Countdown To Statehood: Book Review

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COUNTDOWN TO STATEHOOD Palestinian State Formation in the West Bank and Gaza A Critical Book Review

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Sam Zivot 36685006 History 448 Dr. R. Menkis February 11th, 2004

2 Professor Hillel Frisch’s account on Palestinian state formation in the West Bank and Gaza, Countdown to Statehood, provides a thorough analysis of the various forces which have hindered the development of a Palestinian state in the occupied territories from the achievement of Israeli independence to the formation of the Palestinian Authority (PA). While regional tensions with Jordan, Israel and surrounding states receive brief mention, Frisch’s principal focus centers on the hostility between the Diaspora based Palestinian organizations (primarily the PLO and its subsidiaries) and those which operate within the territories. Throughout the book, Frisch reiterates that the subordination of territorial Palestinian organizations to the Diaspora based PLO has been detrimental to the emergence of a unified Palestinian voice within the West Bank and Gaza. The PLO’s deliberate attempts to fragment the territorially based organizations, (so as to ensure that there would be no challenge to their leadership once statehood was achieved) seriously undermined the capacity of locally based organizations to build up the institutional structures necessary for the establishment of a modern Palestinian nation-state. Rather than aiming to build up the civil apparatus of the state in the time before achieving their independence (as was the Zionist case), the PLO chose instead to politically mobilize the territorially based Palestinians, encouraging the use of guerilla tactics in the effort to coerce its occupiers into a settlement for their independence. While Frisch concedes that this model of state development usually yields independence more quickly, he contends that states that form in this fashion (in the decolonization in the era) are prone to structural instability in the long run. While the pursuit of the Zionist model of institutional development may have slowed the quest for Palestinian independence, the long term strength of the resultant state would have made it worth the wait.

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The seven chapters of Countdown to Statehood each read as individual case studies which set out to authenticate the author’s claim that Palestinian state formation has been bean burdened by the historical domination of the Palestinian Diaspora over their indigenous brethren. Frisch’s first chapter, “Territorialization and State Formation,” accomplishes this end, providing the reader with a comparative analysis of the differing methods of state building employed by the Zionists and the Palestinian Nationalists. In comparing the two movements, Frisch demonstrates that he is undoubtedly a proponent of the Zionist model of development, which involved the transfer of the movement’s resources from the Diaspora to the Yishuv. In the Zionist case, the transfer of power from the Diaspora to the homeland prior to independence, allowed the territorial Zionists to build up the state structures necessary for civil society to prosper. By contrast, Palestinian nationalism remained concentrated in the Diaspora as the PLO remained reluctant to cede any political control to the territories, aspiring to divide the internal population thus hampering internal institutional development.

By juxtaposing these two differing methods of state architecture, Frisch is able to demonstrate the vast superiority of the Zionist path of development. He appears to suggest that the Zionist achievements could be paralleled, should the Palestinian’s adopt their territory first doctrine. However, the author radically oversimplifies this process, failing to properly acknowledge the strong opposition of external forces to the territorialization of the PLO. While Frisch does concede that the Jordanian and Israeli occupations hindered the Palestinian quest for nationhood, it receives only very cursory

4 coverage. The inclusion of such a limited amount of material on the influence of external forces, serves more to detract from the author’s intent of sketching “the historical development of institutions within the Palestinian national movement in its Diaspora and within the Palestinian community in the occupied territories, to highlight the relationship between the two… (p. xi),” then it does to further the readers understanding of the conflict. If a discussion of external forces is to be included in the text, the author needs to develop them in much greater detail. Including the influence of outside forces in an elaborated form would serve to better balance Frisch’s work; relieving the complete burden of failure (to create a viable state) from the PLO, by spreading it amongst the other players who served to adversely affect Palestinian progress to statehood. This being said, Frisch none the less elucidates a convincing case for the Zionist Model of institutional development. While the PLO may have long been bared from entering the territories, they could have attempted to exert more support of the Palestinian territorial organizations, so as to foster the development of civil institutions. Had the PLO dismissed its arrogance and attempted to strengthen Palestinian institution building within the territories, Palestinian nationalism would have proven much more resilient to outside forces.

