tag:theconversation.com,2011:/es/topics/yasser-arafat-4390/articlesYasser Arafat – The Conversation2024-02-06T19:09:47Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2218722024-02-06T19:09:47Z2024-02-06T19:09:47ZExplainer: what is the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?<p>In recent weeks, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2024/01/21/middleeast/netanyahu-palestinian-sovereignty-two-state-solution-intl/index.html">repeated his rejections</a> of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian crisis, saying:</p>
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<p>I will not compromise on full Israeli security control over all the territory west of Jordan – and this is contrary to a Palestinian state.</p>
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<p>While Netanyahu has never been in favour of a two-state solution, it has had significant support from governments around the world for decades, including the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2024/01/18/1225309529/the-biden-administration-insists-a-2-state-solution-remains-a-real-possibility">United States</a>, the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/20/sunak-reiterates-support-for-two-state-solution-in-meeting-with-abbas">United Kingdom</a>, <a href="https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2024/01/23/israel-palestine-europeans-unite-to-defend-the-idea-of-a-two-state-solution_6457718_4.html#:%7E:text=On%20Monday%2C%20January%2022%2C%20European,Israel%20of%20a%20Palestinian%20state.">European nations</a>, <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-12-19/albanese-dont-abandon-hope-for-two-state-solution/103247366">Australia</a>, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/canada-is-still-committed-israel-palestine-two-state-solution-pm-trudeau-2023-10-20/">Canada</a>, <a href="https://carnegieendowment.org/2023/10/13/arab-perspectives-on-middle-east-crisis-pub-90774">Egypt</a> and others.</p>
<p>However, the two-state solution is now further away than it has ever been, with some even proclaiming it “<a href="https://theconversation.com/israel-palestinian-conflict-is-the-two-state-solution-now-dead-221967">dead</a>”.</p>
<p>But what actually is the two-state solution and why do so many see this as the only resolution to the conflict?</p>
<h2>What is the two-state solution?</h2>
<p>The two-state solution refers to a plan to create a Palestinian state separate from the state of Israel. The goal is to address Palestinian claims to national self-determination without undermining Israel’s sovereignty.</p>
<p>The first attempt at creating side-by-side states occurred before the independence of Israel in 1948. The year before, the United Nations passed <a href="https://undocs.org/Home/Mobile?FinalSymbol=A%2FRES%2F181(II)&Language=E&DeviceType=Desktop&LangRequested=False">Resolution 181</a> outlining a partition plan that would split the Mandate of Palestine (under British control) into separate Jewish and Arab states.</p>
<p>The UN’s proposed borders never materialised. Shortly after Israel declared independence, Syria, Jordan and Egypt invaded, sparking the first Arab-Israeli war. More than 700,000 Palestinians were <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-nakba-how-the-palestinians-were-expelled-from-israel-205151">displaced</a> from the new state of Israel, fleeing to the West Bank, Gaza and surrounding Arab states.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-nakba-how-the-palestinians-were-expelled-from-israel-205151">The Nakba: how the Palestinians were expelled from Israel</a>
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<p>In recent decades, there have been many different views on what shape a Palestinian state should take. The 1949 “green line” was seen by many as the most realistic borders for the respective states. This line was drawn during the armistice agreements between Israel and its neighbours following the 1948 war and is the current boundary between Israel and the West Bank and Gaza.</p>
<p>However, following the <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/middle-east/six-day-war">1967 Six-Day War</a>, Israel captured and occupied the West Bank and Gaza, along with East Jerusalem and Golan Heights. Most current discussions of the two-state solution now refer to creating two states along “the pre-1967 borders”. </p>
<p>This would mean the new Palestinian state would consist of the West Bank prior to Israeli settlement, and Gaza. How Jerusalem would be split, if at all, has been a significant point of contention in this plan.</p>
<h2>Why is statehood so important?</h2>
<p>The kind of statehood referred to in the two-state solution, known as <a href="https://opil.ouplaw.com/display/10.1093/law:epil/9780199231690/law-9780199231690-e1472">state sovereignty</a> in international politics, is the authority given to the government of a nation within and over its borders. </p>
<p>State sovereignty was formalised through the League of Nations (the precursor to the UN) and it gives governments complete control to administer laws within their borders, allows them to conduct relations with other states in formal bodies, and protects them from invasion by other states under international law. This status is derived from mutual recognition from other states. </p>
<p>This is something many of us take for granted. The vast majority of people on Earth live in or legally fall under the jurisdiction of a sovereign state. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/israel-palestinian-conflict-is-the-two-state-solution-now-dead-221967">Israel-Palestinian conflict: is the two-state solution now dead?</a>
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<p>The state of Israel was formally established in 1948 through the political project of <a href="https://theconversation.com/israel-hamas-war-what-is-zionism-a-history-of-the-political-movement-that-created-israel-as-we-know-it-217788">Zionism</a> – the movement to establish a Jewish homeland. The aim was to create a sovereign state – with borders, a government and an army – that would give the Jewish people a political voice and a place free from antisemitic violence. </p>
<p>But it was not until other countries established diplomatic ties with Israel – along with its accession to the UN in 1949 – that it achieved <a href="https://legal.un.org/repertory/art2.shtml">state sovereignty</a> similar to other countries. <a href="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/international-recognition-of-israel#google_vignette">More than 160 members</a> of the UN now recognise Israel; those who do not include Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia and Indonesia. </p>
<p>Since the end of the Six-Day War in 1967, more than 5 million Palestinians who are not citizens of another nation have been <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/International/palestinians-stateless-united-longing-liberation-historians/story?id=103899678#:%7E:text=They%20are%20stateless%2C%20their%20identity,fate%20hanging%20in%20the%20balance.">stateless</a>. The West Bank and Gaza Strip remain in an institutional limbo – best described as semi-autonomous enclaves under the ultimate control of Israel. </p>
<p>While <a href="http://palestineun.org/about-palestine/diplomatic-relations/">139 members of the UN</a> recognise a state of Palestine, the governing bodies in the West Bank and Gaza (the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, respectively) do not have control over their own security or borders. </p>
<p>As such, the self-determination of Palestinians through the creation of a sovereign state has been a cornerstone of Palestinian political action for decades. </p>
<h2>The closest the two sides got – the Oslo Accords</h2>
<p>For a time in the early 1990s, significant progress was being made toward a two-state solution. Negotiations began largely as a result of Palestinian uprisings across the West Bank and Gaza. Beginning in 1987, they were known as the <a href="https://www.btselem.org/statistics/first_intifada_tables">First Intifada</a>. </p>
<p>In 1993, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and the head of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) Yasser Arafat met in Oslo and signed <a href="https://peacemaker.un.org/sites/peacemaker.un.org/files/IL%20PS_930913_DeclarationPrinciplesnterimSelf-Government%28Oslo%20Accords%29.pdf">the first of two agreements</a> called the Oslo Accords. At the time, this was not seen as a meeting between equals. Rabin was head of a sovereign state and Arafat was leader of an organisation that had been designated a terror group by the US.</p>
<p>But the leaders were able to formalise an agreement, following major concessions from both sides, that laid the groundwork for the creation of a separate Palestinian state. While the accord did not expressly mention the 1967 borders, it did refer to “a settlement based on <a href="https://peacemaker.un.org/middle-east-resolution242">UN Security Council Resolution 242</a>” in 1967, which called for the withdrawal of Israel’s armed forces “from territories occupied in the recent conflict”. Arafat, Rabin and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres all received <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1994/summary/">Nobel Peace Prizes</a> afterwards.</p>
<p>The Oslo II Accord was signed in 1995, detailing the <a href="https://theconversation.com/understanding-the-history-of-the-israeli-palestinian-conflict-in-5-charts-216165">subdivision of administrative areas in the occupied territories</a>. The West Bank, in particular, was divided into parcels that were controlled by Israel, the Palestinian Authority or a joint operation – the first step toward handing over land in the occupied territories to the Palestinian Authority.</p>
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<p>But just six weeks later, Rabin was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/31/assassination-yitzhak-rabin-never-knew-his-people-shot-him-in-back">shot dead by a Jewish nationalist</a> aggrieved by the concessions made by Israel. </p>
<p>Negotiations between the two sides slowed and political will began to sour. And over the next few decades, the two-state solution has only become harder to achieve for various reasons, including:</p>
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<li><p>the rise of conservative governments in Israel and lack of effective political pressure from the US </p></li>
<li><p>the shrinking political influence of the Palestinian Authority under Mahmoud Abbas and the rise of Hamas in Gaza, which caused a political split between the two Palestinian territories</p></li>
<li><p>Hamas’ vows to <a href="https://apnews.com/article/hamas-gaza-palestinian-authority-israel-war-ed7018dbaae09b81513daf3bda38109a">annihilate Israel</a> and refusal to recognise the Israeli state as legitimate</p></li>
<li><p>the continued growth of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which has turned the territory into an ever-shrinking series of small enclaves connected by military checkpoints</p></li>
<li><p>dwindling support among both <a href="https://theconversation.com/israel-palestinian-conflict-is-the-two-state-solution-now-dead-221967">Israelis</a> and <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/512828/palestinians-lack-faith-biden-two-state-solution.aspx#:%7E:text=Younger%20Palestinians%20report%20less%20support,those%20aged%2046%20and%20older.">Palestinians</a> for the model</p></li>
<li><p>continued political violence on both sides.</p></li>
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<p>And of course there is Netanyahu – no individual has done more to undermine the two-state solution than the current Israeli leader and his party. In 2010, a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/jul/26/binyamin-netanyahu-tape-israeli-palestinian-politics">leaked recording from 2001</a> came to light where Netanyahu claimed to have “de facto put an end to the Oslo accords”.</p>
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<h2>What alternatives are there?</h2>
<p>There aren’t many alternatives and all of them have significant problems. </p>
<p>Some are now advocating for a “one-state solution,” in which Israeli citizenship would be granted to Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza to create a democratic, ethnically pluralist state. </p>
<p>Although Arabs already make up around 20% of Israel’s current population, the one-state solution would not be politically feasible. According to Zionist ideology, Israel must always remain a <a href="https://www.american.edu/sis/news/20231121-what-is-the-one-state-solution-and-why-is-it-unlikely-to-work.cfm">majority Jewish state</a> and granting Palestinians citizenship in the occupied territories would undermine this.</p>
<p>Another kind of one-state solution is not feasible for a different reason. The most far-right ministers in Israel’s parliament <a href="https://hashiloach.org.il/israels-decisive-plan/">have championed</a> an idea to expand complete sovereign control over the West Bank and Gaza and encourage mass Jewish settlement in these areas. Such action would draw the ire of the international community and human rights organisations and would be seen as tantamount to ethnic cleansing. </p>
<p>The other option is the status quo. The Hamas attack on October 7 and subsequent Israeli assault on Gaza have shown us that this is not a solution either.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221872/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Thomas does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The two sides got very close to a deal in the 1990s but have drifted apart since then.Andrew Thomas, Lecturer in Middle East Studies, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2215122024-01-24T12:34:21Z2024-01-24T12:34:21ZSouth Africa’s genocide case against Israel is the country’s proudest foreign policy moment in three decades<p>On 11 January 2024, South Africa <a href="https://www.icj-cij.org/case/192">hauled</a> Israel before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the charge of violating the <a href="https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/atrocity-crimes/Doc.1_Convention%20on%20the%20Prevention%20and%20Punishment%20of%20the%20Crime%20of%20Genocide.pdf">1948 Genocide Convention</a>. This was for Israel’s indiscriminate bombing and siege of Gaza following the deadly 7 October attack on Israel by Hamas which claimed 1,200 Israeli lives.</p>
<p>More than 25,000 Palestinians, at least half of them children, have reportedly <a href="https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-war-gaza-health-ministry-health-death-toll-59470820308b31f1faf73c703400b033">been killed </a>in Israeli retaliatory attacks. The siege has led to a humanitarian crisis, as civilians struggle to get food and and have no access to hospitals, which have been <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2023/10/21/analysis-the-military-logic-behind-israels-total-gaza-siege">all but totally destroyed</a>.</p>
<p>The South African team of lawyers pleaded with the court to impose <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-genocide-case-against-israel-expert-sets-out-what-to-expect-from-the-international-court-of-justice-220692">provisional measures</a> – temporary orders to stop irreparable harm, including an immediate ceasefire – while the court considers the merits of the case.</p>
<p>As observers of South Africa’s international relations, we believe this move to be the high-water mark in the country’s foreign policy since the end of apartheid in 1994.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-foreign-policy-under-ramaphosa-has-seen-diplomatic-tools-being-used-to-provide-leadership-as-global-power-relations-shift-218966">South Africa's foreign policy under Ramaphosa has seen diplomatic tools being used to provide leadership as global power relations shift</a>
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<p>South Africa’s liberation is sometimes portrayed as the <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/postscripts-on-independence-9780199479641?cc=us&lang=en&">last act</a> of 20th century decolonisation: the crowning moment of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/money/topic/Third-World">“Third World”</a> solidarity. The country’s new approach to foreign policy symbolised the hopes of countries that struggled for freedom. The (now governing) ANC’s discussion document of 1994 <a href="https://www.anc1912.org.za/policy-documents-1994-foreign-policy-perspective-in-a-democratic-south-africa/">stated</a>: </p>
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<p>a democratic South Africa will be in solidarity with all those whose struggle continues.</p>
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<h2>From Mandela to Ramaphosa</h2>
<p>Nelson Mandela, the first president of democratic South Africa, <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/south-africa/1993-12-01/south-africas-future-foreign-policy">advocated for human rights</a>, sometimes even at the expense of <a href="https://www.icirnigeria.org/mandela-begged-abacha-not-to-execute-ken-saro-wiwa-and-companions/">African partners</a>. That early promise was progressively whittled down. </p>
<p>In 1995, for example, Mandela pleaded with then Nigerian military head of state <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sani-Abacha">Sani Abacha</a> to spare the lives of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ken-Saro-Wiwa">Ken Saro-Wiwa</a> and eight other Ogoni activists. Critics of the Nigerian government’s failure to act against foreign oil companies causing environmental damage, they were accused of murdering Ogoni chiefs. Mandela’s pleas fell on deaf ears and they were <a href="https://www.icirnigeria.org/mandela-begged-abacha-not-to-execute-ken-saro-wiwa-and-companions/">executed</a>.</p>
<p>In his <a href="https://archive.nelsonmandela.org/index.php/za-com-mr-s-1576">scathing response</a>, Mandela called for Nigeria to be expelled from the Non-Aligned Movement and the Commonwealth until it established democratic rule. South Africa also recalled its High Commissioner to Lagos for consultations.</p>
<p>From the late 1990s, under the succeeding presidencies of Thabo Mbeki, Jacob Zuma and Cyril Ramaphosa, the South African government has often supported authoritarian regimes in the global south, often in repudiation of people’s struggles. Examples are <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/sep/27/dalai-lama-banned-south-africa">China</a>, <a href="https://www.actionsa.org.za/human-rights-will-be-the-light-that-guides-actionsas-foreign-policy/">Russia</a>, <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/7/6/icc-s-africa-broke-rules-by-failing-to-arrest-bashir">Sudan</a> and <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/6/8/south-africa-is-failing-and-its-failing-zimbabwe-too">Zimbabwe</a>. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-and-russia-president-cyril-ramaphosas-foreign-policy-explained-198430">South Africa and Russia: President Cyril Ramaphosa's foreign policy explained</a>
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<p>South African foreign policy is often described as being <a href="https://open.uct.ac.za/items/9dbfd78a-e95b-469c-8131-f2bd263f385d">inconsistent</a>, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.18772/22010105027.14">unclear and insincere</a>. </p>
<p>Palestine remains the single issue on which South Africa’s support for a people’s struggle has been unquestionably consistent. </p>
<h2>Solidarity with Palestine</h2>
<p>During the Cold War, the apartheid South African and Israeli states <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/unspoken-alliance-israels-secret-relationship-apartheid-south-africa-sasha-polakow-suransky">collaborated</a> on military, diplomatic and nuclear issues. The liberation movements of these two countries – namely the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) and the African National Congress (ANC) – practised an alternative form of internationalism. This was subversive and inspired by people’s solidarity in the Third World. </p>
<p>In 1974, when the PLO leader Yasser Arafat <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2535860?seq=1">addressed</a> the United Nations General Assembly, the first liberation leader to do so, he called for the same right to be extended to other liberation movements. Arafat used the occasion to denounce the apartheid regime with the same vehemence as he used to criticise Israel.</p>
<p>Two years later, the then ANC president, <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-anc-is-celebrating-the-year-of-or-tambo-who-was-he-85838">Oliver Tambo</a>, stood before the same body and both <a href="http://www.gutenberg-e.org/pohlandt-mccormick/pmh03i.html">applauded</a> Arafat’s leadership on this matter and expressed “unswerving solidarity” with the Palestinians.</p>
<p>In addition to diplomatic support, the two movements shared resistance tactics.</p>
<p>Arafat’s own faction within the PLO, Fatah, assisted the ANC and other resistance movements <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/armed-struggle-and-the-search-for-state-9780198292654?lang=en&cc=gb">to acquire training and arms</a>. Importantly, the relations between Tambo and Arafat were based on trust. In 1988, Tambo asked Arafat to help with securing funding from the Middle Eastern countries and requested the PLO to become a financial trustee of funds from that region. </p>
<h2>The lodestar</h2>
<p>This consistency of approach and support was reflected in South Africa’s case before the ICJ. It has put the promise of liberation back into South Africa’s national consciousness. This imaginative initiative reveals a sense of clarity that the country’s foreign policy has lacked due to its <a href="https://open.uct.ac.za/items/9dbfd78a-e95b-469c-8131-f2bd263f385d">inconsistencies</a> which resulted in contradictory choices in the 21st century.</p>
<p>It stays true to the <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/south-africa/1993-12-01/south-africas-future-foreign-policy">founding principles</a> of the post-apartheid polity. Not only was this needed in the country’s approach to international affairs, but it is vitally important to restore its self-image. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-foreign-policy-new-paper-sets-the-scene-but-falls-short-on-specifics-188253">South Africa's foreign policy: new paper sets the scene, but falls short on specifics</a>
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<p>South Africa’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-legal-team-in-the-genocide-case-against-israel-has-won-praise-who-are-they-221019">team</a> at The Hague included opponents of the ANC government. As they argued the legal and ethical case against Israel’s genocidal ambitions, their country watched in hope. </p>
<p>Could its international relations finally live up to the high ideals the country set for itself when apartheid ended? </p>
<p>South Africa’s appearance before the ICJ is an affirmation of the moral compass that the ANC government has <a href="https://pari.org.za/new-book-state-capture-in-south-africa-how-and-why-it-happened/">lost</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221512/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Palestine remains the single issue on which South Africa’s support for a people’s struggle has been unquestionably consistent.Peter Vale, Senior Research Fellow, Centre for the Advancement of Scholarship, University of Pretoria., University of PretoriaVineet Thakur, Assistant Professor, International Relations, Leiden UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2187802023-12-01T13:39:51Z2023-12-01T13:39:51ZHow the keffiyeh – a practical garment used for protection against the desert sun – became a symbol of Palestinian identity<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562756/original/file-20231130-17-agbx3d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=23%2C31%2C5174%2C3421&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Two people use a Palestinian keffiyeh to show their support during a pro-Palestinian demonstration in Washington on Nov. 4, 2023.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/USIsraelPalestinians/86773a62492842c8bc879695908b65c6/photo?Query=keffiyeh&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=238&currentItemNo=0">AP Photo/Amanda Andrade-Rhoades</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>After <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/08/middleeast/israel-gaza-attack-hostages-response-intl-hnk/index.html">Israel declared war on Hamas</a> following the militant group’s surprise attack on Oct. 7, 2023, and hostilities resumed in the region, some Palestinians have been urging non-Palestinians <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/09/style/kaffiyeh-palestine-israel-hamas-war.html">to wear the keffiyeh, a distinctive checkered scarf</a>, during protests. </p>
<p>Indeed, several Palestinian diaspora communities and their allies across the globe have taken to wearing the keffiyeh as a mark of solidarity. Last week, three Palestinian students who were <a href="https://apnews.com/article/shooting-burlington-vermont-palestinian-students-suspect-dd781a57f5d96cf591a1840db890b4ed">shot in Vermont were wearing black-and-white keffiyeh scarves</a>. </p>
<p>As a <a href="https://www.arminlanger.net/">scholar of immigrant communities and religious minorities in Europe</a>, I am aware of the history that shaped the keffiyeh’s origins and its transformation as a symbol of Palestinian cultural and national identity. </p>
<h2>Use across diverse cultures</h2>
<p>The keffiyeh has deep roots that stretch back centuries in the arid landscapes of the Middle East. Traditionally crafted from cotton, it was first donned by <a href="https://brill.com/display/book/9789004435926/BP000013.xml?language=en">the nomadic Bedouin tribes</a> as a protection against the desert sun and sand. </p>
<p>The keffiyeh’s usefulness in the desert landscape played a key role in its widespread popularity across diverse cultures in the region. At the turn of the 20th century, both Jewish and Arab communities wore the keffiyeh. </p>
<p>Many Jews who moved to Ottoman- and British-controlled Palestine <a href="https://blog.nli.org.il/en/hoi_keffiyeh/">chose to wear the keffiyeh</a> because they saw it as part of the authentic local lifestyle. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562761/original/file-20231130-23-37124e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Several men in military uniform standing in a desert-like terrain." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562761/original/file-20231130-23-37124e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562761/original/file-20231130-23-37124e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562761/original/file-20231130-23-37124e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562761/original/file-20231130-23-37124e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562761/original/file-20231130-23-37124e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562761/original/file-20231130-23-37124e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562761/original/file-20231130-23-37124e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion wearing a keffiyeh on a tour of the Negev region in 1949.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://gpophotoeng.gov.il/fotoweb/Grid.fwx?search=D705-019.jpg#Preview1">National Photo Collection of Israel, Photography dept. Government Press Office</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A symbol of Palestinian identity</h2>
<p>Apart from its practicality, the keffiyeh also emerged as a symbol of class struggle. While rural farmers wore the keffiyeh, the Palestinian middle and upper class embraced the fez. Also known as “tarboush,” the fez is a traditional <a href="https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20180227-reinventing-the-tarboosh-a-fez-for-the-21st-century">brimless hat popularized by the Ottomans</a>, typically made of felt and adorned with a tassel. </p>
<p>The fez was made popular in the 1800s by the region’s former ruler, <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/discover/palestine-keffiyeh-resistance-traditional-headdress">Ottoman Emperor Mahmud II</a>. The Palestinian elite adapted these Ottoman-style hats as a standard form of dress.</p>
<p>In the 1930s, the keffiyeh underwent a second transformation. During the revolt against the British, who took over Palestine from the Ottoman Empire after the First World War, the keffiyeh became a distinctive national symbol that <a href="https://brill.com/display/book/9789004435926/BP000013.xml?language=en">united all Palestinians and replaced the fez</a>. </p>
<p>Some rebels strategically donned the keffiyeh to hide their faces, as a way to avoid potential repercussions from British authorities. </p>
<p>It underwent another transformation following the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948. After the <a href="https://www.un.org/unispal/about-the-nakba/">displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians </a> during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, the keffiyeh became an expression of Palestinian resilience against Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. Worn by both those who were displaced and those who remained, the <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/longform/2023/11/20/palestine-symbols-keffiyeh-olive-branch-watermelon">headdress captured the emotional connection</a> to the land. </p>
<p>The keffiyeh’s prominence soared notably in the 1970s when Yasser Arafat, leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization, a Palestinian nationalist movement, adopted and popularized the garment. Arafat’s distinctive style, featuring the keffiyeh draped over his head and shoulders, became synonymous with the Palestinian cause. In 1974, he <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mm4uXWvyhSI">addressed the United Nations while wearing the keffiyeh</a>. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Mm4uXWvyhSI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">PLO leader Yasser Arafat wearing the keffiyeh.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The keffiyeh has even been addressed in news headlines as “<a href="https://www.newarab.com/features/raise-keffiyeh-unofficial-flag-palestine">the unofficial flag of Palestine</a>,” and Palestinian communities globally mark a <a href="https://handmadepalestine.com/blogs/news/world-keffiyeh-day-a-historical-look-at-the-most-powerful-palestinian-symbol">World Keffiyeh Day on May 11</a>. It has become popular among <a href="https://www.thedailystar.net/opinion/views/news/the-origins-the-palestinian-keffiyeh-and-how-it-came-symbolise-resistance-3467821">Palestinian militant groups as well as Palestinian rights activists</a>. </p>
<p>In recent years, influential cultural figures such as Palestinian singer and 2013 “Arab Idol” winner <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-a3zagLXIY">Mohammed Assaf have contributed</a> to the further popularization of the keffiyeh. </p>
<h2>Symbol of solidarity</h2>
<p>The keffiyeh’s resonance has not been confined to the West Bank and Gaza Strip. As images of Palestinian protests and resistance spread globally, so did the symbol of the keffiyeh. Activists and supporters around the world <a href="https://asiatimes.com/2017/12/indonesia-shows-solidarity-palestinian-cause/">adopted the keffiyeh</a> as a gesture of solidarity with the Palestinian cause. </p>
<p>The fashion industry has played an important role in spreading the keffiyeh globally. Its typical design with the <a href="https://www.egypttoday.com/Article/1/128444/Palestinian-Keffiyeh-becomes-global-symbol-to-support-Gazans">fishing net and olive leaf engravings</a> symbolizing the Palestinian economy has found its way onto various clothing items, ranging from scarves to shirts. However, these items often lack the political context that defines the keffiyeh’s importance for Palestinians. </p>
<p>Its promotion as a <a href="http://websites.umich.edu/%7Eleadmag/mar10featureskef.html">fashion accessory</a> and the appropriation of its checkered design by some leading fashion brands have sparked debates about the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2019/aug/09/the-keffiyeh-symbol-of-palestinian-struggle-falls-victim-to-fashion">importance of respecting the political and historical context of the keffiyeh</a>. At the same time, keffiyeh manufacturers in the Palestinian territories are also <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/from-hebron-palestinian-scarf-resists-chinese-competition/">facing increasing competition from factories in China</a>.</p>
<p>Despite these challenges, the keffiyeh <a href="https://www.columbiaspectator.com/news/2023/10/29/sjp-sells-keffiyehs-to-show-palestinian-solidarity-and-provide-support-for-gaza/">continues to be worn</a> by Palestinians and supporters worldwide.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218780/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Armin Langer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The keffiyeh’s prominence soared in the 1970s when Yasser Arafat, leader of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, adopted and popularized the garment.Armin Langer, Assistant Professor of European Studies, University of FloridaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2161852023-10-25T15:43:24Z2023-10-25T15:43:24ZIsrael-Hamas war: six key moments for the Gaza Strip<p>Once again, the Gaza Strip is at the epicentre of violence in the Middle East. This tiny 41km-by-13km band of territory on the Mediterranean, sandwiched between the often hostile neighbours of Israel and Egypt, has faced repeated rounds of violence in recent history – but the current war is the deadliest by a long way. More than <a href="https://www.ochaopt.org/content/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-flash-update-18">5,700 people in Gaza</a> have been reportedly killed by Israeli airstrikes in two weeks of relentless bombardment – <a href="https://www.dci-palestine.org/2055_palestinian_children_killed_in_gaza_more_than_800_missing">at least 2,000</a> of whom are children. </p>
<p>The aerial assault on Gaza has followed <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-did-hamas-attack-and-why-now-what-does-it-hope-to-gain-215248">Hamas’s brutal attack on Israel</a> on October 7, in which it crossed the Gaza border in several places, attacked towns and settlements, and killed <a href="https://ochaopt.org/content/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-flash-update-16">around 1,400</a>, people, mainly civilians – including an unspecified number of children. <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-says-it-has-confirmed-212-people-held-hostage-gaza-2023-10-22/">More than 200</a> more people, including women, children and elderly people, were seized and taken into Gaza.</p>
<p>Analysts are now warning of the danger of a full regional war, which could <a href="https://www.mei.edu/publications/irans-calculations-israel-hamas-war">involve Iran</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/hezbollah-alone-will-decide-whether-lebanon-already-on-the-brink-of-collapse-gets-dragged-into-israel-hamas-war-212078#:%7E:text=But%20whether%20Lebanon%20becomes%20a,Hezbollah's%20military%20hegemony%20in%20Lebanon.">Lebanon</a> as well.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555598/original/file-20231024-21-fx5ruz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="UN map of the Gaza Strip with associated statistics." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555598/original/file-20231024-21-fx5ruz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555598/original/file-20231024-21-fx5ruz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=859&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555598/original/file-20231024-21-fx5ruz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=859&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555598/original/file-20231024-21-fx5ruz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=859&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555598/original/file-20231024-21-fx5ruz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1079&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555598/original/file-20231024-21-fx5ruz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1079&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555598/original/file-20231024-21-fx5ruz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1079&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘The world’s largest open-air prison’: the Gaza Strip at September 2023.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ocha</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>How has such a <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/gaza-strip-size-compared-world-cities-maps-1835267">tiny strip of land</a> – less than half the size of Berlin – become so critical to the politics of an entire region? Over the past 75 years, the Gaza Strip has frequently been the focal point of the conflict between Israel and Palestine. Here are six key moments that led up to the current crisis:</p>
<h2>1. 1948: Palestinian dispossession</h2>
<p>In 1948, <a href="https://imeu.org/article/quick-facts-the-palestinian-nakba">the state of Israel was established</a>. While the United Nations had recommended the previous year that <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Partition_Plan_for_Palestine#/media/File:UN_Palestine_Partition_Versions_1947.jpg">55% of Palestine be designated for a Jewish state</a> – causing controversy as only a third of the population of Palestine was Jewish at the time – Zionist militias and the Israeli army ultimately took 78%, displacing and expelling large numbers of Palestinians. After Jewish Agency leader David Ben Gurion declared the establishment of Israel on May 14, neighbouring Arab states refused to recognise the new state and instead declared war on it in solidarity with the Palestinians.</p>
<p>In 1949, Israel signed armistices <a href="https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/686123?ln=en">agreeing its borders</a> with neighbouring Arab states. By this time, more than 750,000 Palestinians – around three-quarters of the population – had been turned into refugees. Their dispossession became known in Arabic as the <a href="https://www.un.org/unispal/about-the-nakba/"><em>Nakba</em></a> (catastrophe). Many refugees fled to the two parts of Palestine not absorbed by Israel: the West Bank (which was subsequently annexed by Jordan in 1950) and the Gaza Strip (which came under Egyptian control).</p>
<p>The Nakba transformed the entire Middle East, but it had the biggest demographic impact on the Gaza Strip. A tiny area of land with a population of <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Gaza/4fhzBAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=filiu+gaza+a+history&printsec=frontcover">around 80,000 absorbed more than 200,000 refugees</a>. The Strip’s famously dense population today can be traced directly to the dispossession of 1948.</p>
<h2>2. 1956: First Israeli occupation of Gaza</h2>
<p>As Gaza was administered by Egypt after 1948, it became a key battleground in the <a href="https://history.blog.gov.uk/2016/07/26/whats-the-context-26-july-1956-nasser-announces-the-nationalisation-of-the-suez-canal/">1956 Suez crisis</a>. After Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalised the Suez Canal Company, Britain, France and Israel launched an attack on Egypt. As part of this, <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20211102-suez-crisis-triggered-israel-s-first-occupation-of-gaza">Israel occupied Gaza</a> with evidence of plans for long-term occupation.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A crippled tank with other damaged military vehicles." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555595/original/file-20231024-15-uocdqx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555595/original/file-20231024-15-uocdqx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555595/original/file-20231024-15-uocdqx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555595/original/file-20231024-15-uocdqx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555595/original/file-20231024-15-uocdqx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555595/original/file-20231024-15-uocdqx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555595/original/file-20231024-15-uocdqx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A crippled Israeli tank in the Sinai, destroyed during the Suez crisis, 1956.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">US Army Heritage & Education Center/Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the event, due to US intervention, Israel and its allies were defeated and Washington forced Israel to withdraw its troops early in 1957. But this would not be the last time it occupied the Strip.</p>
<h2>3. 1967: Israel begins long-term occupation of Gaza and the West Bank</h2>
<p>Over six days of war in June 1967, Israel defeated the Arab coalition of Egypt, Jordan and Syria. It captured the Golan Heights from Syria, the West Bank from Jordan, and the Gaza Strip and the Sinai desert from Egypt. This began its long-term military occupation of the two parts of Palestine not taken in 1948: the West Bank and Gaza Strip. </p>
<p>As Gaza had a reputation for <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/17/weekinreview/17smith.1.html">being more “radical”</a> than the West Bank – due to its poverty levels and high proportion of refugees – Israel targeted it for <a href="https://www.palquest.org/en/highlight/21232/israel%E2%80%99s-policy-toward-refugees-gaza-strip">further population dispersal and displacement</a>. During the 1970s, it deployed a combination of carrot and stick measures designed to compel Palestinians to leave Gaza for the West Bank, Egypt, Jordan, and even the Americas. </p>
<p>Successive Israeli governments also moved their own citizens into illegal settlements in both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Ariel Sharon’s government would eventually <a href="https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2019/08/israel-gaza-strip-disengagement-2005-ariel-sharon-hamas.html">withdraw all 21 settlements</a> in 2005, but Israel <a href="https://www.un.org/unispal/document/auto-insert-205755/">retained control over the Strip’s land, sea and air borders</a>.</p>
<h2>4. 1987: First intifada begins</h2>
<p>In December 1987, an Israeli army truck crashed into a car in Gaza, killing four Palestinians. The incident sparked the beginning of the <a href="https://www.makan.org.uk/glossary/first_intifada/">first intifada</a> (uprising), which would eventually spread across the whole of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Palestinian youths making street barricades in Gaza during the first intifada 19087 to 1993" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555599/original/file-20231024-19-kt1nqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555599/original/file-20231024-19-kt1nqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555599/original/file-20231024-19-kt1nqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555599/original/file-20231024-19-kt1nqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555599/original/file-20231024-19-kt1nqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555599/original/file-20231024-19-kt1nqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555599/original/file-20231024-19-kt1nqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Unrest: the first intifada in Gaza, 1987 to 1993.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Abarrategi/Wikimedia Commons</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Palestinians in both occupied territories <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wnet/women-war-and-peace/uncategorized/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-1987-intifada/">boycotted Israeli goods, refused to pay taxes, and withdrew their labour from Israeli employers</a>. There was also widespread stone-throwing at Israeli army vehicles and soldiers. </p>
<p>The intifada shook up longstanding Israeli assumptions that most Palestinians were passive in the face of the occupation, and is credited as a key factor in forcing negotiations in the early 1990s.</p>
<h2>5. 1994: Yasser Arafat sets up the Palestinian Authority in Gaza</h2>
<p>From 1993-95, the Israeli and Palestinian leaders, Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat, signed the <a href="https://users.ox.ac.uk/%7Essfc0005/The%20Rise%20and%20Fall%20of%20the%20Oslo%20Peace%20Process.html">Oslo Accords</a>, a set of agreements designed to pave the way for a full peace deal. Oslo allowed for limited Palestinian autonomy in parts of the occupied territories. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Israeli prime minister Yitshak Rabin shakes hands with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat as US president Bill Clinton looks on." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555596/original/file-20231024-19-gf3i3z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555596/original/file-20231024-19-gf3i3z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555596/original/file-20231024-19-gf3i3z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555596/original/file-20231024-19-gf3i3z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555596/original/file-20231024-19-gf3i3z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555596/original/file-20231024-19-gf3i3z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555596/original/file-20231024-19-gf3i3z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The 1993 Oslo Accords, signed by Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, paved the way for the establishment of a Palestinian Authority in Gaza.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Vince Musi/The White House/WIkimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 1994, Arafat was instrumental in establishing the Palestinian Authority (PA) in Gaza City, from which Israeli forces partially withdrew. While this was <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/09/13/oslo-accords-1993-anniversary-israel-palestine-peace-process-lessons/">intended as a five-year interim agreement</a> ahead of final negotiations between the PA and Israel, it would last much longer than this in reality. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/inside-the-oslo-accords-a-new-podcast-series-marks-30-years-since-israel-palestine-secret-peace-negotiations-212985">Inside the Oslo accords: a new podcast series marks 30 years since Israel-Palestine secret peace negotiations</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>6. 2007: Hamas takes power in Gaza</h2>
<p>As many Palestinians became increasingly disenchanted with the PA’s corrupt and ineffectual leadership, <a href="https://www.vox.com/politics/2023/10/10/23911661/hamas-israel-war-gaza-palestine-explainer">Hamas</a> gained prominence as a rival to Arafat’s Fatah party. </p>
<p>Again, the Gaza Strip was at the centre of this. In 2006, Hamas won Palestinian parliamentary elections, taking <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090404002945/http://www.elections.ps/template.aspx?id=291">44% of the vote</a>. The result was <a href="https://theintercept.com/2021/04/27/biden-2006-elections-in-gaza/">rejected by the US</a> and much of the western world, which backed the Fatah-led PA. </p>
<p>Following intra-Palestinian fighting in 2007, Hamas took full control of the Strip. In response, Israel <a href="https://visualizingpalestine.org/visuals/gaza-closure">imposed a blockade on it</a>, ramping up measures that had first been imposed at the end of the first intifada. Egypt largely supported the blockade, meaning that Gaza’s people were hemmed into a tiny stretch of land, with a dying economy and no access to the outer world.</p>
<p>Since then, Palestinians in Gaza have faced continual violence, with particularly intensive Israeli bombing campaigns in <a href="https://imeu.org/article/operation-cast-lead">2008-9</a>, <a href="https://www.btselem.org/press_releases/20130509_pillar_of_defense_report">2012</a>, <a href="https://www.amnesty.org.uk/gaza-operation-protective-edge">2014</a> and <a href="https://www.vox.com/22440330/israel-palestine-gaza-airstrikes-hamas-updates-2021">2021</a>, as well as rockets launched by Gaza militias into Israel. </p>
