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THE PALESTINIAN
NATIONAL CHARTER
Resolutions of the
Palestine National Council, July 1-17, 1968
Text of the Charter:
Article
1: Palestine is the homeland of the Arab
Palestinian people; it is an indivisible part of the Arab
homeland, and the Palestinian people are an integral part
of the Arab nation.
Article
2: Palestine, with the boundaries it had during
the British Mandate, is an indivisible territorial unit.
Article
3: The Palestinian Arab people possess the legal
right to their homeland and have the right to determine
their destiny after achieving the liberation of their
country in accordance with their wishes and entirely of
their own accord and will.
Article
4: The Palestinian identity is a genuine,
essential, and inherent characteristic; it is transmitted
from parents to children. The Zionist occupation and the
dispersal of the Palestinian Arab people, through the
disasters which befell them, do not make them lose their
Palestinian identity and their membership in the
Palestinian community, nor do they negate them.
Article
5: The Palestinians are those Arab nationals
who, until 1947, normally resided in Palestine regardless
of whether they were evicted from it or have stayed
there. Anyone born, after that date, of a Palestinian
father - whether inside Palestine or outside it - is also
a Palestinian.
Article
6: The Jews who had normally resided in
Palestine until the beginning of the Zionist invasion
will be considered Palestinians.
Article
7: That there is a Palestinian community and
that it has material, spiritual, and historical
connection with Palestine are indisputable facts. It is a
national duty to bring up individual Palestinians in an
Arab revolutionary manner. All means of information and
education must be adopted in order to acquaint the
Palestinian with his country in the most profound manner,
both spiritual and material, that is possible. He must be
prepared for the armed struggle and ready to sacrifice
his wealth and his life in order to win back his homeland
and bring about its liberation.
Article
8: The phase in their history, through which the
Palestinian people are now living, is that of national (watani)
struggle for the liberation of Palestine. Thus the
conflicts among the Palestinian national forces are
secondary, and should be ended for the sake of the basic
conflict that exists between the forces of Zionism and of
imperialism on the one hand, and the Palestinian Arab
people on the other. On this basis the Palestinian
masses, regardless of whether they are residing in the
national homeland or in diaspora (mahajir)
constitute - both their organizations and the individuals
- one national front working for the retrieval of
Palestine and its liberation through armed struggle.
Article
9: Armed struggle is the only way to liberate
Palestine. Thus 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
revolution for the liberation of their country and their
return to it. They also assert their right to normal life
in Palestine and to exercise their right to
self-determination and sovereignty over it.
Article
10: Commando action constitutes the nucleus of
the Palestinian popular liberation war. This requires its
escalation, comprehensiveness, and the mobilization of
all the Palestinian popular and educational efforts and
their organization and involvement in the armed
Palestinian revolution. It also requires the achieving of
unity for the national (watani) struggle among
the different groupings of the Palestinian people, and
between the Palestinian people and the Arab masses, so as
to secure the continuation of the revolution, its
escalation, and victory.
Article
11: The Palestinians will have three mottoes:
national (wataniyya) unity, national (qawmiyya)
mobilization, and liberation.
Article
12: The Palestinian people believe in Arab
unity. In order to contribute their share toward the
attainment of that objective, however, they must, at the
present stage of their struggle, safeguard their
Palestinian identity and develop their consciousness of
that identity, and oppose any plan that may dissolve or
impair it.
Article
13: Arab unity and the liberation of Palestine
are two complementary objectives, the attainment of
either of which facilitates the attainment of the other.
Thus, Arab unity leads to the liberation of Palestine,
the liberation of Palestine leads to Arab unity; and work
toward the realization of one objective proceeds side by
side with work toward the realization of the other.
Article
14: The destiny of the Arab nation, and indeed
Arab existence itself, depend upon the destiny of the
Palestine cause. From this interdependence springs the
Arab nation's pursuit of, and striving for, the
liberation of Palestine. The people of Palestine play the
role of the vanguard in the realization of this sacred (qawmi)
goal.
Article
15: The liberation of Palestine, from an Arab
viewpoint, is a national (qawmi) duty and it
attempts to repel the Zionist and imperialist aggression
against the Arab homeland, and aims at the elimination of
Zionism in Palestine. Absolute responsibility for this
falls upon the Arab nation - peoples and governments -
with the Arab people of Palestine in the vanguard.
Accordingly, the Arab nation must mobilize all its
military, human, moral, and spiritual capabilities to
participate actively with the Palestinian people in the
liberation of Palestine. It must, particularly in the
phase of the armed Palestinian revolution, offer and
furnish the Palestinian people with all possible help,
and material and human support, and make available to
them the means and opportunities that will enable them to
continue to carry out their leading role in the armed
revolution, until they liberate their homeland.
Article
16: The liberation of Palestine, from a
spiritual point of view, will provide the Holy Land with
an atmosphere of safety and tranquility, which in turn
will safeguard the country's religious sanctuaries and
guarantee freedom of worship and of visit to all, without
discrimination of race, color, language, or religion.