Frisch’s depiction of the Zionist movement is greatly idealized in the text, depicting it as a nationalist movement of uncanny unity that developed into statehood without incident. While the book intends to focus on Palestinian nationalism, mentioning Zionism only as a point of reference, his very selective portrayal of Jewish Nationalism creates a misleading picture. Perhaps in the effort to distance the goodness of the Zionist model of

5 development, to the peril of the PLO’s, Frisch chooses to sanitize the Zionist image. Further, the author misconstrues the relationship of Zionism with Great Britain, conveying a very favorable relationship between them. While the occupying regimes in the West Bank and Gaza were certainly more hostile towards their subjects than the British were to the Zionists, the British were certainly not the benign regime depicted by Frisch, who maintains that “for the Zionists, the British had been empire and umpire, facilitating the cultivation of the Jewish national home, on the one hand, and attempting to mitigate the communal conflict between the Jews and Arabs on the other (p.20).” Though Britain was formally bound to the creation of a Jewish state by the Balfour Declaration, British practices did not always progress toward that end. The British in fact, had been adamantly involved in attempting to dismantle the institution building apparatus of the Zionists.

Countdown to Statehood’s second chapter, The PLO, Territorialization and the Palestinian State Formation, serves as do the book’s consequent chapters do reinforce the author’s the author’s claim of a harmful PLO monopoly on the execution and control of Palestinian national policy. This chapter successfully develops the theme, by demonstrating the PLO’s attempt to deliberately quash the Palestinian Mayoral elite’s campaign to initiate institution building within the territories. Frisch asserts that “these mayors, unlike their predecessors were avid institution builders eager to embark on projects on a collective basis (p.22)” However despite their efforts, the territorial elite’s policy of mirroring the Zionist model of institution building and increasing the centralization of Palestinian society within the territories, would quickly be thwarted by a

6 paranoid PLO regime, who were committed more to the maintenance of their hegemony than to the fate of their people. When the time was ripe for the transfer of power from the Diaspora to the territories, the PLO refused to let go, continuing their program of political mobilization, while hindering institutional development within the territories. The PLO’s position, ended hope for the emergence of sound national leadership within the territories and led to the further societal fragmentation.

The same basic theme prevails in Frisch’s subsequent chapters. In his case study on the development of the higher education system, the indigenous attempt to develop a national education system of higher learning, is supplanted by the PLO, who filled with paranoia, quash the movement by supporting individual schools and by playing various student groups against each other. In his case Study on the Intifada, Frisch demonstrates how the PLO agreed to cease attempts at circumventing United National Command of the Intifada (UNC) leadership, but only after the UNC agreed to follow PLO policy. The continued subordination of the Palestinian movement’s territorial based groups to the PLO, and the PLO’s stubborn insistence on refraining from institution building so as to minimize potential challengers and maintain their hegemonic position, has led to the development of a weak Palestinian entity, ruled by a largely autocratic regime. Despite the books aforementioned flaws, Frisch is successful in demonstrating the validity of his claims through his various case studies.

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Structural Issues

The presence of many minor personalities as well as many different primary sources within Countdown to Statehood, often make it hard follow. However the prominence of a strong central theme throughout the book helps the reader to overcome these challenges. The book is structured in a fairly readable fashion featuring a helpful breakdown of each chapter into various headings and sub-headings. However, the author’s sporadic use of chapter conclusions is a major structural flaw of the book. The author appears to conclude his chapters only when he feels it is necessary, even if it may be necessary for the reader. The Book’s concluding chapter is also problematic, essentially failing to conclude. Instead of restating his main points, Frisch introduces something completely new and moves into a broad discussion on state formation, employing distracting examples which detract from the study on Palestinian state formation.

Research Methods Frisch’s novel is extensively researched, involving the author’s employment and analysis of a wide range of primary sources, including newspaper articles from various political factions, official communiqués from both Diaspora and territorially based organizations

8 as well as various other policy documents. While the author’s extensive use of primary research material helps the reader better understand the political climate of the periods in question, Frisch relies too heavily on quantitative data to strengthen his arguments. For example, when he seeks to demonstrate the increasing subordination of the UNC to the PLO, he does so by comparing the number of references to the PLO in UNC communiqués. The first 10 UNC communiqués contained 41 PLO references, the second set of 10 contained 48 and the third set of 10 contained 52. While the later sets of documents do show an increase in the number of references, a 9 reference increase between the first and third set of documents is hardly significant over a 10 document set and could very well have been coincidental. Further, in such a representation the exact context of the references are not known and it is impossible to tell if these references are positive or negative without actually viewing the documents. Frisch’s use of qualitative data to explain the same phenomenon is much more convincing, exposing to the reader UNC communiqué 24, which maintains that “we emphasize that the PLO, comprising its central command institutions, expresses politically the aspirations of our people, and that the just solution to our Palestinian community reflected by international conference in which the PLO will cooperate as an equal partner with the other sides (p.96)”.