| Summary/Abstract |
In his 1988 essay, my late father, Yusif Sayigh, argued that the first Palestinian intifada had generated greater international understanding of the decades-long Palestinian struggle for national self-determination and support for the creation of an independent Palestinian state. This built on incremental shifts that had unfolded in response to diverse developments over the previous two decades, from the rise of the non-aligned movement in the 1970s, which helped secure a platform for the Palestine Liberation Organisation at the United Nations, to the grinding two-month Israeli siege of Beirut in 1982 and subsequent massacre of Palestinian refugees in the Sabra/Shatila camp. These developments galvanized Palestinians living under Israeli occupation in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem politically, and generated serious questioning of the feasibility of maintaining the occupation among many Israelis. But their cumulative impact was insufficient, in my father’s assessment, to bring about a decisive breakthrough in United States or, for that matter, in European policy.
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