Palestine Liberation Organization

The Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) is a coalition of political and paramilitary movements created by the Palestinian National Council in East Jerusalem in May 1964 under the auspices of the Arab League, and considered by it since October 1974 as the "only legitimate representative of the Palestinian people". That same year, the UN General Assembly recognized the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people, granting it observer status.

Their first stated goal was the destruction of the State of Israel through "armed struggle" and was initially controlled by the Egyptian government. The original charter of the PLO called openly for the annihilation of Israel, as well as the return of the Palestinian refugees who fled or were expelled from Israel during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, and the self-determination of the Palestinian Arabs, who at that time At the time they were under Jordanian and Egyptian occupation of the territories of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip respectively. In said letter the creation of a Palestinian state was not mentioned, although later^[when?] the PLO adopted the idea of founding an independent state for the Palestinians from the River Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea^{[citation needed]}. More recently,^[when?] the PLO adopted the two-state solution, with Israel and a Palestinian state living in peace, although some Palestinian leaders of the grouping, including Yasser Arafat and Faisal Husseini^{[citation needed]}, continue to state^[when?] that their goal will continue to be "liberation" of all of Palestine. In 1988, the PLO declared independence for Palestine.

In 1993 PLO leader Yasir Arafat recognized the State of Israel in an official letter sent to Israeli Prime Minister Isaac Rabin. In response to Arafat's letter, Israel recognized the PLO as the "legitimate representative of the Palestinian people," launching the Oslo Accords and the Palestinian National Authority. Arafat was the top leader of the PLO Executive Committee from 1969 until his death in 2004, being succeeded by Mahmud Abbas in leading the organization.

History

Creation

The PLO was created in East Jerusalem at the first meeting of the Palestinian National Council between May 28 and June 2, 1964, following a resolution of the Arab League adopted at its summit in Cairo (Arab Republic United) in January of the same year, which recommended the creation of a representative organization of the Palestinian people. Initially it was supported and controlled by the Egyptian government of Gamal Abdel Nasser, but subservient to his pan-Arab ambitions.

The goal was to create a group that would serve as the government of the Palestinian refugees from the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. The PLO's first president was Ahmed Shukeiri, an Egyptian-Palestinian lawyer. The Palestine Liberation Army was created to be the armed wing of the organization, but it never came to function as a full-fledged army.

Arafat, President

In 1967, after the Six-Day War and the defeat of the Arab states, Shukeiri resigned as PLO leader in favor of Yahya Hammuda, a younger Nasser-supporting candidate. Nasser realized that the PLO was losing positions as a representative entity of the Palestinians against groups like Fatah in Kuwait and the Arab Nationalist Movement (MNA) in Iraq that began the fight against Israel using guerrilla warfare tactics; he did not take into account that the Palestinians wanted a movement independent of the Arab states. Yahya Hammuda was succeeded at the head of the organization by Yasir Arafat (known among the Arabs by the nickname of Abu Ammar).

Activities

The armed activities of the PLO after 1969 were those of the armed groups that made up the organization, such as Fatah or the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The PFLP and other radical groups left the PLO on several occasions because they thought Arafat was not tough enough on Israel and because of the peace negotiations he would later conduct.

The PLO's weapons were supplied by the USSR, which had supplied weapons to the Arab states since the 1950s. Usually the PLO did not receive its weapons directly from the Soviets, but from intermediaries. After the Libyan revolution in 1969 ( Green Revolution ) the president of that state, Muammar al-Gaddafi, supplied the members of many PLO groups with weapons that he bought from the USSR.

News

In 1993, the Oslo Accords ended the state of war between Israel and the PLO, but a few factions were opposed to abandoning the permanent struggle against the state of Israel, such as the PFLP-GC and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (FDLP). After Arafat's death in October 2004, he took the reins of the PLO and Fatah Mahmud Abbas. The Oslo Accords also created an autonomous Palestinian governing body, the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), but the PLO remains a very important factor in Palestinian politics due to its large financial reserves and the fact that it still serves as a " umbrella" of some Palestinian armed groups (Islamic Resistance Movement-Hamas and Islamic Jihad, for example). These two groups have continuous disagreements with the PLO because of their Islamist character, since they do not pose the struggle with Israel as a colonialist and imperialist conflict (as the PLO does) but as a conflict of faith, in which a holy war against the Jewish enemy.

Conflicts

In taking control of the PLO, Arafat had to fight the Arab states, particularly Egypt and Syria, to create a strong and independent Palestinian front. On several occasions, the Arab states confronted the PLO, either because they wanted to maintain their influence over the organization and the Palestinians, or because they defended their own interests when the PLO did not respect their sovereignty.

Battle of Karameh

On March 21, 1968, a special unit of the Israel Defense Forces crossed the Jordan River, the border between Israel and Jordan, and then stormed the Fatah military camp in the town of Karamé. Some Israeli blunders in the assault, such as disorientation and friendly fire, diverted them from their main goal: killing Yasser Arafat. When the Israelis finally besieged the Fatah camp, the Royal Jordanian Armed Forces sent a column of tanks and artillery to respond to them. The next battle, fought simply to eliminate Arafat, turned out to be very complicated. The Israeli forces then had to retreat to their border. The battle, although won thanks to the intervention of Jordanian forces, has been declared the greatest victory of the Palestinian resistance, making Arafat the biggest star among the Palestinian warriors.

In 1969 Fatah leader Arafat, still taking credit for the battle of Karamé, was elected president of the PLO, thus changing the organization from the Arab League to a group that included all Palestinian guerrilla movements.

