THE PLO CHARTER:

Resolutions of the Palestine National Council

July 1-17, 1968

The following is the complete and unabridged text of the Palestinian National Covenant, as published officially in English by the PLO*.

In his letter of September 9, 1993 to Prime Minister Rabin, Yasser Arafat stated that those articles which deny Israel's right to exist or are inconsistent with the PLO's new commitments to Israel following their mutual recognition, are no longer valid. On April 24, 1996, the Palestinian National Council voted to amend the covenant accordingly. The key articles in question are highlighted.

Article 1: Palestine is the homeland of the Arab Palestinian people; it is an indivisible part of the Arab homeland, and the Palestinian people are an integral part of the Arab nation.

Article 2: Palestine, with the boundaries it had during the British Mandate, is an indivisible territorial unit.

Article 3: The Palestinian Arab people possess the legal right to their homeland and have the right to determine their destiny after achieving the liberation of their country in accordance with their wishes and entirely of their own accord and will.

Article 4: The Palestinian identity is a genuine, essential, and inherent characteristic; it is transmitted from parents to children. The Zionist occupation and the dispersal of the Palestinian Arab people, through the disasters which befell them, do not make them lose their Palestinian identity and their membership in the Palestinian community, nor do they negate them.

Article 5: The Palestinians are those Arab nationals who, until 1947, normally resided in Palestine regardless of whether they were evicted from it or have stayed there. Anyone born, after that date, of a Palestinian father - whether inside Palestine or outside it - is also a Palestinian.

Article 6: The Jews who had normally resided in Palestine until the beginning of the Zionist invasion will be considered Palestinians.

Article 7: That there is a Palestinian community and that it has material, spiritual, and historical connection with Palestine are indisputable facts. It is a national duty to bring up individual Palestinians in an Arab revolutionary manner. All means of information and education must be adopted in order to acquaint the Palestinian with his country in the most profound manner, both spiritual and material, that is possible. He must be prepared for the armed struggle and ready to sacrifice his wealth and his life in order to win back his homeland and bring about its liberation.

Article 8: The phase in their history, through which the Palestinian people are now living, is that of national (watani) struggle for the liberation of Palestine. Thus the conflicts among the Palestinian national forces are secondary, and should be ended for the sake of the basic conflict that exists between the forces of Zionism and of imperialism on the one hand, and the Palestinian Arab people on the other. On this basis the Palestinian masses, regardless of whether they are residing in the national homeland or in diaspora (mahajir) constitute - both their organizations and the individuals - one national front working for the retrieval of Palestine and its liberation through armed struggle.

Article 9: Armed struggle is the only way to liberate Palestine. This it is the overall strategy, not merely a tactical phase. The Palestinian Arab people assert their absolute determination and firm resolution to continue their armed struggle and to work for an armed popular revolution for the liberation of their country and their return to it . They also assert their right to normal life in Palestine and to exercise their right to self-determination and sovereignty over it.

Article 10: Commando action constitutes the nucleus of the Palestinian popular liberation war. This requires its escalation, comprehensiveness, and the mobilization of all the Palestinian popular and educational efforts and their organization and involvement in the armed Palestinian revolution. It also requires the achieving of unity for the national (watani) struggle among the different groupings of the Palestinian people, and between the Palestinian people and the Arab masses, so as to secure the continuation of the revolution, its escalation, and victory.

Article 11: The Palestinians will have three mottoes: national (wataniyya) unity, national (qawmiyya) mobilization, and liberation.

Article 12: The Palestinian people believe in Arab unity. In order to contribute their share toward the attainment of that objective, however, they must, at the present stage of their struggle, safeguard their Palestinian identity and develop their consciousness of that identity, and oppose any plan that may dissolve or impair it.

Article 13: Arab unity and the liberation of Palestine are two complementary objectives, the attainment of either of which facilitates the attainment of the other. Thus, Arab unity leads to the liberation of Palestine, the liberation of Palestine leads to Arab unity; and work toward the realization of one objective proceeds side by side with work toward the realization of the other.

Article 14: The destiny of the Arab nation, and indeed Arab existence itself, depend upon the destiny of the Palestine cause. From this interdependence springs the Arab nation's pursuit of, and striving for, the liberation of Palestine. The people of Palestine play the role of the vanguard in the realization of this sacred (qawmi) goal.