<p>But <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-20415675">the current war</a> has already exceeded all of them in bloodshed, meaning that Gaza unfortunately looks set to retain its place at the heart of the region’s violence and displacement.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216185/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anne Irfan receives funding from the British Academy</span></em></p>Dates that changed the course of history in what has been called ‘the world’s largest open-air prison’.Anne Irfan, Lecturer in Interdisciplinary Race, Gender and Postcolonial Studies, UCLLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2133402023-10-04T12:33:07Z2023-10-04T12:33:07ZThe Nobel Peace Prize offers no guarantee its winners actually create peace, or make it last<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551816/original/file-20231003-21-46u90x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=1091%2C0%2C71%2C233&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Norwegian Nobel Committee is set to announce its annual winner for the peace prize on Friday, Oct. 6, 2023. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/plaque-depicting-alfred-nobel-at-the-nobel-peace-prize-news-photo/83979203?adppopup=true">Chris Jackson/Getty Images </a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Norwegian Nobel Committee is <a href="https://www.nobelpeaceprize.org/presse/arrangementer/accreditation-announcement-nobel-peace-prize-2023?instance=0">set to announce</a> the recipient of the annual Nobel Peace Prize on Oct. 6, 2023, drawing from a pool of 351 nominees. </p>
<p>Environmental activist Greta Thunberg and Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Zelenskyy <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/how-is-nobel-peace-prize-decided-2023-09-29/">are reportedly two of the nominees</a>, among political dissidents, leaders and human rights activists who are up for the prize. The winner will receive a medal, US$994,000 and global recognition.</p>
<p>I have <a href="https://www.sandiego.edu/peace/about/biography.php?profile_id=2091">worked in the peace-building field</a> for over 20 years to support societies as they work to prevent violence and end wars. Each year, I think I should look forward to this moment, when a champion of peace is celebrated on the world stage. But given the track record of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, I always feel some dread before the peace prize announcement. Will the award celebrate a true peace builder, or a politician that just happened to sign a peace agreement? Will it celebrate a true and historic achievement, or what happens to be in the newspaper right now? </p>
<h2>A mixed history</h2>
<p>Admittedly, the <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/about/the-norwegian-nobel-committee/">Norwegian Nobel Committee</a> – made up of five Norwegians, mostly former politicians, whom the Norwegian parliament appoints for a six-year term – has made some great peace prize selections over the years. </p>
<p>South African politician Nelson Mandela, for example, <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1993/summary/#">won the prize</a> in 1993 for his work to help end apartheid.</p>
<p>And Leymah Gbowee, an activist who helped bring peace to Liberia, <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/2011/gbowee/facts/">won the award</a> in 2011, alongside former Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Yemeni women’s rights activist Tawakkul Karman.</p>
<p>Gbowee brought Christian and Muslim women together to end Liberia’s devastating 14-year civil war by using creative tactics – <a href="https://qz.com/958346/history-shows-that-sex-strikes-are-a-surprisingly-effective-strategy-for-political-change">including a sex strike</a>, in which Liberian women promised to withhold sex from their husbands until a peace agreement was signed. </p>
<p>Despite the prize’s mixed track record – and <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/09/end-nobel-peace-prize/616300/">despite calls by some to stop giving the award</a> – I think the Nobel Peace Prize should continue. War remains one of humankind’s greatest problems, and peace is still a human achievement worth celebrating.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551809/original/file-20231003-25-gozy93.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Leymah Gbowee wears a white shirt and marches with a long line of women, also wearing white." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551809/original/file-20231003-25-gozy93.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551809/original/file-20231003-25-gozy93.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551809/original/file-20231003-25-gozy93.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551809/original/file-20231003-25-gozy93.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551809/original/file-20231003-25-gozy93.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551809/original/file-20231003-25-gozy93.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551809/original/file-20231003-25-gozy93.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Leymah Gbowee, who was a joint Nobel Peace Prize winner in 2011, marches with women’s rights activists to pray for peace in Monrovia, Liberia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/liberias-joint-nobel-peace-prize-2011-leymah-gbowee-and-news-photo/1250772202?adppopup=true">Issouf Sanogo/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The prize can be off-mark</h2>
<p>The Nobel Committee, in my view, does not always give the peace prize to people who actually deserve the recognition. And the prize is not a precursor to peace actually happening, or lasting. </p>
<p>Some previous awardees are head-scratchers, for peace experts and casual observers and recipients alike. For example, former President Barack Obama said that <a href="https://www.npr.org/2009/10/09/113677764/obama-surprised-at-winning-nobel-peace-prize">he was even surprised by the award</a> when he won it in 2009.</p>
<p>The committee gave him the award “based on his extraordinary efforts to <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/2009/press-release/">strengthen international diplomacy</a> and cooperation between peoples.” However, Obama had been in office for less than a year when he got the prize, which is likely not enough time to do either of these things.</p>
<p>Geir Lundestad, a former secretary of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee, wrote in his 2019 memoir that he had hoped the award “<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34277960">would strengthen Mr. Obama</a>” to pursue nuclear disarmament, but in the end he said that he regretted giving Obama the award. </p>
<p>Others selections, such as Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, have proved embarrassing in hindsight. </p>
<p>Just one year after winning the award in 2019, Abiy ordered a large-scale military offensive against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, <a href="https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/conflict-ethiopia">a controversial political party</a> that represents the northern Tigray region of Ethiopia. </p>
<p>The war between the Ethiopian military and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front resulted in tens of thousands of civilian deaths before it ended in November 2022. A <a href="https://apnews.com/article/health-united-nations-africa-ethiopia-eritrea-dcb992b8389069490c8b44357500cabe">United Nations investigation</a> found in 2022 that all sides in the conflict have committed <a href="https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/war-crimes.shtml">war crimes</a> against civilians.</p>
<p>Berit Reiss-Andersen, the chair of the Nobel award committee, later said in 2022 that Ahmed “has a special responsibility to end the conflict and contribute to peace.” </p>
<p>Unsurprisingly, such statements encouraging peace – alongside the Nobel Prize itself – have had little effect on how prize winners act. The factors that drive war or peace are complex and are unlikely to be significantly influenced by an annual award given in Norway.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551815/original/file-20231003-19-ful84d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A picture of the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali is on display at the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo, alongside other framed photos of people in a dark room with blue lighting." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551815/original/file-20231003-19-ful84d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551815/original/file-20231003-19-ful84d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551815/original/file-20231003-19-ful84d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551815/original/file-20231003-19-ful84d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551815/original/file-20231003-19-ful84d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551815/original/file-20231003-19-ful84d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551815/original/file-20231003-19-ful84d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A photo of Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed is on display at the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo, Norway, recognizing winners of the Nobel Peace Prize.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/picture-of-the-2019-nobel-peace-prize-laureate-ethiopian-news-photo/1175337675?adppopup=true">Stan Lysberg Solum/NTB Scanpix/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<h2>Peace is long term</h2>
<p>Other Nobel awarding committees seem to understand that it takes a significant amount of time to judge whether an achievement truly merits the prize.</p>
<p>Both physicists and economists wait an average of 23 years to <a href="https://www.nature.com/nature-index/news/chemistry-fastest-path-nobel-prize">receive an award</a> after they achieve their award-winning work. </p>
<p>In contrast, American diplomat Henry Kissinger won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1973 for negotiating a <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/cease-fire-goes-into-effect">cease-fire in Vietnam that same year</a>. The cease-fire began to falter almost immediately, and Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, fell to the North Vietnamese army in May 1975. Kissinger then unsuccessfully tried to return the prize, noting that <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/world/kissinger-nobel-peace-prize-vietnam-war-b2261492.html">“peace we sought through negotiations has been overturned by force</a>.”</p>
<p>Similarly, the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli political leaders Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin won the peace prize in 1994, one year after they signed the <a href="https://peacemaker.un.org/israelopt-osloaccord93">Oslo Accords,</a> a series of agreements that set up Palestinian self-governance for the West Bank and Gaza. But by 2000, Palestinians had launched the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Israel/The-second-intifada">second intifada</a>, and widespread violence returned to the region.</p>
<p>The Nobel committee tends to award prizes to those involved in current events and doesn’t award prizes long after those events have happened. But some awards have stood the test of time, in part because they were given to individuals following long struggles.</p>
<p>Mandela, for instance, won the prize 53 years after his expulsion from university for joining a protest. This sparked <a href="https://southafrica-info.com/history/nelson-mandela-timeline/">a 53-yearlong career in activism and politics</a> that included 27 years of incarceration as a political prisoner by the government he had fought against – and later led as president.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551831/original/file-20231003-21-fn9thz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Yaser Arafat, Shimon Peres and Yitzak Rabin stand in a row and show an open book with a gold Nobel peace prize in it." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551831/original/file-20231003-21-fn9thz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551831/original/file-20231003-21-fn9thz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551831/original/file-20231003-21-fn9thz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551831/original/file-20231003-21-fn9thz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551831/original/file-20231003-21-fn9thz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551831/original/file-20231003-21-fn9thz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551831/original/file-20231003-21-fn9thz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Palestinian leader Yaser Arafat, left, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, center, and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin display their joint Nobel Peace Prizes in 1994.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/in-this-handout-from-the-government-press-office-israeli-news-photo/51663003?adppopup=true">Government Press Office via Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<h2>It’s about peace</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/alfred-nobel/alfred-nobels-life-and-work/">Swedish scientist Alfred Nobel</a> – the founder of the Nobel awards – said the Nobel Peace Prize should go to the person “who has done the most or best to advance fellowship among nations, the abolition or reduction of standing armies, and the establishment and promotion of peace congresses.” </p>
<p>The language is somewhat archaic, but the message is clear – the peace prize was designed to be about stopping war and promoting peace. </p>
<p>However, in the last 20 years, the peace prize has been awarded to those working on a variety of issues, including <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/2021/summary/">freedom of expression</a>, <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/2014/summary/">children’s education</a> and <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/2007/summary/">climate change</a>.</p>
<p>All of these are important issues that require more support and recognition – but it is not the case that freedom of expression or climate change adaptation directly leads to peace.</p>
<p>In my view, there are more than enough problems and deadly conflicts in the world whose solutions merit the award of the Nobel Peace Prize as a reflection of its original intent – to acknowledge attempts aimed at ending the scourge of war and building a sustainable peace.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213340/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Blum does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Nobel Peace Prize has recognized some legendary leaders and peace activists, but it has a mixed track record of recognizing people who actually deserve the prize.Andrew Blum, Executive Director and Professor of Practice at Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace, University of San DiegoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2113622023-09-12T12:26:24Z2023-09-12T12:26:24Z30 years after Arafat-Rabin handshake, clear flaws in Oslo Accords doomed peace talks to failure<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/547046/original/file-20230907-29-w0u6nx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=10%2C0%2C3542%2C2396&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A historic handshake.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/american-president-bill-clinton-watches-as-the-israeli-news-photo/2666773?adppopup=true">MPI/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>On Sept. 13, 1993, the world watched as Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat <a href="https://www.npr.org/2016/08/06/488737544/oslo-tells-the-surprising-story-behind-a-historic-handshake">shook hands on the White House lawn</a>. It was a stunning moment. The famous handshake between adversaries marked the beginning of what became known as the <a href="https://peacemaker.un.org/israelopt-osloaccord93">Oslo Accords</a>, a framework for talks between Israeli and Palestinian representatives, mediated by U.S. diplomats.</p>
<p>The idea was that through open-ended negotiations and confidence-building measures, Palestinians would eventually take control over their own affairs in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem – <a href="https://www.un.org/unispal/history/">territories that Israel</a> had <a href="https://www.globalr2p.org/countries/israel-and-the-occupied-palestinian-territory/">illegally occupied following the 1967 Six-Day War</a>. </p>
<p>After an <a href="https://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/ho/time/pcw/97181.htm">interim period of five years</a>, the thinking went, a Palestinian state would exist side by side with Israel. And through such a two-state solution, peace between Israel and the Palestinians could be achieved.</p>
<p>Thirty years later, it is clear the Oslo Accords have achieved neither peace nor a two-state solution. So far in 2023 alone, over 200 Palestinians and nearly 30 Israelis <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/8/22/more-than-200-palestinians-nearly-30-israelis-killed-so-far-this-year-un">have been killed</a>. Israel has <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/israel-swears-in-netanyahu-as-prime-minister-most-right-wing-government-in-countrys-history">the most right-wing, nationalist government</a> in its history, and the <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2023-06-29/ty-article-opinion/.premium/why-is-the-palestinian-authority-weak-israeli-occupation/00000189-08a0-dae1-afa9-08bd83b50000">Palestinian leadership is weak and divided</a>. There is little prospect for a return to negotiations anytime soon. </p>
<p>How did this grim reality emerge from such high hopes in 1993? Many analysts point to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhea62CPM3Q">violations of the terms of the accords</a> committed by both sides. Others blame a <a href="https://carnegieendowment.org/2013/09/12/legacy-of-oslo-process-pub-52972">lack of accountability</a>, which allowed those violations to go unchecked.</p>
<p>Certainly, there is plenty of blame to go around. But as a <a href="https://menas.arizona.edu/person/maha-nassar">scholar of Palestinian history</a>, it is clear to me that the Oslo peace process failed because the framework itself was deeply flawed in three key ways.</p>
<p>First, it ignored the power imbalance between the two sides. Second, it focused on ending violence by Palestinian militant groups while overlooking <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/4/10/israeli-violence-is-the-problem">acts of violence committed by the Israeli state</a>. And third, it sought peace as the end goal, rather than justice.</p>
<p>Let’s break each one of these down.</p>
<h2>Ignoring the power imbalance</h2>
<p>The Palestinian Liberation Organization, or PLO, had <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1988/11/15/world/plo-proclaims-palestine-to-be-an-independent-state-hints-at-recognizing-israel.html">implicitly recognized Israel</a> in 1988. But a more formal statement <a href="https://mesg.wordpress.hull.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/The-Israel-PLO-Mutual-Recognition-Agreement.pdf">was needed</a> for Israel to agree to talks. In an exchange of letters on Sept. 9, 1993, <a href="https://www.un.org/unispal/document/auto-insert-205528/">Arafat wrote to Rabin</a>, “The PLO recognizes the right of the State of Israel to exist in peace and security.” </p>
<p>In formally recognizing Israel’s right to exist, the PLO essentially gave up sole sovereign claims to <a href="https://imeu.org/article/quick-facts-the-palestinian-nakba">78% of the Palestinians’ historic homeland</a> that was now claimed by Israel.</p>
<p>In response, <a href="https://www.un.org/unispal/document/auto-insert-205528/">Rabin wrote to Arafat</a> that Israel would “recognize the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people.” He did not recognize the Palestinians’ right to form their own state.</p>
<p>In a “<a href="https://www.un.org/unispal/document/auto-insert-180015/">Declaration of Principles</a>,” signed by Arafat and Rabin at the White House on Sept. 13, it was stated that the aim of the talks was “the implementation of Security Council resolutions 242 (from 1967) and 338 (from 1973).” Those U.N. resolutions call on Israel to withdraw from territories it occupied in 1967. But they do not explicitly call for the establishment of a Palestinian state.</p>
<p>Since then, Israel has <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-06-15/ty-article/.highlight/half-the-west-bank-land-seized-by-israel-used-only-by-settlers-report-says/00000188-b932-d1d6-a7b9-fbf73a8a0000">expropriated nearly half</a> of the West Bank for the exclusive use of Jewish settlers, <a href="https://press.un.org/en/2016/sc12657.doc.htm">in violation of international law</a>. It also routinely <a href="https://apnews.com/article/water-climate-change-drought-occupation-israel-palestinians-30cb8949bdb45cf90ed14b6b992b5b42">siphons off</a> water from Palestinian underground aquifers for the use of the settlers, while <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/parched-israels-policy-water-deprivation-west-bank#:%7E:text=Immediately%20after%20occupying%20the%20West,Valley%2C%20for%20its%20own%20ends.">depriving</a> Palestinians access to their own water. </p>
<p>As a result of these <a href="https://www.unrwa.org/demolition-watch">and other measures</a>, life for Palestinians <a href="https://www.btselem.org/publications/summaries/199905_oslo_before_and_after">became worse</a> during the post-Oslo years, not better. As Palestinians lost further control over their lands, homes and resources, their ability to establish a state grew more distant.</p>
<p>Yet, by insisting that bilateral negotiations take place between a powerful state and a stateless people – rather than under the auspices of the United Nations or other international body – the Oslo framework ignored the power imbalance between Israel and the Palestinians. U.S. mediators would insist that <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2000/06/06/world/albright-in-mideast-trying-to-push-israeli-palestinian-talks.html?searchResultPosition=7">both sides</a> needed to compromise. But Israel held far more military, economic and diplomatic power than the Palestinians. </p>
<p>By ignoring this power imbalance, the Oslo Accords effectively allowed Israel to continue to confiscate land and resources with no consequences. With 60% of the West Bank <a href="https://unctad.org/publication/economic-costs-israeli-occupation-palestinian-people-cost-restrictions-area-c-viewed">under Israeli control</a>, the prospects for a viable, independent Palestinian state were undermined.</p>
<h2>No end to state violence</h2>
<p>A 1994 <a href="https://peacemaker.un.org/sites/peacemaker.un.org/files/IL%20PS_940504_Agreement%20on%20the%20Gaza%20Strip%20and%20the%20Jericho%20Area%20%28Cairo%20Agreement%29.pdf">follow-up agreement stated</a>, “Both sides shall take all measures necessary in order to prevent acts of terrorism, crime and hostilities directed against each other.” It added that “the Palestinian side shall take all measures necessary to prevent such hostile acts directed against the Settlements, the infrastructure serving them and the Military Installation Area.” </p>
<p>Successive Israeli governments have interpreted “hostile acts” broadly. As a result, even Palestinians who have defended their lands through nonviolent means <a href="https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121998612">have been arrested</a>, <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2010/08/activista-palestino-declarado-culpable-tribunal-militar-israeli/">imprisoned</a> and <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/civilresistance/nonviolent-resistance-in-palestine-steadfastness-creativity-and-hope/">shot at</a> by Israeli soldiers.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://peacemaker.un.org/sites/peacemaker.un.org/files/IL%20PS_940504_Agreement%20on%20the%20Gaza%20Strip%20and%20the%20Jericho%20Area%20%28Cairo%20Agreement%29.pdf">agreement also stated</a> that “the Israeli side shall take all measures necessary to prevent such hostile acts emanating from the Settlements and directed against Palestinians.” But it does not mention Israeli military violence against Palestinian civilians. </p>
<p>To enforce this agreement, the Palestinian Authority – an autonomous body that rules over Palestinians in the West Bank – <a href="https://www.peaceagreements.org/viewmasterdocument/983">agreed to coordinate</a> with the Israeli military over security matters. It would either arrest Palestinians whom Israel suspects of carrying out hostilities or allow Israel to enter Palestinian areas and arrest suspects themselves.</p>
