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The Palestinian National Covenant or Palestinian National Charter (Arabic: الميثاق الوطني الفلسطيني; transliterated: al-Mithaq al-Watani al-Filastini) is the covenant or charter of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). The Covenant is an ideological paper, written in the early days of the PLO.

The first version was adopted on 28 May 1964. In 1968 it was replaced by a comprehensively revised version.[1] In April 1996, many articles, which were inconsistent with the Oslo Accords, were wholly or partially nullified.[2][3]

History

[edit]

Following a 1963 Draft Constitution the first version of the Charter was written by Ahmad Shukeiri, the first chairman of the PLO, using the slightly different name al-Mithaq al-Qawmi al-Filastini, meant to reflect its origins in Nasser's Pan-Arabism.[4] The first official English translation rendered al-Mithaq as "covenant", while later versions have tended to use "charter". (The word al-Qawmi changed to al-Watani in 1968. Both are translated to "national" in English.)

The Palestinian National Charter was adopted on 28 May 1964,[5] establishing the Palestine Liberation Organization, in (east) Jerusalem along with another document, variously known as the Basic Constitution, Basic Law or Fundamental Law of the PLO, based on an earlier Draft Constitution. The Charter is concerned mainly with the aims of the Palestine Liberation Organization, while the Fundamental Law is more concerned with the structure and procedures of the organization.

The Charter was extensively amended, with seven new articles, in 1968 in the wake of the Six-Day War and given its current name.[6] Compared to its predecessor, it focused more on the independent national identity and vanguard role of the Palestinian people, led by the PLO, in their "liberation of their homeland" by armed struggle. Article 7 of the earlier document was changed from "Jews of Palestinian origin are considered Palestinians ..." to being restricted only to those "who had resided in Palestine until the beginning of the Zionist invasion." The final article providing that it can only be amended by a vote of a two-thirds majority of the Palestinian National Council (PNC) at a special session convened for that purpose was left unchanged.

The Fundamental Law was also amended, making it more democratic, electing the entire executive committee by the PNC, instead of just the chairman, separating the post of the speaker of the PNC from the chairman of the executive committee and affirmed the authority of the executive committee over the army. Later, (Hirst, 2003, p. 427) a promised charter amendment based on Fatah doctrine "that all Jews [without date restriction] ... were to be entitled to Palestinian citizenship" failed due to doctrinal quarrels over the meaning of the precise nature of the proposed Democratic State.[citation needed]

The 1968 Charter also removed the 1964 Clause 24 which began, "This Organization does not exercise any territorial sovereignty over the West Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, on the Gaza Strip or in the Himmah Area." That is to say, the Charter in its original 1964 form made no territorial claims over the West Bank or Gaza.

Events before 1998

[edit]
The boundaries of the British Mandate of Palestine

Israel has always strongly objected to the Charter, which describes the establishment of the state of Israel as "entirely illegal" (Art. 19), considers Palestine, with its original Mandate borders, as the indivisible homeland of the Arab Palestinian people (1–2), urges the elimination of Zionism in Palestine (Art. 15), and strongly urges the "liberation" of Palestine.

On 14 December 1988, following an outcry from his 13 December General Assembly speech, Yasser Arafat called a press conference in Geneva to clarify his earlier statement by specifically mentioning the right of all parties concerned in the Middle East conflict to exist in peace and security, including the State of Palestine, Israel, and their neighbours. He also renounced terrorism.[7]

Israel dismissed these statements of moderation from Arafat and the PNC resolution in Algiers, 1988 (which had been sufficient to open a dialogue with the United States) as "deceptive propaganda exercises" because (among other objections), "the PLO Covenant has not changed."[8] In May 1989, Arafat, in a statement later criticized by Edward Said as being beyond his authority, and properly a matter for the PNC, told a French TV interviewer "C'est caduc", meaning that it, the Charter, was obsolete.[9] Roland Dumas, then French Minister of Foreign Affairs, stated in various interviews that he was the one who taught Arafat the meaning of the French word caduc in a meeting, so Arafat straight out of the meeting used it in his famous declaration on 2 May 1989, having been persuaded by Dumas's argument.[10]

In August 1993, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin insisted on changes to the Charter as part of the Oslo Accords. Following Yasser Arafat's commitment to "submit to the Palestinian National Council for formal approval" the changes to the Charter confirming that "those articles of the Palestinian Covenant which deny Israel's right to exist, and the provisions of the Covenant which are inconsistent with the commitments of this letter are now inoperative and no longer valid"[11] in the September 9, 1993 letters of mutual recognition, the PNC met in Gaza and voted on 24 April 1996. The decision was adopted by a vote of: 504 in favor, 54 against, and 14 abstentions. The official English translation used by Israel, the PLO and the United States reads:

A. The Palestinian National Charter is hereby amended by canceling the articles that are contrary to the letters exchanged between the P.L.O. and the Government of Israel 9–10 September 1993. B. Assigns its legal committee with the task of redrafting the Palestinian National Charter in order to present it to the first session of the Palestinian Central Council."[12]