Article 15: The liberation of Palestine, from an Arab viewpoint, is a national (qawmi) duty and it attempts to repel the Zionist and imperialist aggression against the Arab homeland, and aims at the elimination of Zionism in Palestine. Absolute responsibility for this falls upon the Arab nation - peoples and governments - with the Arab people of Palestine in the vanguard. Accordingly, the Arab nation must mobilize all its military, human, moral, and spiritual capabilities to participate actively with the Palestinian people in the liberation of Palestine. It must, particularly in the phase of the armed Palestinian revolution, offer and furnish the Palestinian people with all possible help, and material and human support, and make available to them the means and opportunities that will enable them to continue to carry out their leading role in the armed revolution, until they liberate their homeland.

Article 16: The liberation of Palestine, from a spiritual point of view, will provide the Holy Land with an atmosphere of safety and tranquility, which in turn will safeguard the country's religious sanctuaries and guarantee freedom of worship and of visit to all, without discrimination of race, color, language, or religion. Accordingly, the people of Palestine look to all spiritual forces in the world for support.

Article 17: The liberation of Palestine, from a human point of view, will restore to the Palestinian individual his dignity, pride, and freedom. Accordingly the Palestinian Arab people look forward to the support of all those who believe in the dignity of man and his freedom in the world.

Article 18: The liberation of Palestine, from an international point of view, is a defensive action necessitated by the demands of self-defense. Accordingly the Palestinian people, desirous as they are of the friendship of all people, look to freedom-loving, and peace-loving states for support in order to restore their legitimate rights in Palestine, to re-establish peace and security in the country, and to enable its people to exercise national sovereignty and freedom.

Article 19: The partition of Palestine in 1947 and the establishment of the state of Israel are entirely illegal, regardless of the passage of time, because they were contrary to the will of the Palestinian people and to their natural right in their homeland, and inconsistent with the principles embodied in the Charter of the United Nations, particularly the right to self-determination.

Article 20: The Balfour Declaration, the Mandate for Palestine, and everything that has been based upon them, are deemed null and void. Claims of historical or religious ties of Jews with Palestine are incompatible with the facts of history and the true conception of what constitutes statehood. Judaism, being a religion, is not an independent nationality. Nor do Jews constitute a single nation with an identity of its own; they are citizens of the states to which they belong.

Article 21: The Arab Palestinian people, expressing themselves by the armed Palestinian revolution, reject all solutions which are substitutes for the total liberation of Palestine and reject all proposals aiming at the liquidation of the Palestinian problem, or its internationalization.

Article 22: Zionism is a political movement organically associated with international imperialism and antagonistic to all action for liberation and to progressive movements in the world. It is racist and fanatic in its nature, aggressive, expansionist, and colonial in its aims, and fascist in its methods. Israel is the instrument of the Zionist movement, and geographical base for world imperialism placed strategically in the midst of the Arab homeland to combat the hopes of the Arab nation for liberation, unity, and progress. Israel is a constant source of threat vis-a-vis peace in the Middle East and the whole world. Since the liberation of Palestine will destroy the Zionist and imperialist presence and will contribute to the establishment of peace in the Middle East, the Palestinian people look for the support of all the progressive and peaceful forces and urge them all, irrespective of their affiliations and beliefs, to offer the Palestinian people all aid and support in their just struggle for the liberation of their homeland.

Article 23: The demand of security and peace, as well as the demand of right and justice, require all states to consider Zionism an illegitimate movement, to outlaw its existence, and to ban its operations, in order that friendly relations among peoples may be preserved, and the loyalty of citizens to their respective homelands safeguarded.

Article 24: The Palestinian people believe in the principles of justice, freedom, sovereignty, self-determination, human dignity, and in the right of all peoples to exercise them.

Article 25: For the realization of the goals of this Charter and its principles, the Palestine Liberation Organization will perform its role in the liberation of Palestine in accordance with the Constitution of this Organization.

Article 26: The Palestine Liberation Organization, representative of the Palestinian revolutionary forces, is responsible for the Palestinian Arab people's movement in its struggle - to retrieve its homeland, liberate and return to it and exercise the right to self-determination in it - in all military, political, and financial fields and also for whatever may be required by the Palestine case on the inter-Arab and international levels.

