Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)

PALESTINE LIBERATION ORGANIZATION (PLO)

the institutional structure of the palestinian national movement and the political representative of about nine million palestinians.

The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO; Arabic, Munazzamat al-Tahrir al-Filastiniyya ) was created at the Arab summit in January 1964 to contain and channel Palestinian nationalism and prevent Palestinian guerrilla groups from taking independent actions to liberate Palestine, from which Palestinians had fled or had been expelled by the Israel Defense Force (IDF) in 1948. The Palestine National Council (PNC), the PLO's parliament, convened with 422 members in Jerusalem in May 1964 and elected a fifteen-member Executive Committee, which chose as its chairman a lawyer, Ahmad Shuqayri. The PNC adopted a national covenant or charter (al-mithaq al-watani), which was revised in 1968, calling for the elimination of Israel and the restoration of Palestine to the Palestinians.

When Israel defeated Egypt, Syria, and Jordan in 1967 and occupied the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, both Arab and Palestinian leaders were discredited. Shuqayri was replaced by another lawyer, Yahya Hammuda. The guerrilla groups, the most significant of which was Al-Fatah, expeditiously moved to fill the political vacuum by increasing their attacks on Israel. On 21 March 1968, Israel massively retaliated at Karama, Jordan. The guerrillas' stiff resistance resulted in the deaths of at least 21 Israelis, about 100 Palestinians, and 40 Jordanian soldiers who aided the Palestinians. The guerrillas embellished their own accomplishment, inflated Israel's casualties, and gave little credit to the Jordanians. Karama became a symbol of struggle against Israel, which many had considered invincible. AlFatah gained thousands of recruits, Arab admiration, and financial support, primarily from the Gulf Arab states. More important, the guerrilla groups won control over the PLO. They amended the national charter in July 1968 to underscore the rejection of Arab interference in Palestinian affairs, the total liberation of Palestine by Palestinians through armed struggle, and establishment of a democratic secular state of Arabs and Jews.

Groups within the PLO

The battle at Karama propelled Yasir Arafat, head of al-Fatah, into the leadership position. An engineer educated at Cairo University, he was elected at the fourth PNC (February 1969) to replace Hammuda as chair of the Executive Committee. The PLO was transformed from an Arab-controlled organization to an umbrella of disparate military and political groups. Although these groups had a common goal, the liberation of Palestine, they differed considerably on ideology and tactics. The dominant group was al-Fatah, established in Kuwait by Salah Khalaf (Abu Iyad), Khalil al-Wazir (Abu Jihad), and Arafat (Abu Ammar), who became its spokesperson. It owed its broad appeal to Arafat's charismatic personality and to its pragmatic politics, which eschewed ideology for action toward a simple national goal: the liberation of Palestine. Al-Fatah's chief rival in the PLO was the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), headed by George Habash, a Christian physician educated at the American University of Beirut. The PFLP is a Marxist group dedicated to the overthrow of conservative Arab governments. Its contempt for the government of Jordan led it to challenge Jordan's sovereignty, triggering the 1970–1971 civil war that resulted in the PLO's defeat and its relocation to Lebanon. An offshoot to the left of the PFLP that espouses Marxism-Leninism is the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), led by a Jordanian Christian, Nayif Hawatma. Another offshoot is the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine–General Command (PFLP-GC), led by Ahmad Jibril. Others include al-Saʿiqa, controlled by Syria, and the Arab Liberation Front (ALF), controlled by Iraq.

The influence of these groups has been disproportional to their numbers, but some see them as a necessary alternative to the centrist al-Fatah. They have stimulated political debates. They have charged that the lack of a coherent ideology within al-Fatah has led to an absence of vision regarding politics and society in the diaspora and the future state of Palestine; that many of its functionaries are inept and corrupt bureaucrats tolerated by Arafat; that the PLO drifts from crisis to crisis; that Arafat manipulates Palestinian institutions such as the PNC and the Executive Council and has autocratic powers that undermine Palestinian democracy; and that Arafat flirts with almost any nation—Jordan, Egypt, the United States—without a clear policy.

