Introduction

Excerpted from Palestine and the Palestinians (Boulder, Co: Westview Press, 1997), by Samih K. Farsoun with Christina Zacharia, pp. 1-2.

“Palestine is a small territory, and the Palestinians—the indigenous Arab people of Palestine—are a relatively small population, numbering 6.8 million in 1996. Yet the Palestinian problem has loomed large on the international scene for at least fifty years, with tangled roots nearly a century old. Since 1948, the Arab-Israeli conflict has been punctuated by a major war nearly every decade and countless invasions, incursions, clashes, and skirmishes, producing regional and global tensions and even threatening world peace during the cold war. Indeed, since the advent of the nuclear age, the only know nuclear war alert was issued by the United States during the fourth major Israeli-Arab war, the October War of 1973.

The question of Palestine and the Palestinians continues to be central in international affairs, as the United States, the Pacific Rim, and the European Union (EU) compete for economic domination in the emerging world order. [These global powers] depend upon oil, a commodity entangled in the volatile conflict over Palestine. The 1973 Arab oil embargo, a result of the Arab-Israeli war of that year, is a potent reminder of the political and economic linkages of the issue, as is the 1991 Gulf War. Middle Eastern oil, which consists of the largest reserves and productive capacity on earth, and the derivative ‘military hardware’ market are a lucrative prize for contemporary rival economic powers. … The problem of Palestine has been a hidden side of the global political economy.

At the political level, the question of Palestine manifests itself in the United Nations (the Palestinian conflict is the single issue that has generated the largest number of resolutions) and in international organizations such as the Organization of African Unity (OAU), the Movement of the Non-Aligned States, and the Islamic Conference. Lord Caradon, the British ambassador to the United Nations and architect of UN Security Council Resolution 242, … which spelled out the conditions for peace in the Middle East after the June 1967 War, stated: ‘The future of the Middle East depends on the Palestinians. They have advanced to the center of the world stage … the future and the fate of … Palestinians increasingly dominate the search for peace.’ Nearly all Third World states in Africa and Asia and some in Latin America severed diplomatic relations with Israel after the Israeli-Arab war of 1973. Earlier, in 1967, the former Soviet bloc countries cut diplomatic ties with Israel as a consequence of the June War of that year. Indeed, many Third World governments expelled the Israeli diplomatic missions from their capitals and offered their premises to the Palestine Liberation Organization [PLO], internationally recognized in 1974 as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. Since the end of the cold war, most countries have restored diplomatic relations with Israel. New nations born out of the collapse of the Soviet Union fostered relations with Israel and the PLO alike.

Only Israel, the United States, and a few U.S. allies, clients, and dependencies continued to deny recognition to the Palestinians as a people and the PLO as a their legitimate representative. The long-held minority position of the United States and Israel, combined with the rise in international influence of the Palestinians since 1967, often placed the U.S. government in an untenable position. That was before the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Palestinian intifada against Israeli occupation that exploded in December 1987, and the Gulf War of 1991.

After these dramatic changes, the United States, as the remaining superpower, launched a more sustained ‘peace process’ in 1991, after the Gulf War. This effort, spearheaded by then Secretary of State James Baker, culminated in the 1991 Madrid peace conference, which brought to the negotiating table Israel, the surrounding Arab states, and representatives of the Palestinians under occupation in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip (but not the PLO, because of both Israeli and U.S. objections). The Madrid peace conference, followed by eleven rounds of bilateral and multilateral negotiations in Washington, DC, and elsewhere, reached an impasse that lasted until September 13, 1993, when the Israel-PLO Declaration of Principles (the Oslo Accords) were signed. The handshake between Yasser Arafat, chairman of the Executive Committee of the PLO, and Yitzhak Rabin, prime minister of Israel, following the signing initiated a new reality that would change the nature of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the future of the Palestinians and the Middle East for generations to come.”

To continue to learn about modern Palestine, proceed to Geography