PALESTINE - PALESTINA
P L O
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Palestine Liberation
Organization
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) (Arabic: منظمة التحرير
الفلسطينية; 
Munaẓẓamat al-Taḥrīr
al-Filasṭīniyyat (help·info))
is a political and paramilitary organization founded in 1964.[1]
It is recognized as the "sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people," by over 100 states
with which it holds diplomatic relations, and has enjoyed observer
status at the United Nations since 1974.[2][3]
The PLO was considered by the United
States and Israel to be a terrorist organization until the Madrid Conference in 1991. In 1993,
Israel decided to change its position and to officially recognize the
PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people.[4]
Founding
Founded by a meeting of 422 Palestinian national figures in the West
Bank, in May 1964, following an earlier decision of the Arab
League, its stated goal was the "liberation of Palestine"
through armed struggle.[5]
The original PLO Charter (issued on 28 May 1964[6])
stated that "Palestine with its boundaries that existed at the time of
the British mandate is an
integral regional unit" and sought to "prohibit... the existence and
activity" of Zionism.[7]
It also called for a right of return and self-determination for Palestinians.
Palestinian statehood was not mentioned, although in 1974 the PLO called
for an independent state in the territory of Mandate Palestine.[8]
The group used multi-layered guerrilla and terrorist tactics to attack Israel
from their bases in Jordan, Lebanon,
and Syria,
as well as from within the Gaza
Strip and West Bank.[9]
Organization
The PLO has a nominal legislative body, the Palestinian National Council
(PNC), but most actual political power and decisions are controlled by
the PLO Executive
Committee, made up of 18 people elected by the PNC. The PLO
incorporates a range of generally secular ideologies of different
Palestinian movements committed to the struggle for Palestinian
independence and liberation, hence the name of the organization. The
Palestine Liberation Organization is considered by the Arab
League[2][10]
and by the United Nations[11]
to be the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people and holds
a permanent observer seat in the United Nations General Assembly.
It has been widely criticised, however, over the lack of Hamas
presence in the Organisation, even after Hamas won almost two-thirds of
the seats in the 2006 legislative council elections and the Organisation
is for that reason not recognised by many Palestinians as a true
representative of Palestinians' views.
Yasser Arafat was the Chairman of the PLO Executive
Committee from 1969 until his death in 2004. He was succeeded by Mahmoud
Abbas (also known as Abu Mazen).
Initially, as an armed guerrilla organization, the PLO was
responsible for terrorist activities
performed against Israel in the 1970s and early 1980s. In 1988, however,
the PLO officially endorsed a two-state solution, contingent on terms
such as making East Jerusalem capital of the Palestinian
state and giving Palestinians the right of return to land occupied by Palestinians prior to
1948, as well as the right to continue armed struggle until the end of
"The Zionist Entity."[12]
Though Yasser Arafat promised on multiple occasions in letters and in
speeches to remove the parts of the PLO's charter which called for the
destruction of "The Zionist Entity," the version which contains those
articles is the version displayed to the UN, and to other Palestinian
bodies.
[edit] Membership
The PLO has no central decision-making or mechanism that enables it
to directly control its factions, but they are supposed to follow the
PLO charter and Executive Committee decisions. Membership has
fluctuated, and some organizations have left the PLO or suspended
membership during times of political turbulence, but most often these
groups eventually rejoined the organization. Not all PLO activists are
members of one of the factions - for example, many PNC delegates are
elected as independents.
Present members include:
Former member groups of the PLO include:
[edit] History
[edit] Creation
The Arab League on Cairo Summit 1964 initiated the creation of
an organization representing the Palestinian people. The Palestinian
National Council convened in Jerusalem on 29 May 1964. Concluding this
meeting the PLO was founded on 2 June 1964. Its Statement of
Proclamation of the Organization[13]
declared "... the right of the Palestinian Arab people to its sacred
homeland Palestine and affirming the inevitability of the battle to
liberate the usurped part from it, and its determination to bring out
its effective revolutionary entity and the mobilization of the
capabilities and potentialities and its material, military and spiritual
forces".
