Dr. Salim Tamari

One of the notable achievements of the Gulf war is that it compelled the Palestinians to make a re-assessment of their future political strategy. This at a time when their crowning achievement in the last decade--the Uprising--had reached an impasse.

Just before the war I referred to this impasse as one leading to political paralysis: "the crux of the Intifada's predicament lies in the routinization of the daily aspects of revolt (centered around the commercial strike and street confrontations with the army). [Those features] can neither be escalated into a campaign of total civil disobedience--and hence a complete disengagement with Israeli rule, or into a political initiative which can engage the enemy into a negotiated settlement favorable to the Palestinians. The first option is hampered by the limited organizational potential of the movement, which--at this stage-- seems to have reached its uppermost capacity for popular mobilization (and henceforth have retreated to heavy dependence on the 'direct action' tactics of factional 'strike forces'). The second option is beyond the political capacities of the internal forces of resistance, given the existing balance of forces between the contenders." (1)

While the first of these conditions still holds true today (and has even been reinforced by events) the second condition, related to the new balance of forces, has been modified by the war. One can venture, at this early stage of post bellum arrangements, to suggest the following new adjustments:

(1) Israel, unable to perform its self-defined role as a strike force on behalf of Western interests, has been reduced from the status of a junior partner of the U.S. to that of a client state, much more susceptible to the effects of US and Western European economic aid. Another significant consequence of the war is that it has re-fuelled the dormant Israeli debate on the Palestinian question and the territorial/colonial dilemma that has divided the Israeli polity at the beginning of the Intifada.

(2) With the military blow directed at Iraq the Arab states are no longer divided between "steadfast" states (Iraq, Syria, Libya and Algeria), and those (previously led by Egypt and Saudi Arabia) that represent American interests. On the other hand, the leading Arab states that joined the U.S. led coalition (particularly Egypt, Syria, and Saudi Arabia) are in a position to exact concessions from the Americans for the purpose of restoring their Arabist credentials, and in striving to legitimize their anti-Iraqi campaign.

Politically these concessions can only be meaningful if they were translated into pressure on the Israelis to make territorial concessions in the occupied territories.

(3) The definition of the 'New World Order' in terms of resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict is currently the subject of American-European policy formulation. Its main ingredient is the absence of the Soviet Union (and the third world bloc) as a decisive factor in balancing American intervention. But it is unlikely that a Pax Americana in the aftermath of the Gulf war can be confined to American military hegemony in as much as the EEC, Japan, the Scandinavian countries, and the Soviets have substantial interests in the area and are likely to resist American diktat of post-war arrangements. Nor is it in the interest of the Americans any more to act or be perceived to act as the defenders of Israeli intransigence over a peace settlement.

(4) One of the most significant factors in the new framework is the future role of Jordan. Jordan represents the exception in the Arab world as having responded to the dual crisis of economic recession and legitimacy with a genuinely democratic experiment, and was virtually the only country in the Arab East (aside from Yemen) not to bow to American diktat. So far it proved more resilient than the PLO in adapting itself skillfully to the defeat of Iraq (its major economic partner in the Middle East) and in designating itself as crucial interlocutor in the post-war settlement Of utmost significance here is that Jordan is now seen by the Palestinians as having a joint role in any planned peace initiative, but one that cannot be implemented without the participation of the PLO.

My aim in this intervention is to suggest that the intransigence of the Israelis over a territorial solution, and the length, complexity and protracted nature of the impending political struggle require the Palestinians to focus on the modalities of the 'transitional period' (i.e. transition to sovereignty) with the same zeal they have focused so far on their long-range objectives. These modalities are related to the future of the Intifada, and to the interim measures that they are willing to propose in any forthcoming peace negotiations.

Palestinian Reading of the New Map

There has been two varieties of Palestinian reactions to post- war realities: One, was the feeling that the conduct of the war vindicated the original view which saw the campaign as aiming at removing Iraq as the main obstacle to establishing American imperial hegemony in the Middle East, and that consequently the Palestinians should now resist the imposition of American-Israeli solutions which may or may not have the blessing of America's Arab allies.

Inside the occupied territories this perspective calls for the escalation of the Intifada, (2) and for non-cooperation with initiatives floated by the American administration and her Arab allies. It views the coming period as a phase of resistance to imposed solutions until the existing balance of forces shifts in favor of the Palestinians. At the heart of this outlook is the assumption that a radical transformation of neighboring Arab regimes, especially those in Syria and Egypt, is a pre-requisite for rectifying the existing imbalance created by the defeat of Iraq. Internally this tendency advocates tactical (and in some cases, long-term) alliances with Hamas and other Islamic currents. We see here a political atmosphere reminiscent of the vision that prevailed immediately after the l967 war.

