The Palestinian Declaration of Independence formally established the State of Palestine, and was written by Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish and proclaimed by Yasser Arafat on 15 November 1988 (5 Rabiʽ al-Thani 1409) in Algiers, Algeria. It had previously been adopted by the Palestinian National Council (PNC), the legislative body of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), by a vote of 253 in favour, 46 against, and 10 abstaining. It was read at the closing session of the 19th PNC to a standing ovation. Upon completing the reading of the declaration, Arafat, as chairman of the PLO, assumed the title of President of Palestine. In April 1989, the PLO Central Council elected Arafat as the first president of the State of Palestine.
Background
On 28 October 1974, the 1974 Arab League summit held in Rabat designated the PLO as the "sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people and reaffirmed their right to establish an independent state of urgency." Legal justification for the declaration was based on United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181 (II) of 29 November 1947, which provided for the termination and partition of the British Mandate into two states. On 14 May 1948, the British mandate ended, the State of Israel was declared and the Arab Legion of Transjordan (later Jordan) invaded the West Bank (only to annex it in 1950). In September 1948 Egyptian forces captured the Gaza strip and kept it under military rule. Until the Six-Day War in June 1967 these two territories remained under Jordanian and Egyptian rule.
Despite the 1988 proclamation of the State of Palestine, at the time the Palestine Liberation Organization did not exercise control over any territory, and designated Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine,[i] which was under Israeli control and claimed by it as Israel's capital. The PLO was hence a government in exile between 1988 and 1994. The PLO began to exercise a limited rule in the Areas A and B of the West Bank and part of the Gaza Strip as a consequence of the 1994 Gaza-Jericho Agreement, under the umbrella of the Palestinian National Authority. In 2012, Palestine was upgraded to the status of non-member observer state in the UN.
Significance
The declaration concerned the Palestine region, as defined by the borders of the British Mandate of Palestine, which includes the whole of the State of Israel as well as the West Bank and the Gaza Strip (at the time part of the Israeli Civil Administration). It references the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine of 1947 and "UN resolutions since 1947" in general as providing legitimacy to Palestinian statehood.
The Partition Plan served as the basis for the Israeli Declaration of Independence, but was not accepted by the Palestinian Arab leadership at the time. In September 1948, the All-Palestine Government was declared within the Gaza Strip as an Egyptian protectorate and recognized by most members of the Arab League, which is regarded by some as the first attempt to establish an independent Palestinian state; however, All-Palestine had been dissolved by Egypt several years later. The 1988 declaration does not explicitly recognize the State of Israel. However, an accompanying document, which explicitly mentions UN Security Council Resolution 242, and Yasser Arafat's statements in Geneva a month later, were accepted by the United States as sufficient to interpret the declaration as recognising Israel in its pre-1967 boundaries.
The declaration's reference to Palestine being the "land of the three monotheistic faiths" has been held as recognising the Jewish historical connection to the land. Referring to "the historical injustice inflicted on the Palestinian Arab people resulting in their dispersion and depriving them of their right to self-determination", the declaration recalled the Treaty of Lausanne (1923) and UN General Assembly Resolution 181 as supporting the rights of Palestinians to statehood. The declaration then proclaims a "State of Palestine on our Palestinian territory with its capital Jerusalem". The borders of the state are proclaimed on its Palestinian territory. The population of the state was referred to by the statement: "The State of Palestine is the state of Palestinians wherever they may be". The state was defined as an Arab country by the statement: "The State of Palestine is an Arab state, an integral and indivisible part of the Arab nation".
Over the weekend of 11–12 November 1988, the Israeli military sealed off the occupied Palestinian territories in anticipation of the PNC meeting, with the goal of preventing any disturbances. The number of soldiers deployed to the territories was significantly increased, while telephone and power lines in the territories were severed, roadblocks erected to prevent Palestinians residents travelling between zones in the territories, loudspeakers in mosques were removed, Palestinian flags were torn down, and residents of towns were forced by soldiers to clean nationalist graffiti. The military also imposed a curfew on the territories, confining all Palestinian residents to their homes around-the-clock, while barring access to journalists unless accompanied by IDF officers, and forbidding the Israel Broadcasting Authority from televising any footage of the PNC convention. Israeli patrols to enforce the curfew used megaphones to warn Palestinians that leaving their homes meant that they could be shot. As well, the military carried out preventative arrests of several hundred Palestinians. Israeli Minister of Defence Yitzhak Rabin warned that the military was "prepared to use maximum force to put down any demonstrations following any pronouncement in Algiers."