Accordingly, the people of Palestine look to all
spiritual forces in the world for support.
Article
17: The liberation of Palestine, from a human
point of view, will restore to the Palestinian individual
his dignity, pride, and freedom. Accordingly the
Palestinian Arab people look forward to the support of
all those who believe in the dignity of man and his
freedom in the world.
Article
18: The liberation of Palestine, from an
international point of view, is a defensive action
necessitated by the demands of self-defense. Accordingly
the Palestinian people, desirous as they are of the
friendship of all people, look to freedom-loving, and
peace-loving states for support in order to restore their
legitimate rights in Palestine, to re-establish peace and
security in the country, and to enable its people to
exercise national sovereignty and freedom.
Article
19: The partition of Palestine in 1947 and the
establishment of the state of Israel are entirely
illegal, regardless of the passage of time, because they
were contrary to the will of the Palestinian people and
to their natural right in their homeland, and
inconsistent with the principles embodied in the Charter
of the United Nations, particularly the right to
self-determination.
Article
20: The Balfour Declaration, the Mandate for
Palestine, and everything that has been based upon them,
are deemed null and void. Claims of historical or
religious ties of Jews with Palestine are incompatible
with the facts of history and the true conception of what
constitutes statehood. Judaism, being a religion, is not
an independent nationality. Nor do Jews constitute a
single nation with an identity of its own; they are
citizens of the states to which they belong.
Article
21: The Arab Palestinian people, expressing
themselves by the armed Palestinian revolution, reject
all solutions which are substitutes for the total
liberation of Palestine and reject all proposals aiming
at the liquidation of the Palestinian problem, or its
internationalization.
Article
22: Zionism is a political movement organically
associated with international imperialism and
antagonistic to all action for liberation and to
progressive movements in the world. It is racist and
fanatic in its nature, aggressive, expansionist, and
colonial in its aims, and fascist in its methods. Israel
is the instrument of the Zionist movement, and
geographical base for world imperialism placed
strategically in the midst of the Arab homeland to combat
the hopes of the Arab nation for liberation, unity, and
progress. Israel is a constant source of threat vis-a-vis
peace in the Middle East and the whole world. Since the
liberation of Palestine will destroy the Zionist and
imperialist presence and will contribute to the
establishment of peace in the Middle East, the
Palestinian people look for the support of all the
progressive and peaceful forces and urge them all,
irrespective of their affiliations and beliefs, to offer
the Palestinian people all aid and support in their just
struggle for the liberation of their homeland.
Article
23: The demand of security and peace, as well as
the demand of right and justice, require all states to
consider Zionism an illegitimate movement, to outlaw its
existence, and to ban its operations, in order that
friendly relations among peoples may be preserved, and
the loyalty of citizens to their respective homelands
safeguarded.
Article
24: The Palestinian people believe in the
principles of justice, freedom, sovereignty,
self-determination, human dignity, and in the right of
all peoples to exercise them.
Article
25: For the realization of the goals of this
Charter and its principles, the Palestine Liberation
Organization will perform its role in the liberation of
Palestine in accordance with the Constitution of this
Organization.
Article
26: The Palestine Liberation Organization,
representative of the Palestinian revolutionary forces,
is responsible for the Palestinian Arab people's movement
in its struggle - to retrieve its homeland, liberate and
return to it and exercise the right to self-determination
in it - in all military, political, and financial fields
and also for whatever may be required by the Palestine
case on the inter-Arab and international levels.
Article
27: The Palestine Liberation Organization shall
cooperate with all Arab states, each according to its
potentialities; and will adopt a neutral policy among
them in the light of the requirements of the war of
liberation; and on this basis it shall not interfere in
the internal affairs of any Arab state.
Article
28: The Palestinian Arab people assert the
genuineness and independence of their national (wataniyya)
revolution and reject all forms of intervention,
trusteeship, and subordination.
Article
29: The Palestinian people possess the
fundamental and genuine legal right to liberate and
retrieve their homeland. The Palestinian people determine
their attitude toward all states and forces on the basis
of the stands they adopt vis-a-vis to the Palestinian
revolution to fulfill the aims of the Palestinian people.
Article
30: Fighters and carriers of arms in the war of
liberation are the nucleus of the popular army which will
be the protective force for the gains of the Palestinian
Arab people.
Article
31: The Organization shall have a flag, an oath
of allegiance, and an anthem. All this shall be decided
upon in accordance with a special regulation.
Article
32: Regulations, which shall be known as the
Constitution of the Palestinian Liberation Organization,
shall be annexed to this Charter. It will lay down the
manner in which the Organization, and its organs and
institutions, shall be constituted; the respective
competence of each; and the requirements of its
obligation under the Charter.
Article
33: This Charter shall not be amended save by
[vote of] a majority of two-thirds of the total
membership of the National Congress of the Palestine
Liberation Organization [taken] at a special session
convened for that purpose.
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