<p>This coordination protects Israelis from Palestinian violence, but it does not protect Palestinians from violence by the Israeli military. Since fall 2000, the Israel military has killed <a href="https://statistics.btselem.org/en/all-fatalities/by-date-of-incident?section=overall&tab=overview">eight times</a> as many Palestinians as compared with Israelis killed by Palestinians. Half of those Palestinian victims were <a href="https://statistics.btselem.org/en/all-fatalities/by-date-of-incident?section=participation&tab=overview">not involved in hostilities</a> when they were killed, according to analysis from the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem.</p>
<p>Palestinians are also subjected to other kinds of human rights abuses from the Israeli state. These include <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/israel-ramps-up-demolition-of-palestinian-homes-in-jerusalem">home demolitions</a>, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/prison-israel-palestinians-administrative-detention-e4ffd1744a9692c2539a78a8d916176e">imprisonment without charge or trial</a> and <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2022-11-30/ty-article/.premium/israels-military-police-to-probe-alleged-abuse-of-palestinians-by-soldiers-at-checkpoint/00000184-c99a-dbba-a5fd-ddda80620000">abuse</a> <a href="https://www.unocha.org/publications/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/fact-sheet-movement-and-access-west-bank-august-2023">at checkpoints</a>. Most soldiers accused of harming Palestinians <a href="https://s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/files.yesh-din.org/LAW+ENFORCEMENT+AGAINST+ISRAELI+SOLDIERS+2017-2021/YeshDin+-+Data+12.22+-+English.pdf">do not face consequences</a> for their actions, according to Yesh Din, an Israeli human rights organization.</p>
<h2>Peace over justice</h2>
<p>This kind of structural violence and abuse – perpetrated by the state against marginalized groups – rarely makes headlines in Western media. Such a lack of awareness reinforces Israel’s ability to control Palestinians’ lives and further undermines the prospects for peace.</p>
<p>Yet this exclusive focus on achieving peace has, I believe, also been part of the problem. American and Israeli diplomats <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?150611-1/middle-east-peace-process">narrowly defined peace</a> as the absence of armed violence and set that as the overarching goal. They believed that if Palestinians refrained from committing acts of violence, then peace through a two-state solution could be achieved. Coverage that mirrored this perspective in the mainstream U.S. media <a href="https://www.972mag.com/new-york-times-israel-palestine/">further entrenched</a> this view. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A mural of eyes painted on a crumbling wall." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/547524/original/file-20230911-23-qc9k0g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/547524/original/file-20230911-23-qc9k0g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547524/original/file-20230911-23-qc9k0g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547524/original/file-20230911-23-qc9k0g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547524/original/file-20230911-23-qc9k0g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547524/original/file-20230911-23-qc9k0g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547524/original/file-20230911-23-qc9k0g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Graffiti on a wall of the destroyed ‘Yasser Arafat International Airport’ in the Gaza Strip.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/this-picture-taken-on-august-27-2023-shows-a-view-of-a-news-photo/1654263885?adppopup=true">Said Khatib/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>But this understanding of peace has ignored the Palestinians’ need for justice. At a minimum, justice to many Palestinians would have meant <a href="https://al-shabaka.org/memos/the-pas-revolving-door-a-key-policy-in-security-coordination/">an end to security cooperation</a> between the Palestinian Authority and Israel and the establishment of an independent, democratic Palestinian state on the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-palestinians-1948-scepticism/palestinians-losing-faith-in-two-state-solution-idUKMAC13949320080512">remaining 22% of their homeland</a>. </p>
<p>But with the power imbalances enshrined in the Oslo framework, and with U.S. mediators focusing more on peace – measured by incidents of Palestinian violence over those perpetrated by the Israeli state – this was not to be.</p>
<h2>Oslo as ‘surrender’</h2>
<p>One month after the famous handshake, the <a href="https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v15/n20/edward-said/the-morning-after">Palestinian scholar Edward Said described</a> the Oslo Accords as “an instrument of Palestinian surrender.” Recently, a group of leading political scientists <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/middle-east/israel-palestine-one-state-solution">called on U.S. policymakers to abandon</a> the Oslo framework and the two-state solution altogether. They call on the U.S. to “advocate for equality, citizenship, and human rights for all Jews and Palestinians living within the single state dominated by Israel.”</p>
<p>It is, I believe, an urgent call. Life for Palestinians is getting worse, not better. A growing number of <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/israeli-authorities-and-crimes-apartheid-and-persecution">international human rights organizations</a> and <a href="https://sites.google.com/view/israel-elephant-in-the-room/home?pli=1">public figures</a> describe the current reality on the ground in <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde15/5141/2022/en/">Israel-Palestine as a form of apartheid</a>.</p>
<p>Thirty years after their famous handshake, Arafat and Rabin have long since passed. It’s time to admit that the process they kick-started is also now confined to history.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211362/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Maha Nassar served as a 2022 Non-Resident Palestinian Fellow at the Foundation for Middle East Peace.</span></em></p>A famous gesture kick-started hopes of peace in the Middle East. But today, the idea of a two-state solution seems further away than ever before.Maha Nassar, Associate Professor in the School of Middle Eastern and North African Studies, University of ArizonaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2130032023-09-12T11:29:54Z2023-09-12T11:29:54ZOslo accords: 30 years on, the dream of a two-state solution seems further away than ever<p>It has been <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/27/opinion/israel-saudi-arabia-biden.html">widely reported</a> that as a condition for a potential Saudi-US-Israel deal the Israelis will commit to making gestures towards a <a href="https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-758490">two-state solution</a>. This was the original vision, 30 years ago, when the <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1993-2000/oslo">Oslo accords</a> were signed, when it seemed that a Palestinian state recognised by, and living side-by-side with Israel, might indeed be a realistic prospect by the end of the 20th century.</p>
<p>Now, in the third decade of the 21st century, the Palestinian leadership merely hopes for some more of the occupied West Bank to be <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-66734638">handed over to its control</a>. A sovereign Palestinian state does not seem to be on the agenda. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1993-2000/oslo">Oslo accords</a>, which were secretly negotiated between the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and the Israeli government between 1992 and 1993, provided for three phases of negotiations. The first involved a <a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-05-14-mn-57636-story.html">withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Jericho area</a> in the West Bank and most of Gaza together with the creation of institutions for <a href="https://imeu.org/article/fact-sheet-the-palestinian-authority">Palestinian self-government</a>. </p>
<p>Second there would be an interim agreement which would create an elected Palestinian Council and expand the area under its direct control. Third there would be permanent status talks to resolve the difficult issues of the status of Jerusalem, settlements, refugees, borders and relations with neighbouring states. </p>
<p>But when these issues were eventually discussed at the <a href="https://www.chathamhouse.org/2018/07/israeli-palestinian-peacemaking/camp-david-approach-2000">Camp David talks in 2000</a>, neither Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat or Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak could rise to the occasion and strike a deal. </p>
<p>This was no doubt due to the ambiguity of the accords on questions of self-determination and statehood. The text referred to “<a href="https://www.peaceagreements.org/view/34">mutual legitimate and political rights</a>”. But while Israel and the PLO recognised each other, it was as negotiating parties rather than as partners with legitimacy and the right to self-determination exercised through two sovereign states. </p>
<p>In 1993 there was much talk about the creation of a new Middle East which would be part of the post-cold war world order. The ambiguities of the Oslo accords would be resolved by good faith negotiations in an atmosphere where many talked about the “peace dividend”.</p>
<h2>Things fall apart</h2>
<p>But there was a darker side to the early 1990s. The Balkan wars (1991-1995) were markedly violent conflicts which were the product of xenophobia, racism and religious extremism. As the 1990s progressed it was these features, rather than a peaceful democratic dispensation, which characterised the post-communist world. </p>
<p>For Israel and Palestine, the optimism present in 1993 was to dissipate with rising violence. Within three years we saw the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3cszmsk">assassination of Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin</a> by a Jewish terrorist, the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/february/25/newsid_4167000/4167929.stm">massacre of Muslims</a> while praying in Hebron by an Israeli settler and Hamas <a href="https://1997-2001.state.gov/global/terrorism/1996Report/middle.html">suicide terrorist attacks</a> against Israeli civilians in February and March 1996. By May 1996 the Israeli government that had negotiated the Oslo accords had been defeated at the polls by Benjamin Netanyahu who announced he would “lower Palestinian expectations”. </p>
<p>In the years since, there has been the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/middle_east/03/v3_ip_timeline/html/2000.stm">second intifada</a> (2000-2004), the reoccupation by Israel of the West Bank (beginning in autumn 2000) and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/hamas-israel-history-confrontation-2021-05-14/">three wars between Hamas and Israel</a>. The Palestinian leadership has fractured, with Fatah (the main component of the PLO) running the West Bank while Hamas is in control of Gaza.</p>
<p>Israeli politics, meanwhile, has moved sharply to the right. This has included 12 years of populist Netanyahu governments and, since the 2022 elections, the formation of an <a href="https://theconversation.com/israeli-elections-benjamin-netanhayu-set-to-return-with-some-extreme-new-partners-193814">extreme rightwing government</a> containing ministers who are openly racist – some of them even convicted of anti-Palestinian terrorism.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/israeli-elections-benjamin-netanhayu-set-to-return-with-some-extreme-new-partners-193814">Israeli elections: Benjamin Netanhayu set to return – with some extreme new partners</a>
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<h2>Elusive dream</h2>
<p>A paradox of the past 30 years has been that while the negotiations promised by Oslo have failed, the Palestinian institutions created by the Oslo process have persisted. </p>
<p>The Palestinian Authority created by the <a href="https://peacemaker.un.org/israelopt-cairoagreement94">Cairo Agreement in 1994</a> remains in place with Mahmoud Abbas as president. The <a href="https://ecfr.eu/special/mapping_palestinian_politics/palestine_legislative_council/">Legislative Council</a> created in 1995 remains in session in Ramallah – even if there have been no elections since 2006. </p>
<p>Since 2012, the United Nations has <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-palestinians-statehood-idUSBRE8AR0EG20121201">recognised Palestine as a state</a>. It is now recognised by about 140 countries and has joined international organisations only open to states, such as the <a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/palestine">International Criminal Court</a>. </p>
<p>It has also been the case that there have been some initiatives to improve the situation. In 2005, then prime minister Ariel Sharon <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/israel/israel-begins-forced-evacuation-gaza-settlers">removed Israeli settlers and troops from Gaza</a>. Whether he had a plan for a deal with the Palestinians we shall never know, as he collapsed and died shortly after. </p>
<p>His successor Ehud Olmert offered Abbas a <a href="https://www.jpost.com/diplomacy-and-politics/details-of-olmerts-peace-offer-to-palestinians-exposed-314261">comprehensive plan for a Palestinian state</a> in 2008, but the Palestinian president <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/abbas-admits-he-rejected-2008-peace-offer-from-olmert/">walked away from it</a>.</p>
<p>A resolution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict has proved elusive due to a combination of the specific issues and the xenophobic age in which we live. Oslo offered an opportunity which could have worked if only both sides could break with traditions of mutual denial of the national aspirations of the other. </p>
<p>In December 1995, I stood in the streets of Ramallah and watched as a Palestinian procession reclaimed the city from the Israeli occupiers. It was a glimpse of a possible future. The enthusiasm of the crowds for emancipation underlines what is possible when two peoples recognise that each has the right to self-determination. </p>
<p>The recent <a href="https://theconversation.com/israels-democracy-protests-what-happens-next-211723">mass pro-democracy movement in Israel</a> offers a possible turning point against populism and xenophobia. However it needs to grow into a movement that can not only save Israeli democracy from the attacks of the right but also from the corrupting influence of 56 years of occupation. It will only be successful if it liberates both Israel and Palestine.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213003/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Strawson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>When Yasser Arafat and Yitshak Rabin shook hands on the White House lawn in September 1993 it looked as if Israel and Palestine might achieve a lasting peace. Three decades on this remains a dream.John Strawson, Honorary Professor of Law and director of LLM programs, University of East LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2047822023-05-11T12:13:26Z2023-05-11T12:13:26ZThe Nakba at 75 – Palestinians’ struggle to get recognition for their ‘catastrophe’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525429/original/file-20230510-19-35fnr2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C453%2C7209%2C4712&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Palestinians leave their Jerusalem neighborhood during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/picture-released-in-january-1948-shows-palestinian-arabs-news-photo/1252040931?adppopup=true">Intercontinentale/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>On May 15, 2023, the United Nations will stage a high-level special meeting to commemorate the 75th anniversary of <a href="https://imeu.org/article/the-nakba-and-palestine-refugees-imeu-questions-and-answers">the Nakba</a> – the <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/5/15/nakba-mapping-palestinian-villages-destroyed-by-israel-in-1948#:%7E:text=Zionist%20military%20forces%20expelled%20at,and%20the%20besieged%20Gaza%20Strip.">mass displacement of around 750,000 Palestinians</a> from their homeland in 1948. </p>
<p>It is the first time that the international body has commemorated the date, <a href="https://www.un.org/unispal/document/statement-by-chair-of-the-palestinian-rights-committee-at-security-council-open-debate-9/">which organizers said serves</a> “as a reminder of the historic injustice suffered by the Palestinian people.”</p>
<p>Not everyone is behind the U.N.’s marking of the day, however. The United States and the United Kingdom were among the countries that <a href="https://www.jns.org/for-the-first-time-a-un-body-will-host-a-nakba-day-event/">voted against the commemoration</a>. Meanwhile, the <a href="https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20230427-israel-seeks-boycott-of-nakba-anniversary-event-at-un/">Israeli foreign ministry has called</a> on U.N. member states “not to participate in the event that adopts the Palestinian narrative that opposes Israel’s right to exist.”</p>
<p>As a scholar who <a href="https://menas.arizona.edu/people/maha-nassar">studies Palestinian history</a>, I see the U.N. decision as the culmination of a long process. For decades, Palestinians struggled for international recognition of the Nakba in the face of a narrative that <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2019-07-05/ty-article-magazine/.premium/how-israel-systematically-hides-evidence-of-1948-expulsion-of-arabs/0000017f-f303-d487-abff-f3ff69de0000">minimized their plight</a>. </p>
<p>That is starting to change.</p>
<h2>What is the Nakba?</h2>
<p><a href="https://imeu.org/article/quick-facts-the-palestinian-nakba">The Nakba</a> – Arabic for “catastrophe” – was part of a longer project of displacement of Palestinians from their homeland. From the early 1900s, <a href="https://theconversation.com/on-its-75th-birthday-israel-still-cant-agree-on-what-it-means-to-be-a-jewish-state-and-a-democracy-204770">increasing numbers of Zionists</a> – Jewish nationalists – emigrated from Russia and other parts of Europe to Palestine, seeking to escape antisemitism.</p>
<p>Many of these settlers also sought to <a href="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/a-definition-of-zionism">establish Jewish sovereignty</a> in a land that had long been inhabited by Muslims, Christians, Jews and others.</p>
<p>As a result of Zionist settlement, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00263206.2017.1372427">thousands of peasants were forced off</a> land they had lived on for generations. Many <a href="https://yplus.ps/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Kanafani-Ghassan-The-1936-39-Revolt-in-Palestine.pdf">Palestinians resisted</a> this colonial displacement throughout the 1920s and 1930s. But their resistance was <a href="https://doi.org/10.1525/jps.2015.44.2.28">violently suppressed</a> by British colonial forces ruling over Palestine at the time.</p>
<p>Following World War II, as the full horrors of the Holocaust became known and international sympathy for the Jewish plight grew, Zionist militias <a href="https://israeled.org/king-david-hotel-bombing/">waged deadly attacks</a> that <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2020-06-13/ty-article/.premium/the-hidden-terror-attacks-of-the-haganah-israels-pre-state-militia/0000017f-e69b-dea7-adff-f7fbb12e0000">killed</a> <a href="https://archive.org/details/terroroutofzion00jbow">hundreds</a> of Palestinians and British personnel.</p>
<p>The British then handed over the “question of Palestine” to the newly formed United Nations, which <a href="https://www.un.org/unispal/document/auto-insert-185393/">on Nov. 29, 1947, voted</a> in favor of a partition plan to split Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state. The plan allotted a majority of the country, including major ports and prime agricultural lands, to the Jewish state, even though Jews comprised about <a href="https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Partition-and-lead-up-to-violence.pdf">one-third of the population at the time</a>. The plan would have also forced half a million Palestinian Arabs living in the proposed Jewish state to <a href="https://www.thecairoreview.com/essays/framing-the-partition-plan-for-palestine/">make a stark choice</a>: live as a minority in their own country or leave. </p>
<p>Palestinians rejected the plan and fighting broke out. Well-trained Zionist militias <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300151121/1948/">attacked Palestinians</a> in areas that had been designated as part of the proposed Jewish state. Other Palestinians fled in fear after <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/4/9/the-deir-yassin-massacre-why-it-still-matters-75-years-later">Zionist forces massacred</a> villagers in Deir Yassin. </p>
<p>By the time Israel declared its independence on May 14, 1948, between <a href="https://imeu.org/article/quick-facts-the-palestinian-nakba">250,000 and 350,000 Palestinians had been forced off</a> their ancestral lands.</p>
<p>The day after that declaration – May 15 – came to be known as Nakba Day. </p>
<p>As Palestinians fled to neighboring lands, the armies of five Arab countries – which also wished to prevent a Jewish state from forming – were deployed to try to stem the tide of refugees. Fighting between Israeli and Arab armies continued throughout that summer and fall, with the <a href="https://users.ox.ac.uk/%7Essfc0005/The%20Debate%20About%201948.html">heavily armed</a> Israeli military <a href="https://www.1948movie.com">conquering lands</a> that the U.N. had previously <a href="http://www.passia.org/maps/view/15">designated as part of the Arab state</a>. </p>
<p>In the process, even more Palestinians were <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Ethnic-Cleansing-of-Palestine/Ilan-Pappe/9781851685554">expelled from their homes and villages</a>. Many <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520389366/nakba-and-survival">fled on foot</a>, <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/palestinians/2018-04-20/ty-article-magazine/.premium/hidden-stories-of-the-nakba/0000017f-e929-d62c-a1ff-fd7bf36e0000">carrying whatever they could on their backs</a>. By the end of the Arab-Israeli war in 1949, an estimated <a href="https://www.unrwa.org/userfiles/20100118141933.pdf">750,000 Palestinians</a> had either fled or had been expelled from their homes. </p>
<h2>The battle over the Nakba narrative</h2>
<p>Palestinian and official Israeli accounts framed what took place in very different ways.</p>
<p>Since 1948, Palestinians have insisted that they have a right to return to the homes and lands from which they were expelled. They and their supporters cite the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, <a href="https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights#:%7E:text=Everyone%20has%20the%20right%20to%20seek%20and%20to%20enjoy%20in,principles%20of%20the%20United%20Nations">passed in December 1948, that states</a>: “Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A woman making a heart shape with her hands fronts a throng of people waving Palestinian flags." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525471/original/file-20230510-21-kxxdef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525471/original/file-20230510-21-kxxdef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525471/original/file-20230510-21-kxxdef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525471/original/file-20230510-21-kxxdef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525471/original/file-20230510-21-kxxdef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525471/original/file-20230510-21-kxxdef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525471/original/file-20230510-21-kxxdef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Palestinians march in Chicago on May 15, 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/demonstrators-march-in-chicago-illinois-on-may-15-2022-news-photo/1240703372?adppopup=true">Max Herman/NurPhoto via Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>But <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110718144249/http://www.palestine-studies.org/enakba/exodus/Glazer,%20The%20Palestinian%20Exodus%20in%201948.pdf">Israeli officials have maintained</a> that Palestinians left at the behest of their leaders and should be resettled in the surrounding Arab countries.</p>
