Palestinian National Covenant

The 1968 Charter defines Palestine as the homeland of the Arab Palestinian people, an indivisible part of the Arab homeland, and a territorial unit within the boundaries of the British Mandate. Articles 4–5 describe Palestinian identity as inherent and transmitted between generations, and define Palestinians principally as Arab nationals who normally resided in Palestine until 1947 and people subsequently born to a Palestinian father.[1]

Article 6 says Jews who had normally resided in Palestine before what the document calls the beginning of the “Zionist invasion” would be considered Palestinians. Articles 7–10 connect Palestinian identity and education with preparation for armed struggle, describe communities in the homeland and diaspora as one national front, and make armed struggle the stated strategy for liberation.[1]

Articles 12–18 retain the Covenant’s Arab-nationalist framework. They describe Arab unity and Palestine’s liberation as complementary objectives, cast Palestinians as a vanguard in that effort, and call on Arab peoples, governments, and other countries to provide support. They also promise protection of religious sanctuaries and freedom of worship and visitation without discrimination.[1]

Articles 19–23 reject the 1947 partition and Israel’s establishment, declare the Balfour Declaration and the Mandate null and void, deny that Judaism constitutes an independent nationality, and characterize Zionism as racist, expansionist, colonial, and fascist. These are the Charter’s political and historical assertions, not neutral findings.[1]

Articles 25–32 give the PLO responsibility for pursuing the Charter’s objectives in military, political, financial, inter-Arab, and international fields. Article 32 provides for an organizational constitution governing the PLO’s institutions, while Article 33 requires a two-thirds vote of the total membership at a special session to amend the Charter.[1]

The Covenant developed alongside the creation of the PLO in 1964. A May 1964 U.S. diplomatic memorandum records that the January Arab Summit Conference in Cairo designated Ahmad al-Shuqayri to organize a representative Palestinian entity. Shuqayri announced a “National Charter for Palestine” and a PLO constitution for consideration at a Palestinian conference scheduled to open in Jerusalem on May 28.[5]

The Palestine National Council adopted the original Covenant at its first meeting in May–June 1964. The document was written to accompany the PLO’s founding, contained 29 articles, and linked Palestinian aspirations closely to the broader project of Arab unity.[6][7]

The PNC revised the Covenant at its fourth session in Cairo in July 1968, expanding it to 33 articles. Harkabi dates the session to July 10–17, while the officially published English text is headed “Resolutions of the Palestine National Council July 1–17, 1968.” The State Department archive describes that English version as complete, unabridged, officially published by the PLO, and based largely on the 1964 text.[4][8]

The revision followed the June 1967 Arab defeat and the growing influence within the PLO of Fatah, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Palestine Liberation Front, and other commando organizations. It placed Palestinian nationalism and armed struggle more prominently in the program while retaining Arab-nationalist themes.[9]

Harkabi identifies a revealing terminology change: the 1964 text used qawmi for “national,” with a pan-Arab connotation, while the 1968 version used watani, emphasizing territorial Palestinian patriotism. He also notes changes in the treatment of armed struggle and the PLO’s organizational role.[8]

The 1964 Covenant made total liberation its overriding objective but did not prescribe armed struggle or revolution as the specific means. It instead presented Arab unity as the principal instrument of liberation and did not clearly state whether Palestinian self-determination would occur in an independent state or in union with one or more Arab states.[7]

The 1964 document also limited the PLO’s immediate territorial role. Article 24 said the organization would not exercise regional sovereignty over the West Bank — known by its original, indigenous Jewish name of Judea and Samaria — the Gaza Strip, or the Himmah Area. The text nevertheless assigned the PLO responsibilities in organizational, political, financial, and liberation-related fields.[10]

The 1968 revision made the prescribed method explicit. Article 9 declares, “Armed struggle is the only way to liberate Palestine,” describes it as the overall strategy rather than a tactical phase, and connects it with return, self-determination, and sovereignty. Article 10 calls commando action the nucleus of a popular Palestinian liberation war and demands its escalation and the mobilization of Palestinian and Arab efforts.[1]

Encyclopedia.com counts 13 references to armed struggle in the revised Charter and observes that Article 10 leaves room for conventional warfare in partnership with Arab countries. This interpretation concerns the Charter’s program; it does not establish how every provision was later implemented by the PLO.[9]

The organizational provisions reinforce that program. Articles 25–30 assign the PLO responsibility for the Palestinian Arab people’s movement across military, political, and financial fields and at inter-Arab and international levels. Articles 31–32 provide for organizational symbols and a separate constitution defining the PLO’s organs, institutions, powers, and duties.[1]

The Charter’s greatest political significance lies in its treatment of Israel, Zionism, partition, and Jewish national identity. Article 19 calls the 1947 partition and Israel’s establishment illegal. Article 20 rejects the Balfour Declaration and Mandate and asserts that Judaism is a religion rather than an independent nationality and that Jews do not constitute a nation with an identity of their own.[1]

Article 21 rejects political solutions that substitute for total liberation. Article 22 describes Zionism as racist, expansionist, colonial, and fascist, calls Israel an instrument of Zionism and international imperialism, and says liberation would destroy the Zionist and imperialist presence. Article 23 calls on states to prohibit Zionist activity.[1]

The original Covenant had already rejected partition and Israel’s establishment, dismissed Jewish historical and national claims, and characterized Zionism as colonialist and racist. The 1968 revision sharpened that language and added Article 15’s stated aim of eliminating Zionism in Palestine.[10][11]

