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Palestinian Declaration of Independence and Political Communiqué (15 November 1988)

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aliasesPalestinian Declaration of Independence, Declaration of Independence (1988), Political Communiqué (1988), A/43/827-S/20278

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Summary

The United Nations document A/43/827–S/20278 of 18 November 1988, transmitting two texts adopted by the Palestine National Council at its nineteenth extraordinary session at Algiers: the Political Communiqué (Annex II), which frames the first intifadah as an all-embracing popular revolution, decides to intensify it, and affirms the Palestine Liberation Organization’s determination to reach a comprehensive political settlement on the basis of Security Council resolutions 242 (1967) and 338 (1973) through an international conference, with Israeli withdrawal from the territories occupied since 1967 including Arab Jerusalem, removal of the settlements, a refugee solution under United Nations resolutions and security arrangements for every State in the region including the Palestinian State; and the Declaration of Independence (Annex III), which, on the basis of the international legitimacy embodied in United Nations resolutions since 1947 and the Palestinian Arab people’s exercise of self-determination, declares the establishment of the State of Palestine in the land of Palestine with its capital at Jerusalem, as a democratic parliamentary, Arab and non-aligned State committed to the United Nations Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and peaceful coexistence (Palestinian Declaration of Independence and Political Communiqué (15 November 1988), PDF p.3, 7-8, 15).

What the file is

The document as circulated to the General Assembly (forty-third session, agenda item 37, Question of Palestine) and the Security Council, dated 18 November 1988, original Arabic/English, on 16 PDF pages, about 6,682 words in the text copy counting the whole file. It consists of a Jordanian cover letter (PDF p.1), Annex I (Riyad Mansour’s letter of 16 November 1988, PDF p.2), Annex II, the Political Communiqué (PDF p.3-12, closing with a resolution on Algeria and a special resolution relating to Tunisia), and Annex III, the Declaration of Independence (PDF p.13-16). The text copy is a poor OCR of a degraded typewritten original: scattered words are garbled on almost every page of Annex II, and Annex III is cleaner. Headings, dates and figures were checked against the original at PDF p.1-3 and p.12-16; quotations below are taken only from passages that read cleanly in the text copy and were confirmed in the original, and the Declaration’s operative sentence is therefore paraphrased rather than quoted in full. Two dates in the file conflict as printed in the original and are recorded under Open questions.