At one time the text of the Charter at the official website of the Palestinian National Authority appended these amendments to the text of the 1968 charter; the redrafting process referred to in the second amendment still remains uncompleted.[13]

An earlier version of the above translation is still available on the website of Palestinian American Council. The relevant text reads:

The PNC held a special session on April 24, 1996 and listened to the report made by the legal committee, reviewed the current political conditions, which the Palestinian people and the Arab nations encounter, and so the PNC decided: "Depending on the Independence Declaration and the political statement adopted by the PNC in its 19th session in Gaza on November 11, 1988 which stressed resolving conflicts by peaceful means and adopting the principle of two states, the PNC decides to:

First: Amend the articles in the National charter that contradict with the letters exchanged between the PLO and the government of Israel on Sept. 9–10, 1993.

Second: The PNC authorizes the Legal Committee to draft a new charter to be presented at the first meeting to be held by the Central Council."[14]

This earlier version had appeared on the Palestine Minister of Information's website. Many commentators noted that the text only indicated a decision to amend the charter, not an actual amendment. Official Palestinian websites have since replaced the vague translation with the concrete version quoted above.

Yitzhak Rabin said in a speech to the Knesset on 5 October 1995, at the time of the ratification of the Oslo II Interim Agreement: "The Palestinian Authority has not up until now honoured its commitment to change the Palestinian Covenant. ... I view these changes as a supreme test of the Palestinian Authority's willingness and ability, and the changes required will be an important and serious touchstone vis-à-vis the continued implementation of the agreement as a whole".[15]

When this government was replaced by Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud government, the issue again became even more controversial, with Israel's demand for greater clarity and precision eventually expressed in the Wye River Memorandum. (See below, Events of 1998)

Events of 1998 and after

[edit]

Clauses regarding Israel

[edit]

Yasser Arafat wrote letters to President Clinton and Prime Minister Blair in January 1998 explicitly listing the articles of the Charter referred to in the PNC's 1996 vote. While this was seen as progress in some quarters, other Palestinian officials contended that the Charter had not yet been amended, and there were also reportedly discrepancies between the two letters.

The operative language of Arafat's letter to Clinton reads:

The Palestine National Council's resolution, in accordance with Article 33 of the Covenant, is a comprehensive amendment of the Covenant. All of the provisions of the Covenant which are inconsistent with the P.L.O. commitment to recognize and live in peace side by side with Israel are no longer in effect. As a result, Articles 6–10, 15, 19–23, and 30 have been nullified, and the parts in Articles 1–5, 11–14, 16–18, 25–27 and 29 that are inconsistent with the above mentioned commitments have also been nullified.[2][3]

The articles identified by Arafat as nullified call for Palestinian unity in armed struggle, deny the legitimacy of the establishment of Israel, deny the existence of a Jewish people with a historical or religious connection to Palestine, and label Zionism a racist, imperialist, fanatic, fascist, aggressive, colonialist political movement that must be eliminated from the Middle East for the sake of world peace.

Observers who had previously been skeptical of Palestinian claims that the Charter had been amended continued to voice doubts. In an attempt to end the confusion, the Wye River Memorandum included the following provision:

The Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Central Council will reaffirm the letter of 22 January 1998 from PLO Chairman Yasir Arafat to President Clinton concerning the nullification of the Palestinian National Charter provisions that are inconsistent with the letters exchanged between the PLO and the Government of Israel on 9–10 September 1993. PLO Chairman Arafat, the Speaker of the Palestine National Council, and the Speaker of the Palestinian Council will invite the members of the PNC, as well as the members of the Central Council, the Council, and the Palestinian Heads of Ministries to a meeting to be addressed by President Clinton to reaffirm their support for the peace process and the aforementioned decisions of the Executive Committee and the Central Council.

These commitments were kept, leading President Clinton to declare to the assembled Palestinian officials on 14 December 1998 at Gaza:

I thank you for your rejection—fully, finally and forever—of the passages in the Palestinian Charter calling for the destruction of Israel. For they were the ideological underpinnings of a struggle renounced at Oslo. By revoking them once and for all, you have sent, I say again, a powerful message not to the government, but to the people of Israel. You will touch people on the street there. You will reach their hearts there.

Like President Clinton, Israel and the Likud party now formally agreed that the objectionable clauses of the charter had been abrogated, in official statements and statements by Prime Minister Netanyahu, Foreign Minister Sharon, Defense Minister Mordechai and Trade and Industry Minister Sharansky.[16][17][18][19] With official Israeli objections to the Charter disappearing henceforward from lists of Palestinian violations of agreements,[20] the international legal controversy ended.

