Palestine Liberation Organization

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The PLO emblem shows the Palestinian flag above a map of Palestine

The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) (Arabic: منظمة التحرير الفلسطينية‎; ArPLO.ogg Munaẓẓamat al-Taḥrīr al-Filasṭīniyyat (help·info)) is a political and paramilitary organization regarded by the Arab League since October 1974 as the "sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people."[1]

Founded by a meeting of 422 Palestinian national figures in Jerusalem in May 1964 following an earlier decision of the Arab League, its goal was the liberation of Palestine through armed struggle.[2] The original PLO Charter (issued on 28 May 1964[3]) 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.[4] 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.[5] The group used terrorist tactics to attack Israel from their bases in Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria, as well as from within the Gaza Strip and West Bank.[6] In 1988, the PLO officially endorsed a two-state solution, with Israel and Palestine living side by side contingent on specific 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 the 1948 and 1967 wars with Israel.[7]

In 1993, PLO chairman Yasser Arafat recognized the State of Israel in an official letter to its prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin. In response to Arafat's letter, Israel recognized the PLO as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. 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).

Contents

[edit] Overview

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[1][8] and by the United Nations[9] to be the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people and holds a permanent observer seat in the United Nations General Assembly.

[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[10] 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[11] 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 in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, on 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 defeat of Syria, Jordan and Egypt in the Six Day War of 1967 destroyed the credibility of the states that sought to be patrons of the Palestinian people and weakened Nasser significantly. The way was opened for Yasser Arafat, who advocated guerrilla warfare and who 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.

This conflict culminated in Jordan's expulsion of the PLO in September 1970.

[edit] Black September in Jordan

Main article: 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[12] 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 Israeli term for this is the "Step Program" or "Stage Program" (Tokhnit HaSHlavim or Torat HaSHlavim). 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.[13]

[edit] Lebanon and the Lebanese Civil War

Main article: 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 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, 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. [14]

[edit] Tunis

In 1982, the PLO relocated to Tunis 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.[15]

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.[16] 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.[17]

[edit] First Intifada

Main article: First Intifada

In 1987, the First Intifada broke out in the Occupied Territories. The Intifada caught the PLO by surprise,[18] 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,[19] 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".

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. 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 former 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

Main article: Al-Aqsa 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]

[edit] In the United Nations

The United Nations General Assembly granted the PLO observer status on November 22, 1974. On January 12, 1976 the UN Security Council voted 11-1 with 3 abstentions to allow the Palestinian Liberation Organization to participate in a Security Council debate without voting rights, a privilege usually restricted to UN member states.

After the Palestinian Declaration of Independence the PLO's representation was renamed Palestine. On July 7, 1998, this status was extended to allow participation in General Assembly debates, though not in voting.

In numerous Resolutions by the General Assembly the PLO was declared the "sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian People". This was recognised by Israel in the Oslo Accords from 1993.

The PLO's diplomatic relations with other Arab countries, particularly those against Israel, are fairly misunderstood. Most Islamic Arab countries generally dislike and show contempt for the PLO, due to the fact that most of its formidable members are leftists, communists, and seculars.

[edit] Palestinian National Charter

The Palestinian National Charter as amended in 1968 endorsed the use of "armed struggle" against "Zionist imperialism."

'Article 10 of the Palestinian National Charter states "Commando (Feday’ee) 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 ('wanted) 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."

The most controversial element of text of the Charter were many clauses declaring the creation of the state of Israel "null and void", because it was created by force on Palestinian soil. This is usually interpreted as calling for the destruction of the state of Israel.

In letters exchanged between Arafat and Rabin in conjunction with the 1993 Oslo Accords, Arafat agreed that those clauses would be removed. On 26 April 1996, the Palestine National Council held a meeting in camera, after which it was announced that the Council had voted to nullify or amend all such clauses, and called for a new text to be produced. At the time, Israeli political figures and academics expressed doubt that this is what had actually taken place, and continued to claim that controversial clauses were still in force.

A letter from Arafat to US President Bill Clinton in 1998 listed the clauses concerned, and a meeting of the Palestine Central Committee approved that list. To remove all doubt, the vote this time was held in a public meeting of PLO, PNC and PCC members which was televised worldwide, and in the presence of Bill Clinton who traveled to the Gaza Strip for that purpose. Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accepted this as the promised nullification.

However, a new text of the Charter has not been produced, and this is the source of a continuing controversy. Critics of the Palestinian organizations claim that failure proves the insincerity of the clause nullifications. Such critics are mainly from marginal groups on the far right side of the Israeli political spectrum. One of several Palestinian responses is that the proper replacement of the Charter will be the constitution of the forthcoming state of Palestine. The published draft constitution states that the territory of Palestine "is an indivisible unit based upon its borders on the 4th of June 1967" - which clearly implies an acceptance of Israel's existence in its 1967 borders.

[edit] Diplomatic representation

The Palestine Information Office was registered with the Justice Department of the United States as a foreign agent until 1968, when it was closed. It was reopened in 1989 as the Palestine Affairs Center.[20]

[edit] Terrorist characterization

The PLO was considered by the USA and Israel to be a terrorist organization until the Madrid Conference in 1991. Most of the rest of the world recognised the PLO as the legitimate representatives of the Palestinian people from 1974 onwards (after the PLO's admission to the UN.)