Section by section

  • Cover letter (PDF p.1). Dated 18 November 1988, from the Permanent Representative of Jordan, Abdullah Salah, Ambassador, Permanent Representative, in his capacity as Chairman of the Group of Arab States for the month of November 1968 (as printed; see Open questions), transmitting Dr. Riyad Mansour’s letter of 16 November 1988, Deputy Permanent Observer of the Palestine Liberation Organization to the United Nations, together with annexes containing the Political Communiqué of the Palestine National Council and the Declaration of Independence of 15 November 1988, with a request for circulation as an official document of the General Assembly, under agenda item 37, and of the Security Council.
  • Annex I, Mansour’s letter (PDF p.2). Mansour transmits the Political Communiqué and the Declaration of Independence of 16 November 1988 (as printed; see Open questions), at annexes II and III. Signed Dr. Riyad Mansour, Deputy Permanent Observer, Chargé d’affaires a.i.
  • Annex II, the session (PDF p.3). In the land of heroic Algeria and as guest of its people and its President, Chadli Bendjedid, the Palestine National Council held its nineteenth extraordinary session — the session of the intifadah (uprising) and national independence, the session of the martyr and hero Abu Jihad — from 11 to 15 November 1988 (as printed; see Open questions). The session culminated in the declaration of the Palestinian State on Palestinian land, the culmination of a popular struggle continued for more than 70 years, and was distinguished by its dedication to the great Palestinian national uprising and the population’s defiance in their camps inside and outside the occupied land.
  • Annex II, the intifadah (PDF p.3-4). Throughout the 12 months for which it has continued (as printed in the original; the text copy reads 11), the uprising is an all-embracing popular revolution expressing the nation’s consensus — men and women, old people and children, camps, villages and cities — to reject the occupation and fight for its defeat and elimination; it has demonstrated national unity and comprehensive loyalty to the Palestine Liberation Organization, the sole legitimate representative of the people, through the unified leadership of the uprising and the popular committees, and through the rallying of trade unions, vocational organizations, students, workers, farmers, women, businessmen, land owners, professionals and academics. Generations bred on the revolution since its awakening in 1965 lived through the Zionist invasion of 1982 and the resistance of the camps in Lebanon. The passage speaks of the children of the rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) and the children of the sacred stones.
  • Annex II, occupation practices and aims (PDF p.4). The people has defied attempts to end the revolution despite terror, oppression, killing, imprisonment, expulsion, desecration of Islamic and Christian holy places, confiscation of land, demolition of houses, deliberate murder, armed settlers unleashed against villages and camps, burning of crops, severing of water and electricity, beating of women and children, use of stinging gases — leading, the Communiqué says, to thousands of deaths and miscarriages — and closure of schools and universities; the price has been hundreds of martyrs and tens of thousands wounded, injured, detained and expelled. The stated objectives are defeating and eliminating the Israeli occupation and attaining the inalienable national rights to return, to exercise self-determination and to establish the independent Palestinian State.
  • Annex II, Arab and international support (PDF p.4-6). Arab support is instanced by popular backing and the official consensus at the Arab Summit Conference at Algiers; international endorsement by Security Council resolutions 605 (1987), 607 (1988) and 608 (1988), General Assembly resolutions confirming Palestinian rights, and General Assembly resolution 43/21 of 3 November 1988, adopted at a meeting devoted to the intifadah. The Communiqué characterizes Israel, in its own terms, as a colonialist, racist, Fascist State based on seizure of Palestinian land, and says Jewish groups throughout the world are no longer able to defend Israel or remain silent, apart from the Israeli democratic and progressive forces it excepts. It affirms the correctness of the PLO’s national programme, the people’s struggle as the decisive factor, the authority of the popular masses as represented by their committees, and the international community’s agreement on the need to hold the International Peace Conference on the Middle East.
  • Annex II, decision 1 (PDF p.6-7). The Council decides: (a) to provide all means for intensifying the uprising at all levels and by all methods, ensuring its continuation and escalation; (b) to support the mass institutions and organizations in the occupied Palestinian territories; (c) to strengthen and develop the popular committees and the specialized cadres of the masses and the trade unions, including attack groups and the popular army (the text copy letters this item (a) again; see Open questions); (d) to consolidate national unity; (e) to step up international action to secure release of detainees, return of those expelled and a halt to organized repression and terror; (f) to invite the United Nations to place the occupied Palestinian territories under international supervision, to protect the masses and terminate the occupation; (g) to call on Palestinians outside the homeland to intensify support on the basis of family solidarity; (h) to invite the Arab community’s masses, forces, institutions and Governments to increase political, material and media support; (i) to call on free and noble men throughout the world to stand by the uprising against the occupation and its repression.
  • Annex II, the settlement affirmation (PDF p.7-8). On the basis of the Declaration of Independence issued on 15 November 1988, the Council affirms the PLO’s determination to reach a comprehensive political settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict and of its essence, the question of Palestine, within the framework of the United Nations Charter, international legitimacy, international law, United Nations resolutions — the most recent being Security Council resolutions 605 (1987), 607 (1988) and 608 (1988) — and Arab summit resolutions, ensuring return, self-determination and the independent national State on its national soil, while making arrangements for the security and peace of every State in the region. It insists on: (a) an effective international conference under United Nations auspices, with the permanent members of the Security Council and all parties to the conflict including the PLO, the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, on an equal footing, convened on the basis of Security Council resolutions 242 (1967) and 338 (1973) and guaranteeing legitimate national rights, first and foremost self-determination; (b) Israel’s withdrawal from all the Palestinian and Arab territories occupied since 1967, including Arab Jerusalem; (c) cancellation of all measures of attachment and annexation and removal of the settlements established since 1967; (d) an endeavour to place the occupied Palestinian territories, including Arab Jerusalem, under United Nations supervision for a limited period; (e) solution of the Palestine refugee problem in accordance with United Nations resolutions; (f) assurance of freedom of worship at the holy places for adherents of all religions; (g) Security Council establishment and assurance of arrangements for security and peace among all concerned States in the region, including the Palestinian State.
  • Annex II, Jordan, terrorism, Lebanon, Iraq-Iran (PDF p.8-9). The Council confirms the privileged relationship between the peoples of Jordan and Palestine, the future relationship between the two States to be established on the basis of a confederacy and free and voluntary choice. It renews commitment to United Nations resolutions affirming peoples’ right to resist foreign occupation, colonialism and racial discrimination, and states its rejection of terrorism in all its forms, including State terrorism, citing its previous resolutions, the 1988 Algiers Arab Summit resolution, General Assembly resolutions 42/159 of 1987 and 40/61 of 1985, and the relevant passage in the Cairo Declaration of 7 November 1985. On Lebanon it affirms the unity of Lebanon’s territory, people and institutions, the rights of Palestinian citizens in Lebanon to political and media activities, security, work and life, and solidarity with the Lebanese Islamic national forces against the Israeli occupation in southern Lebanon, saluting those in the camps in Lebanon resisting massacres, starvation, air raids, bombardment and sieges. It affirms the importance of the Iraq-Iran cease-fire for lasting peace in the Gulf, and pride in Iraq’s defiance as defender of the eastern gate of the Arab world.
