101. For the Geneva Declaration, made at the International Conference on the Question of Palestine that convened from August 29 to September 7, 1983, see United Nations, “Letter Dated 10 October 1983 from the Chairman of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People addressed to the Secretary-General,” October 12, 1983.
102. For Arafat’s engagement with Jordan, which again sought to subsume Palestinian national aspirations under the confines of confederation, see Sayigh, Armed Struggle and the Search for State, pp. 551–55; The Middle East and North Africa 2004 (New York: Routledge, 2003), p. 66–67. For Arafat persuading Fatah to accept a plan for Jordanian-Palestinian union and the PLO breaking the Arab boycott of Egypt, see Sayigh, p. 553.
103. For the split in Fatah in 1983 and the decision by two leftist factions to suspend activity in the PLO, see Rubin, Revolution Until Victory?, p. 62. For the call for Arafat’s overthrow, see Rubin, p. 64. For the paper on the PLO’s dead-end, see Sayigh, Armed Struggle and the Search for State, p. 605. In 1985–1986, hundreds of PLO fighters died in what was known as “the war of the camps” in Lebanon. Joshua Teitelbaum, “The Palestine Liberation Organization” in Middle East Contemporary Survey, vol. X: 1986, Itamar Rabinovich and Haim Shaked, eds. (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1986), pp. 194–96; Sayigh, p. 584. For the scene at Arafat’s office in 1987, see Sayigh, p. 606. For the snub by King Hussein, who had recently expelled PLO officials from Jordan and didn’t greet Arafat at the airport, see “Jordan Expels Arafat Again,” The New York Times, July 13, 1986. For the concluding statement of the Arab Summit, see Sayigh, p. 606.
104. For the outbreak of the First Intifada, see Ann M. Lesch, “Prelude to the Uprising in the Gaza Strip,” Journal of Palestine Studies 20, no. 1 (Autumn 1990): 1–23. For Arafat’s interview, Abbas’s announcement on an international peace conference, and statements by Abbas and the PLO weekly publication, see Sayigh, Armed Struggle and the Search for State, p. 616.
105. For Abu Jihad’s worry that Arafat would seek diplomatic gains prematurely, see Sayigh, Armed Struggle and the Search for State, p. 618. For the quote by Abu Iyad (who added: “They faced us with a fait accompli”), see Rubin, Revolution Until Victory?, p. 92.
106. For PLO anxiety over the possibility that the United States and Israel could strike a separate deal with leaders in the Occupied Territories, see Sayigh, Armed Struggle and the Search for State, p. 635. See also Ghassan Khatib, Palestinian Politics and the Middle East Peace Process: Consensus and Competition in the Palestinian Negotiating Team (New York: Routledge, 2010), pp. 56–58. For Abu Iyad’s statement that there would have been no intifada if the PLO had remained in Beirut, see Rubin, Revolution Until Victory?, p. 92. For the fourteen-point political program, see David K. Shipler, “Palestinian Turmoil Could Provide the Seeds of Peace,” The New York Times, February 7, 1988; Sayigh, p. 635; Rubin, p. 96.
107. For Jordan’s surrender of all claims on the West Bank, see al-Hout, My Life in the PLO, p. 231; “Hussein Surrenders Claims on West Bank to the PLO,” The New York Times, August 1, 1988. For the quote from an Arafat adviser (“only the PLO”), see Rubin, Revolution Until Victory?, p. 97.
108. For the Soviet Union’s pressure on the PLO to recognize Israel, see Rubin, Revolution Until Victory?, p. 96. For video of the Shultz speech, see “George Shultz, Address to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, September 16, 1988,” C-Span, September 16, 1988, accessed October 16, 2016.
109. For PLO fears of Israeli annexation, see Sayigh, Armed Struggle and the Search for State, p. 623. See also Rubin, Revolution Until Victory?, p. 97, who quotes one PLO official stating: “We felt we had to move fast in case the Israelis decided to step in and fill the vacuum.”