<p>They also argue that since Israel has already absorbed <a href="http://www.thetower.org/article/there-was-a-jewish-nakba-and-it-was-even-bigger-than-the-palestinian-one/">some 900,000 Jewish refugees</a> who were expelled from Arab countries after Israel’s founding, they should not have to take back Palestinian refugees, too. </p>
<p>For decades, Americans overall <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2018/01/23/republicans-and-democrats-grow-even-further-apart-in-views-of-israel-palestinians/012318_1/">have held greater sympathy</a> for the Israeli position. One reason for this was the 1958 bestselling novel “Exodus” and the 1960 blockbuster film of the same name. As <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/08969205221132878">my research shows</a>, the novel drew on long-standing anti-Arab racist tropes to absolve Zionist and Israeli forces of their role in creating the Palestinian refugee crisis.</p>
<p>This “<a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/08969205221132878">Nakba denialism</a>,” as scholars like myself describe it, was pervasive. It rested on the idea that Palestinians were generic “Arabs” who could be settled in any other Arab country, rather than a people whose food, dress and dialects are connected to specific locales in Palestine, and are distinct from those in surrounding Arab countries.</p>
<p>Attempts to commemorate the Nakba have long been rooted in a counternarrative that connects Palestinian culture and society to their pre-1948 hometowns and villages.</p>
<p>At first, Palestinians mourned the loss of their homeland quietly. Then in the 1960s, younger Palestinians formed political organizations aimed at drawing international attention to their cause. That included <a href="https://www.palestineposterproject.org/poster/15th-may">holding public events</a> on May 15 to educate the broader public – in Arab states and around the world – about their ties to their land and to push for their right to return.</p>
<p>Following the June 1967 War, Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Since then, Palestinians around the world have sought to use May 15 to draw attention not only to the plight of Palestinian refugees living in exile, but also of those living under Israeli occupation. </p>
<p>Palestinians <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-global-offensive-9780190217822?cc=us&lang=en&">gained support from many in the Global South</a> – a term to describe lower-income countries mainly in Asia, Africa and South America – due in part to many nations’ common colonial experiences. While some African American groups in the U.S. also <a href="https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=29556">backed the Palestinian cause</a>, in much of the West the Nakba remained largely unknown. </p>
<p>In 1998, as Palestinians marked 50 years of exile, activists in <a href="https://www.palestineposterproject.org/poster/the-nakba-continues">the United States and around the world organized</a> commemorative events. For the first time, organizers centered the events around a single theme: remembering the Nakba. </p>
<p>That same year, Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2022-05-15/ty-article-magazine/a-brief-history-of-nakba-day/00000180-d635-d572-aba5-debd6f320000">also made official</a> what had long been unofficial: May 15 was declared Nakba Day.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, a group of Israeli scholars known as the “New Historians” published <a href="https://merip.org/1998/06/fifty-years-through-the-eyes-of-new-historians-in-israel/">carefully documented studies</a> that confirmed the Palestinians’ narrative of what happened in 1948. Those studies undermined <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2017-07-01/ty-article-magazine/.premium/why-are-palestinian-photos-and-films-buried-in-israeli-archives/0000017f-e768-da9b-a1ff-ef6ff2000000">long-standing official Israeli denials</a> about its role in creating the Nakba. They also opened the door further for global acknowledgment of the Palestinians’ experiences.</p>
<p>Despite the findings, Israeli governments and some Western allies still oppose recognizing the Nakba. </p>
<p>In 2009, the Israeli education minister <a href="https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106939038">banned the use of the Arabic term in Israeli textbooks</a>. Then in 2011, the Israeli parliament passed a “<a href="https://law.acri.org.il/en/knesset/nakba-law/">Nakba Law</a>,” authorizing the government to withdraw funding from civil society groups that commemorate the Nakba. That law <a href="https://themarkaz.org/palestinians-and-israelis-will-commemorate-the-nakba-together/">remains in effect</a>.</p>
<p>The restrictions aren’t limited to Israel. Last year, German courts upheld the Berlin police’s decision to <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/05/20/berlin-bans-nakba-day-demonstrations">cancel several planned Nakba Day protests in that city</a>. </p>
<p>Despite this opposition, Palestinians continue to mark Nakba Day. That’s because, as long as they remain under Israeli occupation and exiled from their land, Palestinian rights groups say, “<a href="https://www.badil.org/press-releases/843.html">the Nakba is ongoing</a>.” Many also see May 15 as a day to <a href="https://www.arabamerica.com/events/amp-leading-dc-rally-to-commemorate-nakba-75/">affirm Palestinians’ resilience</a>, despite the ongoing oppression they face.</p>
<p>As Palestinians and their supporters hold Nakba Day events at the U.N., <a href="https://uscpr.org/nakba-75/">across the United States</a> and around the world in 2023, it serves as acknowledgment of their long, and continuing, struggle.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204782/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Maha Nassar was a 2022 nonresident fellow with the Foundation for Middle East Peace.</span></em></p>For the first time, the United Nations will mark the commemoration of the displacement of 750,000 Palestinians from their homes in 1948.Maha Nassar, Associate Professor in the School of Middle Eastern and North African Studies, University of ArizonaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1575202021-05-17T14:06:22Z2021-05-17T14:06:22ZIsraeli politics and the Palestine question: everything you need to know<p>As <a href="https://theconversation.com/many-questions-few-answers-as-conflict-deepens-between-israelis-and-palestinians-160921">civilian causalities mount</a> in Gaza, Israeli politicians of all hues must face the stark reality that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict cannot be managed but needs to be resolved. Relations between Palestinians and Israelis and between Jewish and Palestinian Israeli citizens have reached a new dangerous moment. The pretence that the conflict was marginal to Israeli politics has been exposed by the violent <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/may/16/how-did-it-happen-that-israels-jews-and-arabs-rose-up-against-each-other">intercommunal strife</a> in Jerusalem, Haifa, Lod, Jaffa and other cities. </p>
<p>These events expose the bankruptcy of politicians who have <a href="https://theconversation.com/stark-choice-for-israel-as-voters-head-to-polls-for-fourth-time-in-two-years-157437">fought four elections in two years</a> as if the conflict was remote. The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has spent his years in office seeing the conflict as a purely administrative issue, keeping things quiet but never addressing the political aspirations of the Palestinians. </p>
<p>His extraordinary success lies in his ability to lure his political opponents – and parts of the Arab world – into the same dead end. Even the Israeli Islamist leader Mansour Abbas, now <a href="https://theconversation.com/israeli-election-mansour-abbas-emerges-as-possible-first-arab-kingmaker-in-nations-history-158155">central to the formation of any Israeli government</a>, ignored the conflict in his prime-time speech to the Israeli public after the last elections.</p>
<p>The trigger for the current crisis was <a href="https://theconversation.com/jerusalem-the-politics-behind-the-latest-explosion-of-violence-in-the-holy-city-160647">events in occupied East Jerusalem</a>. The attempt to remove Palestinian families from their homes in the East Jerusalem suburb of Sheikh Jarrah and provocative policing during Ramadan at the Damascus Gate and al-Aqsa mosque have had an impact on Palestinians on both sides of the “<a href="https://www.haaretz.com/misc/tags/TAG-green-line-1.5599076">green line</a>” – which divides Israel from the occupied territories and runs through Jerusalem. </p>
<p>The far right, emboldened by its success in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/24/israel-election-netanyahu-looks-to-far-right-as-early-count-deadlocked">winning six parliamentary seats in the Knesset in March</a>, has inflamed the situation with marches through East Jerusalem with slogans such as “Death to Arabs!” As intercommunal conflict spread throughout Israel, Hamas launched its rocket campaign.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/jerusalem-the-politics-behind-the-latest-explosion-of-violence-in-the-holy-city-160647">Jerusalem: the politics behind the latest explosion of violence in the Holy City</a>
</strong>
</em>
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<p>Against this background, the arcane post-election process of attempting to form a government continued. Netanyahu failed in that task and Israeli president <a href="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/reuven-rivlin">Reuven Rivlin</a> turned to Yesh Atid party leader, Yair Lapid, who set about <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/president-tasks-lapid-with-forming-new-government-after-netanyahu-fails/">trying to create a coalition</a> with centre, left and right-wing parties – a group united only by its opposition to Netanyahu. </p>
<p>Key to this project was <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/middle-east/20210325-naftali-bennett-the-israeli-nationalist-politician-who-could-determine-netanyahu-s-future">Naftali Bennett</a>, the leader of the small right-wing Yaminia party, a long-time Netanyahu rival who has long seen himself as a future prime minister. Lapid <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/lapid-bennett-said-to-reach-breakthrough-on-rotation-deal-for-joint-government/">offered Bennett a deal</a> in which they would rotate as prime minister, first Bennett and then Lapid. Despite Bennett’s politics, the centrist Yesh Atid, and leftist Labor and Meretz parties seemed willing to support such an arrangement. </p>
<p>By May 9 negotiations were going well and there was speculation that a new government could be formed within a week. But the next day Hamas and Islamic Jihad began launching rocket attacks into Israel. Within days, Bennett announced that the new security situation meant the deal was off the table. Lapid’s deal is now almost certain to fail. </p>
<h2>No appetite for peace</h2>
<p>Lapid’s alternative government would most likely have continued Netanyahu’s managerial approach to the conflict. It has been policy of most Israeli governments for 25 years. Except for a brief break during the premiership of Kadima’s Ehud Olmert from 2006 to 2009, Israeli leaders have claimed there are no partners for peace on the Palestinian side and therefore there can be no negotiations. </p>
<p>Labor’s Ehud Barak claimed that he only went to the US-held Camp David talks in 2000 to expose Yasser Arafat as terrorist. Ariel Sharon, Barak’s successor, used the second intifada (the Palestinian uprising of 2000-2005) as proof that negotiations were impossible. He then unilaterally disengaged from Gaza in 2005 but refused to negotiate an orderly handover to the Palestinian Authority. The result was a major boost for Hamas, which claimed the Israelis had left under (its) fire. That set the scene for the Hamas’s victory in the following year’s Palestinian legislative elections. </p>
<p>Olmert did hold intensive negotiations with the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, but it seems as if the latter <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/abbas-admits-he-rejected-2008-peace-offer-from-olmert/">walked away</a>. Netanyahu, meanwhile, has never had any intention of seriously moving on the issue. In his first term as prime minister from 1996 to 1999, he saw his task as undermining the <a href="https://interactive.aljazeera.com/aje/palestineremix/the-price-of-oslo.html#/14">1993-1995 Oslo Accords</a> by lowering Palestinian expectations that they would have an independent state.</p>
<p>Since 2009, there have been no negotiations but continued expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/10/netanyahu-vows-annex-large-parts-occupied-west-bank-trump">occasional threat</a> to annex parts of it. Peace, for Netanyahu, is just the absence of armed conflict and terrorism – not a resolution of the conflict, as the Oslo Accords envisaged.</p>
<h2>Things fall apart</h2>
<p>The price for this inaction on the Palestinian issue is now being seen as the fragile mosaic of Israeli society <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/may/14/the-guardian-view-on-intercommunal-violence-in-israel-a-dangerous-development-with-deep-roots">begins to unravel into warring ethnic groups</a>. The conflict over the future of the occupied territories as the future of Israel itself is political and not strategic. </p>
<p>For Netanyahu this means maintaining military superiority and dealing with terrorist threats rather than than recognising the need for political accommodation between two national movements. Palestinians and Israelis share the same environment, are attached to the land and both want to exercise their right to self-determination.</p>
<p>While Netanyahu will negotiate a ceasefire with Hamas, he will not hold political talks with the Palestinians. Yet the policy of managing the conflict has merely deepened it. After every round of fighting there are more dead, more grieving families and more hate. The tensions between Jews and Arabs in Israel will scar Israeli society for some time to come. </p>
<p>Over the past 25 years, few Israeli politicians have had the courage to address the roots of the conflict. When he signed the Oslo Accords in September 1993, then Israeli prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin, turned to Israelis and Palestinians and said: “<a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-09-14-mn-34993-story.html#:%7E:text=%E2%80%9CWe%20who%20have%20fought%20against,emotion%2Dladen%2C%20hourlong%20ceremony.">Enough of blood and tears</a>”. The people of Gaza, the West Bank and Israel must wonder when that time will come.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/157520/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Strawson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Benjamin Netanyahu, is the latest in a line of Israeli prime ministers who have not engaged with the idea of Palestinian self-determination.John Strawson, Honorary Professor of Law and Co-director of the Centre on Human Rights in Conflict, University of East LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1031472018-09-19T22:40:39Z2018-09-19T22:40:39ZTrump is just the latest U.S. president to push Palestine around<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237160/original/file-20180919-158234-ahn4wl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In this September 1993 photo, U.S. President Bill Clinton presides over White House ceremonies marking the signing of the peace accord between Israel and the Palestinians with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, left, and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, right, in Washington. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Ron Edmonds)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton <a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2005/3/31/john_bolton_in_his_own_words">is at it again</a>. He recently issued a blistering rebuke of the International Criminal Court (ICC): “<a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?451213-1/national-security-adviser-john-bolton-addresses-federalist-society">We will let the ICC die on its own. After all, for all intents and purposes, the ICC is already dead to us</a>.”</p>
<p>Is this another example of U.S. President Donald Trump withdrawing the United States from the international community? Is it yet another harbinger of the end of the post-1945 “rules-based international order?”</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">John Bolton strongly criticizes the International Criminal Court in this clip on the Guardian website.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>No. That’s because “rules-based international order” was never what it appeared to be anyway. Rather than a benign de facto agreement on problem-solving through discussion rather than armed conflict, it represents an exclusive club that ensures the perpetual dominance of some societies over others. </p>
<p>Just ask the Palestinians.</p>
<p>One of the reasons behind Bolton’s tirade is that the U.S. administration wants to prevent the ICC from following through on Palestinian requests to investigate the legality of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.</p>
<p>Indeed, the Trump administration has proven over the last few months that it is more than willing to go out of its way to <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/palestine-unrwa-israel-refugees-united-nations-trump-administration-a8518651.html">punish the Palestinians</a> for daring to challenge Israeli domination, even when that “challenge” has taken the meekest of forms.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/gazas-fire-kites-and-balloon-bombs-ignite-tensions-99341">Gaza’s fire kites and balloon bombs ignite tensions</a>
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<p>According to David Rothkopf, a prominent commentator: “<a href="https://soundcloud.com/deepstateradio/is-that-thing-under-john-boltons-nose-a-bugbear">It’s as if the U.S. State Department has handed over its entire Middle East policy to the Prime Minister of Israel.</a>” </p>
<p>Bolton, as if to prove this point, said in his speech:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The United States will always stand with our friend and ally, Israel. And today, reflecting congressional concerns with Palestinian attempts to prompt an ICC investigation of Israel, the State Department will announce the closure of the Palestine Liberation Organization office here in Washington, D.C.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Not surprising</h2>
<p>At the risk of employing what has become a cliché during the Trump presidency: This is shocking, yes, but not really surprising. </p>
<p>Trump is apparently seeking to destroy the apparently civilized way in which international politics has been conducted since the end of the Second World War — the so-called rules-based international order.</p>
<p>As Kori Schake explained in the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/15/opinion/sunday/trump-china-america-first.html"><em>New York Times</em></a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Beginning in the wreckage of World War II, America established a set of global norms that solidified its position atop a rules-based international system … building institutions and patterns of behaviour that legitimize American power by giving less powerful countries a say.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Trump, so this argument goes, either can’t accept or doesn’t understand this, and is gleefully engaged in the process of wrecking it from the inside. </p>
<p>“This aggressive disregard for the interests of like-minded countries, indifference to democracy and human rights and cultivation of dictators is the new world Mr. Trump is creating,” Schake explains. </p>
<p>However, the notion of a broad and benign American-led world order makes less sense from the standpoint of those excluded by the system.</p>
<p>Indeed, for Palestinians, the Trump administration’s bullying may be more humiliating than previous presidencies, but in terms of substance, the difference is marginal. </p>
<p>The U.S. has always protected Israel’s ability to lord over Palestinian lands and Palestinian lives with impunity; the U.S. has always been happy to use its heft to back its friend under presidents both Democratic and Republican.</p>
<h2>James Baker’s threat</h2>
<p>A useful example comes from celebrated U.S. Secretary of State James Baker, who in 1989 <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/1989-05-02/news/mn-2572_1_plo-observer-organization-chairman-yasser-arafat-s-organization">threatened to defund the World Health Organization</a> if Palestine were to join:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The United States vigorously opposes the admission of the PLO to membership in the World Health Organization or any other UN agency … To emphasize the depth of our concern, I will recommend to the president that the United States make no further contributions, voluntary or assessed, to any international organization which makes any change in the PLO’s present status as an observer organization.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Like Bolton’s attack on the ICC, the effect would be to punish a valuable and obviously benevolent partner in the “rules-based international order” merely to ensure that Palestine would be kept out.</p>
<p>Under successive presidents since George H.W. Bush, the U.S. has promoted or enabled some form of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, but they’ve always taken place outside the framework of international law. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237154/original/file-20180919-146148-1snm5ns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237154/original/file-20180919-146148-1snm5ns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237154/original/file-20180919-146148-1snm5ns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237154/original/file-20180919-146148-1snm5ns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237154/original/file-20180919-146148-1snm5ns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237154/original/file-20180919-146148-1snm5ns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=531&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237154/original/file-20180919-146148-1snm5ns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=531&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237154/original/file-20180919-146148-1snm5ns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=531&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In this September 1993 photo, Israel’s Foreign Minister Shimon Peres signs the Middle East peace agreement in Washington, D.C. as Bill Clinton and PLO Leader Yasser Arafat, among other officials, look on. The deal later fell apart.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Ron Edmonds)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Twenty-five years ago this month, PLO Leader Yasser Arafat <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/world/wp/2018/09/12/feature/a-middle-east-mirage/">shook hands with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on the White House lawn</a> and agreed on a phased plan to end the occupation by the turn of the century. There has been virtually no progress and no enforcement by the United States since.</p>
