The PLO's road to accepting two states, 1974–1988

The challenge

In the 1970s the PLO put armed struggle first among its means,¹ and armed Palestinian groups attacked civilians as well. On 15 May 1974 members of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine took hostages in Ma'alot, most of them school pupils; according to the Jewish Virtual Library, the gunmen murdered 25 of them, including 22 children.²³ Israel regarded the PLO as a terrorist organisation, and from 1986 the law forbade Israelis to meet its members, even for the sake of peace.⁴

The Palestinians themselves were absent from the diplomacy. In the words of the Palestinian National Council, Resolution 242 treated their cause as a refugee problem only,¹ and Jordan still kept administrative ties with the West Bank.⁵

In December 1987 the Intifada, a popular uprising against the Israeli occupation, broke out in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. According to the UN, the methods used by the Israeli forces caused mass injuries and heavy loss of life among Palestinian civilians.⁶ The centre of the national struggle moved from the diaspora into the territories.⁷

The road there

1. 9 June 1974The Palestinian National Council, in Cairo, adopts the ten-point programme.¹
2. 28 October 1974The Arab League summit in Rabat declares the PLO the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.⁸
3. 13 November 1974Yasser Arafat addresses the UN General Assembly and proposes one democratic state for Christians, Jews and Muslims.⁹ The Assembly grants the PLO observer status.¹⁰
4. March 1977According to the encyclopedia of the Institute for Palestine Studies, the National Council approves a programme for a state in the West Bank and Gaza.¹⁰
5. December 1987The First Intifada breaks out.⁶
6. 31 July 1988King Hussein cuts Jordan's legal and administrative ties with the West Bank.⁵
7. 18 August 1988Hamas publishes its covenant, which rules out giving up any part of Palestine.¹¹
8. 15 November 1988The Palestinian National Council, in Algiers, declares independence and issues a political communiqué.¹²
9. 14 December 1988In Geneva, after addressing the General Assembly, Arafat calls for all the parties, Israel among them, to live in peace, and repeats his renunciation of terrorism. The same day President Reagan authorises a dialogue with the PLO.¹²

The people

Led

Yasser Arafat · King Hussein of Jordan

What was decided and declared

• The ten-point programme (1974): rejection of Resolution 242; a national authority on any part of Palestine that is liberated; armed struggle as the first means; and rejection of any entity whose price is recognition, peace and secure borders. Each stage is a step towards liberating all Palestinian territory.¹
• The Rabat resolution (1974): the PLO is the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, who have the right to return, to self-determination and to an independent national authority led by the PLO.⁸
• King Hussein's announcement (1988): Jordan cuts its legal and administrative ties with the West Bank, at the PLO's wish and in line with the Arab position. Jordanians of Palestinian origin keep all their rights, and according to the introduction to the speech, guardianship of the Muslim holy places in Jerusalem stayed with Jordan.⁵
• The Declaration of Independence (1988): the State of Palestine, with Jerusalem as its capital. It rests on the 1947 partition resolution 181, which provided for an Arab state and a Jewish state, and commits to settling disputes peacefully and rejecting the threat of force and terrorism.¹³
• The Political Communiqué (1988): an international conference under UN auspices on the basis of Resolutions 242 and 338, with the PLO taking part; Israeli withdrawal from the territories occupied in 1967, Arab Jerusalem included; and a solution to the refugee problem.¹² It rejects terrorism in all its forms and affirms the right to resist occupation.⁷

Read the document

The geography

The hard decisions

• Inside the PLO: the 1974 programme passed after heated debate,¹⁰ and in 1988 some factions opposed accepting Resolutions 242 and 338.⁷
• Hamas is a terrorist organisation, and it rejected the whole course. Its 1988 covenant says Palestine is an Islamic endowment no part of which may be given up, and that peace initiatives and international conferences are to be rejected.¹¹
• Israel's government went on refusing to talk to the PLO, and in May 1989 it proposed an alternative: elections in the West Bank and Gaza, a five-year transition and then a permanent settlement.¹² Even in January 1993, when the Knesset lifted the ban on meetings, the Rabin government had still not opened direct contact with the PLO.⁴
• Jordan gave up its legal and administrative standing in the West Bank. Hussein said the Palestinian state would arise on the occupied land after its liberation.⁵

Where accounts differ

According to The PLO, as presented in the encyclopedia of the Institute for Palestine Studies

The 1974 programme opened a turn: from a demand for all of Palestine to a state in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip alongside Israel. The turn was completed in 1988, with acceptance of partition and of Resolutions 242 and 338.¹⁰⁷

According to The prevailing reading in Israel, where the 1974 programme is known as “the phased plan”

The programme's own wording: every territory liberated is a stage towards liberating all of it, armed struggle remains the first means, and any entity whose price is recognising Israel and making peace with it is rejected.¹

According to The Israeli government at the time

The PLO is a terrorist organisation and is not to be negotiated with; contact with it was banned by law in 1986.⁴ The alternative, of May 1989: elections in the territories and an interim arrangement.¹²

According to Hamas, in its 1988 covenant

No part of Palestine may be given up, and there is no solution by way of peace initiatives and international conferences.¹¹

What remains open

• The 1988 documents spoke of peace for all the parties, Israel among them,¹² but formal recognition, in a letter to Israel's government, came only in 1993.¹⁴
• The declaration names a capital but does not define the state's borders.¹³