Palestinian views of the peace process

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In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, there are a variety of Palestinian views of the peace process. While some Palestinian leaders have said that the peace process is intended to achieve a permanent peace with the State of Israel, others have maintained the goal of destroying Israel.

1 Palestinian refugees
2 Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad
3 Yasser Arafat
4 The Palestine Liberation Organization
5 Other prominent Palestinians
6 Maps and textbooks
7 References
8 External links

[edit] Palestinian refugees

After the Israeli War of Independence, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East defined any person who lived in the British Mandate for Palestine for at least two years prior to the Israeli victory and "who lost both their homes and means of livelihood as a result of" as a Palestine refugee.^[1] The attitude of Palestinians towards the concept of 'land for peace' depends largely on social and economic status. Social circumstances are affected by their inability to become citizens of the states in which they reside.^[2]

The most recent draft of the Palestinian constitution^[3] by the National Committee expresses a desire to adhere to international law as set out by the United Nations and to give all peoples within its borders human and civil rights. Many Palestinian refugees would like to return to their original homes (see right to return), often regardless of what state they would then find themselves in.^[4]

[edit] Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad

The stated goal of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad is to conquer Israel and replace it with an Islamist state.^[5] Hamas undertook a ceasefire with Israel in August of 2004. The Palestinian Islamic Jihad was unhappy with the ceasefire.^[6]^[7]. In September 2005, Hamas was criticized by Islamic Jihad for calling off rocket attacks on Israel from Gaza.

[edit] Yasser Arafat

Main article: Yasser Arafat

Acceptance of Israel's right to exist in peace was the first of the PLO's obligations in the Oslo accords. In Yasser Arafat's September 9, 1993 letter to Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, as part of Oslo I, Arafat stated that "The PLO recognizes the right of the State of Israel to exist in peace and security."^[8] Electronic Intifada stated that Arafat has made several calls for an end to violence and lasting peace.^[9] Arafat had to deal with unfavorable views by many Israelis who saw him as merely using the peace process to extract short-term concessions. Arafat was also accused of merely viewing the peace process as a stepping stone on the road to the complete destruction of the state of Israel.

[edit] The Palestine Liberation Organization

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The PLO's 1968 policy statement, the Palestinian National Covenant was renounced by the National committee which has now amended three drafts of its national constitution calling for peaceful sovereignty over the borders respected by international law.^[10]

[edit] Other prominent Palestinians

When Sari Nusseibeh was the representative of the Palestinian Authority in Jerusalem (circa 2000), he called for historic compromises by both Palestinian and Israelis in order to secure a permanent and lasting peace. For example, he stated that Palestinians must give up their claim of a Right of return. With this concession, he argued, a true and lasting peace can emerge.^{[citation needed]}

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said on August 5, 2000, "Palestinians are no strangers to compromise. In the 1993 Oslo Accords, we agreed to recognize Israeli sovereignty over 78 percent of historic Palestine and to establish a Palestinian state on only 22 percent."^{[citation needed]} Rashid Abu Shbak, a senior PA security official declared, "The light which has shone over Gaza and Jericho [when the PA assumed control over those areas] will also reach the Negev and the Galilee [which constitute a large portion of pre-1967 Israel]." (Yediot Ahronot, May 29, 1994)

The PA's Voice of Palestine radio broadcasted a Friday prayer sermon by Yusuf Abu Sneineh, official preacher at Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque, in which he asserted, "The struggle we are waging is an ideological struggle and the question is: where has the Islamic land of Palestine gone? Where is Haifa and Jaffa, Lod and Ramle, Acre, Safed and Tiberias? Where is Hebron and Jerusalem?" (Voice of Palestine, May 23, 1997)

PA cabinet minister Abdul Aziz Shaheen told the official PA newspaper, Al-Havat Al-Jadida on January 4, 1998, "The Oslo accord was a preface for the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian Authority will be a preface for the Palestinian state which, in its turn, will be a preface for the liberation of the entire Palestinian land."

Faisal Husseini, former Palestinian Authority Minister for Jerusalem, compared the al-Aqsa intifada following the Oslo peace process to the tactic of coming out of the Trojan Horse used by the Greeks in the myth of the Trojan War.^[11]

[edit] Maps and textbooks

A number of Palestinian maps are alleged to label all of the State of Israel, as well as the West Bank and Gaza Strip, as "Palestine". Such maps appear on PA Television; in the offices of PA officials; in textbooks used in PA schools; and on the shoulder-patches of PA police officers. In 1988, when the PLO applied for admission to the World Health Organization, it used the map of all of Palestine in its application papers.Those allegations have been partially opposed, in a ^[12] by Professor Nathan Brown of George Washington University in November 2001: On the other hand, they are supported by a ^[13] of the Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace.