestinians whether they are Muslims, Christians or Jews". The PLO was not successful in building support for the binational solution within Israeli society, however, which lay the groundwork for an eventual re-scoping of the PLO's aim toward partition into two states.
Rift between Jordan and Palestinian leadership (1970) After the events of
Black September in Jordan, the rift between the Palestinian leadership and the Kingdom of Jordan continued to widen. The Arab League affirmed the right of the Palestinian people to
self-determination and called on all the Arab states, including Jordan, to undertake to defend Palestinian national unity and not to interfere in internal Palestinian affairs. The Arab League also 'affirmed the right of the Palestinian people to establish an independent national authority under the command of the Palestine Liberation Organization, the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people in any Palestinian territory that is liberated.' King Ḥussein dissolved the Jordanian parliament. Half of its members had been West Bank representatives. He renounced Jordanian claims to the West Bank, and allowed the PLO to assume responsibility as the Provisional Government of Palestine. The Kingdom of Jordan, Egypt, and Syria no longer act as the legitimate representatives of the Palestinian people, or their territory.
Ten Point Program In 1974, the PLO adopted the
Ten Point Program, which called for the establishment of an Israeli-Palestinian democratic, binational state (a
one state solution). It also called for the establishment of Palestinian rule on "any part" of its liberated territory, as a step towards "completing the liberation of all Palestinian territory, and as a step along the road to comprehensive Arab unity." While this was not seen by Israel as a significant moderation of PLO policy, the phrasing was extremely controversial within the PLO itself, where it was widely regarded as a move towards a
two-state solution. The adoption of the program, under pressure from Arafat's
Fatah faction and some minor groups (e.g.
DFLP,
al-Sa'iqa) led many hard-line groups to break away from the Arafat and the mainstream PLO members, forming the
Rejectionist Front. To some extent, this split is still evident today. Declassified diplomatic documents reveal that in 1974, on the eve of the UN debate that granted the PLO an observer status, some parts of the PLO leadership were considering to proclaim the formation of a Palestinian
government in exile at some point. This plan, however, was not carried out. At the
Rabat summit conference in 1974, Jordan and the other members of the
Arab League declared that the
Palestine Liberation Organization was the "sole legitimate representative of the [Arab] Palestinian people", thereby relinquishing to that organization its role as representative of the West Bank. During the 1978
Camp David negotiations between Israel and Egypt
Anwar Sadat proposed the creation of a Palestinian state in the
West Bank and
Gaza. Israel refused. In a speech delivered on 1 September 1982, U.S. President
Ronald Reagan called for a settlement freeze and continued to support full Palestinian autonomy in political union with Jordan. He also said that "It is the United States' position that – in return for peace – the withdrawal provision of Resolution 242 applies to all fronts, including the West Bank and Gaza." The Amman Agreement of 11 February 1985, declared that the PLO and Jordan would pursue a proposed confederation between the state of Jordan and a Palestinian state. In 1988, King Hussein dissolved the Jordanian parliament and renounced Jordanian claims to the West Bank. The PLO assumed responsibility as the Provisional Government of Palestine and an independent state was declared. ==Timeline==