<p>The Americans show scant concern for human rights, the rights of refugees or for UN Security Council resolutions when it comes to Israel-Palestine. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237140/original/file-20180919-158213-cdgh2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237140/original/file-20180919-158213-cdgh2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237140/original/file-20180919-158213-cdgh2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237140/original/file-20180919-158213-cdgh2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237140/original/file-20180919-158213-cdgh2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237140/original/file-20180919-158213-cdgh2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237140/original/file-20180919-158213-cdgh2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237140/original/file-20180919-158213-cdgh2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right, looks around Arafat at a news conference in October 1996 after Clinton said they’d failed in a two-day Washington summit to settle their explosive differences.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Doug Mills, File)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Instead, the U.S. has used its <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/42-times-us-has-used-its-veto-power-against-un-resolutions-israel-942194703">veto power some 43 times</a> to protect Israel from the overwhelming will of the international community, and it has withdrawn and defunded international agencies such as UNESCO and the UN Human Rights Council in retribution for those entities recognizing Palestine.</p>
<p>Why? </p>
<p>It’s not as if the Palestinians have been unco-operative. Since the end of <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/archive/2003/12/20084101554875168.html">the second intefadeh</a>, the Palestinian Authority — the non-sovereign entity that has governed parts of the West Bank — has indulged the will of the <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2011/01/18/building-a-police-state-in-palestine/">international community to a degree that is almost craven</a>. </p>
<p>It has curtailed violence against Israel and pursued U.S.-led security sector reform. At the same time, it’s taken steps through bilateral negotiations <a href="https://www.google.ca/search?q=palestine+UN+membership&oq=palestine+UN+membership&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l2.6904j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8">and through the UN to join the “rules-based order.”</a> All of which is in pursuit of the so-called <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/29/world/middleeast/israel-palestinians-two-state-solution.html">two-state solution</a> — a partition plan wherein the Palestinians would, at the very least, accept the loss of <a href="https://ifamericaknew.org/history/maps.html">78 per cent of their historic territory</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237155/original/file-20180919-143281-bf31kg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237155/original/file-20180919-143281-bf31kg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237155/original/file-20180919-143281-bf31kg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237155/original/file-20180919-143281-bf31kg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237155/original/file-20180919-143281-bf31kg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1150&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237155/original/file-20180919-143281-bf31kg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1150&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237155/original/file-20180919-143281-bf31kg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1150&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">U.S. President Barack Obama waves at the audience after delivering a speech in Cairo in June 2009.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>But none of this was good enough for President George W. Bush, who promoted a “<a href="https://www.google.ca/search?q=roadmap+to+peace&oq=roadmap+to+peace&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.4003j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8">Road Map</a>” that made Palestinian statehood contingent on a “performance analysis” that would be adjudicated exclusively by the occupier. Nor was it enough for President Barack Obama, who told an audience in Cairo in 2009 that “<a href="https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/issues/foreign-policy/presidents-speech-cairo-a-new-beginning">the situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable</a>,” but went on <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2016/12/28/politics/ben-rhodes-veto-un-resolution-palestinian-state-obama/index.html">to oppose Palestinian statehood at every turn</a>.</p>
<p>When viewed in this context, we can see that while Trump’s White House may be more overtly aggressive in its language and willingness to be vindictive toward Palestine and the Palestinians, in substance it’s not significantly different from previous administrations.</p>
<p>Perniciously excluding Palestine from the “rules-based order” is a U.S. priority under any president, whether they’re blue, red … or orange.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/donald-trumps-orange-face-may-be-funny-but-this-tanning-historian-says-it-masks-something-deeper-100282">Donald Trump's orange face may be funny, but this tanning historian says it masks something deeper</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/103147/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Philip Leech-Ngo does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Donald Trump’s strong defence of Israel might be more boisterous than his predecessors, but it’s consistent with the anti-Palestinian policies by previous U.S. administrations.Philip Leech-Ngo, Senior Research Fellow, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of OttawaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1032222018-09-17T04:36:53Z2018-09-17T04:36:53ZTwenty-five years after the Oslo Accords, the prospect of peace in the Middle East remains bleak<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/236567/original/file-20180917-96155-1jfhqz3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">US President Bill Clinton, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat sign the historic Oslo accord at the White House in September 1993.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikicommons/Vince Musi</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Looking back on events 25 years ago, when the <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2013/09/03/world/meast/oslo-accords-fast-facts/index.html">Oslo Accords</a> were struck on the White House lawn, it is hard to avoid a painful memory. </p>
<p>I was watching from a sickbed in Jerusalem when Bill Clinton stood between Israel’s Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat for that famous handshake on the White House lawn.</p>
<p>At that moment, I was recovering from plastic surgery carried out by a skilled Israeli surgeon and necessitated by a bullet wound inflicted by the Israeli Defence Forces. (I had been caught in crossfire while covering a demonstration in the West Bank by stone-throwing Palestinian youths.)</p>
<p>That scar – like a tattoo – is a reminder of a time when it seemed just possible Arabs and Jews, Israelis and Palestinians could bring themselves to reach an historic compromise.</p>
<p>All these years later, prospects of real progress towards peace, or as American president Donald Trump puts it, the <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/40d77344-b04a-11e8-8d14-6f049d06439c">“deal of the century”</a>, seems further away than ever.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/russia-expands-in-the-middle-east-as-americas-honest-broker-role-fades-74695">Russia expands in the Middle East as America's 'honest broker' role fades</a>
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<p>As a correspondent in the Middle East for a decade (1984-1993) and as co-author of a <a href="http://www.danielpipes.org/938/arafat-in-the-eyes-of-the-beholder">biography of Arafat</a>, I had an understandable interest in the outcome of the Oslo process.</p>
<p>In hours of conversations with members of the Palestine Liberation Organisation’s historical leadership, I had tracked the PLO’s faltering progression from outright rejection of Israel’s right to exist to acceptance implicit in the Oslo Accords.</p>
<p>Throughout that process of interviewing and cross-referencing with Israeli sources, I had hoped an honourable divorce could be achieved between decades-long adversaries. Like many, I was disappointed. </p>
<p>In 1993, the so-called Oslo Accords, negotiated in secret outside the Norwegian capital, resulted in mutual recognition of Israel and the PLO. This enabled the beginning of face-to-face peace negotiations.</p>
<h2>A devastating event</h2>
<p>Two years after the historic events at the White House, and by then correspondent in Beijing, I witnessed another episode of lasting and, as it turned out, tragic consequences for the Middle East.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1995/11/05/world/assassination-israel-overview-rabin-slain-after-peace-rally-tel-aviv-israeli.html">On November 4, 1995, Rabin was assassinated</a> while attending a political rally in Tel Aviv by a Jewish fanatic opposed to compromise with the Palestinians.</p>
<p>That devastating moment brought to power for the first time the current Israeli Prime Minister <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-18008697">Benjamin Netanyahu</a>. He has distinguished himself by his unwillingness to engage meaningfully with the Palestinians through four US administrations: those of Bill Clinton, George W Bush, Barack Obama, and now Trump.</p>
<p>Some argue the Palestinians and their enfeebled leadership bear significant responsibility for peace process paralysis. That viewpoint is valid, up to a point. But it is also the case that Netanyahu’s replacement of Rabin stifled momentum.</p>
<p>Under Trump, Netanyahu finds himself under no pressure to concede ground in negotiations, or even negotiate at all. Indeed, the administration seems intent on further marginalising a Palestinian national movement, even as <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/09/the-oslo-accords-were-doomed-by-their-ambiguity/570226/">settlement construction in the occupied areas continues apace</a>.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/236583/original/file-20180917-177968-12fis3j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/236583/original/file-20180917-177968-12fis3j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236583/original/file-20180917-177968-12fis3j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236583/original/file-20180917-177968-12fis3j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236583/original/file-20180917-177968-12fis3j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236583/original/file-20180917-177968-12fis3j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236583/original/file-20180917-177968-12fis3j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">US President Donald Trump, here with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has promised the ‘deal of the century’ in the Middle East, but the details have not yet been made clear.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/ Olivier Douliery/pool</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>On the eve of the accords, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/09/the-oslo-accords-were-doomed-by-their-ambiguity/570226/">there were 110,000 Jewish settlers</a> in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. That number has grown to 430,000 today. In 2017, those numbers grew by 20% more than the average for previous years.</p>
<p>The Trump administration’s decision to <a href="https://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2018/05/282032.htm">move the American embassy to Jerusalem</a> without making a distinction between Jewish West or Arab East Jerusalem could hardly have been more antagonistic.</p>
<p>By taking this action, and not making it clear that East Jerusalem as a future capital of a putative Palestinian state would not be compromised, the administration has thumbed its nose at legitimate Palestinian aspirations.</p>
<p>The administration’s follow-up moves to <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/08/28/middle-east-palestinian-israel-pompeo-trump-kushner-u-s-to-end-all-funding-to-u-n-agency-that-aids-palestinian-refugees/">strip funding for the United Nations Works and Relief Agency (UNWRA)</a> and assistance to Palestinian hospitals in East Jerusalem have further soured the atmosphere.</p>
<p>UNWRA is responsible for the livelihoods of thousands of Palestinian refugees in camps in the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. These are the ongoing casualties of Israel’s 1948 War of Independence against the Arabs.</p>
<p>In this context, it is interesting to note that Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and Middle East envoy, has <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/08/03/trump-palestinians-israel-refugees-unrwaand-allies-seek-end-to-refugee-status-for-millions-of-palestinians-united-nations-relief-and-works-agency-unrwa-israel-palestine-peace-plan-jared-kushner-greenb/">urged that refugee status be denied Palestinians and their offspring displaced by the war of 1948</a>.</p>
<p>In that year, two-thirds, or about <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/jan/14/israel">750,000 residents of what had been Palestine</a> under a British mandate became refugees.</p>
<p>Against this background and years of conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, including two major wars – the Six-Day War of 1967 and Yom Kippur War of 1973 – the two sides had in 1993 reached what was then described as an historic compromise.</p>
<h2>Hopes dashed</h2>
<p>What needs to be understood about Oslo is that its two documents, signed by Rabin and Arafat, did not go further than mutual recognition of Israel and the PLO in the first, and, in the second, a declaration of principles laying down an agenda for the negotiation of Palestinian self-government in the occupied territories.</p>
<p>What Oslo did not do was provide a detailed road-map for final status negotiations, which were to be completed within five years. This would deal with the vexed issues of refugees, Jerusalem, demilitarisation of the Palestinian areas in the event of a two-state settlement, and anything but an implied acknowledgement of territorial compromise, including land swaps, that would be needed to bring about a lasting agreement.</p>
<p>Writing in the <a href="http://jps.ucpress.edu/content/23/3/24">Journal of Palestine Studies</a> in 1994, Oxford professor Avi Shlaim described the White House handshake as:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>one of the most momentous events in the 20th-century history of the Middle East. In one stunning move, the two leaders redrew the geopolitical map of the entire region.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Now emeritus professor, Shlaim’s own hopes, along with those of many others, that genuine compromise was possible, have been dashed.</p>
<p>Referring to the recent passage through the Knesset of a “basic law” that declares Israel to be “the nation-state of the Jewish people”, Shlaim <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/sep/13/palestinians-still-face-apartheid-israel-25-years-after-oslo-accord">recently observed</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>This law stands in complete contradiction to the 1948 declaration of independence, which recognizes the full equality of all the state’s citizens ‘without distinction of religion, race or sex’… Netanyahu has radically reconfigured Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people, rather than a Jewish and a democratic state. As long as the government that introduced this law stays in power, any voluntary agreement between Israel and the Palestinians will remain largely a pipe dream.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Martin Indyk, now en route to the Council on Foreign Relations from the Brookings Institution, <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2018/09/13/the-day-israeli-palestinian-peace-seemed-within-reach/">shared Shlaim’s hopes of an “historic turning point’’</a> in the annals of the Arab-Israeli conflict.</p>
<p>As Clinton’s National Security Council adviser on the Middle East, Indyk was responsible for the 1993 arrangements on the White House South Lawn. He writes: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The handshake was meant to signify the moment when Israeli and Palestinian leaders decided to begin the process of ending their bloody conflict and resolving their differences at the negotiating table.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Two decades later, in 2014, the funeral rites were pronounced on the Oslo Process after then Secretary of State John Kerry had done all he could to revive it against Netanyahu’s obduracy. Oslo had, in any case, been on life support since Rabin’s assassination.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/fifty-years-on-from-the-six-day-war-the-prospects-for-middle-east-peace-remain-dim-78749">Fifty years on from the Six Day War, the prospects for Middle East peace remain dim</a>
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<p>"Then,” in Indyk’s words, “along came Trump with "the Deal of the Century”. Indyk writes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>His plan has yet to be revealed but its purpose appears clear – to legitimize the status quo and call it peace. Trump has already attempted to arbitrate every one of the final status issues in Israel’s favor: no capital in East Jerusalem for the Palestinians; no ‘right of return’ for Palestinian refugees; no evacuation of outlying settlements; no ’67 lines; no end of occupation; and no Palestinian state…
Over 25 years, in shifting roles from witness to midwife, to arbiter, the United States has sadly failed to help Israelis and Palestinians make peace, leaving them for the time being in what has essentially been a frozen conflict.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>However, as history shows, “frozen conflicts” don’t remain frozen forever. They tend to erupt when least expected.</p>
<p>Twenty-five years ago, I shared a bloody hospital casualty station – not unlike a scene from M.A.S.H. – with more than a dozen wounded Palestinians. Some of them would not recover from terrible wounds inflicted by live ammunition.</p>
<p>I asked myself then, as I do now: what’s the point of it all?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/103222/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tony Walker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In 1993 the Oslo Accords were struck in optimism, but a quarter of a century later little has changed - and there’s no real prospect it ever will.Tony Walker, Adjunct Professor, School of Communications, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/882002017-11-30T07:47:35Z2017-11-30T07:47:35ZA prison called Gaza: new book offers a startling insight into everyday life in the territory<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196985/original/file-20171129-12029-143pzu5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Aerial bombing explosion in Gaza Strip during the Cast Lead operation. January, 2009. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/gaza-strip-january-14-aerial-bombing-118790737?src=p8QlJj6DQPD9u4HLc-cwnQ-1-81">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><blockquote>
<p>A place of spacious dimensions, and large population, with fine bazaars. It contains numerous mosques, and there is no wall around it. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>To the modern reader, this is perhaps one of the more striking descriptions the medieval Moroccan traveller, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ibn-Battutah">Ibn Battutah</a>, offered of the places he visited. Not because it contains anything shocking, but because of the town it portrays: <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=gaza">Gaza</a>. </p>
<p>For the city, and the war-torn strip of coastal land with which it shares a name, are today defined principally by the walls around it. Gaza has been held under siege for the best part of the last decade, since Hamas came to power in the territory. </p>
<p>Recent political developments, in the form of a unity government, mean that there may be more future movement through the southern border, with Egypt. Still, Gaza remains fenced in to the north and east by the Israeli Army, which vastly outguns any enemies it has in the territory. To the west lies the Mediterranean. Some shores of that sea are famous for tourism; stretches of its eastern edge are more readily associated with armed conflict, human suffering and wasted potential. Gaza definitely falls, along with Syria, into the latter category. </p>
<p>Without the beaches, life in Gaza would surely be immeasurably worse. The currents there make swimming hazardous; winter storms can be surprisingly violent. Yet the sky and the waves offer some relief in the form of light and air to a place where life can seem suffocating. </p>
<h2>Flared, and died</h2>
<p>As Donald Macintyre observes in his important new book, <a href="https://www.curtisbrown.co.uk/client/donald-macintyre/work/gaza">Gaza: Preparing for Dawn</a>, the sea might also offer economic salvation. The discovery offshore of a gas field, Gaza Marine – estimated to hold a trillion cubic feet of natural gas – promised the solution to many of Gaza’s economic and energy woes. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196981/original/file-20171129-12027-10aj61n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196981/original/file-20171129-12027-10aj61n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196981/original/file-20171129-12027-10aj61n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196981/original/file-20171129-12027-10aj61n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196981/original/file-20171129-12027-10aj61n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196981/original/file-20171129-12027-10aj61n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196981/original/file-20171129-12027-10aj61n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption"></span>
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<p>Perhaps predictably, politics and conflict have conspired to stop that happening. Gaza Marine remains unexploited. Like the “telegenic background of a huge gas flame shooting into the air” – against which Macintyre describes the late Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, announcing unfulfilled plans to draw the wealth from beneath the waves – it has flared, and died. </p>
<p>It was into that sea that I watched for the final time a bright orange sun set in the spring of 2004. Since 2002, I had been the BBC’s correspondent in Gaza. At the time, I was the only international journalist permanently based in the territory. The kidnapping of my successor, Alan Johnston, in 2007 just as he was due to finish his posting, means that while correspondents continue to visit, they do not live there. </p>
<p>Johnston’s experience reporting “the descent into anarchy of which he himself was now a victim” (as Macintyre puts it) was a journalistic challenge which Johnston took on admirably. His fate – thankfully he was released after 16 weeks – ensures, however, that managing editors have since been rightly nervous about basing their journalists in Gaza ever since. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196986/original/file-20171129-12035-1b24vn6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196986/original/file-20171129-12035-1b24vn6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196986/original/file-20171129-12035-1b24vn6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196986/original/file-20171129-12035-1b24vn6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196986/original/file-20171129-12035-1b24vn6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196986/original/file-20171129-12035-1b24vn6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196986/original/file-20171129-12035-1b24vn6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A child passes a bombed-out residential block in the Al-Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza City.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/confirm/122493589?src=p8QlJj6DQPD9u4HLc-cwnQ-2-50&size=huge_jpg">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Watching the sunset that evening, I reflected on another theme which Macintyre rightly raises. I knew I was leaving. I knew I had always been there only as long as I felt like being there. With the exception of days when fighting made it too dangerous to approach the border crossing – and there were a few – I was free to come and go as I wished. </p>