Despite President Clinton's optimism, the events of 1998 did not entirely resolve the controversy of the Charter. A June 1999 report by the Palestinian Authority's Ministry of Information on the status of the Charter made no mention of the 1998 events and leading Palestinians continue to state that the Charter has not yet been amended.[citation needed]

In 2001 the first draft of a constitution authorized by the PLO's Central Committee, calling for a respect for borders, human and civil rights as defined under international law appeared.[21]

Regarding PLO reform

[edit]

In March 2005 representatives of 13 Palestinian factions, including Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, PFLP and DFLP,[22] adopted a 6 paragraph declaration known as the "Cairo Declaration".[23][24] The declaration envisions a reform of the PLO to include all the Palestinian powers and factions.[24]

In order to implement these reforms it was decided to form a committee made up of the PNC Chairman, the members of the Executive Committee, the secretaries general of all Palestinian factions and independent national personalities.[24] The PLO-EC Chairman is tasked to convene this committee.[24]

The agreement was reconfirmed several times in subsequent years but as of 2015 there had been no concrete steps toward implementation.

Israeli views

[edit]

Although the PNC met in Gaza on 24 April 1996, it did not revoke or change the covenant, but only issued a statement saying that it had become aged, and that an undefined part of it would be rewritten at an undetermined date in the future. While the English language press release stated that the PLO Covenant was "hereby amended", the Arabic version of Yassir Arafat's letter on this declaration stated:

It has been decided upon: 1. Changing the Palestine National Charter by canceling the articles that are contrary to the letters exchanged between the PLO and the Government of Israel, on 9 and 10 September 1993. 2. The PNC will appoint a legal committee with the task of redrafting the National Charter. The Charter will be presented to the first meeting of the Central Council.

The New York Times and others [25][26] quoted similarly language (the ambiguous phrase decides to amend is quoted instead of hereby amended):

Formally, the resolution adopted by the council consisted of two simple clauses. The first declared that the council "decides to amend the Palestinian National Covenant by canceling clauses which contradict the letters exchanged between the P.L.O. and the Israeli Government." The second ordered a new charter to be drafted within six months.[27]

"Peace Watch", an Israeli organization declaring itself to be "an apolitical, independent Israeli organization monitoring bilateral compliance with the Israel-PLO accords",[28] issued the following statement:

The decision fails to meet the obligations laid out in the Oslo accords in two respects. First, the actual amendment of the Covenant has been left for a future date. As of now, the old Covenant, in its original form, remains the governing document of the PLO, and will continue in this status until the amendments are actually approved... There is a sharp difference between calling for something to change and actually implementing the changes. Second, the decision does not specify which clauses will be amended.

Palestinian views

[edit]

Reportedly, an internal PLO document from the Research and Thought Department of Fatah stated that changing the Covenant would have been "suicide for the PLO" and continued:

The text of the Palestinian National Covenant remains as it was and no changes whatsoever were made to it. This has caused it to be frozen, not annulled. The drafting of the new National Covenant will take into account the extent of Israeli fulfillment of its previous and coming obligations... evil and corrupt acts are expected from the Israeli side... The fact that the PNC did not hold a special session to make changes and amendments in the text of the National Covenant at this stage... was done to defend the new Covenant from being influenced by the current Israeli dictatorship.[29][30]

In January 1998, before the second Gaza meeting, Faisal Hamdi Husseini, head of the legal committee appointed by the PNC, stated "There has been a decision to change the Covenant. The change has not yet been carried out".[31] The AP reported that:

In a surprise development, the PLO's Executive Committee decided to take no action on amending articles in its charter... Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abd Rabbo gave no reason why the committee failed to act on the charter.[32]

UNISPAL, citing AFP and Reuters reported that:

The PLO Executive Committee, meeting in Ramallah, took no action on amending articles in the Palestinian charter which Israel views as seeking its destruction. The PA Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo told reporters the committee had only "reviewed" a letter PA President Arafat had given to President Clinton, listing the charter clauses annulled by the PNC.[33]

PLO spokesman Marwan Kanafani was videotaped telling reporters, "This is not an amendment. This is a license to start a new charter."[34][35]

In 2009, Fatah officials, among them Azzam al-Ahmad and Nabil Shaath, confirmed that the Charter would remain unchanged.[36][37][38]

See also

[edit]
English Wikisource has original text related to this article:

Works related to Constitution of Palestine at Wikisource

References

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Bibliography

[edit]
[edit]
Revisions and contributorsEdit on WikipediaRead on Wikipedia

Palestinian National Covenant

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The Palestinian National Covenant, formally known as the Palestinian National Charter (al-Mithaq al-Watani al-Filastini), is the foundational political and ideological document of the (PLO), first adopted by its Palestine National Council on May 28, 1964, in and comprehensively revised on July 17, 1968, in following the . It defines —encompassing the full territory of the former British Mandate—as the indivisible homeland of the Arab Palestinian people, an integral part of the Arab nation, and commits the PLO to armed struggle as the sole means to liberate it from Zionist control, rejecting all forms of partition or coexistence with a . The charter's 33 articles articulate a rejectionist stance toward , portraying it as a colonial enterprise tied to Western imperialism rather than a legitimate national movement, and nullify foundational documents like the and the 1947 UN Partition Plan as illegitimate impositions. It reserves Palestinian citizenship for Arabs who resided in the territory before the Zionist influx and those born to them, effectively denying collective Jewish historical or national rights to the land while affirming the for Palestinian Arabs displaced in 1948. Armed revolution is enshrined as a personal duty for and a collective obligation for the Arab nation, with the PLO positioned as its vanguard. The document has been central to controversies over Palestinian intentions, as its unmodified text explicitly foresees the "obliteration" of as a Zionist entity and deems incompatible with Arab liberation goals, fueling debates on whether subsequent peace processes like the 1993 truly superseded it. A 1996 PLO declaration purported to amend it by nullifying articles conflicting with 's existence, but this lacked the required two-thirds ratification by the Palestine National Council and formal specification of excised provisions, leaving its legal status and practical influence disputed amid ongoing adherence by groups like . The charter's enduring role underscores tensions between rhetorical commitments to two-state solutions and foundational texts prioritizing total territorial reclamation.

Historical Development

Pre-1964 Context and PLO Formation

Following the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, which ensued after Arab states rejected the 1947 Partition Plan and invaded the newly declared State of on May 15, 1948, occupied and later annexed the —including —on April 24, 1950, granting its residents Jordanian citizenship while integrating the territory into the Hashemite Kingdom. , meanwhile, established a over the without formal , administering it as an occupied territory until 1967. Despite control over these areas designated for an Arab state under the partition resolution, neither nor facilitated the creation of an independent Palestinian political entity, reflecting a broader Arab prioritization of territorial absorption and pan-Arab coordination over separate Palestinian statehood in the immediate postwar period. This arrangement persisted amid rising pan-Arabist sentiments under Egyptian President , who promoted the unity of Arab peoples as a to Israeli consolidation and Western influence. At the first summit in from January 13 to 17, 1964—hosted by Nasser—the attending heads of state, including Nasser and Jordan's King Hussein, resolved to establish a Palestinian organization to represent the "Palestinian entity" and spearhead the Arab struggle against , partly in response to Israeli water diversion projects from the headwaters. The summit tasked Palestinian representatives with forming this body under auspices, marking a shift toward institutionalizing Palestinian representation as an instrument of collective Arab resistance rather than endorsing the existing Jordanian or Egyptian administrative status quo as permanent. The (PLO) was formally founded on May 28, 1964, in , with —a former Saudi diplomat and Palestinian notable appointed by the —serving as its first chairman. Initially, the PLO operated as a moderate entity aligned with Arab state interests, refraining from challenging Jordanian sovereignty over the and focusing on rhetorical opposition to while dependent on funding and direction from host governments like and . This formation underscored the 's aim to channel Palestinian grievances into a unified front against the Israeli state, without immediately disrupting the territorial divisions established after 1948.

Adoption of the 1964 Version

The first (PNC), comprising 422 representatives, convened in from May 28 to June 2, 1964, under the auspices of the . On May 28, the council adopted the Palestinian National Covenant, also known as the Palestinian National Charter, consisting of 33 articles that outlined the foundational principles of . Drafted primarily by Ahmed Shukeiry, the inaugural chairman of the newly established (PLO), the document framed as the homeland of the Arab Palestinian people and an indivisible part of the broader Arab homeland, emphasizing national unity and as core rights. Article 1 explicitly stated: " is the homeland of the Palestinian people; it is an indivisible part of the homeland, and the Palestinian people are an integral part of the nation." The Covenant asserted the Palestinian right to return for refugees displaced in , positioning it as a fundamental national aspiration tied to historical ties to the land, while advocating for without endorsing partition or recognition of the 1947 UN plan. Unlike later iterations, it lacked provisions mandating armed struggle as the sole path to liberation, reflecting a pan- orientation that deferred to existing state administrations in adjacent territories. Central to its territorial stance, Article 24 clarified that the PLO "does not exercise any regional sovereignty over the in the Hashemite Kingdom of , on the or in the Himmah Area," limiting organizational activities to a national-level struggle against Zionist presence within the pre-1967 . This clause underscored a pragmatic focus on the area under Israeli control at the time, explicitly avoiding claims or actions in areas administered by and , and aligning with broader strategies rather than immediate irredentist demands across the entire Mandate Palestine territory. The adoption marked the formal institutionalization of Palestinian through the PLO, though its moderate framing prioritized diplomatic and pan-Arab coordination over unilateral militancy.