Due to the influence of the Egyptian President Nasser the PLO supported the nasseristic 'Pan-Arabism'
- the ideology that the Arabs should live in one state. The first
executive committee was formed on 9 August, with Ahmad Shuqeiri as its leader.
In spite of the 1949 Armistice Agreements, the
Arab states remained unreconciled to Israel's
creation as they had been to the proposed partition of Palestine in
1948. Therefore the Palestinian
National Charter of 1964[14]
stated: "The claims of historic and spiritual ties between Jews and
Palestine are not in agreement with the facts of history or with the
true basis of sound statehood... [T]he Jews are not one people with an
independent personality because they are citizens to their states."
(Article 18).
Although Egypt and Jordan favored the creation of a Palestinian state
on land they considered to be occupied by Israel, they would not grant
sovereignty to the Palestinian people in lands under Jordanian and
Egyptian military occupation, amounting to 53% of the territory
allocated to Arabs under the UN Partition Plan. Hence Article 24: "This
Organization does not exercise any territorial sovereignty over the West
Bank, the Gaza Strip or in the Himmah Area."
[edit] Executive
Committee Chairmen
-
- (in exile in Jordan to April 1971; Lebanon 1971 – December 1982; and
Tunis December 1982 – May 1994)
-
- (acting [for Arafat] to 11 November 2004)
[edit] Leadership by
Yasser Arafat
The resounding defeat of Syria, Jordan and Egypt in the Six Day War of 1967 destroyed the credibility of
Arab states that had sought to be patrons for the Palestinian people
and their nationalist cause. The war radicalized the Palestinians and
significantly weakened Nasser's influence. The way was opened,
particularly after the Battle of Karameh in March 1968, for Yasser
Arafat to rise to power. He advocated guerrilla warfare and successfully sought to make the PLO a
fully independent organization under the control of the fedayeen
organizations. At the Palestinian National Congress meeting of 1969, Fatah
gained control of the executive bodies of the PLO. Arafat was appointed
PLO chairman at the Palestinian
National Congress in Cairo on February 3, 1969. From then on, the Executive
Committee was composed essentially of representatives of the various
member organizations.
[edit] War of attrition
From 1969 to September 1970 the PLO, with passive support from
Jordan, fought a war of attrition with
Israel. During this time, the PLO launched artillery attacks on the moshavim
and kibbutzim
of Bet Shean
Valley Regional Council, while fedayeen launched numerous attacks on
Israeli civilians. Israel raided the PLO camps in Jordan, withdrawing
only under Jordanian military pressure.[citation needed]
This conflict culminated in Jordan's expulsion of the PLO in September 1970.
[edit] Black September in
Jordan
The PLO suffered a major reversal with the Jordanian assault on its
armed groups in the events known as Black September in 1970. The
Palestinian groups were expelled from Jordan, and during the 1970s the
PLO was effectively an umbrella group of eight organizations
headquartered in Damascus and Beirut,
all devoted to armed resistance to either Zionism
or Israeli occupation, using methods which included attacks on civilians
and guerrilla warfare against Israel. After
Black September, the Cairo Agreement led the PLO to
establish itself in Lebanon.
[edit] Ten Point Program
In 1974, the PNC approved the Ten Point Program[15]
formulated by Fatah's leaders which calls for the establishment of a
national authority over any piece of liberated Palestinian land, and to
actively pursue the establishment of a secular democratic binational
state in Israel/Palestine
under which all citizens will enjoy equal status and rights regardless
of race, sex, or religion. The Ten Point Program was considered the
first attempt by PLO at a peaceful resolution, though the ultimate goal
was "completing the liberation of all Palestinian territory, and as a
step along the road to comprehensive Arab unity."
This led to several radical PLO factions (such as the PFLP, PFLP-GC and others) breaking out to form the Rejectionist Front, which would act
independently of PLO over the following years. Suspicion between the
Arafat-led mainstream and more hardline factions, inside and outside the
PLO, have continued to dominate the inner workings of the organization
ever since, often resulting in paralysis or conflicting courses of
action. A temporary closing of ranks came in 1977, as Palestinian
factions joined with hard-line Arab governments in the Steadfastness and
Confrontation Front to condemn Egyptian attempts to reach a separate
peace with Israel (eventually resulting in the 1979 Camp David Accords).