<p>The people among whom I was living were not. Macintyre makes this point, in all its complexity, not only in the book’s shortest chapter – “They will always miss home” – but throughout. It is a complex point because while Gazans long for the opportunities which life outside can bring: study, work, and, in the case of a would-be Olympian, sport – they do not want to abandon their home. </p>
<p>To do so might make them feel that they were turning their backs on their people, and leaving them to their suffering. Gazans with jobs or university places outside are sometimes nervous about returning home for visits. A deterioration in the conflict could leave them trapped and, in consequence, unemployed. Some just leave for good, but the “unresolvable contradiction”, as Macintyre succinctly puts it, remains: “Gaza as a prison to escape from, but also forever home.” </p>
<p>It is in telling these individual stories that Macintyre really excels. Many journalists have been fascinated by Gaza on short visits; few have bothered to try so hard to understand the story beyond the bloodshed. Macintyre’s meetings with the jeans and juice manufacturers; the music students; and that marathon runner bring the people of Gaza to life in a way that daily news reporting rarely can. </p>
<p>Their deaths are recorded too, of course – and, even to news audiences grimly accustomed to reading about violent deaths in the Middle East, some will shock. The Gazan mother who keeps Israeli soldiers waiting at the door – only to open it just as they have decided to blow it apart with explosives – is one that is hard to forget. </p>
<p>All the individual stories are in turn directed by the larger political ones. Macintyre proves himself a well-informed chronicler of the intra-Palestinian conflict: principally between Fatah and Hamas, but also between the latter and newer Islamist rivals. Gaza: Preparing for Dawn also offers wise analysis of the conflict with Israel – and international attempts to address it. </p>
<h2>Lest we forget</h2>
<p>Macintyre is perceptive about the gap between what even the most senior diplomats say in public, and what they seem really to think. John Kerry, the last US secretary of state to try, and fail, to solve the conflict, is reported here as saying ironically of an Israeli bombardment that killed 55 civilians in six hours, “That’s a hell of a pinpoint operation”.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196988/original/file-20171129-12048-kt3saj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196988/original/file-20171129-12048-kt3saj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=299&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196988/original/file-20171129-12048-kt3saj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=299&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196988/original/file-20171129-12048-kt3saj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=299&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196988/original/file-20171129-12048-kt3saj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196988/original/file-20171129-12048-kt3saj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196988/original/file-20171129-12048-kt3saj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">No end in sight?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/success?src=p8QlJj6DQPD9u4HLc-cwnQ-3-10">Shutterstock</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>Diplomatic dispatches I saw when researching my last book, <a href="http://www.springer.com/gb/book/9781137395122">Headlines from the Holy Land</a> accused Israel of “taking measures that would not be acceptable in most societies in the 21st century”. Such phrases rarely grace the more mealy-mouthed official statements. They are all the more revealing when they come to light. </p>
<p>Because for now, for the people of Gaza, there is little prospect of change. As 2018 approaches, one is reminded of the <a href="https://www.unrwa.org/newsroom/press-releases/gaza-2020-liveable-place">UN report of 2012 </a> which asked whether the territory would be liveable in 2020. Despite that, there is no meaningful diplomatic process which might end Gaza’s misery. John Kerry failed. President Trump has shown little personal interest. His son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has been touted as a possible player – but there are no signs of concrete progress so far. </p>
<p>Israel’s approach of recent years has concentrated on “mowing the grass” – a phrase designed to explain the policy of launching military operations every so often to strike at armed Palestinian groups. The euphemism also ignores the fact that the majority of deaths in major operations are civilian ones. As Macintyre points out, even if leaflets are dropped telling civilians to leave, they don’t instruct them “where to find safety after fleeing their homes”.</p>
<p>Journalists covering conflict will sometimes agonise over whether their work makes a difference. If airtime and column inches alone could bring peace, then the sheer scale of coverage would have guaranteed a settlement long ago. It cannot, of course – but books such as Gaza: Preparing for Dawn do a vital job in reminding the world what goes on there. One day that knowledge may just be part of a solution.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/88200/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Rodgers does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The BBC’s former correspondent in Gaza reviews Donald Macintyre’s Gaza: Preparing for Dawn.James Rodgers, Senior Lecturer in Journalism, City, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/847582017-10-06T13:24:29Z2017-10-06T13:24:29ZWhy the Nobel Peace Prize brings little peace<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189277/original/file-20171007-23531-9i4k7x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Beatrice Fihn, executive director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN).</span> </figcaption></figure><p>The Nobel Peace Prize for 2017 was awarded to the <a href="http://www.icanw.org/">International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons</a>, an advocacy group that has worked to draw attention to their <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/06/world/nobel-peace-prize/index.html">“catastrophic humanitarian consequences.” </a></p>
<p>Every year, the winners of the Nobel Prizes are announced to great fanfare. And none receives more scrutiny than the <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/">Nobel Peace Prize</a>.</p>
<p>With good reason. The other Nobel Prizes are given to people who have already changed our world – for their remarkable accomplishments. But, in the case of the Nobel Peace Prize, the hope of the Nobel Committee is to change the world through its very conferral. It, therefore, rewards <a href="http://arcadepub.com/titles/10942-9781611457247-nobel-prize">aspiration more than achievement</a>. </p>
<p>Francis Sejersted, chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee from 1991-1999, once <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/themes/peace/sejersted/">noted</a> with pride the Nobel Peace Prize’s political ambitions: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“The Committee also takes the possible positive effects of its choices into account [because] … Nobel wanted the Prize to have political effects. Awarding a Peace Prize is, to put it bluntly, a political act.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>So, has the Nobel Peace Prize changed the world? </p>
<p>Expecting the prize to bring world peace would be an unfair standard to apply. However, <a href="http://doi.org/10.1002/j.1538-165X.2009.tb00660.x">my research</a> shows that the winners and their causes have rarely profited from the award. Even worse, the prize has at times made it harder for them to make the leap from aspiration to achievement.</p>
<h2>History of the peace award</h2>
<p>The Nobel Peace Prize was <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/themes/peace/lundestad-review/">first awarded in 1901</a>, five years after Alfred Nobel’s death. <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/alfred_nobel/will/will-full.html">Nobel’s will</a> defined peace narrowly and focused on candidates’ accomplishments: The prize was to be awarded “to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies, and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.”</p>
<p>The committee initially remained <a href="http://arcadepub.com/titles/10942-9781611457247-nobel-prize">true to Nobel’s charge</a>. Between 1901 and 1945, over three-quarters of the prizes (33 of 43) went to those who promoted interstate peace and disarmament.</p>
<p>Since the Second World War, however, less than one-quarter of the prizes have gone to promoting interstate peace and disarmament. Just seven of the 37 winners since 1989 fall into this category. Another 11 awards have sought to encourage ongoing peace processes.</p>
<p>But many of these processes had borne little fruit at the time or still had a long road ahead. Consider that three of the most prominent winners in this category were <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1994/">then Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin</a>. Nonetheless, the Israeli-Palestinian peace process is <a href="https://www.vox.com/cards/israel-palestine/peace-process">today in a coma</a>. </p>
<p>Perhaps for this reason, in the last decade, the committee has given just two awards to encourage peace processes. In 2008 <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/oct/11/finland-unitednations">Martti Ahtisaari</a>, former president of Finland, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his various achievements in Namibia, Kosovo and Aceh. In 2016, Colombia’s President <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/08/world/americas/nobel-peace-prize-juan-manuel-santos-colombia.html">Juan Manuel Santos</a> was honored with the Nobel in the hope that the prize would help push through his peace deal with the <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-36605769">Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)</a> rebels, even though a popular referendum had just rejected it, and thereby end his country’s half-century-long civil war.</p>
<p>The striking change since the 1970s, and especially since the end of the Cold War, has been the Nobel Peace Prize’s growing focus on promoting domestic political change. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/188805/original/file-20171004-6724-16mw6mf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/188805/original/file-20171004-6724-16mw6mf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188805/original/file-20171004-6724-16mw6mf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188805/original/file-20171004-6724-16mw6mf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188805/original/file-20171004-6724-16mw6mf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=579&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188805/original/file-20171004-6724-16mw6mf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=579&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188805/original/file-20171004-6724-16mw6mf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=579&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Albert Luthuli, winner of the 1960 Nobel Peace Prize.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Between 1946 and 1970, the prize was awarded just twice to dissidents and activists like the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/chief-albert-john-mvumbi-luthuli">South African leader Albert Luthuli</a>, who led a nonviolent struggle against apartheid in the 1960s, and the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/1014.html">American civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.</a>. Between 1971 and 1988, such figures received the prize <a href="http://doi.org/10.1002/j.1538-165X.2009.tb00660.x">five times</a>. Between 1989 and 2016, more than 40 percent of all winners fell into this category. </p>
<p>The rate has been even higher in the last decade: 57 percent of Nobel Peace Prize laureates since 2007 have been activists and advocates for equality, liberty and human development like educating women and stopping child labor. </p>
<p>These are admirable values. But their connection to interstate, and intrastate, conflict is indirect at best and tenuous at worst.</p>
<h2>Does it bring global attention to issues?</h2>
<p>The Nobel Peace Prize’s <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/themes/peace/lundestad/">defenders</a> insist that the prize works in subtle but perceptible ways to advance the winners’ causes. They say it attracts media attention, bolsters the winners and their supporters, and even focuses international pressure. </p>
<p>But there’s little evidence that the Nobel Peace Prize brings sustained global attention. </p>
<p>First of all, in many instances it is hard to tell whether the prize has made any difference, because the media glare was already intense. For example, in 2005, when the committee <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/id/9618236/ns/world_news-europe/t/iaea-elbaradei-win-nobel-peace-prize/#.WdOjItOGM_U">honored</a> the International Atomic Energy Agency and its director general, Mohammed El Baradei, nuclear proliferation was already of great concern. In other cases – such as South Africa’s transition from apartheid, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or the troubles in Northern Ireland – the prize made little noticeable difference to international media coverage. </p>
<p>It is true that in those few cases where coverage was not already strong, there have been occasional successes. For instance, <a href="http://doi.org/10.1002/j.1538-165X.2009.tb00660.x">I found</a> that the committee’s decision to hand the award to Aung San Suu Kyi in 1991 did draw attention to the plight of Myanmar.</p>
<p>But, in general, <a href="http://doi.org/10.1002/j.1538-165X.2009.tb00660.x">my research</a> found little evidence that winning the Nobel Peace Prize boosts international media coverage of the winner’s cause beyond the short run.</p>
<h2>Putting activists in peril</h2>
<p>Of greater concern is that, when the Nobel Peace Prize goes to promote political and social change – as it has so often in recent decades – it can have very real and detrimental effects on the movements and causes it celebrates. </p>
<p>Powerful authoritarian regimes will not liberalize just because the Nobel Committee has chosen to honor a dissident. This is not because regimes dismiss it as a silly award given out by international do-gooders. In fact, they take it very seriously. Fearing that domestic activists would take heart, they have <a href="http://doi.org/10.1002/j.1538-165X.2009.tb00660.x">ramped up repression</a>, shrunk the space for political opposition and cracked down harder than ever. </p>
<p>This is what happened in Tibet and Myanmar after the Dalai Lama and after Aung San Suu Kyi received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 and 1991, respectively. Similarly, the Iranian lawyer and human rights activist <a href="http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middle_east-july-dec03-nobel_10-10/">Shirin Ebadi</a> has been forced to lived in <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jul/26/world/la-fg-iran-lawyers-20110726">exile</a> in Britain since 2009. In China, the peace award did not make the release of the dissident <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/13/world/asia/liu-xiaobo-dead.html">Liu Xiaobo</a> from prison more likely. </p>
<p>The same is true when it comes to social change. Patriarchal societies, with their deeply entrenched gender roles, will not change just because some people in the West think they should and to that end name a women’s rights activist a Nobel laureate.</p>
<h2>What’s at stake?</h2>
<p>The Nobel Committee’s intentions are honorable, but the results, I argue, can be tragic. The award raises the spirits of reformers, but it also mobilizes forces that are far greater in opposition. </p>
<p>Every October, many the world over hail the Nobel Committee for its brave and inspired choice. But it is the truly brave activists on the ground who are left to bear the consequences when anxious leaders bring the state’s terrible power down on them. </p>
<p>And what happens when the Nobel Peace Prize actually helps to promote political change? As state counsellor (prime minister) of Myanmar, Aung San Suu Kyi has presided over the bloody <a href="http://theweek.com/articles/727552/persecution-rohingya">persecution of the Rohingya</a> and a swiftly mounting <a href="https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/rohingya-migrant-crisis">international refugee crisis</a>. The admired dissident has, in power, turned out <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/18/asia/aung-san-suu-kyi-speech-rohingya/index.html">not to be so great a promoter of peace and tolerance</a>. </p>
<p>The Nobel Peace Prize Committee’s choices have been noble – but, as my research suggests, also sometimes naïve.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/84758/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ronald R. Krebs does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A scholar analyzes the history of the Nobel Peace Prize to ask: What difference has it made?Ronald R. Krebs, Beverly and Richard Fink Professor in the Liberal Arts and Professor of Political Science, University of MinnesotaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/389682015-03-24T01:33:41Z2015-03-24T01:33:41ZArab parties emerge as electoral force in the Jewish state<p>Israel’s election looked set to provide a big surprise, with the ouster of the country’s second-longest-serving prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. That <a href="https://theconversation.com/last-ditch-appeal-to-the-right-helps-netanyahu-pull-off-surprise-election-win-in-israel-38888">didn’t happen</a>, but the election did offer a genuine surprise with the <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/for-joint-arab-list-a-bittersweet-tour-de-force/">rise of the Arab Joint List</a> as the third-largest party. </p>
<p>The State of Israel and the Zionist idea on which it is predicated are often criticised in ways that deny their legitimacy. It is not (just) policies of the government that are contested, but the very essence of the state, which is putatively “racist”, “colonialist” and “apartheid”. This campaign of deligitimacy is the foundation for the Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions (<a href="http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21595948-israels-politicians-sound-rattled-campaign-isolate-their-country">BDS</a>) campaign against Israel, which has gained traction on the political left.</p>
<p>The success of the Arab List demonstrates how simplistic these claims are and how hypocritical the BDS is. </p>
<h2>The good and bad of Israeli politics</h2>
<p>Election day saw the good and bad of Israeli politics. Netanyahu shamefully <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2015/03/17/on-israeli-election-day-netanyahu-warns-of-arabs-voting-in-droves/">played the race card</a> to rally support, but he did so in response to Arab citizens of Israel going to the polls in unprecedented numbers. </p>
<p>They had good reason to do so. While Israel was established as a Jewish and democratic state that guaranteed equality to all its citizens, and while Israeli Arabs have equality before the law, this minority has suffered economic disadvantage. The greater parliamentary representation they have, the greater their influence to improve their status.</p>
<p>The Arabs of Israel are uniquely placed in the Middle East to do this. While the Arab Spring has given rise to failed states and new dictatorships across the Middle East (with the <a href="https://theconversation.com/election-complete-tunisia-is-still-a-ray-of-hope-for-the-middle-east-35800">exception of Tunisia</a>), it is in Israel where the Arabs, who make up 20% of the population, have the opportunity to participate fully in democracy. </p>
<p>Israeli Arabs are able to freely select their candidates. They vote without physical intimidation in genuinely free elections in accordance with the rule of law. They sit in a parliament with real power, exerting checks and balances over the executive. </p>
<p>It is no coincidence that one of the most significant democratic political leaders to emerge in the Arab world is <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2015/03/ayman-odeh-head-joint-list-15031508423-150316085900840.html">Ayman Odeh</a>. He heads the Arab Joint List in Israel with a potential 15 members of a 120-seat parliament.</p>
<p>It may be some time before the exact make-up of the Israeli government is known because of the coalition-building process. While a national unity government is unlikely, President Reuben Rivlin, who has an active role in determining who forms the next government, said that this is <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/a-tie-ill-advocate-for-national-unity-government-rivlin-says/">the type government he wants</a> to try and establish. </p>
<p>Were he to succeed, Odeh would be the leader of the opposition, with all the official status, taxpayer-funded support and constitutional role bestowed on this position. </p>
<h2>Israeli Arabs set a democratic example</h2>
<p>As sectarian warfare has led to devastating internecine conflicts in the Arab world, leaving hundreds of thousands dead and <a href="https://theconversation.com/rising-tide-of-demographic-change-spells-trouble-across-middle-east-36598">millions homeless</a>, the nature of living in a democracy and participation in an election in Israel has seen the Arab parties learn to cooperate despite their profoundly different worldviews: secular, religious, communist, nationalist, Pan-Arab. Many Israeli parties are themselves coalitions of smaller parties.</p>
<p>This is why the Arab parties have flexed their electoral muscle in a way they never have before. Those struggling for democracy in the wider Middle East would do well to take a leaf out of the Israeli electoral book. </p>
<p>Arab participation in the Israeli democracy does not mean Israel is a perfect democracy – does such a thing exist? While Netanyahu’s election-day barb about the need for Israeli Jews to vote to counter the large Arab turnout won him support on the centre right, it caused opprobrium on the centre left who saw it as inimical to their values. </p>
<p>The Arab List’s own <a href="http://blogs.forward.com/forward-thinking/216719/ayman-oudeh-has-already-won-israels-election/">campaign ad</a>, which sought the support of Jewish voters (with Odeh rocking up at a Tel Aviv family’s Sabbath dinner), showed that this party saw allies in the wider Israeli community. </p>
<h2>Israel wrestles with democratic identity</h2>
<p>A hard line on the peace process does not necessarily mean a hard line on the Arab citizens of Israel. Rivlin was a Likud MK and opponent of the two-state solution who championed Arab rights while in the Knesset. He has <a href="http://forward.com/articles/216824/after-vote-spotlight-shifts-to-reuven-rivlin/">continued to do so</a> as head of state, declaring to Israeli Arabs:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The burden is on us to build the bridges to you.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>That’s not surprising from a man whose father was a scholar who translated the Quran and 1,001 Nights into Hebrew.</p>
<p>It is essential to note that we are only talking about Arab citizens of Israel. The vote does not extend to the West Bank and Hamas rule in Gaza, specifically because Israel has not annexed these territories. Rather, it governs them militarily in accordance with the Geneva Conventions and the Declaration Principles and the Palestinian Authority.</p>
<p>This poses a medium-term question for Israel about whether it will continue to be a democracy if it chooses to annex these territories. Does it deny the Arab residents the vote, or grant them the vote and thus became a bi-national state, bringing an end to the Zionist dream of Jewish people having a state of their own? This is a major challenge confronting the next Israeli government. </p>
<p>Israel’s approach to the Palestinian issue will ultimately effect the sort of democracy Israel is. However, that policy will be genuinely scrutinised by the Arab members of the next Israeli parliament to whom that government will be accountable.</p>