  • Annex II, friends and appeals (PDF p.9-11). Gratitude to States, forces and world organizations supporting Palestinian rights, naming as friends the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China, the other socialist States, non-aligned countries, Islamic, African and Latin American States; a noted positive development in certain Western European countries and Japan; solidarity with liberation struggles in Asia, Africa and Latin America; support for the national liberation movements in South Africa and Namibia under the South West Africa People’s Organization (SWAPO), with a special greeting to Nelson Mandela, and support for the African front-line States; a call to confront the growth of Fascist forces and Israeli extremism and their calls for genocide and expulsion; appreciation of the Israeli forces for peace; an appeal to the people of the United States to work to halt the United States Administration’s policy of denying Palestinian national rights; a memorial committee for Abu Jihad entrusted to the Executive Committee; greetings to the United Nations Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People; anguish over hundreds of the people’s combatants detained in a number of Arab countries, with a call for their release; and closing confidence in victory on the road to Jerusalem, the capital of the independent Palestinian State.
  • Resolution on Algeria (PDF p.11-12). Under the heading Resolution, the Council records pride, gratitude and recognition for fraternal Algeria, its people and its militant President, Chadli Bendjedid; Algeria’s stance is said to rest on the deep-rooted battle heritage of the revolution which claimed 1,500,000 martyrs (as printed in the original) and on its commitment to the Arab and Islamic causes, and the Council thanks Algeria for its hospitality during the session of the intifadah.
  • Special resolution relating to Tunisia (PDF p.12). Headed as proposed by Mr. Yasser Arafat, Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization: the Council affirms appreciation of fraternal Tunisia, greets President Zine-al-Abidine Ben Ali for his efforts to support the cause and to protect the Palestine Liberation Organization in Tunisian territory, and thanks the Tunisian people for co-operating with the cause, its revolution and uprising.
  • Annex III, Declaration, historical preamble (PDF p.13). The Palestinian Arab people was brought forth in the land of Palestine, the same terrain as God’s apostolic missions to mankind, and there created its unique human and national mode of existence in an organic, indissoluble and unbroken relationship among people, land and history; it fashioned its national identity with epic tenaciousness, nourished by many strains of civilization and a multitude of cultures and its spiritual and historical heritages, in the footsteps of the prophets throughout the Holy Land; from generation unto generation it has not ceased its valiant defence of its homeland, its successive rebellions a heroic embodiment of its desire for national independence. The modern balance of power excluded the Palestinians from the common destiny; a people deprived of independence, whose homeland was subjected to a new kind of foreign occupation, was exposed to an attempt to give general currency to the falsehood that Palestine was a land without a people; despite this falsification, the international community, in article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations of 1919 and in the Lausanne Treaty of 1923, recognised that the Palestinian Arab people was no different from the other Arab peoples detached from the Ottoman State and was a free and independent people.
  • Annex III, resolution 181 (II) and occupation (PDF p.13-14). Despite the historical injustice done in its displacement and deprivation of self-determination following General Assembly resolution 181 (II) of 1947, which partitioned Palestine into an Arab and a Jewish State, that resolution nevertheless continues to attach conditions to international legitimacy guaranteeing the Palestinian Arab people’s right to sovereignty and national independence. The occupation of Palestinian territory and parts of other Arab territory by Israeli forces, the uprooting of the majority of Palestinians and their displacement by organized intimidation, and the subjection of the remainder to occupation and oppression, are a flagrant violation of the principles of legitimacy, of the United Nations Charter and of its resolutions recognizing Palestinian national rights, including return, self-determination, independence and sovereignty over the territory of its homeland.
  • Annex III, the PLO and the turning point (PDF p.14). The people has not lost faith in its right to return or belief in its right to independence; the national will’s political framework is the Palestine Liberation Organization, the sole, legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, as recognized by the international community. The great popular uprising and the steadfastness of the camps have raised mankind’s grasp of the Palestinian issue, brought down the final curtain on an epoch of falsification, and beleaguered the official Israeli mentality; with the uprising the Palestinian conjuncture reaches a sharp historical turning point, and the people asserts its inalienable rights by virtue of its natural, historical and legal right to its homeland and the sacrifices of its succeeding generations.
  • Annex III, the operative declaration (PDF p.15). Pursuant to the resolutions of the Arab Summit Conferences, on the basis of the international legitimacy embodied in the resolutions of the United Nations since 1947, and through the exercise by the Palestinian Arab people of its right to self-determination, political independence and sovereignty over its territory, the Palestine National Council declares, in the Name of God and on behalf of the Palestinian Arab people, the establishment of the State of Palestine in the land of Palestine with its capital at Jerusalem (paraphrased; see What the file is).
  • Annex III, the character of the State (PDF p.15). The State shall be for Palestinians wherever they may be, to develop their national and cultural identity and enjoy full equality of rights, their religious and political beliefs and human dignity safeguarded under a democratic parliamentary system based on freedom of opinion and the freedom to form parties, majority heed for minority rights and minority respect for majority decisions, social justice and equality, and non-discrimination in civil rights on grounds of race, religion or colour or as between men and women, under a Constitution ensuring the rule of law and an independent judiciary, in fidelity to Palestine’s spiritual and cultural heritage with mutual tolerance, coexistence and magnanimity among religions. The State shall be an Arab State, an integral part of the Arab nation, committed to the Pact of the League of Arab States, calling on the Arab nation to assist its de facto emergence and to intensify efforts to end the Israeli occupation. It declares its commitment to the purposes and principles of the United Nations, to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and to non-alignment; it is a peace-loving State committed to peaceful coexistence and to a lasting peace based on justice and respect for rights; and it calls on the United Nations, which bears a special responsibility towards the Palestinian Arab people and its homeland, and on peace-loving States and peoples, to assist it, bring its people’s plight to an end, ensure its people’s safety and end the Israeli occupation.
  • Annex III, peaceful means and closing (PDF p.16). The State believes in the solution of international and regional problems by peaceful means in accordance with the United Nations Charter and its resolutions and, without prejudice to its natural right to defend itself, rejects the threat or use of force, violence and intimidation against its territorial integrity and political independence or those of any other State. On this momentous day, the fifteenth day of November 1988, the Declaration bows to the martyrs, lifts up hearts filled with light from the hallowed uprising and the epic resistance of the camps, the dispersion and exile, and pledges to continue the struggle for an end to the occupation and the establishment of sovereignty and independence, calling on the people to rally to the Palestinian flag. It closes in the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate, with a Qur’anic quotation on God as Master of the Kingdom, and the line Almighty God has spoken the truth.