Israel claimed to see the Ten Point Program as dangerous, because it
allegedly allows the Palestinian leadership to enter negotiations with
Israel on issues where Israel can compromise, but under the intention of
exploiting the compromises in order to "improve positions" for
attacking Israel. The Hebrew term for this is the "Plan of Stages" (Tokhnit
HaSHlabim). During the negotiations between Israel and the
Palestinians in the 1990s, some Israelis repeated this suspicion,
claiming that the Palestinians' willingness to compromise was just a
smoke-screen to implement the Ten Point Program. After the Oslo
Accords were signed, Israeli right-wing politicians claimed (and
still claim) that this was part of the ploy to implement the Stage
Program as Yasser Arafat himself admitted in Arabic many times. The Ten
Point Program was never officially cancelled by the Palestinians.[16]
[edit]
Lebanon
and the Lebanese Civil War
In the mid-1970s, Arafat and his Fatah movement found themselves in a
tenuous position. Arafat increasingly called for diplomacy, perhaps
best symbolized by his Ten Points Program and his support for a UN
Security Council resolution proposed in 1976 calling for a two-state settlement on the pre-1967 borders. But the Rejectionist Front denounced the calls
for diplomacy, and a diplomatic solution was vetoed by the United
States. The population in the West Bank and Gaza Strip saw Arafat
as their best hope for a resolution to the conflict. This was especially
so in the aftermath of the Camp David Accords of 1978 between Israel and Egypt, which
the Palestinians saw as a blow to their aspirations to
self-determination. Abu Nidal, a sworn enemy of the PLO since 1974,
assassinated the PLO's diplomatic envoy to the European Economic Community,
which in the Venice Declaration of 1980 had called for
the Palestinian right of self-determination to be recognized by Israel.
During the Lebanese Civil War, the PLO first fought
against Maronite Christian
militias, notably the Phalange and the Lebanese Forces of Bachir Gemayel, then against Israel, then, finally against
the Syrian-supported Amal
militia. In the 1985-1988 War of the Camps, Amal and other
pro-Syrian militias besieged Palestinian refugee
camps in Lebanon to drive out supporters of Arafat. Many thousands
of Palestinians died of violence and starvation. After the Amal siege
ended, there was a great deal of intra-Palestinian fighting in the
camps.
[edit] As a partner for peace
Opposition to Arafat was fierce not only among radical Arab groups,
but also among many on the Israeli right. This included Menachem Begin, who had stated on more than one occasion that
even if the PLO accepted UN
Security Council Resolution 242 and recognized Israel's right to
exist, he would never negotiate with the organization (Smith, op. cit.,
p. 357). This contradicted the official United States position that it
would negotiate with the PLO if the PLO accepted Resolution 242 and
recognized Israel, which the PLO had thus far been unwilling to do.
Other Arab voices had recently called for a diplomatic resolution to the
hostilities in accord with the international consensus, including
Egyptian leader Anwar Sadat on his visit to Washington, DC in August 1981, and Crown
Prince Fahd of Saudi Arabia in his 7 August peace proposal; together
with Arafat's diplomatic maneuver, these developments made Israel's
argument that it had "no partner for peace" seem increasingly
problematic. Thus, in the eyes of Israeli hard-liners, "the Palestinians
posed a greater challenge to Israel as a peacemaking organization than
as a military one". (Smith, op. cit., 376)
After the appointment of Ariel Sharon to the post of Minister of
defence in 1981, the Israeli government policy of allowing political
growth to occur in the occupied West Bank and Gaza strip changed. The
Israeli government tried, unsuccessfully, to dictate terms of political
growth by replacing local pro-PLO leaders with an Israeli civil
administration.[17]
In 1982, the PLO relocated to Tunis Tunisia after it was driven out
of Lebanon by Israel during Israel's six-month invasion of Lebanon.
Following massive raids by Israeli forces in Beirut, it is estimated
that 8,000 PLO fighters evacuated the city and dispersed.[18]
On October 1, 1985, in Operation Wooden Leg, Israeli Air Force F-15s bombed the PLO's Tunis headquarters,
killing more than 60 people.
