Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)
Updated 2024-07-30
A Reel War: Shalal – Documentary [MEK Note: Reminds me of the movie “Planet of the Apes” where the Ability of Humans to speak is kept secret from the now advanced Ape Hominidaes as humans are considered a lesser species]
History is written by the victors, but is it also archived by them? While researching an Israeli archive, a filmmaker stumbles upon reels of film from a long-lost PLO archive seized by Israel during the 1982 Lebanon War. As she tries to decipher the never-before-seen Palestinian footage, our filmmaker realizes that what she has found is only a fragment of a larger lost archive. She clashes with the Israeli defense bureaucracy, which denies having any more footage. Will she find more of these untold stories? And what is so dangerous about them that they must remain hidden? https://www.journeyman.tv/film/8423
Palestine Liberation Organization – Wikipedia The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) is a Palestinian nationalist coalition that is internationally recognized as the official representative of the Palestinian people. Founded in 1964, it initially sought to establish an Arab state over the entire territory of the former Mandatory Palestine, advocating the elimination of the State of Israel. However, in 1993, the PLO recognized Israeli sovereignty with the Oslo I Accord, and now only seeks Arab statehood in the Palestinian territories (the West Bank and the Gaza Strip) that have been militarily occupied by Israel since the 1967 Arab–Israeli War.
It is headquartered in Al-Bireh, a city in the West Bank. As the officially recognized government of the de jure State of Palestine, it has enjoyed United Nations observer status since 1974. Prior to the Oslo Accords, the PLO’s militant wings openly engaged in acts of violence against Israeli civilians, both within Israel and outside of Israel. Consequently, the United States designated it as a terrorist group in 1987, though a presidential waiver has permitted American–PLO contact since 1988. Mediated talks between the Israeli government and the PLO in 1993 (the Oslo I Accord) resulted in the PLO recognizing Israel’s right to exist in peace and accepting United Nations Security Council Resolution 242, while Israel recognized the PLO as a legitimate authority representing the Palestinian people. Despite the Israel–PLO Letters of Mutual Recognition, in which PLO leader Yasser Arafat renounced “terrorism and other acts of violence” against Israel, the PLO continued to engage in militant activities, particularly during the Second Intifada (2000–2005). On 29 October 2018, the PLO Central Council suspended the Palestinian recognition of Israel, and subsequently halted all forms of security and economic cooperation with Israeli authorities until Israel recognizes a Palestinian state on the pre-1967 borders. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine_Liberation_Organization
ADL describes the PLO The PLO was founded in 1964 during the first Arab summit in Cairo, where leaders of 13 Arab nations pledged to take a more active role for the “liberation of Palestine.” Since that time it has declared itself the representative of the Palestinian people and their nationalist aspirations. The PLO has operated primarily as an umbrella organization for six Palestinian groups, most prominently, Yasser Arafat’s Fatah group. In 1969, Arafat was elected PLO Chairman, and Fatah became the dominant party in the PLO.
The guiding ideology of the PLO was outlined in the Palestine National Charter or Covenant, which was adopted at its founding in 1964 and amended in 1968. The Charter functioned as the PLO’s constitution, and contained 33 articles calling for the destruction of the State of Israel.
In June 1974 the PLO adopted its “Phased Program” which declared “Any liberation step that is achieved constitutes a step for continuing to achieve the PLO strategy for the establishment of the Palestinian democratic state…to pave the way for completing the liberation of all Palestinian soil.”
The PLO was responsible for scores of acts of terrorism from its creation, resulting in the deaths of thousands of civilians. Among the infamous attacks conducted by the PLO are: the murder of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games; the killing of 21 schoolchildren at Ma’alot in 1974; the death of 35 people and wounding of 85 in an attack on Israeli tourist buses along the Haifa-Tel Aviv coastal highway in 1978; the hijacking of the Achille Lauro cruise ship in 1985 and the murder of disabled American Jewish passenger Leon Klinghoffer. The PLO also launched terrorist and guerrilla attacks against Israel from Jordan — until they were ousted by King Hussein in September 1972 — and from Lebanon — until they were ousted by Israel in 1982.
In 1988 in Geneva, Arafat announced that he would accept the existence of the State of Israel, renounce terrorism, and accept U.N. resolutions 242 and 338. Despite this declaration, the PLO continued terrorist attacks against Israelis.
Following secret negotiations with Israel in Oslo, on September 9, 1993, Arafat sent a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin recognizing Israel’s right to exist, renouncing terrorism, and pledging to remove clauses in the Palestine National Charter calling for the destruction of Israel. In return, Israel recognized the PLO as the “official representative” of the Palestinian people and began formal negotiations with the PLO. The Charter was revised in a vote by the Palestinian Authority Parliament in the presence of U.S. President Bill Clinton in December 1998. However, the original Charter is still featured on some Palestinian Authority web sites.