Key passages

  • “The occupation of Palestinian territory and parts of other Arab territory by Israeli forces, the uprooting of the majority of Palestinians and their displacement from their homes by means of organized intimidation” (Declaration preamble, PDF p.14)
  • “The State of Palestine declares its commitment to the purposes and principles of the United Nations, to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and to the policy and principles of non-alignment” (Declaration, PDF p.15)
  • “of the State of Palestine in the land” — the operative declaration’s wording for what the Palestine National Council declares the establishment of, in the land of Palestine with its capital at Jerusalem (Declaration, PDF p.15; quoted in part because the text copy garbles the full sentence, which the original reads as paraphrased in Section by section)
  • “a land without a people” — the falsehood the Declaration says was given general currency about Palestine (Declaration preamble, PDF p.13)

Evidence the work relies on

Two adopted texts, not an evidentiary work. The Communiqué grounds its settlement affirmation in the United Nations Charter, international legitimacy and international law, Security Council resolutions 605 (1987), 607 (1988) and 608 (1988), Security Council resolutions 242 (1967) and 338 (1973) as the basis for the international conference it demands, General Assembly resolution 43/21 of 3 November 1988, General Assembly resolutions 42/159 (1987) and 40/61 (1985) and the Cairo Declaration of 7 November 1985 on terrorism, and Arab summit resolutions including the 1988 Algiers Summit. The Declaration grounds itself in article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations of 1919, the Lausanne Treaty of 1923, General Assembly resolution 181 (II) of 1947, the resolutions of the Arab Summit Conferences, the international legitimacy embodied in United Nations resolutions since 1947, the Pact of the League of Arab States, the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Its figures for the uprising’s cost (hundreds of martyrs, tens of thousands wounded, injured, detained and expelled, thousands of deaths and miscarriages attributed to gases) are the Communiqué’s own, given without a cited source in the file.

