The Story of the Palestinian and Israeli Future Visions Since 1967
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View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by eScholarship@BC Irreconcilable: The Story of the Palestinian and Israeli Future Visions Since 1967 Author: Matthew J. DeMaio Persistent link: http://hdl.handle.net/2345/3094 This work is posted on eScholarship@BC, Boston College University Libraries. Boston College Electronic Thesis or Dissertation, 2013 Copyright is held by the author, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise noted. BOSTON COLLEGE IRRECONCILABLE: THE STORY OF THE PALESTINIAN AND ISRAELI FUTURE VISIONS SINCE 1967 A Senior Honors Thesis Submitted to The College of Arts and Sciences Islamic Civilizations and Societies Program By MATTHEW DEMAIO 5/15/2013 © copyright by MATTHEW JAMES DEMAIO 2013 Irreconcilable: The Story of the Palestinian and Israeli Future Visions Since 1967 Matthew DeMaio Advised by Professor Eve Spangler At the conclusion of the June 1967 War, Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip were united under a single sovereignty for the first time since the end of the British Mandate for Palestine nineteen years earlier. The Palestinian-Israeli conflict returned to the contest between two national movements, Palestinian and Israeli, making competing claims to the same piece of territory. Over the course of the ensuing 45 years, the discourse of each national movement has been littered with explicit and implicit references, acknowledgements and denunciations of the other. Discourse is the means by which national leaders attempt to build a bridge from present circumstances to an imagined future. This study, therefore, takes a critical reading approach to political discourse of each national movement with the goal of finding the place of the other in the imagined future of each group. Reading official remarks, constitutions, party platforms, speeches and international documents illuminates the changing place of the other in each nation’s future vision over the last 45 years of conflict. By understanding the evolving place of the other in national movements that make claims to the same piece of territory, we are able to understand the irreconcilability that has characterized the Palestinian- Israeli conflict since the start of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1967 and the failure of the Oslo Process to bring about a negotiated solution. i To my Mom and Dad, thank you for letting me follow my passions, even though it took me far away from you. I love you ii CONTENTS Acknowledgments………………………………………………………………..iii List of Figures…………………………………………………………………….iv Introduction……………………………………………………………..…………1 1. Literature Review………………………………………………………………...11 2. The Roots of the Conflict; 1834-1967…………………………………………...23 3. A New Conflict, A New Discourse; 1967-1968………………………………....97 4. Israeli Plans and PLO Rebirth; 1968-1970……………………………………..123 5. The National Authority; 1970-1976…………………………………………….144 6. Likud and the Dreaded Permanent Peace; 1977-1986.........................................168 7. The First Intifada; 1987-1993..............................................................................191 8. Oslo and the Peace Process; 1993-1999..............................................................222 9. The Second Intifada and the Destruction of Oslo; 2000-2012............................248 Epilogue: The Death of a Paradigm? 2012-2013.................................................278 Conclusion...........................................................................................................289 Bibliography........................................................................................................295 iii Acknowledgements I need to thank first and foremost my parents for making this all possible. They were endlessly supportive when I insisted on going year after year to a part of the world that was not only very far away but also potentially hazardous (although they took some convincing). You have my endless love and gratitude for everything you have done for me and sorry I keep traveling. I also need to thank Professor Eve Spangler not only for advising this work but also for writing me numerous letters of recommendation that made all of my trips to Palestine possible. The same goes for Professor Kathleen Bailey who has guided me along the Islamic Civilizations and Societies path for these past three years, written letters of recommendation and nominated me for recognition. To them I say: Sorry this project is so long, and I am sorry you are required to read it (the rest of you lucky people have a choice). I also want to thank Kali Rubaii generally for making sure I am always saying what needs to be said and specifically for helping to shape the framework of this study. I need to thank Professor Atef Ghobrial for providing me the Arabic skills I needed to make the trips to Palestine productive and enlightening. Of course I must thank my roommates for putting up with four years of the same, tedious conversation about military occupation and human rights that I always find incredibly interesting but likely bores them. Also, to my Students for Justice in Palestine members and officers: thank you for being great and working so hard this year to bring the story of Palestine to Boston College. I want to thank Boston College, particularly the University Fellowships Committee, for providing the resources to travel and study in this region. Finally, and most importantly, I want to thank every Palestinian who has taken me into their lives and their homes and told me their stories. It is your steadfastness and courage in the face of tragedy that has driven me to read and write. I will keep coming back to Palestine and I cannot wait until the stories are no longer about walls and checkpoints but about trips to the beach in Jaffa and days in Jerusalem. It is my sincere hope that this work becomes irrelevant as soon as possible and questions about armistice lines, security concerns and final status issues, no longer trouble anyone. As I write this, on May 14th, 2013, Palestinians everywhere are preparing to mourn Nakba Day, the sixty-fifth Nakba Day. That is far too many. iv List of Figures 1. Heinrich Bünting’s 1581 Depiction of Jerusalem....................................................... 24 2. The Sykes-Picot Agreement........................................................................................58 3. British soldiers search Palestinians for Arms..............................................................74 4. The Peel Partition Plan.................................................................................................77 5. Original Partition Plan and Post-War Armistice Lines................................................92 6. Israeli Territorial Gains of June 1967..........................................................................98 7. Map of the Allon Plan................................................................................................104 8. The Oslo II Demarcations...........................................................................................235 1 Introduction In September of 2011, I was watching the United Nations General Assembly in my apartment from the upscale Amman neighborhood of Shmeisani. That night, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was giving a speech on the occasion of his submission of Palestine’s application for full membership in the UN to the Security Council. During the impassioned speech he affirmed that “the goal of the Palestinian people is the realization of their inalienable national rights in their independent State of Palestine … to resolve the core [of] the Arab-Israeli conflict and to achieve a just and comprehensive peace.” He finished his speech by appealing to the member nations in the chamber: “Your support for the establishment of the State of Palestine and for its admission to the United Nations as a full member is the greatest contribution to peacemaking in the Holy Land.”1 Immediately after Abbas left the podium, Benjamin Netanyahu, prime minister of Israel, stepped up to deliver his address to the General Assembly. Netanyahu, in between warning about the threat posed to the West by militant Islam and nuclear Iran, insisted that the Israelis have always been ready for peace but will not allow the establishment of a Palestinian state without a commitment by the Palestinians to peace. He stated that “all these potential cracks in Israel’s security have to be sealed in a peace agreement before a 1 Mahmoud Abbas, “Speech to the UN General Assembly” (UN General Assembly, New York, NY, September, 23, 2011). 2 Palestinian state is declared, not afterwards, because if you leave it afterwards, they won’t be sealed. The Palestinians should first make peace with Israel and then get their state.”2 Both speakers used many of the same words throughout their official remarks but came to vastly different conclusions about the process that would bring about the universally endorsed but ever-receding two state solution. The discourse each leader used betrayed the deep divide between these two national movements that has made this protracted conflict last for more than 65 years. For the Palestinians, the conflict is being prolonged by Israel’s continued occupation of the Palestinian territories. This occupation is used by Israel to keep the Palestinians powerless thus enabling the state to expropriate more and more land. It is impossible for the conflict to be resolved with this power imbalance which is why the Palestinians went to the United