The deportations and the Palestinian-Israeli negotiations

Abstract

When, on 17 December 1992, the Israeli government expelled over 400 Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip following the killing within less than two weeks of five Israeli soldiers and a paramilitary border guard, it had every reason to believe that the measure would blow over without conse- quences. Indeed, for nearly a half-century, every wave of individual or mass expulsions carried out by Israel had been met with an initial outcry from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the United Nations Gen- eral Assembly, and frequently the Security Council, only to be followed by relative silence or forgetfulness. And in this particular case, the main target of the expulsions was the Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas, which had claimed the killings (with the exception of one claimed by the Islamic Jihad) and which had been gaining ground in the occupied territories at the expense of the upholders of compromise within the Palestinian nationalist camp. The tide of world opinion against Islamic movements-including in the Arab states and within the PLO itself-seemed to make it all the more likely that the problems created for Israel by the measure would be managea- ble, especially since the expulsions were of limited duration, some two years.