1968 Amendments and Escalation

Following the Arab defeat in the of June 1967, which resulted in Israeli control over the , , and —territories previously administered by and —the Palestinian National Council (PNC) held its fourth session in from July 10 to 17, 1968. This meeting occurred amid rising influence of , the dominant faction led by , which advocated uncompromising resistance against after the pan-Arab leadership's failure to prevent territorial losses. The session produced a revised Palestinian National Covenant consisting of 33 articles, which revoked the 1964 version's Clause 24—a provision that had deferred claims to sovereignty over areas under Jordanian and Egyptian control, such as the and . The 1968 amendments marked a radical shift by asserting that the entirety of Mandatory Palestine constituted an indivisible territorial unit belonging exclusively to the Palestinian , explicitly rejecting any form of partition or recognition of Israeli sovereignty. This revision eliminated accommodations to neighboring states' territorial claims, framing the conflict as one of total "liberation" from Zionist presence through armed struggle as the sole legitimate means, thereby prioritizing Palestinian over broader unity. The changes reflected causal lessons from the 1967 war, where reliance on armies proved futile, prompting a turn toward independent guerrilla operations under groups like . To entrench these positions, Article 33 of the revised Covenant stipulated that future amendments required approval by a two-thirds majority of the full PNC membership in a specially convened session, establishing a stringent procedural barrier against . This threshold, carried over from the text but reinforced in the new context, underscored the document's intent as an unyielding ideological foundation amid escalating militancy.

Ideological Content

Territorial Claims and Rejection of Partition

Article 2 of the Palestinian National Covenant declares: "Palestine, with the boundaries it had during the British Mandate, is an indivisible territorial unit." This encompasses the territory from the in the east to the in the west, including areas that became the State of in 1948, the , and the . The assertion of indivisibility forms the core of the Covenant's geographic claims, positing the entire Mandate-era as an integral Arab homeland to which the Palestinian people hold exclusive . The Covenant explicitly rejects the United Nations Partition Plan outlined in General Assembly Resolution 181 (II), adopted on November 29, 1947, which recommended dividing into separate Jewish and Arab states linked by . Article 19 states that "the partition of Palestine in 1947 and the establishment of are entirely illegal, regardless of the passage of time," as they contravene the Palestinian people's natural right to their homeland and violate Charter principles, including . This nullification extends to denying Israel's legitimacy, viewing its creation as an illegitimate infringement on undivided Palestinian territory rather than a recognized sovereign entity. Complementing these claims, the Covenant advocates the return of displaced during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War to their original homes across the full extent of Mandate . While not directly citing 194 (III) of December 11, 1948—which resolves that "s wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date"—the Covenant's framework of total liberation and indivisible sovereignty interprets such return as essential to restoring Arab demographic predominance. This position, when applied to pre-1948 origins within Israel's borders, inherently negates the Partition Plan's demographic allocations and Israel's maintenance as a Jewish-majority state.

Characterization of Zionism and Israel

The Palestinian National Covenant depicts as an illegitimate, aggressive ideology rooted in and , designed to supplant the Arab inhabitants of with a foreign population. Article 6 limits the inclusion of as Palestinians to those who "had normally resided in until the beginning of the ," explicitly excluding post-invasion Jewish immigrants and framing as an invasive disruption rather than a return to an ancestral . This provision rejects the concept of a collective tied to the land, reducing Jewish presence to mere pre-Zionist residency and portraying subsequent as colonial displacement of indigenous . Article 20 further denies any historical or religious basis for Jewish claims to Palestine, declaring such ties "incompatible with the facts of history" and insisting that Judaism constitutes a religion without national identity, with Jews integrated solely as citizens of their host states. By dismissing Zionism's revivalist foundations, the Covenant aligns with narratives equating it to European colonialism or fascism, yet these assertions overlook archaeological and textual of Jewish kingdoms, such as the United Monarchy circa 1000 BCE and continuous Jewish communities through Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman eras, which affirm indigenous Jewish roots predating Arab conquests in the CE. Article 22 intensifies this portrayal by labeling a "political movement organically associated with international imperialism," inherently "racist and fanatic," "aggressive, expansionist, and colonial," with "fascist" methods, and positions as its imperialist outpost threatening Arab unity and global peace. The Covenant's framework thus invalidates 's existence as a sovereign entity, attributing its establishment to conspiratorial forces rather than the 1947 UN Partition Plan or defensive wars in and , while privileging Arab territorial claims without reciprocal acknowledgment of Jewish rights under . This ideological stance, embedded in the 1968 revised adopted by the Palestine National Council, sustains a zero-sum view of the conflict, denying empirical grounds for Jewish national legitimacy in the region.

