Philip O’Connor has an op-ed piece in yesterday’s Irish Times in which he replies to an earlier article by Seán Gannon which I linked to here. Most of his argument can be reduced to following statement; Gannon says that Israel is living up to its legal responsibilities in Gaza but that can’t be true because a lot of people and organisations say that it isn’t. I was rather under the impression that we had the Enlightenment so that we could figure out for ourselves whether this or that statement was true or not and wouldn’t have to take it on trust from some authority figure, but maybe I am just a hopeless idealist.
O’Connor does make one interesting point. Referring to Gaza, he says that,
the occupation began in 1967
From this we may conclude that he does not believe that Gaza was under occupation when it was ruled by Egypt, from 1948 to 1967. It would appear, therefore, that O’Connor believes that the Palestinians form part of some great undifferentiated Arab mass and can’t have had much to complain about when they lived under Egyptian control because, well, they are all Arabs, aren’t they?
But doesn’t that sound exactly like what some far-right Israeli politicians think about the Palestinians? Indeed it does.
O’Connor signs his article as press officer of the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign. My italics.
“It would appear, therefore, that O’Connor believes that the Palestinians form part of some great undifferentiated Arab mass and can’t have had much to complain about when they lived under Egyptian control because, well, they are all Arabs, aren’t they?
But doesn’t that sound exactly like what some far-right Israeli politicians think about the Palestinians? Indeed it does.”
Fact is the Palestinians did not complain when they were under Egyptian or Jordanian control.
And in their 1964 Charter, they declare:
“Article 1. Palestine is an Arab homeland bound by strong national ties to the rest of the Arab Countries and which together form the large Arab homeland.
Article 2. Palestine with its boundaries at the time of the British Mandate is a regional indivisible unit.
Article 3. The Palestinian Arab people has the legitimate right to its homeland and is an inseparable part of the Arab Nation. It shares the sufferings and aspirations of the Arab Nation and its struggle for freedom, sovereignty, progress and unity.”
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Peace/cove1.html
In 1968 they finessed their definition:
“Article 12. The Palestinian Arab people believe in Arab unity. To fulfill their role in the achievement of that objective, they must, at the present stage in their national struggle, retain their Palestinian identity and all that it involves, work for increased awareness of it and oppose all measures liable to weaken or dissolve it.
Article 13. Arab unity and the liberation of Palestine are complementary objectives; each leads to the achievement of the other. Arab unity will lead to the liberation of Palestine and the liberation of Palestine will lead to Arab unity.. To work for one is to work for both.”
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Peace/PLO_Covenant.html
It is clear even from the amended version that Palestinian nationality was conceived as a temporary construct, a way-station to the final goal which is Arab unity.
This goes a long way in explaining why Palestinians did not consider themselves under occupation before 1967, even though the territories they inhabited were thus defined by international law.