Article 27: The Palestine Liberation Organization shall cooperate with all Arab states, each according to its potentialities; and will adopt a neutral policy among them in the light of the requirements of the war of liberation; and on this basis it shall not interfere in the internal affairs of any Arab state.

Article 28: The Palestinian Arab people assert the genuineness and independence of their national (wataniyya) revolution and reject all forms of intervention, trusteeship, and subordination.

Article 29: The Palestinian people possess the fundamental and genuine legal right to liberate and retrieve their homeland. The Palestinian people determine their attitude toward all states and forces on the basis of the stands they adopt vis-a-vis to the Palestinian revolution to fulfill the aims of the Palestinian people.

Article 30: Fighters and carriers of arms in the war of liberation are the nucleus of the popular army which will be the protective force for the gains of the Palestinian Arab people.

Article 31: The Organization shall have a flag, an oath of allegiance, and an anthem. All this shall be decided upon in accordance with a special regulation.

Article 32: Regulations, which shall be known as the Constitution of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, shall be annexed to this Charter. It will lay down the manner in which the Organization, and its organs and institutions, shall be constituted; the respective competence of each; and the requirements of its obligation under the Charter.

Article 33: This Charter shall not be amended save by [vote of] a majority of two-thirds of the total membership of the National Congress of the Palestine Liberation Organization [taken] at a special session convened for that purpose.

One more taboo has been broken, like all the others since Oslo. The unbelievable is happening in front of our very eyes. To paraphrase Milan Kundera, what we are experiencing is the unbearable lightness of helplessness.

Why? Because journalists aren't reporting it, commentators aren't analyzing it -- and as for our representatives in the Knesset, they have turned a blind eye to unpalatable realities and joined instead in the government's drawn-out celebration. Let what will be, be.

Two years of negotiations between the PLO and Hamas concluded in an agreement a few days ago, formalized in a joint statement.

According to the agreement, Hamas will continue to adhere to its principles regarding the struggle against Israel. It will continue to attack from anywhere it can, except Zone A (to avoid embarrassing the Palestinian Authority, which controls that zone). In return, the PLO, which does not consider itself responsible for areas outside Zone A, will not act against Hamas.

It will also release Hamas activists still in its jails, and demand that Israel release Hamas prisoners it is holding, particularly Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.

What did our government use to say about such a dangerous potential development? Better ask what it didn't say, what it didn't promise.

It said that the very rationale of an agreement with the PLO was to avoid facing the otherwise inevitable, the worst alternative: Hamas, the fundamentalist demon.

Yitzhak Rabin used to tell critics of his policy that they had to be realistic and face the difficult choice of "either the PLO or Hamas."

And what about the possibility that the two would work together, one employing terror, the other a political approach?

"We will not put up with any such distribution of labor," ministers vowed. "If there is a [PLO] agreement with Hamas, there will be no agreement with Israel," Rabin told the Knesset. "We will not allow a Palestinian movement that supports terrorism to participate in the Palestinian elections," etc. etc. etc.

But the government cannot keep its promises because it cannot allow itself to confront the PLO head-on, even over so just and vital an Israeli security issue. A confrontation would upset the agreement and, with it, the chances of this government's staying in office.

But why shouldn't we perceive Hamas's participation in elections as something positive, Peres asked? If the PLO could persuade Hamas to abandon terror in favor of politics, what would be so wrong with that?

If the PLO-Hamas agreement was indeed about Hamas's ceasing terror in favor of politics, there would be nothing wrong with it. But the pact contains the precise opposite: It allows Hamas to continue on its path of terror (outside Zone A), with the PLO refraining from action against it, in flagrant violation of the essence of its agreement with Israel.

Moreover, in recent media interviews, the chief PLO negotiator with Hamas has actually been encouraging Hamas to carry on along this path. "Everyone must understand," he keeps declaring, "that we are not the defenders of the Israeli entity [sic]. If Israel wishes to spare itself Hamas's activities, it must speedily withdraw from the entire West Bank, and wherever it remains in the Gaza Strip."

His colleague, Hamas's negotiator with the PLO, is in perfect agreement. Hamas activities, he proclaims, "strengthen" the Palestinian Authority vis-a-vis Israel.

Thus the PLO-Hamas understanding and agreement takes shape. The two "complement each other," said Freih Abu Medein, in charge of PA justice, some months ago. Added Hamas's Sheikh Mahmoud Zahar lyrically in Gaza: "Like the wings of a bird, they must work together."