Calls for Armed Struggle and Liberation

The Palestinian National Covenant designates armed struggle as the sole means to achieve the liberation of , framing it as an enduring strategic imperative rather than a temporary tactic. Article 9 explicitly states: "Armed struggle is the only way to liberate . This it is the overall strategy, not merely a tactical phase. The Palestinian Arab people assert their absolute determination and firm resolution to continue their armed struggle and to work for an armed popular for the liberation of their country and their return to it." This provision rejects any alternative paths, including diplomatic negotiations or peaceful resolutions, positioning violence against the "Zionist invasion" as the foundational obligation for reclaiming the entirety of the territory defined as . Complementing this, Article 10 establishes commando operations as the core of the liberation effort, calling for their intensification and the broad mobilization of Palestinian society. It mandates "the escalation, comprehensiveness, and the mobilization of all the Palestinian popular and educational efforts and their organization and involvement in the armed Palestinian revolution," alongside fostering unity among Palestinian factions and with Arab populations to sustain the conflict until victory. This structure emphasizes grassroots participation in violent resistance, prefiguring organized militant activities by prioritizing the creation of unified fronts for perpetual armed engagement. Article 15 extends the duty of armed liberation beyond Palestinians to the broader Arab nation, declaring it a "national (qawmi) duty" to counter "Zionist and imperialist aggression" through collective military mobilization. It requires Arab states and peoples to provide "all possible help, and material and human support" to enable Palestinians to lead the "armed revolution" until the homeland is freed, underscoring a pan-Arab commitment to violent expulsion of Zionism from Palestine. The Covenant further prohibits any compromise that falls short of total territorial recovery, as articulated in Article 21: "The Arab Palestinian people, expressing themselves by the armed Palestinian revolution, reject all solutions which are substitutes for the total liberation of and reject all proposals aiming at the liquidation of the Palestinian problem, or its internationalization." This stance views concessions, such as the 1947 UN partition plan or recognition of partitioned borders, as betrayals that undermine the indivisible claim to , reinforcing armed struggle as the exclusive mechanism for resolution.

Amendment Attempts

Oslo Accords Commitments

In the exchange of letters formalizing mutual recognition ahead of the ' Declaration of Principles signed on September 13, 1993, PLO Chairman committed to revising the Palestinian National Covenant to eliminate its provisions negating Israel's right to exist. Specifically, Arafat's letter to on September 9, 1993, stated: "In this spirit, the PLO undertakes to amend those articles in the Palestinian Covenant which negate Israel's right to exist." This pledge accompanied the PLO's formal recognition of Israel's right to exist in peace and security, acceptance of UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, and renunciation of and . Israel reciprocated by recognizing the PLO as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, enabling negotiations for interim self-government in parts of the and . Rabin's September 9 reply explicitly conditioned this recognition on the PLO's fulfillment of its letter's commitments, including the Covenant's . The Israeli government under and Foreign Minister viewed the Covenant's unamended articles—such as those defining Palestine as encompassing all of historic and portraying as imperialism—as irreconcilable with the accords' objective of mutual coexistence, demanding their substantive revocation to validate the PLO's peaceful intentions. Failure to address these clauses was seen as preserving doctrinal calls for 's elimination, undermining the framework's foundational premise of two states living side by side.

1996-1998 Proceedings and Resolutions

In April 1996, the Palestinian National Council (PNC) convened in Gaza from April 22 to 25, where it adopted a resolution by a vote of 504 to 54, with 14 abstentions, suspending the Palestinian National Covenant pending review by a legal committee and describing the document as outdated in light of evolving circumstances. This deferred substantive changes despite commitments under the to amend provisions denying Israel's right to exist, with no specific alterations enacted at the session. Concurrently, PLO Chairman issued assurances via correspondence, including a letter to Israeli Prime Minister outlining intent to nullify 26 articles inconsistent with mutual recognition, though the PNC itself took no binding action on the list. The next major PNC gathering occurred on December 14, 1998, also in Gaza, under the oversight of U.S. President Bill Clinton, who addressed the assembly and witnessed proceedings tied to the Wye River Memorandum's requirement for Covenant revisions. The PNC passed Resolution No. 17 by show of hands from an estimated 600-700 attendees, declaring null and void all Covenant articles that challenge Israel's legitimacy or right to exist, without enumerating the 26 targeted provisions or conducting a line-by-line review. No revised Charter text was published or distributed officially, with reliance placed on the resolution's declarative language and Arafat's prior January 1998 letter to Clinton specifying the articles, amid reported tensions from dissenting factions within the PLO such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

Validity and Procedural Disputes

The Palestinian National Covenant stipulates in Article 31 that amendments require a two-thirds vote of the total membership of the Palestine National Council (PNC), applying to the charter as a whole or specific provisions. During the December 14, 1998, PNC session in Gaza, a resolution was adopted declaring the cancellation of articles contradicting the Oslo recognition letters between the PLO and , but it did not identify the specific clauses targeted, nor did it demonstrate compliance with the two-thirds threshold for each. Israeli Prime Minister had conditioned further negotiations on verifiable proof of such targeted amendments, including a detailed list of nullified articles and confirmation of the requisite vote, demands that Palestinian authorities did not fulfill to 's satisfaction. No officially revised text of the Covenant has been published by the PLO or Palestinian Authority (PA) since 1998, leaving the original 1968 version's rejectionist provisions unreplaced or formally excised. Israeli government legal reviews have concluded that the procedural irregularities render the purported changes invalid, preserving the Covenant's binding status under its own rules. Post-1998 PA educational materials, including textbooks and official maps, continued to depict the entire territory of as "Palestine" without boundaries recognizing the state's existence, indicating no substantive doctrinal repudiation of the Covenant's territorial claims. The explicitly endorses the Covenant's principles, reiterating calls for 's elimination through armed struggle, further evidencing the enduring influence of unamended rejectionist ideology within Palestinian factions. The PA's failure to explicitly disavow or supersede these elements has sustained disputes over the Covenant's operative validity.