The second tendency shares with the first one the need for resisting attempts at creating an alternative Palestinian leadership, currently waged by the Americans, the Saudis, and the Syrians. (3)

But this perspective does not see the war as providing a carte blanche for the Israelis to impose any solutions. On the contrary it sees the war as having created new opportunity for political initiatives which must be seized fully by the Palestinian leadership. Writing recently in the Jerusalem press Ghassan al- Khatib noted that one of the main achievements of this war accomplished exactly what the U.S. has refused to acknowledge: an organic linkage between the Gulf war and the issue of Palestine(4) This linkage, he proceeded, calls for the need to develop the momentum of the new international legitimacy acquired by UN resolutions (particularly SC res. 242, and UN resolution 141). This requires that Palestinians transcend the phase of vetoing political initiatives that hey deem to be politically unsatisfactory, and move towards initiating their own political positions that resonate with the new relations of power.(5)

The determinant factor favoring which of these tendencies will prevail depends to a large extent on the ability of the Palestinian movement to launch an initiative that galvanizes the main factions of the PLO around a new minimum program. One that will reassert in principle the November l988 resolutions of the Algiers PNC, while transcending the political deadlock that is currently facing the Intifada. The inability of the movement to move clearly in this direction will not relegate the Palestinian movement to oblivion, as the pundits keep reminding us, but will take the initiative from the hands of national movement and shift it in the direction of Hamas on the one hand, and the Arab states on the other.

The Future of the Intifada

Within the occupied territory there is a general feeling that the war constituted a watershed for the Uprising of December l987. Just as the November resolutions of the PNC were a turning point in translating the political demands of the upheaval into a concrete political program, the gulf war is seen as a fundamental break with the initial strategy and tactics of the Intifada, indicating the need for rethinking those strategies.

After three years of rebellion there is a general malaise in the Palestinian street affecting people's attitude to the daily routine of the Intifada: the commercial strike, the street confrontations, and the obligatory monthly circulars. The severe curfew imposed by the Israelis on the West Bank and Gaza during the first two months of: l99l, led to the destruction of the winter crops and the pauperization of the general population--in particular farmers, daily workers, and small merchants. An additional blow was added by the loss of remittances and direct aid from migrants and governments in the Gulf.

There is no doubt that the vast majority of the Palestinian people in the OT are behind the Intifada and its political objectives. Events have shown that in all regions tens of thousands Care still mobilized to resume the battle when national issues (or regional issues of land confiscation and deportation of activists) are involved. What is being questioned here are those tactics whose efficacy have been depleted.

What the Palestinians need today is a reprieve. A breathing space that allows them to rebuild their economy while waging a protracted political struggle of disengagement with Israel. In order to accomplish this dual objective I would suggest that the most crucial formulation here is to define the nature of the transitional period during which negotiations will take place. It is precisely because this period is likely to be prolonged, complex and protracted--involving successes and retreats--that we must have a positive definition of the transitional period By 'positive' I mean a concrete program for the modalities, forms, and--preferably--periodization of power arrangements during the transition, rather than defining it as the passage of time required to reach a nationally declared objectives. The following are concrete suggestions for these forms and modalities:

(1) Early forms of resistance have turned into their opposite: The current forms of resistance, routinized by the Intifada, must be reformulated in a manner that serves the daily needs of the people, and not their adversary. What was a successful and imaginative weapon in l988 and l989 has turned into its opposite today. The commercial strike, which initially indicated a struggle between the army and the resistance as to who controls the street, has already made its point. With the passage of time it has become a debilitating gesture of bravado, and a net drain on the economy. It is timely for the United Leadership to initiate new measures ending or replacing the commercial strike with more imaginative measures (such as boycott of commodities) rather than be forced into futile confrontations with merchants that will erode its credibility.

The need for UNLU to intervene at this level assumes also its ability, and the need for, controlling and disciplining unruly elements in its midst who succeeded, since the beginning of l990, to divert the mass struggle into factional and narrow forms of street action, without any clear political objectives (6). While the general public has maintained its support for the Intifada, these elements threaten to disrupt the umbilical cord that links the leadership of the rebellion to its mass base.

