P.L.O.

Questions to think about:What is the P.L.O.?Why did it form?

What are its goals?

British Authority in Middle East

League of Nations to allow British Authority after WWI; Balfour Agreement (1917). Must provide home-

nation for Jewish people No prejudice actions

against civil or religious rights of existing peoples

Immigration cannot exceed the economic capacity that would burden population

Terms to Know:

Aliyah: Wave of Jewish Immigration Yishuv: Jewish Immigrant Community

Zionist push for nationhood in Middle East World Zionist Organization (WZO): Jewish agency to represent

Yishuv and to facilitate Jewish settlement in Palestine Histadrut: labor organization that provided social services to

Jewish population. Led by David Ben-Gurion. In 1920, due to Arab aggression towards immigration, Jewish

people realized Britain could not protect them adequately; formed Haganah, underground defense force. Suspension of immigration; Haycraft Commision Inquiry In 1929, Vladimir Jabotinsky, pushed extreme Zionist rhetoric;

Haganah and Histadrut loses favor. Betar, Irgun and Lehi formed.

Jewish Immigration and Settlement

1930: Passfield Papers: stated not enough arable land to sustain

continued immigration. Suggested to curtail or terminate Jewish immigration.

1930’s: Germany’s Third Reich ascends to power. Displacement and destruction of Jewish population in Europe.

1936: Immense Jewish immigration, heavy land taxes for settlement. Arab revolts result in enforced curfew and the disarming of Palestinians.

1937: Peel Partition Plan: Jews and Arabs cannot resolve problems; suggested partition of lands. Jews given NW edge.

1939: White Paper of 1939, restricted Jewish settlement to 75,000 over five years. Jewish groups enraged in light of Germany’s treatment of Jewish people.

1944: Having formed militant groups, Israeli terrorist assassinate British minister in Egypt.

1947: British relinquished control of Palestine after condemnation. Palestinians left impoverished, politically weaken and defenseless

1948: David Ben-Gurion declares Israel independence; US and USSR recognize Israel, Palestinians and Arab states do not; WAR!

Key Events that Conclude in Israeli Independence

Palestine: 1917 – 1937 - 1947

After defeat in the 1948 war; Al-Nakbah (The

Catastrophe): United Arab Forces declared war against Zionist, Ben-

Gurion; utterly defeated. Zionists were organized; modern weaponry, solid leadership, air power

and conscription. Arab Forces had no overall leadership, poor weaponry and no

comprehensive strategy for victory.

Palestinians were displaced, impoverished and seeking refuge.

Palestinians relied on outside Arab assistance, but other countries could not sustain support.

Displaced Palestinian people were treated as foreigners by other Arab countries with restricted opportunities.

War in 1948 and Consequences

Palestinian people banded together after their shared tribulations in

1948 in the pursuit of Self-Determination. After the 1957 pan-Arab success in the war to reclaim Sinai,

Palestinian cause emboldened. Yasser Arafat, soldier who fought together with Egypt in Suez

campaign, founded training camps to facilitate reclaiming Palestine, formation of al-Fatah.

To establish presence of Palestinian authority to the Palestinians living in diaspora, Ahmed Shukairy, a former UN ambassador from Saudi Arabia, forms the Palestinian Liberation Organization.

To legitimize their organization, the PLO authors the Palestinian National Charter of 1968 to define their purpose and goals, to empower their National Congress of the Palestinian Liberation Organization and to create a document to preface a Congressional Constitution.

PLO Formation

Article 1: Palestine is the homeland of the Arab Palestinian people; it

is an indivisible part of the Arab homeland, and the Palestinian people are an integral part of the Arab nation.

Article 3: The Palestinian Arab people possess the legal right to their homeland and have the right to determine their destiny after achieving the liberation of their country in accordance with their wishes and entirely of their own accord and will.

Article 4: The Palestinian identity is a genuine, essential, and inherent characteristic; it is transmitted from parents to children. The Zionist occupation and the dispersal of the Palestinian Arab people, through the disasters which befell them, do not make them lose their Palestinian identity and their membership in the Palestinian community, nor do they negate them.

Article 6: The Jews who had normally resided in Palestine until the beginning of the Zionist invasion will be considered Palestinians.

Palestinian National Charter of 1968

Article 9: Armed struggle is the only way to liberate Palestine. This it is the

overall strategy, not merely a tactical phase. The Palestinian Arab people assert their absolute determination and firm resolution to continue their armed struggle and to work for an armed popular revolution for the liberation of their country and their return to it . They also assert their right to normal life in Palestine and to exercise their right to self-determination and sovereignty over it.