Black September

Because of their illegal activities in Jordan in the 1960s, a conflict was created between the PLO and the King of Jordan, Hussein of Jordan. PLO factions used the territory near the Jordanian-Israeli border to build guerrilla bases and train their soldiers. Because the Palestinian guerrillas did not respect the king's laws, they began to clash with the Royal Jordanian Armed Forces in small confrontations. Since some areas of Jordan were governed by Palestinian law and the king had no control, it began to be thought that Arafat would try to overthrow King Hussein and establish a Palestinian government in Jordan as a first step to reconquer Palestine, and panic spread throughout Jordan. the royal palace in Amman.

The PFLP international flight hijackings on September 6, 1970 angered the Jordanian king, leaving him humiliated and increasingly convinced that he was losing control of his own kingdom. Therefore, he decided to attack the PLO before it attacked him. On September 15, his forces attacked PLO bases across the country, killing thousands of guerrillas from all factions and Palestinian citizens in refugee camps. Estimates of deaths fluctuate between one thousand and thirty thousand fatalities. The fact was baptized as Black September by the Palestinians, causing the formation of a group of the same name.

The Rejection Front

In 1974, Chairman Arafat spoke in front of the UN General Assembly in which he said: "I have come here with an olive branch and the gun of a freedom fighter. Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand". The intention was to say that the PLO was ready to negotiate with the West (or possibly with Israel) in order to end the conflict. The radical groups of the PLO, like the PFLP, declared that Arafat was a traitor, later forming the Rejection Front, a group that included all the groups that did not agree to negotiate with Israel. Some Arab states, such as Egypt and Jordan, tried to replace Arafat with a more radical person. Despite everything, the Rejection Front did not win the internal battle against Fatah and Arafat.

The Lebanese Civil War

In 1975, when fighting began between Christian and Muslim Lebanese for control of the state, the PLO joined forces with the Lebanese National Movement, a group of Muslim, Druze, and other Lebanese sectors with a leftist agenda. On the side of the Christians, the Syrians and some radical Palestinian groups supported by Syria participated. The battles and massacres perpetrated by both sides during the war caused the destruction and death of thousands of civilians in Lebanon, thus giving the PLO a bloody reputation, which had its worst expression in the Damour Massacre. In 1982, following a campaign of attacks near the Israel-Lebanon border by the PLO, the Israelis entered Lebanon and ousted the PLO after a long and controversial war. When the Israelis withdrew, these groups re-entered the country.

Between 1983 and 1985, a rebellion against Fatah, called the Fatah-'Intifada' (“uprising”), was formed, pitting Syria and other pro-Syrian Palestinian groups (PFLP-General Command and As Saiqa) against Arafat for the control of the PLO. The rebellion failed, probably because the Palestinians in Lebanon's refugee camps preferred to fight for a Palestinian leader rather than support Syrian forces, which indiscriminately stormed their camps and caused many deaths. In 1985 a new Israeli offensive tried to expel Arafat definitively, who moved to Tunisia.

Recognition of Israel

In 1988 in Algiers, the PLO proclaimed the independence of the State of Palestine, implicitly recognized the State of Israel and renounced the use of terrorism to achieve the political objectives of the Palestinian cause: an independent State (with capital in East Jerusalem). in the rest of Palestine that was not occupied by Israel in 1948 (the West Bank and the Gaza Strip) and the recognition of the right of return of expelled Palestinians living as refugees in neighboring countries.

In 1991 Arafat participated in the Madrid Peace Conference together with the Prime Minister of Israel, Isaac Shamir. In 1993 Shamir's successor, Isaac Rabin, and Arafat met at an initial conference in Oslo (Norway) to negotiate a ceasefire and then in Washington (USA) with US President Bill Clinton to agree on a Declaration of Principles. In 1994 the Palestinian National Authority, the governing organization of the West Bank and Gaza, relinquished the land Israel held before 1967. Since 2001, Fatah and other PLO groups have clashed with Israel's armed forces in the Second Intifada.

Funding

According to a 1993 report by Britain's former National Criminal Intelligence Service, the PLO was considered the richest terrorist organization, with assets of between $8 and $10 billion, and an annual income of $1.5 to 2 billion dollars. Likewise, The Daily Telegraph newspaper reported in 1999 that the PLO had more than $50 billion in secret investments worldwide. A 1995 report by the GAO (Government Accounting Office of the United States) stated that it was impossible for him to confirm this data, since the author of the NCIS report of February 1994 refused to reveal his sources. On the other hand, contrary to the accusations published by analysts in various media, the GAO stated that there is no evidence that the PLO has been involved in drug trafficking.

PLO factions

Current members

• Fatah Presidency of the ANP and the PLO.
• Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (FPLP).
• Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (FDLP).
• Front for the Liberation of Palestine (FLP).
• Democratic Palestinian Union (Fida).
• Palestinian People ' s Party (PPP).
• As-Saika (prosy).
• Front for Arab Liberation (FLA) (supported by the Iraqi Ba'ath party).
• Frente por la Lucha Popular Palestine (FLPP).
• Palestinian Arab Front (APF).

Former members

• Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (FPLP-CG) (pro-syrian).
• Fatah-Intifada
• Frente Popular por la Liberación de Palestine-Maniobras Externas (FPLP-ME) (disappeared since 1978).
• Popular Revolutionary Front for the Liberation of Palestine (FRPLP) (disappeared).
• Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-Special Command (FPLP-CE) (disappeared).
• Organization May 15 (disappeared).

Groups opposed to the PLO

• Fatah-Revolutionary Council (disappeared).
• Front Rechacista (as opposed to negotiations with Israel) (disappeared).

Unaffiliated Groups

• Hamas Islamic Resistance Movement.
• Palestinian Islamic Jihad.