(2) Normalizing Daily Life in Times of Rebellion: In this regard the Islamic tendency has been more successful and imaginative than the United Leadership. While there is a general agreement that educational programs and school attendance should be maintained and protected during the Intifada, in practice only during strike days that are initiated by Hamas and Islamic Jihad is school attendance observed. The damage to education is bad enough as a result of Israeli curfews, and does not need to be compounded by the national movement. The Palestinian movement must seek to 'normalize' daily life while struggling against occupation, perhaps inspired by examples set by the Lebanese people. Revival of academic life, cultural innovation, and social activities, must not be seen as domains isolated from the arena of resistance. Even the rituals of joy (such as in weddings and seasonal festivities) which have been subdued during the Intifada, must be restored and incorporated into the rituals of rebellion.

(3) The alternative economy: " The critique of shortcomings of alternative economic models instituted during the Intifada is already way. (7) 4 The three years of civil disobedience marking the Intifada developed an experimental program for an alternative economy which was more form than substance. The successful aspects of this phase was to instill in the people the notion that economic disengagement with Israel is possible (through the boycott of commodities and taxes, and through innovation in local enterprises). Now begins the arduous task of actually developing local production and marketing networks without heavy reliance on substantial injections of aid from abroad. A modicum of a plan is needed to coordinate growth of private industries with those enterprises and cooperatives initiated by grass-roots movements. This in turn assumes and requires the formulation of a new minimal consensual program among the main factions of UNLU.

(4)A New Minimal Program: The political consensus formulated by the factions of the Palestinian movement during the Intifada was crowned by the political program of the Algiers PNC I(l988), and its peace initiative. While it is essential to continue the adherence to this initiative, the program itself has to be re- defined in light of the consequences of the Gulf war and the new political alignments in the region. Without a new minimal program the Palestinian movement will fall back to its (segmented) partisan components--each fighting for its own platform. Disunity here is fatal to the extent that it will allow external forces and the Israelis to deal with the Palestinians as 'political tribes' or worse, to transcend the Palestinian movement altogether and adjudicate a separate deal with Palestinian 'notables'.

The elements of the new minimum program, in my view, must include the following: (a) promoting the early forms of civil disobedience while strengthening the local economy; (b) establishing procedures for consensus building which allows for dissenting opinion to articulate its position without disrupting accords arrived Hat by a majority; (c) establishing institutional channels to arbitrate inter-factional disputes and establish acceptable ways to resolve them; (d) maintaining a democratic forum for the continuous examination of strategy in the light of ongoing political developments; (e) coordinating activities around this minimum program with political tendencies (e.g. the Islamic currents) that are unlikely to join ranks with the Palestinian peace initiative; (f) maintaining an open dialogue with all adversaries, including the Israelis, on the basis of the Palestinian peace initiative.

An International Mandate?

It should be obvious that the implementation of this minimal program is going to be prolonged and protracted. The current weakness of the Israeli opposition, and United States hesitation to apply substantial pressure on Israel in favor of territorial concessions, mean that it will be years before serious negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians will bear fruit. For this reason the Palestinian side must propose interim measures which will ensure the protection of population of the occupied territories and the survival of their cultural and economic institutions while negotiations are going on.

Two decisive features distinguish these interim measures from the autonomy scheme proposed in l989 by the Likud government, and then retracted by Itshak Shamir. One is the provisional nature of the measures, and the other is the recognition, at least on the part of the international community, that their end result is the evolvement of the occupied territory toward sovereignty.

Components of this transitional period must include at least some of the following features:

1. Freedom to plan and invest (including the entry of funds)for the economic growth of the territories;
2. Freedom to nominate and elect candidates for local(municipal and village councils) professional and trade union offices, and freedom to nominate and elect representatives at the national level;
3. freedom of movement within the regions of the West Bank and Gaza and between them, including the city of (Arab)Jerusalem;
4. cessation of all punitive measures against educational, cultural, and research institutions, and against the press;
5. Freedom for planning, zoning and development of infrastructure for municipal and village councils--to be restricted only by ecological and inter-regional planning considerations;
6. Cessation of all colonial settlement activities and freezing the growth of existing Israeli settlements until their fate is determined by a negotiated settlement;
7. The withdrawal of Israeli armed forces (and armed settlers to regions outside municipal and village councils in the West Bank and Gaza.