PLO diversity resulted in the groups working at cross-purposes or in costly blunders. For example, the Arab-controlled Saʿiqa and ALF emphasized Arab unity while others insisted on Palestinian self-reliance. Al-Fatah denounced airplane hijackings in 1969 and 1970 by PFLP and PFLP-GC as counterproductive to the Palestinian cause. While al-Fatah sought Arab support and generally avoided Arab problems, the leftist groups involved the PLO in the civil war in Jordan and contributed to PLO involvement in Lebanon's civil war and in the Gulf crisis. Disagreements have led groups to secede from the PLO or to leave it temporarily. These could have brought violent conflict and disunity had it not been for the dominance of al-Fatah and Arafat's mass appeal and political skills. He often appeased or reflected diverse currents and articulated vague and, at times, contradictory positions—which, while damaging his credibility abroad and creating diplomatic immobility, enabled him to maintain the coalition. His leadership allowed the PLO to develop political, military, and socioeconomic institutions in Lebanon until 1982.

Institutions

Foremost among these institutions was the PNC, the PLO parliament, whose membership varied. It represented virtually all ideological tendencies and groups, including the commando organizations and their political branches, ten unions—those, for example, of workers, women, teachers, students, writers, and engineers—and Palestinian communities. It developed a large and complex infrastructure for the estimated 360,000 Palestinians in Lebanon. Its well-trained armed forces numbered about 16,000. Its social and economic institutions served almost half a million Palestinians and poor Lebanese. The Palestine Martyrs Works Society (SAMED) operated businesses and light industry grossing $40 million annually. The Red Crescent Society supervised sixty clinics and eleven hospitals, and the Department of Social Welfare provided financial assistance for the blind, day-care centers, the wounded, and families of "martyrs." By the early 1980s the PLO had gone from an umbrella of guerrilla groups to the institutional embodiment of Palestinian nationalism and a state within a state.

The political and economic institutions enhanced the PLO's prestige and legitimacy. The Arab League recognized the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people at the Rabat conference (October 1974). A month later, the United Nations invited Arafat to address the General Assembly and awarded the PLO observer status. In 1976 West Bank and Gaza Palestinians voted out pro-Jordan mayors, replacing them with supporters of the PLO. By 1982, over 100 countries had recognized the PLO.

Setbacks

Despite such success, however, the PLO suffered major setbacks. After its expulsion from Jordan, it established a state within a state in Lebanon, thereby undermining Lebanon's sovereignty, incurring Israel's retaliation, and embroiling it in Lebanon's civil war after 1975. In March 1979, at Camp David, Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat signed a separate peace agreement with Israel that excluded PLO participation and provided for a limited Palestinian autonomy instead of full self-determination. With Egypt neutralized, Israel invaded Lebanon in June 1982 to destroy the PLO but succeeded only in forcing the PLO to move to Tunis; stripped of PLO protection, between 800 and 1,500 Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps were massacred in September by the Israel-allied Pha-lange. The 1982 Reagan peace plan, based on the Camp David autonomy proposal, once again excluded PLO participation. The following year, dissension within al-Fatah caused a revolt by Saʿid Musa Muragha (Abu Musa), with the help of Syria, which had long sought to control the PLO. When Arafat attempted to reestablish PLO power in Lebanon in 1983, Syria unleashed the forces of Abu Musa, who drove him out of Lebanon again. Israel attempted to undermine the PLO leadership by bombing its headquarters in Tunis in October 1985 but failed to kill Arafat.

Moderation and Diplomacy

Unable to strike at Israel, the PLO relied primarily on diplomacy to achieve a compromise settlement. At the twelfth PNC in 1974 and the thirteenth in 1977, the PLO had moderated its goal of liberating all of Palestine to one of establishing a state in the West Bank and Gaza; it supported the 1982 Fahad Plan that implicitly accepted a two-state solution. Empowered by the intifada, the Palestinian uprising that began against Israel's occupation in December 1987, Arafat in November 1988 led an enlarged PNC that included the DFLP to endorse the establishment of an independent Palestine state. It also endorsed the 1947 United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181. In December 1988, Arafat declared the PLO's acceptance of Israel's right to exist, recognition of Security Council Resolution 242, and the renunciation of terrorism. The United States promptly opened a dialogue with the PLO. Israel and its supporters, however, refused to acknowledge the change.