Perspectives and Controversies

Israeli and Zionist Critiques

Israeli officials and scholars have contended that the Palestinian National Covenant's core provisions, particularly Articles 2, 19, and 20, explicitly deny 's legitimacy by declaring an indivisible territorial unit, nullifying the 1947 partition and 's establishment, and rejecting Jewish nationality in favor of religious status alone. These clauses, combined with Article 9's endorsement of struggle as the sole path to "liberation" and Article 22's portrayal of as a racist imperialist , are viewed as outlining a blueprint for the Jewish state's dismantlement rather than coexistence. The persistence of such language post-Oslo, despite assurances of revocation, is cited as empirical evidence of genocidal intent toward as a sovereign entity, prioritizing doctrinal elimination over pragmatic . Benjamin Netanyahu, during his 1996 election campaign, highlighted the PLO's failure to amend the Covenant as promised in the Oslo Accords, arguing it exposed a "strategy of stages" wherein tactical truces masked enduring hostility. This skepticism fueled his victory, with 56% of the Jewish vote, as voters questioned the peace process's viability amid unrevoked calls for Israel's destruction and Arafat's concurrent jihad rhetoric. Netanyahu's post-election accusations of PLO bad faith underscored that verbal commitments and vague procedural votes, like the 1996 PNC session, could not substitute for explicit nullification of rejectionist articles. Zionist critiques further link the Covenant's ideology to the Second Intifada's outbreak in September 2000, attributing the violence—over 1,000 Israeli deaths in suicide bombings and shootings—to Arafat's deliberate rejection of concessions and mobilization of forces for confrontation, in defiance of Oslo's renunciation of terrorism. This causal chain posits the unamended doctrine as fueling rejectionism, enabling coordinated terror by national and Islamic factions under PA auspices, rather than isolated provocations. Israeli assessments decry Western acceptance of the 1998 Gaza amendments as naive, given the lack of specified revocations and continued PA incitement echoing Covenant themes, such as glorification of "martyrs" in official media during the intifada.

Palestinian Internal Debates

Fatah leaders, including , have maintained that the 1993 ' mutual recognition commitments effectively supersede the Covenant's rejectionist clauses, positioning the document as outdated in practice without pursuing comprehensive formal repeal, a stance attributed to preserving support among constituencies opposed to concessions. The 1996 resolution and 1998 procedural steps nullified select articles conflicting with Oslo letters—specifically those denying Israel's right to exist—but left broader territorial and ideological provisions intact, with no subsequent PNC vote ratifying a fully revised text. In contrast, rejectionist factions like and dismiss Oslo-era amendments as illegitimate, upholding the 1968 Covenant's tenets of total territorial reclamation and armed struggle against ; 's 1988 founding explicitly aligns with this framework by rejecting partition and Israel's legitimacy, while its 2017 revision reaffirmed opposition to agreements undermining Palestinian rights to all historic . These groups view pragmatic adaptations by as deviations from core national principles, exacerbating the post-2007 - where rejectionists prioritize doctrinal purity over negotiated frameworks. Non-abrogation is evidenced by persistent invocation of Covenant-aligned rhetoric in Palestinian Authority institutions post-1998, including school curricula depicting Palestinian territory "from the river to the sea" without recognition of , as documented in analyses of 2020–2021 textbooks promoting undivided over Mandatory Palestine's full extent. This continuity underscores internal tensions, where Fatah's clashes with rejectionists' insistence on unaltered foundational texts to sustain mobilization for liberation.

International Reactions and Assessments

In December 1998, U.S. President attended a session of the Palestinian National Council (PNC) in Gaza, where members voted to nullify charter provisions inconsistent with prior PLO commitments to recognize , prompting the administration to declare the ' obligation fulfilled despite the resolution's vagueness in specifying repealed articles. This acceptance occurred amid internal U.S. skepticism, particularly from congressional Republicans; House Speaker , in May 1998 correspondence and public statements, pressed for verifiable textual changes to the Covenant, criticizing the lack of evidence that anti- clauses had been substantively excised and warning that unamended undermined peace efforts. Gingrich's demands reflected broader conservative concerns over procedural shortcuts, contrasting the State Department's reliance on Arafat's assurances without independent confirmation of a two-thirds PNC or formal as required by the Covenant's own rules. European governments and the largely endorsed the 1998 proceedings as a step forward in the framework, emphasizing diplomatic momentum over forensic analysis of the Covenant's unaltered core tenets on armed struggle and territorial maximalism. UN reports from 1998 highlighted Palestinian compliance with milestones, including charter adjustments, while framing ongoing Covenant elements as relics amenable to "evolving" interpretation rather than insisting on explicit , a stance that aligned with multilateral optimism but overlooked empirical non-alteration of key articles post-vote. This approach, evident in EU statements supporting PLO reintegration into international forums, prioritized relational progress amid biases toward viewing Palestinian institutions as reformable without rigorous causal scrutiny of persistent doctrinal rejectionism. Academic analyses have underscored procedural voids in the amendment process, noting the PNC session's failure to convene a full two-thirds or produce a revised text, thereby sustaining the original document's irredentist framework that defines as encompassing all of historic Mandatory territory. Legal scholars argue this gap invalidated claims of substantive change, as Arafat's supplementary letters to lacked binding force under the Covenant's internal , perpetuating a foundational ideology incompatible with two-state recognition and contributing to cycles of non-compliance in negotiations. Such critiques, drawn from peer-reviewed examinations of Oslo's legal architecture, highlight how unaddressed Covenant persistence fosters causal continuity in rejectionist policies, independent of diplomatic narratives.