110. For the declaration of independence and the PNC’s approval, see “Palestinian Declaration of Independence, Palestine National Council, Algiers, 15 November 1988,” Journal of Palestine Studies 18, no. 2 (Winter 1989): 214; “Political Communiqué, Palestine National Council, Algiers, 15 November 1988,” Journal of Palestine Studies 18, no. 2 (Winter 1989): 220. The declaration was drafted in Arabic by Darwish and in English by Edward Said. Rashid Khalidi, The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood (Boston: Beacon Press, 2006), p. 194. Other Palestinians affiliated with the PLO and Fatah also contributed to the draft. Interview by the author with former Arafat adviser, August 2016. For the PLO’s use of the term “historic compromise” to refer to the acceptance of a two-state solution, as embodied in the declaration of independence’s acceptance of UN General Assembly Resolution 181—partitioning Palestine into two states, one Arab and one Jewish—and the political communiqué’s acceptance of UN Security Council Resolution 242 and its call for Israel to withdraw from territories occupied in 1967, see PLO Negotiations Affairs Department, “The Historic Compromise: The Palestinian Declaration of Independence and the Twenty-Year Struggle for a Two-State Solution,” November 2008, accessed December 29, 2016, http://carim-south.eu/carim/public/polsoctexts/PS2PAL005_EN.pdf.
111. According to B’Tselem, 326 Palestinians were killed during the first year of the intifada; for a number closer to 400, see Zachary Lockman and Joel Beinin, eds., Intifada: The Palestinian Uprising Against Israeli Occupation (Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 1999), p. 317. For more details, see chapter 7.
112. Giving up claims to political sovereignty over any part of Israel within its pre-1967 boundaries was the clear meaning of the declaration to all PLO members. There was, and remains, considerable ambiguity about whether this also meant the abandonment of the right of all refugees to return to their homes. A number of PLO officials were explicit about it meaning just that, stating that while they wanted Israel to recognize the principle that refugees are entitled to return or compensation, in practice Israel’s demographic balance could not be upset and a return of large numbers was not possible. In 1990, Abu Iyad wrote: “We accept that a total return is not possible.… We recognize that Israel would not want to accept large numbers of Palestinian returnees who would tip the demographic balance against the Jewish population. Nonetheless, we believe it is essential that Israel accept the principle of the right of return or compensation with the details of such a return to be left open for negotiation.… We shall for our part remain flexible regarding its implementation.” And, in 2002, Arafat wrote: “We seek a fair and just solution to the plight of Palestinian refugees who for 54 years have not been permitted to return to their homes. We understand Israel’s demographic concerns and understand that the right of return of Palestinian refugees, a right guaranteed under international law and United Nations Resolution 194, must be implemented in a way that takes into account such concerns. However, just as we Palestinians must be realistic with respect to Israel’s demographic desires, Israelis too must be realistic in understanding that there can be no solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict if the legitimate rights of these innocent civilians continue to be ignored. Left unresolved, the refugee issue has the potential to undermine any permanent peace agreement between Palestinians and Israelis.” Salah Khalaf, “Lowering the Sword,” Foreign Policy, Spring 1990, pp. 92–112; Yasir Arafat, “The Palestinian Vision of Peace,” The New York Times, February 3, 2002.
113. On PLO factions having been founded by Palestinians from cities and villages in pre-1967 Israel, see Sayigh, Armed Struggle and the Search for State, p. 677. For the quote from Fatah dissidents (“homeland for a state”), see Sayigh, p. 644. For the Shafiq al-Hout quote (“tears in my eyes”), see al-Hout, My Life in the PLO, pp. 231–32.
114. For al-Hout’s words (“a just solution … a possible one”), see al-Hout, My Life in the PLO, p. 252.
115. An additional argument the PLO had to confront was that Israel could not withdraw from the West Bank because of its topography and proximity to Israeli urban centers. To nullify these rationales for continued occupation, the PLO eventually acquiesced to the demand that the entire Palestinian state be demilitarized. On Egypt as the strongest Arab army (since the 1950s it had more than twice as many army personnel and far more tanks and planes than the next largest Arab military, Iraq), see Elie Podeh, The Quest for Hegemony in the Arab World: The Struggle Over the Baghdad Pact (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1995), p. 21.
116. On the number of Palestinians in Kuwait at the time, see Mattar, Encyclopedia of the Palestinians, pp. 288–90. On PLO financial and military ties with Iraq, which had grown closer ever since Syria supported a Fatah rebellion in 1983, see Joshua Teitelbaum, “The Palestine Liberation Organization,” in Middle East Contemporary Survey, vol. XIV: 1990, Ami Ayalon, ed. (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1992), pp. 221–27; Sayigh, Armed Struggle and the Search for State, p. 641. For Arafat’s 1990 statement about the far greater aid given to the Afghan mujahiddin ($19 billion since 1981) than to the PLO ($2.6 billion since 1964), see Sayigh, p. 640.