Article 16: The liberation of Palestine, from a spiritual point of view, will provide the Holy Land with an atmosphere of safety and tranquility, which in turn will safeguard the country's religious sanctuaries and guarantee freedom of worship and of visit to all, without discrimination of race, color, language, or religion. Accordingly, the people of Palestine look to all spiritual forces in the world for support.

Article 20: The Balfour Declaration, the Mandate for Palestine, and everything that has been based upon them, are deemed null and void. Claims of historical or religious ties of Jews with Palestine are incompatible with the facts of history and the true conception of what constitutes statehood. Judaism, being a religion, is not an independent nationality. Nor do Jews constitute a single nation with an identity of its own; they are citizens of the states to which they belong.

Palestinian National Charter of 1968, Con’t 1

Article 21: The Arab Palestinian people, expressing themselves by the

armed Palestinian revolution, reject all solutions which are substitutes for the total liberation of Palestine and reject all proposals aiming at the liquidation of the Palestinian problem, or its internationalization.

Article 23: The demand of security and peace, as well as the demand of right and justice, require all states to consider Zionism an illegitimate movement, to outlaw its existence, and to ban its operations, in order that friendly relations among peoples may be preserved, and the loyalty of citizens to their respective homelands safeguarded.

Article 24: The Palestinian people believe in the principles of justice, freedom, sovereignty, self-determination, human dignity, and in the right of all peoples to exercise them.

Article 29: The Palestinian people possess the fundamental and genuine legal right to liberate and retrieve their homeland. The Palestinian people determine their attitude toward all states and forces on the basis of the stands they adopt vis-a-vis to the Palestinian revolution to fulfill the aims of the Palestinian people.

Palestinian National Charter of 1968, Con’t 2

Phrase used by Hebrews in Babylon referring to ancestral

lands; likewise by Palestinians in reference to Palestine

“We Shall Return”

After Six Day War in 1967

Present

1967: Wave of refugees flee to Jordan after Israeli victory in

Six Day War; PLO radicalized. 1970: Black September: King Hussein of Jordan expels

Fedayeen and other extremist groups including PLO, which was pushed into Lebanon.

1970-71: Lebanon pushed management of Palestinian groups to the PLO. As with the refugees from 1948, the new groups of fleeing

Palestinians from Jordan were not given access to social or educational programs; PLO takes on recruitment and training/education programs.

1972: After Israeli strikes against Lebanon, Lebanese government require PLO to cease attacks on Israel; PLO leadership agree, but cannot reign in individual cells.

Key Events in PLO History

In 1975, Palestinian groups side in Lebanese civil war with Lebanese

National Movement against ruling Lebanese body, the Maronites Christian and Phalangist militias.

After a feydaeen bus hijacking in Tel-Aviv in 1978, Israel sends 20,000 troops upto Lebanon’s Litani River. UN intervenes, sending Peacekeepers.

In 1982, after an attempted assassination of Israeli ambassador in London and PLO losing the support fof Egypt, Israel invades Southern Lebanon. Those that fought alongside Palestinians before stepped away in the face of

Israeli troops; Israeli troops crush any Palestinian camp it finds. PLO Troops retreat to Beirut; Israeli troops lay siege for 67 days. Arafat retreats from Beirut to prevent any more civilian causalities.

With PLO gone, Palestinian refugees are vulnerable; Phalangist massacre refugees looking for “terrorists.”

PLO moves to Tunisia, far away from Israeli borders; with military might waning, new militant groups arise; (Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad)

Fracturing of the PLO

1987, First Intifada commences in refugee camp in Jabalia in the

Gaza Strip; violence as well as civil-disobedience used. November, 1988, the Palestinian National Council (PNC),

convenes and votes to accept a two-state solution. December, 1988, Arafat presents PLO’s compromise to UN

General Assembly and formally recognizes Israel’s right to exist; condemned by militant groups such as Hamas.

With Arafat signing the Oslo Accords, the First Intifada ends. In 1996, Arafat elected President of Palestinian National

Assembly. In 2000, Second Intifada begins with the one of three disputed

events; Sharon’s visit to Temple Mount, Israeli police presence of a day of prayer, when Arafat walked out of Camp David Talks; Israel brands Arafat and PNA as supporting terrorists.

PLO and Arafat