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The Palestine Problem

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 June 2011

A. M. Lesch
A. M. Lesch
Affiliation:
Social Sciences in the Ford Foundation
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Abstract

The contradiction between Israeli and Palestinian goals and Israel's refusal to negotiate with the Palestine Liberation Organization have caused a profound diplomatic impasse. Moreover, the PLO's dependence on Arab hosts has embroiled it in secondary-level conflicts with Arab states. Although the PLO has gained their moral, diplomatic, and financial support, it has posed a threefold challenge: rulers resent the military cost of confronting Israel; Palestinian raids precipitate Israeli retaliatory actions against host territories; and the presence of autonomous Palestinian political and military forces undermines the host regimes' sovereignty and legitimacy. The review essay explores the ramifications of these Palestinian-Israeli and Palestinian-Arab dilemmas, and assesses the likelihood of a compromise settlement by creating a Palestinian state on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Type
Review Articles
Information
World Politics , Volume 34 , Issue 4 , July 1982 , pp. 560 - 573
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1982

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References

1 Said, , Orientalism (New York: Pantheon Books, 1978)Google Scholar, and Covering Islam (New York: Pantheon Books, 1981).

2 The volume by Legum and Shaked also includes an essay by Daniel Dishon that describes inter-Arab relations, and one by Elie Rekhess and Dan Avidan that analyzes the consolidation of support for the P.L.O. on the West Bank and Gaza following the municipal council elections in April 1976.

3 For analyses of the mandate period, see the two volumes by Porath, Yehoshua: The Emergence of the Palestinian-Arab National Movement, 1918–1929 (London: Frank Cass, 1974)Google Scholar and The Palestinian Arab National Movement, 1929–1939 (London: Frank Cass, 1977); see also Lesch, Ann Mosely, Arab Politics in Palestine, 1917–1939: The Frustration of a Nationalist Movement (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1979).Google Scholar

4 Descriptions of the flight and of refugee life include Sayigh, Rosemary, “The Palestinian Identity among Camp Residents,” Journal of Palestine Studies, VI (Spring 1977)Google Scholar, and Palestinians: From Peasants to Revolutionaries (London: Zed Press, 1979); Busailah, Reja-e, “The Fall of Lydda, 1948: Impressions and Reminiscences,” Arab Studies Quarterly, III (Spring 1981)Google Scholar; and Nazzal, Nafez, The Palestinian Exodus from Galilee, 1948 (Beirut: Institute for Palestine Studies, 1978).Google Scholar

5 For Palestinian commentaries on the evolution of the P.L.O.'s political thinking and on possible political settlements, see Jiryis, Sabri, “On Political Settlement in the Middle East: The Palestinian Dimension,” Journal of Palestine Studies, VII (Autumn 1977)Google Scholar; Khalidi, Walid, “Thinking the Unthinkable: A Sovereign Palestinian State,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 57 (July 1978)Google Scholar; Iyad, Abou and Rouleau, Eric, My Home, My Land (New York: Times Books, 1981)Google Scholar; and Nakhleh, Emile A., ed., A Palestinian Agenda for the West Bank and Gaza (Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute, 1980).Google Scholar Former Israeli intelligence chief Harkabi, Yehoshofat, in The Palestinian Covenant and its Meaning (London: Vallentine, Mitchell, 1979)Google Scholar denies that P.L.O. thinking has changed, although other writings by Harkabi indicate a more subtle understanding of Palestinian thinking; e.g., “The Palestinians in the Fifties and their Awakening as Reflected in their Literature,” in Ma'oz, Moshe, ed., Palestinian Arab Politics (Jerusalem: Academic Press, 1975).Google Scholar

6 Brecher, Michael has written the most comprehensive studies on Israeli foreign policy: The Foreign Policy System of Israel: Setting, Image, Process (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1972)Google Scholar, Decisions in Israel's Foreign Policy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1975), and Decisions in Crisis: Israel, 1967 and 1973 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980). The Israeli autonomy plan is sharply criticized by Heller, Mark in “Begin's False Autonomy,” Foreign Policy, No. 37 (Winter 1979–1980).CrossRefGoogle Scholar Pre-1948 Jewish attitudes toward the Arab community in Palestine are critically assessed in Caplan, Neil, Palestine Jewry and the Arab Question, 1917–1926 (London: Frank Cass, 1978)Google Scholar, and Flapan, Simha, Zionism and the Palestinians (London: Croom Helm; New York: Barnes and Noble, 1979).Google Scholar

7 Commentaries on Lebanese internal politics include Barakat, Halim, Lebanon in Strife: Student Preludes to the Civil War (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1977)Google Scholar; Salibi, Kamal S., Crossroads to Civil War: Lebanon, 1958–1976 (Delmar, N.Y.: Caravan Books, 1976)Google Scholar; Hudson, Michael, The Precarious Republic Revisited: Reflections on the Collapse of Pluralist Politics in Lebanon (Washington, D.C.: Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, Georgetown University, 1977)Google Scholar; and Deeb, Marius, The Lebanese Civil War (New York: Praeger, 1980).Google Scholar On the Syrian military intervention in Lebanon, see Dawisha, Adeed I., Syria and the Lebanese Crisis (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1980).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8 Other proposals for resolving the Palestine problem include Shalev, Aryeh, The Autonomy—Problems and Possible Solutions (Tel Aviv: Center for Strategic Studies, Tel Aviv University, 1980)Google Scholar; Flapan, Simha, ed., When Enemies Dare to Talk: An Israeli-Palestinian Debate (London: Croom Helm, 1979)Google Scholar; Nakhleh, Emile A., The West Bank and Gaza: Toward the Making of a Palestinian State (Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute, 1979)Google Scholar; Plascov, Avi, A Palestinian State? Examining the Alternatives (London: Adelphi Papers, 1981)Google Scholar; and Lesch, Ann Mosely, Political Perceptions of the Palestinians on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip (Washington, D.C.: Middle East Institute, 1980).Google Scholar