The declaration of independence was met with near-unanimous condemnation in Israel, including among both right-wing and centre-left politicians. Prime Minister and Likud leader Yitzhak Shamir described it as "an additional step in the war of Arab terrorist organizations against the existence and independence of the state of Israel", pledging to "continue, as long as is necessary, to convince all the nations of the world that conferring recognition abets this creature, meaning assistance in the elimination of the state of Israel." Yossi Ben Aharon, director general of the Prime Minister's Office, described the declaration as " an exercise in disinformation whose purpose is to create the impression of moderation." Minister of Foreign Affairs and Israeli Labor Party leader Shimon Peres accused the PLO of attempting to "substitute ambiguity for clear decisions", saying that it "further complicated efforts" for peace. The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs released an official statement accusing the PLO of being "unable or unwilling to recognize reality", saying that "any recognition or legitimization of the declaration will not be conducive to peace in the Middle East", and ordered Israeli diplomats to intensively lobby governments and news organisations in the countries in which they were stationed to not recognise the declaration.
Minister of Industry and Trade Ariel Sharon described the decalaration as "a very dangerous development", and called for Israel to annex parts of the West Bank as a response. MK Benjamin Netanyahu, who recently completed his term as Permanent Representative of Israel to the United Nations, described the declaration as "a mere public relations gimmick devoid of value." Chief of the General Staff Dan Shomron warned Palestinians that "after a year in which they have been paying the full price, all they can get from the PNC overseas is appeals to the heart, festive declarations and nothing beyond it." Central Command head Amram Mitzna stated that "the declaration is disant from the territories, and from reality... Residents of the territories have very quickly realized that it is the State of Israel that governs here, through the security forces, and that no meaning can be given to this declaration. We are the ones who determine what will happen."
Due to the curfew imposed on the territories by the Israeli military, public celebrations of the declaration were limited among Palestinian residents, however, the declaration was largely received positively. According to The New York Times, "despite the warnings, Palestinians in Gaza took to the streets as soon as the patrols disappeared. They banged on drums, clapped, sang and set off fireworks in celebration. When the army returned, the revelers fled." According to Time Magazine, "shopkeepers in Arab East Jerusalem passed out chocolates and local residents exchanged greetings of “Mabrouk” (congratulations)." Journalist Joel Greenberg described how some Palestinians circumvented the imposed power cuts and "hooked up their television sets to car batteries and held 'independence parties' with their neighbors", and a celebration held by the staff of the Al-Ittihad Hospital in Nablus: "employees at the Ittihad Nisai Hospital in Nablus blared the Palestinian anthem Biladi (My Country) over a tape recorder and sang nationalist songs. Masked youths flew balloons bearing the colors of the Palestinian flag from the roof of the building while a youth carried a Palestinian flag, to the applause of the crowd. The impromptu ceremony brought cheers and whistles from adjacent homes, whose occupants stepped outside in violation of the curfew. Soldiers arrived at the hospital and broke up the celebration." Prominent Palestinian newspaper editor Hanna Siniora stated that he felt "the same joy I experienced at the birth of my first child", describing the declaration as "a triumph for the voice of moderation within the Palestinian camp." Prominent Palestinian scholar Sari Nusseibeh described it as "a memorable day in our history" that he hoped would "establish peace in the region." Birzeit University president Hanna Nasser stated that "this may not lead us to actual independence, but it’s the first step in that direction... Now, the Palestinians in the West Bank have a more defined aim and, more importantly, the Palestinians both inside and outside the occupied territories will be in agreement over these aims."
The Unified National Leadership of the Uprising, the coalition (formed of the Palestinian Communist Party, the DFLP, the PFLP, and Fatah) directing the First Intifada, applauded the declaration, describing it as "not a concession with nothing in return, as some believe, but rather a realistic, revolutionary and responsible declaration which puts an end to the Zionist lies about the aims of our triumphant revolution." Salim Tamari of the Institute for Palestine Studies has argued that the "main achievement of the UNLU in its first year is that it imposed its own perceptions and initiatives of the mass movement on the external leadership of the PLO", with the declaration of independence representing the peak of the UNLU's influence in its relationship with the PLO leadership in exile, with the PLO leadership subsequently exerting greater and greater influence over the UNLU as the Intifada continued. Scott Macleod of Time Magazine wrote that "certainly the actions represented a victory for Palestinian moderates."
The only notable Palestinian factions to completely oppose the declaration was the recently founded, anti-UNLU, conservative Islamist group Hamas, who condemned it as a surrender and "imaginary. It is a quick move by some of the Palestinian ranks to steal the fruits of the intifadeh’s victory." George Habash, leader of the far-left Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), had opposed the Declaration during the PNC's deliberations, but afterwards accepted it to maintain the unity of the PLO. The blanket curfew was lifted by the Israeli military over the weekend of 18-19 November. In the weeks following the declaration, even as no widespread disturbances by Palestinians broke out, the Israeli military continued to escalate operations against the First Intifada, including pre-emptive raids and selective curfews on Palestinian villages, with the aim of "forestalling disturbances" and to "deflate nationalist elements."