It is suggested that the Tunis period (1982-1991) was a negative
point in the PLO's history, leading up to the Oslo negotiations and
formation of the Palestinian Authority (PA). The PLO in exile was
distant from a concentrated number of Palestinians and became far less
effective.[19]
There was a significant reduction in centres of research, political
debates or journalistic endeavours that had encouraged an energised
public presence of the PLO in Beirut. More and more Palestinians were
abandoned, and many felt that this was the beginning of the end.[20]
[edit] First Intifada
Main article:
First IntifadaIn 1987, the First Intifada broke out in the West
Bank and Gaza Strip. The Intifada caught the PLO by
surprise,[21]
and the leadership abroad could only indirectly influence the events. A
new local leadership emerged, the Unified National
Leadership of the Uprising (UNLU), comprising many leading
Palestinian factions. After King Hussein of Jordan proclaimed the
administrative and legal separation of the West Bank from Jordan in
1988,[22]
the Palestine National Council adopted the Palestinian Declaration
of Independence in Algiers, proclaiming an independent State of Palestine. The declaration made reference to UN
resolutions without explicitly mentioning Security Council Resolutions
242 and 338.
A month later, Arafat declared in Geneva
that the PLO would support a solution of the conflict based on these
Resolutions. Effectively, the PLO recognized Israel's right to exist
within pre-1967 borders, with the understanding that the Palestinians
would be allowed to set up their own state in the West Bank and Gaza.
The United States accepted this clarification by Arafat and
began to allow diplomatic contacts with PLO officials. The Proclamation
of Independence did not lead to a Palestinian State, although over 100
states recognized the "State of Palestine".[citation needed]
[edit] Gulf War
In 1990, the PLO under Yasser Arafat openly supported Saddam Hussein in his regime's invasion of Kuwait, leading to a later rupture in
Palestinian-Kuwaiti ties and the expulsion of many Palestinians from Kuwait.
[edit] Oslo Accords
In 1993, the PLO secretly negotiated the Oslo
Accords with Israel. The accords were signed on 20 August 1993.
There was a subsequent public ceremony in Washington D.C. on September
13, 1993 with Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak
Rabin. The Accords granted the Palestinians right to
self-government on the Gaza Strip and the city of Jericho
in the West Bank through the creation of the Palestinian Authority.
Yasser Arafat was appointed head of the Palestinian Authority
and a timetable for elections was laid out which saw Arafat elected
president in January 1996, 18 months behind schedule. Although the PLO
and the PA are not formally linked, the PLO dominates the
administration. The headquarters of the PLO were moved to Ramallah
on the West Bank.
On 9 September 1993, Arafat issued a press release stating that "the
PLO recognizes the right of the State of Israel to exist in peace and
security".[23]
Numerous leaders within the PLO and the PA, including Yasser Arafat
himself, have declared that the State of Israel has
a permanent right to exist, and that the peace treaty with Israel is
genuine.[citation needed]
However, members of the PLO have claimed responsibility for a number of
attacks against Israelis since the Oslo Accords during the Second Intifada. Some Palestinian officials have stated
that the peace treaty must be viewed as permanent. According to some
opinion polls, a majority of Israelis believe Palestinians should have a
state of their own—a major shift in attitude after the Oslo Accord—even
though both Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon
Peres opposed the creation of a Palestinian state, both before and
after the Accord. At the same time, a significant portion of the Israeli
public and some political leaders (including the current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu) express doubt over whether a
peaceful, coherent state can be founded by the PLO, and call for
significant re-organization, including the elimination of all terrorism,
before any talk about independence.
[edit] Second Intifada
The Second or Al-Aqsa Intifada started concurrent with the breakdown
of talks at Camp David with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud
Barak. The Intifada never ended officially, but violence hit
relatively low levels during 2005. The death toll both military and
civilians of the entire conflict in 2000-2004 is estimated to be 3,223
Palestinians and 950 Israelis, although this number is criticized for
not differentiating between combatants and civilians.
[edit] Development and
reactivation
In the Cairo Declaration and the Prisoners' Document,
Palestinian factions agreed to rebuild the PLO. A meeting will be held
in Damascus to discuss its future.[citation needed]
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