Today, the PLO continues to exist; however, most of its leaders have now become top Fatah officials in the Palestinian Authority. Fatah-related militia groups, such as the Tanzim, Force 17 and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade played a leading role in Palestinian violence during the Second Intifada, including suicide terrorist attacks, ambushes, and shootings of Israeli vehicles and facilities.
With the death of Arafat in November 2004, Mahmoud Abbas, a long-time secretary general of the PLO, became the new Chairman of the PLO and was subsequently elected President of the Palestinian Authority. https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounder/palestine-liberation-organization-plo
2023-12-12 In Dueling Remarks, Biden and Netanyahu Spar Over Gaza’s Future President Biden and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu clashed Tuesday over who should govern Gaza after the war, in a remarkable public display of differences emerging between the two leaders over the conflict.
Biden made his toughest remarks since the war began about Netanyahu’s government. He suggested that its hard-line stance has prevented Netanyahu from accepting the Biden administration’s postwar plan to have the Palestinian Authority take over Gaza, and that it would also obstruct progress toward political, economic and security arrangements that could spawn a separate Palestinian state—an outcome the U.S. president sees as a long-term solution to the conflict.
President Biden’s comments came as Netanyahu said in Israel he would block the Biden administration’s postwar plan to have the Palestinian Authority take over Gaza, the sharpest sign of Israeli pushback against the U.S. blueprint for administering the enclave after Israel’s invasion ends. Israel’s position on who will replace Hamas in postwar Gaza may not become fully clear until elections that are expected to be held next year, when it will be decided whether Netanyahu survives as prime minister.
The plan was already facing opposition from Arab governments and from Palestinian Authority officials themselves, who say they want Israel to halt its offensive in Gaza and withdraw its troops before they will agree to serious talks about postwar planning.
“There is no other game in town right now in terms of an organized, institutionalized Palestinian political entity,” Biden’s deputy national security adviser Jonathan Finer said Thursday in remarks at the Aspen Security Forum, a Washington policy event. “What is the alternative?” Netanyahu’s resistance to a Palestinian Authority postwar role in Gaza only applied to it “as currently constituted,” Finer said, implying Israel would be more flexible if Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas carries out reforms. U.S. officials have met with Abbas, and other officials, to urge such steps in recent weeks.
Netanyahu’s government is considering creating milewide buffer zones inside Gaza that will be mostly off limits to Palestinians, an idea the Biden administration opposes because it could shrink the enclave’s territory. And a senior Israeli official said Sunday that forces could remain inside Gaza for an indefinite period, despite Biden administration warnings against reoccupying the strip.
The still-developing plans for Gaza under discussion between the U.S. and Arab governments envision an interim government running the enclave for an undefined period, drawing on the remnants of the Hamas-led ministries that delivered services before the invasion, Arab officials said. A massive aid infusion would be needed from United Nations agencies and donor countries to stabilize and rebuild the devastated enclave, according to Arab officials. Only then would a revamped Palestinian Authority take over full control, officials said. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/in-dueling-remarks-biden-and-netanyahu-spar-over-gaza-s-future/ar-AA1lou8j
2023-11-29 In the West Bank, Release of Prisoners Deepens Support for Hamas Then, early Sunday morning, the bus pulled out of Ofer Prison in the West Bank and into a throng of cheering Palestinians. Before the cousins’ feet could touch the ground, they were hoisted into the air and carried through the streets of Ramallah, surrounded by people waving Palestinian and Hamas flags, revving their motorcycle engines and whistling in excitement. “This is thanks to the resistance in Gaza,” Anwar said hours later from his family’s home on the outskirts of the city.
Israel’s bombardment of Gaza and the elation over the prisoners’ release have deepened support for Hamas in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where the Palestinian Authority has administered cities and towns for more than two decades. Gaza, the other Palestinian enclave, has by contrast been controlled since 2007 by Hamas, a militant group.
Now, as many in the West Bank fear the war could spread to the occupied territory, some believe Hamas and other armed groups are the only ones they can trust to protect them. The Palestinian Authority — which is controlled by the Fatah political faction — is deeply unpopular and widely seen as a subcontractor to the Israeli occupation. Long-simmering frustrations with the authority’s leadership and accusations of corruption have been exacerbated in the past year by an uptick in violence by Israeli settlers.
For some Palestinians living under military occupation in the West Bank, the freed prisoners have become a potent symbol of Hamas’s ability to achieve tangible results and its willingness to fight for the Palestinian cause. Each night in Ramallah, as new batches of prisoners were released, one refrain echoed across the crowds: “The people want Hamas! The people want Hamas!” https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/29/world/middleeast/west-bank-hamas-prisoners.html
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