Is Yasser Arafat aware of the agreement his associates and Hamas have worked out together? The chief PLO negotiator reported: "I contacted [Arafat] and read the final communique to him, and he said, `Allah bless you, it's good, it's good.' "

Rabin used to say that "For us, the red line is a situation in which the PLO knows that Hamas is carrying out attacks."

It happened in Sweden. The date was January 30th, 1996. The site was the Grand Hotel, in Stockholm. After a dinner given to Arafats honor (which honor, one may ask?) he met with several arab diplomats in a closed meeting where tape recorders where obliged to be left at the entrance.

But Mr. Arafat seems to forget that he is heading straight for a collision with the most awesome power of the universe, the one who made it, the G-d of Avraham, Yitzhak and Ya'akov. As the prophet Malachi says: "Who shall stand when He appeareth" (Malachi 3:2)

Yet still Arafat keeps rambling on towards his destination and inevitable destruction. This can't be anything else than mere stupidity.

At the unpublicised meeting mr. Arafat talked about "the impending collapse of Israel", and opened that by way of massive import of Arabs to Judea and Samaria (falsely called the "west bank" , they will cause a massive migration of Jews to the United States of America.

"We Palestinians will takeover everything, including all of Jerusalem," Arafat declared, claiming, "Peres and Beilin have already promised us half of Jerusalem. The Golan Heights have already been given away, subject to just a few details." Furthermore he claimed that half of the Russian immigrants to Israel are really Muslims who will fight for a united Palestinian State in the "expected" civil war in Israel.

Arafat revealed his plans for his own wishful "takeover" of Israel: "We of the PLO will now concentrate all our efforts on splitting Israel psychologically into two camps. Within five years, we will have six to seven million Arabs living on the West Bank and in Jerusalem. All Palestinian Arabs will be welcomed by us. If the Jews can import all kinds of Ethiopians, Russians, Uzbeks and Ukranians as Jews, we can import all kinds of Arabs to us."

Arafat then added that the plans the PLO were working on was to "eliminate the State of Israel and establish a purely Palestinian State. We will make life unbearable for Jews by psychological warfare and population explosion; Jews won't want to live among us Arabs."

Of course this is something that mr. Arafat cannot even venture to dare thinking achieving on his own. Thus asking for support from the collective Arab nation, he said: "I have no use for Jews; they are and remain Jews! We now need all the help we can get from you in our battle for a united Palestine under total Arab-Muslim domination!"

This story has been tried blotted out from the worlds media. The Israeli radio station Arutz 7 however, who revealed the story, has said that they have excellent sources for the story. The fact that the meeting happened was even witnessed by the director of the Press Division of Swedens Foreign Ministry, Ms. Annika Soeder, as well as Murray Kahl, the editor of Israel and Global News. The conservative Christian Norwegian newspaper " Dagen" printed the story as well.

The fact that PLO when trying to deny the story, said in wasn't precise, speaks for itself.

The PLO Is Still Lying

By David Bar-Illan

(May 31) THOSE who wonder how Yasser Arafat can say with a straight face that the PLO Covenant has been changed, or that Iranian-based Hamas gunmen are planning his murder with the help of Israeli right-wingers, may find special interest in a Jerusalem Times interview with Hebron Mayor Mustafa Natshe on May 10.

Focusing on the Jewish presence in Hebron and the postponement of Israel's withdrawal from the town's Arab section, reporter Ahmad Buchari asked: "The settlers announced their intention to confiscate houses in the old city of Hebron on the pretext that they had left them in 1929. What is your comment?"

Responding, presumably without snickering, Natshe said: "Their claims to title are absolutely unfounded. Settlers used to have houses which they sold to Arabs. During the British mandate, Jews often used to buy and sell houses from Arabs. In 1929, the houses in question were sold to Arabs by legal contracts."

It would insult the readers' intelligence to repeat the story of the Hebron massacre of 1929. A Jewish community living in the town from time immemorial was mercilessly slaughtered by lifelong Arab neighbors, its property confiscated by the murderers. At the time, American correspondent Vincent Sheehan described the butchery as "the worst outrage... in recent history. The Chinese outrages in 1927 were mild in comparison."