These suggestions are not new, and several of them have already been raised in the first political platform attributed to the Intifada leadership (the so-called l4-point platform of January l4, l988), the first item of which called for adherence to the Fourth Geneva Convention relating to the protection of civilians in times of war, and the annulment of Emergency Laws (inherited from the British Mandate). (8)

The tasks of maintaining security and internal order during this interim period (including the security of Israeli civilians in the OTs) is a logistic problem of some proportion. Within Palestinian political circles there is a preference that these tasks be vested in an international force acceptable to both Israel and the Palestinians Initially such an international presence will in all likelihood be rejected by the present Israeli government (and probably by the Labour opposition), not only because of the difficulty of arriving to a mutually agreeable force, but because it implies the (partial) suspension of Israeli sovereignty and control over the territories, prior to the conclusion of a final settlement. But its attractiveness lie in that it will relieve the Israelis from the daily tasks of a brutal rule over an unwilling population--with all the political moral liabilities it entails--without having to relinquish sovereignty
immediately.

Perhaps the most concrete arrangement for translating these measures in the transitional period would be to establish a United Nations Mandate over the territories, to be collectively administered by a corporate body designated by the international community. What make this proposal a pressing issue today is the brutal collective measures undertaken by the Israeli Military Administration during and after the Gulf War. Most notable among them were the prolonged curfews preventing farmers and workers from going to work; the use of curfews to collect taxes and fines from citizens; and extreme measures limiting the movement of people from one district to another, even after the curfews were lifted (those include the liberal use of Green Identity Cards, equivalent to South Africa's pass cards). The fact that these measures were not lifted after the war, and in many cases were expanded and supplanted indicates that they are intended to serve ends other than the proverbial security of state and public order. In my view they have two main objectives: to break the institutional patterns of the Intifada, by establishing an extensive network of permits and control mechanisms which will render every citizen dependent on the state's dispensation of daily needs; and second, to create economic hardships of such magnitude that the population at large would welcome any measure of political liberalization as an alternative to sovereignty.

But these measure have not worked and are unlikely to succeed. What makes Palestinian society so resilient to these draconian steps is a simple agrarian base, and strong social bonds of communal solidarity steeled by a tradition of stubborn resistance. On the other hand it is only through such an interim agreement described above, involving the gradual devolution of Israeli control, and ensuring the protection of civilian life and institutions, that the pre-conditions for substantial negotiations can proceed. The Gulf War has created a new international situation, which makes it difficult for Israel to avoid economic and political pressures if it hoses to be part of this new order.

On the Palestinian side also a great amount of fortitude, flexibility, and vision is required: first to maintain an internal unity that is capable of resisting the impending pressures to circumvent the PLO, and second to in order to pursue the strategic line of struggle that is needed during the transitional period suggested here.

NOTES

1."Limited Rebellion and Civil Society: The Uprising's Dilemma", MERIP, May-August 1990.

2, UNLU, Cirular No. 68, March 1, 1991. It is clear from the debate over the meeting with US Secretary of State Baker, however, that the leadership is divided over this issue.

3. It is significant that Khaled al-Fahoum, a leading figure in the pro-Syrian Salvation Front, did not posit the Front as an alternative to the current leadership of the PLO after the war. He merely suggested that the Palestinian National Council should be convened and new elections be carried out to replace Arafat. (Interview braodcasted by the BBC World Service, March 9, 1991). During the war itself none of the constituent parties in the SF distinguished itself from the Syrian stance, unlike the Popular and Democratic Fronts (both based in Damascus) who identified themselves with Iraq.

4. Ghassan al-Khatib, "After the Gulf War: A Palestinian Agenda", (in Arabic) al-Quds, March 5, 1991.

5. Al-Khatib, Ibid.

6. For a detailed analysis of the undisciplined side of the uprising see Muhammad al-Manasra "On the Negative Features of the Intifada", (in Arabic) Sawt al Watan, vol 1, No. B, April 1990.

7.Three forthcoming studies deal with "alternative economy" and suggest creative adjustments: Izzat Abdul Hadi in a major work on cooperative (to be published by Beisan Institute, Ramallah, Summer 1991); Samir Hleileh on the development strategies of grass-roots movements, Afaq Filistiniyya No. 6,Spring 1991; and Samir Abdullah, on the domestic economy debate, monograph to be published by the Arab Thought Forum, Summer, 1991.

8. For an analysis see Ali Jerbawi, The Uprising and Political Leadership in the West Bank and Gaza (Arabic), Dar at-Tali'a, Beirut, 1989, pp. 70ff; for a listing of the 14 points see PASSIA 1990 Yearbook, Jerusalem, 1990, p. 209.