The most notable of what were considered terrorist acts committed by member organizations of the PLO were:

The PLO was considered "the richest of all terrorist organizations" with US$8-$10 billion in assets and an annual income of $1.5-$2 billion from "donations, extortion, payoffs, illegal arms dealing, drug trafficking, money laundering, fraud, etc.", according to a 1993 British National Criminal Intelligence Service report. England's Daily Telegraph reported in 1999 that the PLO had $50 billion in secret investments around the world.[21]

In 2004 the United States Congress declared the PLO to be a terrorist organisation under the Anti-Terrorism Act 1987, citing among others the Achille Lauro attack.[22][23]

According to a 1993 report by the British National Criminal Intelligence Service, the PLO was "the richest of all terrorist organizations", with $8-$10 billion in assets and an annual income of $1.5-$2 billion from "donations, extortion, payoffs, illegal arms dealing, drug trafficking, money laundering, fraud, etc." The Daily Telegraph reported in 1999 that the PLO had $50 billion in secret investments around the world.[24]

[edit] See also

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[edit] Notes

  1. ^ a b Madiha Rashid al Madfai, Jordan, the United States and the Middle East Peace Process, 1974-1991, Cambridge Middle East Library, Cambridge University Press (1993). ISBN 0521415233. p. 21:"On 28 October 1974, the seventh Arab summit conference held in Rabat designated the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people and reaffirmed their right to establish an independent state of urgency."
  2. ^ Articles 1, 2 and 3 of the Palestinian National Covenant
  3. ^ Helena Cobban,The Palestinian Liberation Organisation(Cambridge University Press, 1984) p.30
  4. ^ Articles 2 and 23 of the Palestinian National Covenant
  5. ^ The PNC Program of 1974, June 8, 1974. On the site of MidEastWeb for Coexistence R.A. - Middle East Resources. Page includes commentary. Retrieved 5 December 2006.
  6. ^ Arab-Israeli Conflict, Encarta
  7. ^ William L. Cleveland, A History of the Modern Middle East, Westview Press (2004). ISBN 0813340489.
  8. ^ Esam Shashaa, 1974 - PLO representative of the Palestinian people, Zajel, An-Najah National University (Palestine), September 26, 2004. Retrieved 27 December 2006.
  9. ^ United Nations General Assembly Resolution 60/39, December 1, 2005. Accessed online on the Jewish Virtual Library, 27 December 2006.
  10. ^ Statement of Proclamation of the Organization, Palestine Liberation Organization, Jerusalem, 28 May 1964. Online on the site of the Permanent Observer Mission of Palestine to the United Nations. Retrieved 5 December 2006.
  11. ^ The Palestinian National Charter, Adopted in 1964 by the 1st Palestinian Conference. Online on the site of the Permanent Observer Mission of Palestine to the United Nations. Retrieved 5 December 2006.
  12. ^ Political Program Adopted at the 12th Session of the Palestine National Council[dead link], Cairo, 8 June 1974. Online on the site of the Permanent Observer Mission of Palestine to the United Nations. Retrieved 5 December 2006.
  13. ^ (Hebrew) http://www.nfc.co.il/archive/003-D-6200-00.html?tag=23-15-32 nfc.co.il news site.
  14. ^ Shaul Mishal, Ranan D. Kuperman, David Boas (2001) Investment in Peace: Politics of Economic Cooperation Between Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinian Authority Sussex Academic Press, ISBN 1902210883 p 64
  15. ^ Helena Cobban, The Palestinian Liberation Organisation: People, Power and Politics, p3
  16. ^ Rashid Khalidi, The Iron Cage, The Story of the Struffle for Palestinian Statehood, p 180
  17. ^ Rashid Khalidi, The Iron Cage, The Story of the Struffle for Palestinian Statehood, p164
  18. ^ Yasser Arafat obituary, socialistworld.net (Committee for a Worker’s International) 11 November 2004. Retrieved 5 December 2006.
  19. ^ King Hussein, Address to the Nation, Amman, Jordan, July 31, 1988. On the Royal Hashemit Court's official site in tribute to King Hussein. Retrieved 5 December 2006.
  20. ^ The Palestinian Diaspora: Formation of Identities and Politics of Homeland, By Helena Lindholm Schulz, Juliane Hammer, Routledge, 2003 p. 81
  21. ^ And a Thief, Too: Yasser Arafat takes what he likes
  22. ^ U.S. Code TITLE 22 > CHAPTER 61 > § 5201. Findings; determinations, Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School. Retrieved 5 December 2006.
  23. ^ 22 USC CHAPTER 61 - ANTI-TERRORISM - PLO, Office of the Law Revision Counsel (United States). Retrieved 5 December 2006.
  24. ^ Rachel Ehrenfeld, And a Thief, Too: Yasser Arafat takes what he likes, National Review, July 29, 2002. Retrieved 5 December 2006.

[edit] External links

[edit] Official sites

[edit] History and Overview

[edit] Documents

[edit] Analysis

[edit] General

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