Red Star Over Palestine: Oslo and After

Jacobin Radio

Jacobin

Socialism, History, News, Left, Jacobin, Alternative, Socialist, Politics

4.7 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 14 June 2025

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

For many years, Palestine had one of the strongest left-wing movements in the Arab world, represented by prominent figures such as Emile Habibi, Leila Khaled, and Ghassan Kanafani. At the beginning of the First Intifada in the 1980s, Palestinian left groups were still the main challengers to the hegemony of Fatah, although the Left has lost much of its influence in the period since then.

Red Star Over Palestine: Histories of the Palestinian Left is a six-part series from Long Reads exploring radical movements and progressive organizations of the region. We examine the experience of Palestinian communism and the left-wing currents inside the PLO, the Palestine Liberation Organization. We also look at the outsized impact of the Left on Palestinian cultural life.

Our final episode examines the framework of the Oslo Accords and, as Hamas became the main force articulating opposition, the response of the Left.

Red Star Over Palestine is hosted by Daniel Finn and produced by Conor Gillies. Music provided by Fadi Tabbal.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, my name's Daniel Finn, and the Features Editor for Jacobin, and I host the Long
0:09.2	Reeds podcast for Jacobin Radio. This is the sixth and final episode of a series called
0:16.3	Red Star Over Palestine, Histories of the Palestinian Left.
0:23.7	We ended our last episode with the new situation created by the Oslo Accords in the 1990s.
0:30.2	Naif Hawatme was the leader of the Democratic Front for the liberation of Palestine.
0:35.6	The DFLP had been the first group represented in the PLO
0:39.9	to argue for a two-state model back in the 1970s.
0:44.7	Speaking in 1997,
0:47.0	Hawatma explained why his organization
0:49.6	did not endorse the Oslo Framework.
0:53.3	These accords are not just.
0:58.0	We are calling to a new formula for a new negotiation,
1:06.0	which must be a comprehensive negotiation and for one stage, not two states as Oslo Accord said.
1:15.6	Without that, Middle East will not see in the coming few years any kind of stability, security
1:25.6	troubles will continue because Netanyahu government program built
1:33.0	on expansion and aggression.
1:36.6	By the time Huitma made this statement, Yitzhak Rabin had been assassinated by an Israeli
1:41.7	nationalist and Benyemine Netanyahu had become Israel's
1:45.7	Prime Minister for the first time.
1:49.6	Palestinians in the occupied territories became increasingly disillusioned with the Oslo process,
1:55.1	as living standards fell while the settlements continued to grow.
2:02.6	But the main force articulating opposition to Oslo was Hamas,
	...

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