Analysis

The file joins, in one transmission, the intifadah’s political harvest and its diplomatic programme. The Communiqué is written in the language of revolutionary struggle — intensification of the uprising by all methods, attack groups and a popular army, rejection of terrorism paired with affirmation of the right to resist occupation — and at the same time commits the PLO, expressly on the basis of the Declaration, to a comprehensive political settlement on the basis of resolutions 242 and 338, an international conference with the PLO on an equal footing, withdrawal, settlement removal, a refugee solution under United Nations resolutions and security arrangements for every State in the region. The Declaration supplies the legal-historical frame for that programme: it accepts resolution 181 (II) not as a settlement of the question but as a continuing condition of international legitimacy guaranteeing sovereignty and national independence, and it defines the proclaimed State in constitutional, Arab, non-aligned and peaceful-coexistence terms without specifying the State’s borders anywhere in the text. Neither text names Israel as a State to be recognized; the Communiqué’s security-and-peace arrangements for every State in the region, and the proposed Security Council arrangements including the Palestinian State, are the closest formulations in the file.

People, organizations, places and events

Palestinian National Council, Palestine Liberation Organization, Palestinian Declaration of Independence, State of Palestine, First Intifada, Khalil al-Wazir, Yasir Arafat, City of Jerusalem, Arab League, Nelson Mandela, UN Security Council Resolution 242, UN Security Council Resolution 338

Concepts

Self-determination, Right of Return, Two-state solution

How it relates to other sources

This is the primary text for both the Declaration of Independence and the Political Communiqué, which the wiki previously held only as reproduced and summarized in Origins and Evolution of the Palestine Problem: Part IV (1984-1988) (its Communiqué points (a)-(g) and its account of the Declaration at lines 559-605). The primary text settles several points the study’s account states differently: the Communiqué as printed gives the session dates as 11 to 15 November 1988, where the study and the Palestinian National Council page give 12-15 November 1988 (see Open questions); and its settlement points run (a)-(g) after a separate numbered decision on the uprising that the study’s reproduction does not foreground. Against the Council’s earlier texts — The Palestinian National Charter (1968), which rejects substitute solutions, and PLO Interim Political Program (Ten-Point Program) (8 June 1974), which refuses resolution 242 — the 1988 Communiqué accepts resolutions 242 and 338 as the basis of an international conference and builds its claim on resolution 181 (II)‘s continuing legitimacy, while the Declaration’s proclaimed State is the statehood step the 1974 programme framed as a national authority over liberated territory. The Communiqué’s demand for an international conference and the Declaration’s basis in resolutions since 1947 are the immediate antecedents of the Madrid framework within which Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements (13 September 1993) was later negotiated.

Open questions

  • The cover letter (PDF p.1) describes Salah’s chairmanship as for the month of November 1968, as printed in the original, in a document dated 18 November 1988; no correction is printed in the file.
  • Annex I (PDF p.2) dates the Declaration of Independence to 16 November 1988, as printed in the original, where the cover letter (PDF p.1), the Communiqué (PDF p.7) and the Declaration itself (PDF p.16) all date it 15 November 1988.
  • The Communiqué (PDF p.3) gives the session as held from 11 to 15 November 1988, as printed in the original, where Origins and Evolution of the Palestine Problem: Part IV (1984-1988) gives 12-15 November 1988; both are held.
  • In the text copy, decision 1’s third item is lettered (a) again after (b); whether the original prints (c) could not be settled from the degraded typescript at that point, and the item is recorded in sequence without relying on its letter.
  • The Communiqué’s figures (more than 70 years of struggle; hundreds of martyrs; tens of thousands wounded, injured, detained and expelled; thousands of deaths and miscarriages from gases; 1,500,000 Algerian martyrs) are stated without sources in the file and are recorded as the Communiqué’s own.
  • The Declaration nowhere specifies the borders of the proclaimed State, and neither text states a position on recognition of Israel in terms; the file is not reconciled with later accounts on either point.
  • The Arabic original is named in the document header (original Arabic/English) but is not in the file; the file is the English text only.

Coverage

PDF p.1-16 of 16, read in full.

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