Israel's failure to reciprocate largely convinced Arafat to support Saddam Hussein in the 1990–1991 Gulf Crisis. This was a blunder that resulted in loss of financial support from the Gulf states. Without the support of the Soviet Union, short on funds, and fearing irrelevance, the PLO accepted the U.S. peace initiative that led to the 1991 Madrid peace conference between Israel and the Arab states and the Palestinians. However, twenty-two months and ten rounds of negotiations proved fruitless. The PLO regarded the framework for the talks as unfair and did not consider middle-level U.S. officials, especially those associated with pro-Israel lobbies, as "honest brokers." Norway established a secret channel in Oslo through which the PLO and Israel agreed to recognize each other. On 13 September 1993, at the White House, they signed a Declaration of Principles for a five-year Palestinian limited autonomy in the West Bank and Gaza, starting with the Gaza Strip and the town of Jericho, followed by elections for an interim council, Israel's withdrawal from other parts of the West Bank, and transfer of power. Unresolved final status issues—Jerusalem, Jewish settlements, refugees of 1948, and borders—were deferred.

Toward Establishing a State

In May 1994, the IDF withdrew from Jericho and most of the Gaza Strip, and Palestinian police and a civil administration took over. Arafat moved to Jericho in June. Despite a decline in support for the peace process due to the violence and the slow pace of the negotiations, the PLO and Israel reached a number of agreements regarding the interim period, especially Oslo II, signed on 28 September 1995, which set the stage for Israel's further withdrawal from of the West Bank and the establishment of Palestinian Authority (PA) control over this area. The PLO held two PNC meetings in April 1996 and December 1998 to rescind articles in the National Charter that called for the destruction of Israel; the latter vote took place in the presence of U.S. president Bill Clinton. Clinton invited PLO chair Arafat and Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak to Camp David to negotiate final status issues of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The negotiations took place in July 2000, but failed and were followed by the second Palestinian uprising (Aqsa Intifada) against Israeli occupation. Even though the PLO resumed the negotiations with Israel, especially at Taba in January 2001, the negotiators ran out of time when Clinton left office in January and Prime Minister Ehud Barak was replaced by Ariel Sharon in February 2001. Sharon refused to resume negotiations with the PLO until the Palestinians stopped their violence. He reoccupied Palestinian cities, including Ramallah, where the IDF attacked Arafat's headquarters and placed Arafat under virtual house arrest.

Arafat and many of the leading members of the PLO are also leaders in the PA. Arafat is both the chair of the PLO and the president of the PA. Mahmud Abbas, who was Arafat's deputy in the PLO, became the first prime minister of the PA in 2003. Ahmad Qurai, deputy director of the PLO's department of economic affairs, became the second prime minister of the PA in 2003 and 2004. The PLO still has a primary role: to negotiate with Israel over the future of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Yet, with the establishment of the PA, the PLO was increasingly eclipsed by an elected Legislative Council and the many "state" institutions. If a state is established, the organization is likely to decline further, because its goal of establishing a state would have been fulfilled, and its institutions would be replaced by state institutions.

see also abbas, mahmud; arafat, yasir; fatah, al-; gaza strip; habash, george; palestinian authority; qurai, ahmad sulayman; ramallah; west bank.

Bibliography

Cobban, Helena. The Palestinian Liberation Organization. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985.

Gresh, Alain. The PLO, the Struggle Within: Towards an Independent Palestinian State. London: Zed, 1986.

Lesch, Ann M. "Palestine Liberation Organization." In Oxford Companion of Politics of the World, edited by Joel Krieger. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.

Miller, Aaron David. The PLO and the Politics of Survival. New York: Praeger, 1983.

Nassar, Jamal R. The Palestine Liberation Organization: From Armed Struggle to the Declaration of Independence. New York: Praeger, 1991.

Rubin, Barry. Revolution until Victory? The Politics and History of the PLO. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994.

Sayigh, Yezid. Armed Struggle and the Search for State: The Palestinian National Movement, 1949–1993. Oxford: Clarendon, 1997.

philip mattar