Current Status and Implications

The Palestinian National Covenant has not undergone specific amendments since the 1998 Palestine National Council (PNC) session, where a resolution affirmed the nullification of articles inconsistent with the but failed to identify or vote on particular provisions for deletion, as required by Article 31 of the Covenant itself, which mandates a two-thirds PNC for any modifications. This procedural gap leaves the document's core tenets—such as the indivisibility of as an Arab homeland and the imperative of armed struggle for liberation—formally intact within the (PLO) framework. The Palestinian Authority's (PA) Amended of 2003, serving as its constitutional foundation, indirectly upholds the Covenant's doctrinal standing by designating the PLO as the "sole legitimate representative of the " and deriving PA authority from PLO structures without abrogating the organization's foundational charter. No subsequent PNC session has convened to rectify the 1998 ambiguity, and Palestinian judicial bodies have not mounted a formal challenge to the Covenant's validity, reinforcing its enduring role as unrepealed ideological bedrock. Israeli judicial assessments have periodically referenced the Covenant as operative, citing its unamended calls for Israel's elimination in contexts like incitement prosecutions, underscoring a lack of credible . Recent PA-affiliated statements and mappings continue to invoke Covenant-aligned principles, such as claims to historic in full, while —despite its separate 1988 covenant—explicitly endorses overlapping tenets like total territorial liberation through resistance, aligning with unrevised PLO doctrine amid factional unity efforts.

Impact on Peace Negotiations and Conflicts

The unamended Palestinian National Covenant undermined trust in peace negotiations by enshrining principles that rejected Israel's right to exist and endorsed armed struggle as the exclusive path to liberation, signaling to Israeli leaders an inherent incompatibility with permanent territorial compromise. Israeli governments consistently conditioned progress on its full revocation, with Prime Minister in 1998 demanding explicit nullification of charter articles denying Jewish national rights, warning that failure would stall the process. This precondition stemmed from the Covenant's core tenets, such as Article 6 affirming as an indivisible Arab entity and Article 9 designating armed struggle against Zionist presence as obligatory, which persisted despite commitments to amend. The unresolved status fueled Israeli doubts during the , where Prime Minister Ehud Barak's offers of over 90% of the and Gaza were rejected by , interpreted by negotiators as reflective of deeper ideological rejectionism incompatible with two-state finality. The Covenant's doctrinal emphasis on indefinite "resistance" correlated with escalations in violence following negotiation failures, providing ideological justification for tactics deemed illegitimate by international standards. Post-Camp David, the Second Intifada (2000–2005) involved approximately 137 Palestinian suicide bombings, killing 774 Israeli civilians and soldiers, framed by and affiliated groups as continuation of the armed liberation mandated by the charter's principles. This wave of attacks, peaking with 59 bombings in 2002 alone, derailed interim agreements like the Roadmap for Peace (2003) and reinforced cycles of retaliation, as the unrevoked ideology precluded renunciation of violence as a negotiating tool. Similarly, at the 2007 , where Prime Minister proposed a state on 93–97% of the with land swaps, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas's refusal—amid ongoing incitement echoing covenant themes—highlighted persistent barriers, leading to no accord and subsequent Gaza rocket barrages exceeding 8,000 launches from 2006–2014. Empirical evidence from Palestinian Authority curricula underscores the Covenant's lingering impact on two-state viability, demonstrating systemic failure to inculcate coexistence and instead perpetuating rejectionist narratives that sabotage diplomatic outcomes. Independent reviews by IMPACT-se of PA textbooks used from 2020–2024 reveal erasure of from maps in 89% of geography materials, glorification of "martyrs" including bombers as role models, and promotion of against "occupiers" without mention of peace processes or mutual recognition. These materials, distributed to over 1 million students annually, contradict Oslo-era pledges for and correlate with low Palestinian support for two-state solutions—polls showing only 34% endorsement in 2023—thus eroding grassroots readiness for compromises like those floated at or Annapolis. The causal link is evident in how such indoctrination sustains public opposition to concessions, empirically linking unamended foundational ideology to repeated collapses and conflict perpetuation.

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