Theme

“The Palestinians recognised Israel long ago. / We want peaceful coexistence.”

Palestinian official bodies are presented as having accepted Israel, so the obstacle to peace must lie with Israel alone.

1. Why people find it convincing

   • In the Oslo letters of 1993 Yasser Arafat recognised 'the right of the State of Israel to exist in peace and security' and declared the Charter articles denying it no longer valid; the Palestine National Council voted in 1996 to amend the Charter, reaffirmed in Gaza in 1998 in the presence of US President Clinton.
   • Hamas's 2017 document says its conflict is 'with the Zionist project, not with the Jews', and calls a state on the 1967 lines a 'formula of national consensus'.
   • The demand that Palestinians recognise Israel as 'a Jewish state' was added late (prominently from 2009), and many see it as a new precondition designed to be refused.

2. What's true

   Recognition of Israel's existence did happen on paper.

   The 1993 letters and the 1996/1998 PNC decisions are real, and the PA has since operated within that framework. The 'Jewish state' demand was indeed raised later, and Palestinians fairly ask why they should define the character of another state.

   primary documentIsrael–PLO Letters of Mutual Recognition (9 September 1993) (1993)

3. What's left out

   Recognising a state's existence is not recognising a people — and the exclusive definition was never revised.

   No amended PLO Charter text was ever published, so critics argue the amendment was never completed. Neither the PLO nor the PA has revised the Charter's definition of Palestinians as 'Arab nationals' or its statement that 'Judaism, being a religion, is not an independent nationality' (1968, Arts. 5, 20). Hamas's 2017 document repeats the definition: 'The Palestinians are the Arabs who lived in Palestine until 1947' (Art. 4). The PA treats selling land to Jews/Israelis as treason, and its president said in 2013 that no Israeli would remain in a future Palestinian state. So the framing that makes 'Palestinian' Arab-only and denies Jewish peoplehood persists across official bodies, including when they speak of coexistence. Dissenting Palestinian voices exist — e.g. the Nusseibeh–Ayalon 'People's Voice' initiative (2002) accepted a Jewish state alongside a Palestinian one — but they do not speak for the official bodies.

   primary documentPalestinian National Charter (1964, Art. 7) and Palestinian National Charter (1968, Arts. 5, 6, 20) (1968)

   Avalon Project text (1968); 1964 text via Jewish Virtual Library / Palquest. Quote exactly.

   Open source ↗

   primary documentHamas, A Document of General Principles and Policies (2017) (2017)

   Art. 4 definition of Palestinians; Art. 16 'Zionist project, not the Jews'; Art. 20.

   Open source ↗

   primary documentAmi Ayalon & Sari Nusseibeh, 'The People's Voice' statement of principles (2002)

4. Where it leads if pressed

   Mutual recognition of peoples, not only of states.

   The durable version is symmetrical: each side recognises the other as a people with a right to self-determination — which also asks Israeli officials to recognise Palestinian peoplehood, something parts of the Israeli right still deny (see 'no-such-thing-as-palestinian'). Recognition of existence ends a war of annihilation; recognition of peoplehood is what makes coexistence possible.