Intifadah and Independence

By Abdul Salam Y Massarueh

The year 1988 was the most important year to date for the Palestinians in their search for international recognition of their legitimate rights and their struggle, politically and militarily, for statehood and self-determination. Ever since Dec. 9, 1987, when the popular Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation broke out in East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza, the intifadah has been the most important event in the lives of the Palestinians at home and abroad.

Television crews and correspondents recorded the explosion and registered the anger and contempt Palestinians under occupation felt after 21 years of Israeli exploitation, barbarism, and ruthlessness. The viciousness of the Israelis as they routinely visited agony on thousands of Palestinian families in the unarmed villages and refugee camps of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip evoked worldwide sympathy and support for the Palestinians, and worldwide abhorrence and condemnation of Israeli occupation and the methods used to impose and maintain it.

All of these facts contributed significantly to strengthen the uprising and the resistance to the occupation. They also motivated the Palestinians to devise alternatives to reliance on and participation in the Israeli economy. Palestinians initiated self-help survival systems. The uprising leadership provided food and other assistance under the most difficult circumstances, especially after the Israelis closed Palestinian charitable and service organizations and arrested their leaders.

Palestinians have been inspired by their success in resisting the occupation, and more than ever before in their history they have offered each other comfort and support. Ancient social and economic barriers collapsed when all became equal in defying and struggling against the occupation. As a result, the Israelis, who had long ruled through informers, failed miserably in identifying the uprising leadership despite the use of every system of reward, punishment, and blackmail.

This year was also historic for the more conciliatory positions advanced by the Palestinians. These positions were summarized in the document by PLO spokesman Bassam Abu Sharif, which was circulated at the emergency Arab summit meeting which took place June 5 in Algeria. In 1988 the Palestinian people and their PLO leadership offered the world strategies for a two-state coexistence of Palestine and Israel, side by side. This in turn offers the United States the opportunity to adopt a more balanced policy, asking for more compromises and accommodations of both Israel and the PLO at the same time.

The November 12-15 session of the Palestine National Council in Algiers and the declaration by the Palestine National Council of Palestinian independence and acceptance of UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 as the basis for negotiating the establishment of two states on Palestinian soil, will be remembered in the annals of the world as the product of the Palestinian popular uprising.

If the United States and the Soviet Union both apply the current mode of "perestroika" to the Arab-Israeli conflict, and become instrumental in helping to move Israel to accept and negotiate with the PLO, then the sacrifices of the uprising, the most important event of 1988 for Palestinians in the world, will have been vindicated. Such movement will ensure that the Arab world and Israel will have a chance for real peace, not between victor and vanquished, but between two equals.

Abdul Salam Y Massarueh, a correspondent for Middle East newspapers, was 1986-87 president of the Foreign Correspondent's Association of Washington, D.C.