But perhaps more striking than Natshe's reference to the rapine as a normal real estate transaction is his calling Hebron's Jewish inhabitants in 1929 "settlers." The Jewish community in this second-holiest city to Jews had existed in Hebron for an uninterrupted 1,000 years. In fact, except for periods of forced exile, the Jewish presence there goes back over 3,000 years. So the Jews in 1929 could hardly be considered part of "the Zionist invasion." Yet for Natshe they were "settlers."

Many consider such fabrications the inconsequential meanderings of the Eastern imagination. But this is condescending and insulting. The likes of Natshe know that repetition of fiction can convert it into accepted fact. PLO propaganda has succeeded in persuading respectable publications, and even a few scientists, to refer to Palestinians as an indigenous population with a 4,000-year history - the descendants of the Caananites and the Philistines. The land is invariably named Palestine, even if the reference is to an event which preceded the name by many years.

And the Jewish presence in the land is described as a short-lived occupation, one of the many invasions the natives have had to endure in the many millenia of their existence. Another myth the PLO is eager to propagate is that the Jews are treating the Palestinians the way the Nazis treated the Jews. Like the Canaanite ancestry myth, this has already become a favorite of some of the more ardent Israel bashers in the Western media. (Conveniently, they can claim that not only Palestinians but such Israelis as the late Prof. Yeshayahu Leibowitz and retired Prof. Yisrael Shahak agree with them.) After the Kana tragedy, for instance, a BBC anchorman in Manchester said the Shield of David on the Israeli flag should be changed to a swastika.

Neither the Oslo agreements nor Israel's withdrawal from Palestinian towns has softened such Palestinian propaganda. On the contrary. As the Zionist Organization of America reports, a recent official document published by the Palestinian Authority has compared Israel to the Nazis and the Palestinian Arabs to Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Distributed on April 22, 1996 on official Palestinian Authority letterhead, and titled "Statement Issued by the Ministry of Information on the Palestinian Prisoner's Day," it says:

"While the Israeli government is speaking about the atrocities committed against the Jews at Auschwitz, Birkenau and Dachau concentration camps, the violations against the human rights of the Jewish individual, and the tragic consequences of the massacres and collective punishment, it is directly involved these days in weaving plots and causing two major catastrophes to their neighbors."

Referring to "the inhumane legacy" of the Holocaust, it adds: "As a Palestinian people we are still experiencing the legacy of this catastrophe, being applied against them by the ancestors of those Jews who have suffered one day its consequences. Our homeland was transformed into a big concentration camp..."

Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), Arafat's deputy and designated successor, viewed as the epitome of moderation and the architect of the Oslo accords, has refused to retract a book claiming that "the Zionist movement was a partner in the slaughter of the Jews." The book is entitled The Other Side: The Secret Relationship Between Nazism and the Zionist Movement, which claims that the Nazis really killed less than one million Jews.

On January 24, 1996, PLO official Affif Safiah declared at a Jerusalem gathering, "Israel must apologize to the Palestinian people for its conduct in the past, just as Germany apologized to the Jewish people for hunting them down in Europe." On January 4, 1996, PA Justice Minister Freih Abu-Medein told Israel Radio: "Israel did not hesitate to receive reparations from the government of Germany, but it refuses to pay reparations to the victims of the intifada."

Fostering such myths is not new for the PLO. An article in the July 1990 issue of Balsam, published by the PLO-affiliated Palestinian Red Crescent, asserted that "the lie concerning the gas chambers enabled the Jews to establish the State of Israel."

The Refugee Story Nobody Knows

REMEMBER the sympathetic world coverage afforded the 400 Hamas leaders and gunmen expelled from Israel to Lebanon in December 1992? Exiled after a series of murders by their organization - one of the most vicious and fanatic terrorist groups in the world - they became an international cause celebre, whose suffering was documented daily by the world's ace correspondents and camera crews.

Compare that coverage to the attention received by the Palestinian refugees expelled from Libya for no other reason than that they are Palestinians, whose leader irritated Muammar Gaddafi. Stranded on the Egyptian-Libyan border, they have been non-persons in the media for nine months now. The only attention they have received has been from UNRWA medical teams, which have reported that "both the physical and the mental health of the stranded refugees have deteriorated."

Reporters who pride themselves on their liberalism don't seem to realize how racist it is to consider savagery and inhumanity newsworthy only when Arabs are not the perpetrators.