Accounts differ over the political end-state envisioned by the Covenant. Encyclopedia.com says neither version explicitly calls for a Palestinian state, while the Jewish Virtual Library’s introduction to the 1968 text describes the revision as directing liberation toward creation of a sovereign Palestinian state.[6][12] Benny Morris similarly observes that neither text defined the intended state’s nature beyond provisions concerning religious freedom.[11]

Article 16 says liberation would provide the Holy Land “with an atmosphere of safety and tranquility” and guarantee freedom of worship and visitation without discrimination. That assurance sits alongside the document’s denial of Jewish national identity. A Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs legal-historical survey, presenting a contrasting account of Jewish indigeneity and continuity, emphasizes that Jewish residence in the Land of Israel continued through every generation after ancient Jewish sovereignty was lost.[1][13]

The Oslo process placed the Covenant’s status at the center of PLO–Israel relations. In a letter dated September 9, 1993, PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat told Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin that the PLO recognized Israel’s right to exist in peace and security, accepted UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, renounced terrorism and other violence, and committed to resolving the conflict through negotiations.[3]

Arafat also wrote that Covenant articles denying Israel’s right to exist, and provisions inconsistent with the letter’s commitments, were “now inoperative and no longer valid.” He undertook to submit the necessary changes to the PNC for formal approval. The letter stated a commitment and promised a future approval process; it did not itself produce a replacement Charter.[3]

A Ynet retrospective reports that the September 1995 Taba agreement, or Oslo II, included a Palestinian commitment to cancel Covenant provisions calling for Israel’s destruction, alongside expanded Palestinian self-government, Israeli withdrawals from populated areas, and joint security arrangements.[14]

On April 24, 1996, the PNC met in Gaza and voted 504 to 54, with 14 abstentions, for a resolution saying that the Charter was amended by canceling provisions contrary to the September 1993 exchange of letters. The resolution also directed a legal committee to redraft the Charter for presentation to the Palestinian Central Council.[4] The Middle East Contemporary Survey records the same tally, plus 97 absentees, but says no specific textual change was made at the vote and that a new draft remained to be prepared.[15]

A Washington Institute account offered a broader characterization, describing the 1996 decision as a “sweeping and final” revocation of the Charter in its entirety and authorization to draft a new document consistent with mutual recognition. It reported 80 percent support and said the measure had been negotiated with Israeli officials and approved in the presence of American officials.[16]

In a May 4, 1996 letter to Prime Minister Shimon Peres, Arafat presented the PNC resolution as part of the PLO’s commitment to mutual recognition and the peace process.[17] In a later letter to President Bill Clinton, he described the resolution as a comprehensive amendment and identified Articles 6–10, 15, 19–23, and 30, plus portions of numerous other articles, as nullified.[18]

The reproduced letter’s date is itself disputed. The Jewish Virtual Library page dates it January 13, 1998, while the Wye River Memorandum and the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs refer to a January 22 letter.[18][19] The Wye Memorandum required the PLO Executive Committee and Palestinian Central Council to reaffirm that letter and called for a broader meeting of Palestinian bodies to reaffirm the peace process and those decisions.[19]

A December 11, 1998 Jerusalem Post report recorded a Palestinian Central Council vote in which 81 of 105 attending members approved Arafat’s letter, seven opposed it, and the remainder abstained. The report described the vote as an interim step before the larger gathering scheduled during Clinton’s visit.[20]

On December 14, 1998, members of the PNC and other Palestinian bodies met in Gaza in Clinton’s presence. The State Department archive describes the meeting as reaffirming the 1996 decision.[4] Clinton thanked the participants for rejecting “fully, finally and forever” passages calling for Israel’s destruction, after watching them express support by raising their hands.[21]

The proceedings did not end disagreement over formal compliance. In November 1998, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had publicly insisted that PNC ratification was required and warned that failure to secure it would breach the Wye agreement. That report records Netanyahu’s position rather than determining the Charter’s later legal status.[22]

The central controversy is whether the 1996 and 1998 actions legally amended the Covenant, annulled particular provisions without rewriting the text, or constituted political reaffirmations of earlier commitments. The State Department archive treats the 1996 resolution as an amendment canceling inconsistent articles and the 1998 meeting as a reaffirmation. The contemporary Middle East survey distinguishes that resolution from an actual textual revision.[4][15]

Morris notes that English versions of the 1996 resolution differed between saying the Charter “is hereby amended” and saying the PNC had “decided to change/amend” it. Neither version specified the affected provisions. He also records that no new charter was produced and cites a 2004 statement by PLO official Farouk Kaddoumi that the Charter had not been amended.[11]

Later assessments remain divided. An INSS analysis argues that the Charter “was never changed in practice, despite commitments to do so.”[23] The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs says no new charter or legal committee draft was completed and reports that PNC speaker Salim Za’noun declared in 2001 that the Charter remained in effect.[13] The Jewish Virtual Library similarly says it was never legally amended, although Clinton and Netanyahu regarded the changes as satisfactory.[24]

Encyclopedia.com, by contrast, states that the PNC and Palestinian Legislative Council ratified annulment of the anti-Israeli clauses by a show of hands in December 1998.[6] These sources describe different legal and political interpretations of the same sequence. The available record supports distinguishing among the 1993 undertaking, the 1996 cancellation resolution, the 1998 reaffirmations, and the production of a formally revised text—which the cited sources do not show was completed.