<p>That process may even provide the Arab List with an opportunity to advance the peace process, as the Arab Knesset members did by providing Yitzhak Rabin with the Knesset majority he needed as prime minister to <a href="https://www.knesset.gov.il/lexicon/eng/oslo_eng.htm">pursue the peace process</a> with Yasser Arafat in 1993.</p>
<p>The Arab List’s success does not mean Odeh can compel an Israeli government to forge ahead and reach a peace agreement with the Palestinians. Nor does it guarantee economic equality in Israel. But it does demonstrate Israeli democracy and government policy are two distinct things.</p>
<p>If critics of Israeli policy wish to seriously engage on the latter, it is time they ceased their hollow “racist, colonialist and apartheid state” rhetoric against the former. The election results demonstrate that Israel is, as its founding declaration promised, a Jewish and a democratic state.</p>
<p>There was fiery rhetoric from Jews and Arabs during the campaign and for Israel to remain a Jewish and democratic state both sides need to lower their rhetoric. Official Likud “regret” at Netanyahu’s election statement about Arab votes and a commitment by Likud to govern for all of Israel’s citizens is a good start. As Rivlin said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We’ve been through a stormy and passionate election season – this is the time to begin the process of fusing and healing Israeli society. The government that will be formed was chosen by the majority of Israel’s citizens, but it will have to answer to all of Israel’s citizens.</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/38968/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Danny Ben-Moshe receives funding from the ARC.</span></em></p>The emergence of the Joint List as the third-largest party is evidence of both Israeli democracy and a growing awareness among the nation’s Arab citizens of their power to influence its direction.Danny Ben-Moshe, Associate Professor, Alfred Deakin Institute for Centre for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/327942014-10-13T00:32:56Z2014-10-13T00:32:56ZAdmirable Nobel decision unlikely to spur India-Pakistan peace<p>The awarding of a shared Nobel Peace Prize award to a 17-year-old Pakistani girl, <a href="https://theconversation.com/nobel-peace-prize-extraordinary-malala-a-powerful-role-model-32839">Malala Yousafzai</a>, and a 60-year-old Indian man, <a href="http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/who-is-kailash-satyarthi/1/395118.html">Kailash Satyarthi</a>, is historic and aimed at conveying multiple messages to global policy-makers. Both awardees have worked tirelessly for the rights of an estimated 180 million children worldwide who continue to be <a href="http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/@dgreports/@dcomm/@publ/documents/publication/wcms_publ_9221124169_en.pdf">used for harsh labour</a>. The impacts on their right to schooling are crippling. </p>
<p>No doubt, the common cause of child welfare has touched the Nobel committee, but this year’s prize is not unprecedented. <a href="http://www.unicef.org/about/history/index_56072.html">UNICEF</a> was awarded the prize in 1965 for a similar cause. </p>
<p>What is perhaps more consequential is the nationality, religions and age of this year’s recipients. A collective award to nationals of two rival nuclear powers hailing from two different religious groups that harbour immense animosity for each other is noteworthy. The age difference of the recipients highlights the transgenerational importance of fighting for children’s rights and for peace-building more generally.</p>
<p>The Nobel committee has perhaps also redeemed itself by recognising Satyarthi, an intellectual protege of Mohandas Gandhi. The untimely assassination of Gandhi in 1948, and the provisions in Alfred Nobel’s will for awarding the prize to living individuals only, was <a href="http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/themes/peace/gandhi/">symbolically noted by the committee</a> in awarding no peace prize that year. </p>
<p>It is also important to recognise the hidden hands of doctors in Pakistan and the UK who saved Malala Yusufzai after her assassination attempt. If she had not survived, she too would have been deprived of this honour.</p>
<h2>History of prize is sobering</h2>
<p>Now let us get to the other matter of any peace dividends this prize might have for the ongoing <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/spotlight/kashmirtheforgottenconflict/2011/06/2011615113058224115.html">conflict between India and Pakistan</a> or between Hindus and Muslims. Unfortunately, the history of the prize in galvanising peace between acrimonious countries predicated in ethno-religious differences is very discouraging. </p>
<p>For example, the awarding of <a href="http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1994/">the 1994 prize</a> to Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin has had absolutely no impact in moving Arabs and Israelis closer to conflict resolution 20 years on. </p>
<p>The success of the prize in motivating intrastate political peace or protecting dissidents is perhaps slightly more heartening. Yet here too the time it takes for any impact to be realised muddles any causality.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1991/">Aung San Suu Kyi</a> was perhaps protected from extreme persecution in Myanmar by her Nobel award. However, more than 22 years hence her participation in any electoral process remains elusive despite the ostensible “opening up” of the country.</p>
<h2>Sustained international engagement is needed</h2>
<p>The only way the peace dividends from this year’s prize could potentially be harnessed for Indians and Pakistanis alike would be if external powers with influence in the region played a meaningful mediating role. The asymmetry in power between the countries, both demographically and economically, trumps any nuclear equalisation factor one might envisage. Any expectations that both countries will somehow sort out their political issues and see the light of peace following the joint Nobel would be naïve. </p>
<p>India has far more economic might than Pakistan and any incentives for peace-building, despite their logic on ecological and even trade-related grounds, are easily subverted by security hawks. In such a situation, the only way to motivate a lasting peace would involve some form of international mediation on the long-standing territorial dispute between the countries. Major powers, particularly economic trading partners with India such as the United States, would need to invest political capital. </p>
<p>Gulf States such as the UAE or Saudi Arabia could exert similar influence on Pakistan and its powerful military, which maintains strong ties in the region. The Gulf states could also help counter the fundamentalist fervour and conspiratorial rhetoric that have forced Yousafzai into exile. (She lives in the UK for fear of further assassination attempts in Pakistan.)</p>
<p>Norway, which hosts the Nobel prize, tried its hand at mediation in South Asia in the case of the Sri Lankan conflict a decade ago. A military solution prevailed instead, so one may wonder how effective mediation might be. </p>
<p>India and Pakistan both realise their conflict has no long-term military solution. However, the “cool war” status quo serves the political elite in both nations. </p>
<p>Perhaps where the joint Nobel Peace Prize could make a slow but generational shift would be through changing public perceptions of regional conflicts. Both countries have to contend with abject poverty and human rights issues, which neither can afford to trivialise. A campaign to channel public funds from military expenditure towards joint human development goals could be an important next step for Yousafzai and Satyarthi.</p>
<p>However, only concerted international engagement can hope to secure lasting peace. Territorial conflict sadly continues to eclipse the collective good of securing a better future for Indian and Pakistani children.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/32794/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Saleem H. Ali does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The awarding of a shared Nobel Peace Prize award to a 17-year-old Pakistani girl, Malala Yousafzai, and a 60-year-old Indian man, Kailash Satyarthi, is historic and aimed at conveying multiple messages…Saleem H. Ali, Director, Centre for Social Responsibility in Mining and Affiliate Professor of Politics and International Studies, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/205072013-11-21T14:54:39Z2013-11-21T14:54:39ZKennedy anniversary: assassins through the ages<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/35698/original/nptgjrzb-1384947128.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">But did it change history?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dan Iggers</span></span></figcaption></figure><blockquote>
<p>Assassination has never changed the history of the world. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The speaker was <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/7545208/Assassination-A-History-of-Political-Murder-by-Lindsay-Porter.html">Benjamin Disraeli</a>; the occasion, his address to parliament following the murder of Abraham Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth in 1865. </p>
<p>Disraeli’s speech referenced Lincoln the private man over the Lincoln the statesmen, whose final hours were “homely” and “innocent,” befitting the popular image of the president known as Honest Abe. In so doing, Disraeli drew attention to the conundrum at the heart of assassination plots throughout history: to what extent, if any, does the individual statesmen represent the state? </p>
<p>The “costly sacrifices” and “violent deaths” of <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2216396/Archaeologists-say-murder-scene-Julius-Caesar--bus-stop.html">Caesar</a>, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11996981">Henri IV of France</a> or <a href="http://supremacyandsurvival.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/assassination-of-william-silent.html">William the Silent</a>, the first head of state to be killed with a handgun, did not, Disraeli claimed, stop “the inevitable destiny of his country.”</p>
<p>Disraeli’s comment recalls the medieval concept of the king’s two bodies, in which the king’s corporeal body and the body politic exist as two separate entities: the monarch, essentially, is not the monarchy. “The King is dead! Long Live the King!” recognises the passing of the former whilst heralding the inexorability of the latter. According to this model it takes revolution, not assassination, to end a regime.</p>
<p>And yet assassination has been used as a political weapon since earliest times. Although the court tasters of old have been replaced with armed bodyguards and secret servicemen, the peril inherent in being a head of state <a href="http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/technology/internet/article3926517.ece">has not gone away</a>. From the removal of tyrants as a form of political succession in classical civilisation to the state-sanctioned “decapitation strikes” of the present day, the method and motivation may have changed, but assassination as political tactic remains a constant. </p>
<p>In the United States, Lincoln’s death was the first in a long history of assassination attempts against US presidents. Since the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/november/22/newsid_2451000/2451143.stm">assassination of John F Kennedy in 1963</a>, every US president except Johnson has had at least one attempt made on his life and the archetype of the “lone gunman” continues to haunt the American popular imagination, representing the dark side of the individualist frontier spirit and the right to bear arms.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/35699/original/gmyz2qhg-1384947314.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/35699/original/gmyz2qhg-1384947314.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/35699/original/gmyz2qhg-1384947314.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/35699/original/gmyz2qhg-1384947314.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/35699/original/gmyz2qhg-1384947314.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/35699/original/gmyz2qhg-1384947314.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/35699/original/gmyz2qhg-1384947314.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/35699/original/gmyz2qhg-1384947314.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Curtains for Lincoln.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Anon Moos</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The archetype of the assassin has undergone various permutations too, from naive idealist to principled political actor or unhinged anarchist; from hitman to religious fanatic. Their motivations, similarly, are various: political conviction, a desire to change history, power, money, or more recently, a <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/3745492.stm">quest for notoriety</a>. That an ordinary individual, a little nobody, could fell the most powerful heads of state has haunted the imagination throughout history. </p>
<p>The original assassins, the 11th-century Hashishin who struck terror in the hearts of the Crusaders, were mythologised by Marco Polo as silent, ruthless killers who struck with almost supernatural speed. They, at least, were worthy, if terrifying, opponents. Henri IV’s assassin in 1610, on the other hand, the delusional and pitiful Ravaillac, stabbed the king in his own carriage in broad daylight and waited to be arrested. It was inconceivable to contemporaries that this pathetic, broken figure, whose public execution was orchestrated for “his soul to trickle away drop by drop” for maximum suffering, could have killed the beloved Henri. </p>
<h2>Conspiracy theories</h2>
<p>When torture did not result in confession about a larger conspiracy, the authorities concluded that Ravaillac must be under the influence of witchcraft. Further back still, Classical historians such as <a href="http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/caesar/a/062809PlutarchCaesarAssassination.htm">Plutarch</a>, although in no doubt that Caesar’s death was a result of a conspiracy, nonetheless attributed cosmic significance to his demise, retrospectively identifying omens and portents foreshadowing and following the event. A comet filled the skies for seven days and the sun shone feebly for a year, he tells us, suggesting that the conspirators were merely players in a larger, pre-determined design. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/35700/original/2hb8dpgg-1384947446.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/35700/original/2hb8dpgg-1384947446.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/35700/original/2hb8dpgg-1384947446.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=352&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/35700/original/2hb8dpgg-1384947446.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=352&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/35700/original/2hb8dpgg-1384947446.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=352&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/35700/original/2hb8dpgg-1384947446.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/35700/original/2hb8dpgg-1384947446.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/35700/original/2hb8dpgg-1384947446.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Form an orderly queue, please!</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jean-Leon Jerome</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Today’s conspiracy theories, without which it seems no contemporary assassination can be discussed, fulfil a similar function. They readdress the perceived power imbalance inherent in the idea of the little guy taking down the head of state. <a href="http://newamericamedia.org/2013/11/jfks-civil-rights-legacy--50-years-of-myth-and-fact.php">Said Jackie Kennedy</a> of Lee Harvey Oswald’s role in JFK’s death: “He didn’t even have the satisfaction of being killed for civil rights … it had to be some silly little Communist.”</p>
<p>Now, 50 years on from the fatal shot in Dealey Plaza a widespread refusal to believe in the capabilities of “some silly little Communist” has led to a hydra-like body of conspiracy theories that has now taken on a life of its own, seeming only to grow more vigorous and complex the further the event recedes from the present. </p>
<p>Contradictions in the official version of events, issued prematurely and under duress, aroused suspicion from the outset, only briefly assuaged by the findings of the <a href="http://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/warren-commission-report/">Warren Commission in 1964</a>, which restored public confidence in the lone gunman theory to 87% of the population. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Poisoned? Yasser Arafat.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tibor Vegh</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Post-Watergate, with faith in US authority at an all-time low, the conspiracy theories re-emerged and continue to gather momentum to this day, reverberating, seemingly infinitely, in the echo chamber that is the internet.</p>
<p>We do not yet know what conclusions will be drawn from the investigation into the <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/palestinianauthority/10432986/If-Yasser-Arafat-was-poisoned-with-polonium-210-theres-a-long-list-of-suspects.html">suspected poisoning of Yassar Arafat</a>. </p>
<p>Whatever the facts and final verdict of this highly charged investigation, they will reinforce what has by now become the default position of mistrust in official versions of events. Disraeli’s comment may once again be called into question.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/20507/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lindsay Porter receives funding from the Arts & Humanities Research Council.</span></em></p>Assassination has never changed the history of the world. The speaker was Benjamin Disraeli; the occasion, his address to parliament following the murder of Abraham Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth in 1865…Lindsay Porter, Doctoral candidate, University of YorkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/110302012-12-05T03:37:10Z2012-12-05T03:37:10ZWhat we could learn from Yasser Arafat’s exhumation<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/18307/original/hwxnx42j-1354588131.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Palestinian government officials at a wreath-laying ceremony at Yasser Arafat mausoleum's after his body was exhumed for forensic samples and reburied.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Thaer Ghanaim/Handout</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The remains of Yasser Arafat have been exhumed for “special testing” to determine whether he died from poisoning by a radioactive element or natural causes. Will the process be akin to what we see on television shows along the likes of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waking_the_Dead_(TV_series)">Waking the Dead</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bones_(TV_series)">Bones</a> where the solution is conveniently found within an hour or two, or does it pose particular challenges? </p>
<p>Investigators are looking for evidence of the presence of the radioactive element polonium-210, an alpha particle emitter that causes tissue damage if taken into the body. Polonium allegedly caused the agonised death of <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/alexander-litvinenko">Alexander Litvinenko</a> in London in 2006 and it’s been alleged that it was found on some of Arafat’s clothing after his death. </p>
<p>Polonium is notoriously difficult to detect and has a relatively short half-life of 138 days, which means that after eight years (Arafat died in November 2004), the search for it in human tissue will involve some complex chemistry. But apart from the analytical problems and forensic issues of sampling, the exhumation itself will be problematic – largely because of the likely state of Arafat’s remains.</p>
<h2>Exhumation explained</h2>
<p>A forensic exhumation is a painstaking process that involves far more than simply recovering and examining the body. And when there are allegations of poisoning, examining the material around the body – including the soil in the vicinity of the grave – is as important as the human remains. </p>
<p>The first task is to confirm the exact location of the body so that the physical approach to the remains follows a documented path from which samples of soil, casket material and body wrappings can be collected with minimal contamination from surrounding areas. The survey of the location must include analysis of soil type, ground water flows and identification of the nature of the original grave preparation. </p>
<p>Burials can take place in land that may have been previously exposed to chemicals so that water flows or seepage through soil can result in secondary contamination of a body after death. The details of the body embalming process undertaken before or around the time of the original internment and the chemicals used also need to be known.</p>
<h2>Testing the right sample</h2>
<p>Upon completion of meticulous sampling and examination of the region around the body, the exhumation proceeds to the recovery of the body itself. So what might the condition of Arafat’s body be after interment for eight years? The answer depends on two main factors. </p>
<p>First, the condition of the body prior to burial and second, the environment in which the body has been interred. Body factors include the presence and quality of any embalming processes as well as the physical and disease status of the body at the time of death. Environmental factors include temperature, soil microorganisms and other fauna, the chemical nature of the soil and its permeability to body fluids as well as any ground water flows through the grave site.</p>
<p>Even after eight years, it’s possible that, if an embalmed body has been lying in well-drained sandy soil, much of the soft tissue of the body might remain. But if the embalming process was poor or the body had started to decompose before embalming began, then there might be considerable soft tissue loss. The loss of body organs through decomposition will probably present an insurmountable problem to any examination of the body for natural disease related causes of death.</p>
<h2>What the bones say</h2>
<p>It’s likely that skeletal structures will be preserved after eight years but what can be found out will depend on the degree to which any poison was actively taken up by the bones during life. And the degree to which traces of the poison might be lost from the bones after death as a result of decomposition and grave conditions. </p>
<p>Even where poisons are not actively incorporated into bones, they may be present in the bone marrow. Sampling these tissues is more difficult than collecting body fluids or soft tissues but bone sampling and extraction of bone marrow may prove useful in revealing the presence of some poisons after death.</p>
<p>There are many factors that could make the recovery of alleged poisons in Yasser Arafat’s body very difficult. In particular, the characteristics of the grave site, the quality of embalming and the extent of decomposition all make predicting the outcome of forensic analyses almost impossible. </p>
<p>Even if adequate samples can be collected from the grave and the body, it will only be the start of the challenges facing forensic specialists, who will have to determine not only the presence of the radioactive element but whether Arafat was exposed to enough of it to kill him or whether there is evidence of other disease processes that might reflect a different cause of death.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/11030/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Ranson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The remains of Yasser Arafat have been exhumed for “special testing” to determine whether he died from poisoning by a radioactive element or natural causes. Will the process be akin to what we see on television…David Ranson, Forensic Pathologist at Monash University and Deputy Director, Victorian Institute of Forensic MedicineLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.