History & Overview: PLO | Jewish Virtual Library Tweet The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) is undoubtedly one of the most infamous terrorist organizations around the world. Created in 1964 during the Arab League Summit in Cairo, the PLO's originally-stated goal was the "liberation of Palestine" through armed struggle while seeking to destroy the existence of Zionism in the Middle East. It was not long before that the group splintered into various factions, all of whom believed they knew the best way to achieve liberation for the Palestinians. The most notable of these groups were the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Popular Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command (PFLP-GC), and the Fatah . While each of these factions were independetly controlled, they all remained more-or-less under the umbrella of the PLO . By 1967, the PLO had decided that their primary goal was the destruction of the State of Israel . Over the next ten years, this goal was the primary focus of the massive terrorist campaign by which their reputation was formed.

This terror war caused hundreds of casualties, on both sides, with very little to show in return for the Palestinian cause. Therefore, in PLO the PLO made a conscious decision to alter its focus from based purely on terrorism to one that would include the diplomatic and political elements necessary for meaningful dialogue. The PLO's partial-reversal in ideology created unhappiness among many of its followers who felt that the organization was not finding its mark. This led to the creation of yet another splinter group called the Rejectionist Front. It was at this time that Yasser Arafat and his group, Fatah , took over the leadership of the PLO. Things began to change quickly when the PLO gained international recognition from the United Nations as the primary representative of the Palestinian people. Arafat deftly manipulated the organization from one perceived by the West as barbaric into one considered a freedom movement with legitimate claims. Israel, perhaps sensing the growing sympathy, redoubled its efforts to eliminate the Palestinian threat. In 1982, the Israel Defense Forces launched the First Lebanon War , sweeping into Beirut and forcing the PLO to flee from its bastion.

In a decision that radical Palestinians resented, Arafat agreed to come to the bargaining table to discuss peace with Israeli leaders. Little came of these talks, and soon after dissension within the ranks of the PLO became more pronounced and some of the moderate leaders were assassinated. Perhaps in an attempt to reconcile with these dissenters, Arafat decided to provide support for the hijacking of a major cruise ship. The ship that was select was the Achille Lauro and what would happen next would do more damage to the reputation of the PLO than anything that had happened previously. Together with operatives from the PLF , terrorists seized the vessel and took the entire ship hostage. In a cowardly and reprehensible act, members of the team shot to death a wheelchair-bound Jewish passenger named Leon Klinghoffer, then dumped his body overboard. World response was swift, condemning, and slow to recover. By 1988, Arafat had taken the diplomatic road one step further when he not only announced the right of the state of Israel to exist but renounced PLO terrorism. The perceived commitment to these ideals caused Israel to finally agree to serious talks with the PLO.

The result of these discussions was that today the Palestinian people live under partial self-rule and seem on the way to obtaining the homeland they have yearned for years. In recent years, Palestinian youths have become disillusioned by what they perceive as the plodding nature of the PLO in regard to its pursuit of an independent Palestinian nation. Many of these followers have joined the either HAMAS or Hizballah . On September 9, 1993, in letters to Israeli Prime Minister Rabin and Norwegian Foreign Minister Holst, PLO Chairman Arafat committed the PLO to cease all violence and terrorism. On September 13, 1993, the Declaration of Principles between the Israelis and Palestinians was signed in Washington, DC. Between September 9 and December 31, the PLO factions loyal to Arafat complied with this commitment except for one, perhaps two, instances in which the responsible individuals apparently acted independently. Two groups under the PLO umbrella, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine-Hawatmeh faction (DFLP-H) , suspended their participation in the PLO in protest of the agreement and continued their campaign of violence.

Palestine Liberation Organization Encyclopedia > History > Asia and Africa > Middle Eastern History Palestine Liberation Organization Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), coordinating council for Palestinian organizations, founded (1964) by Egypt and the Arab League and initially controlled by Egypt. Composed of various guerrilla groups and political factions, the PLO is dominated by Al Fatah, the largest group, whose leader, Yasir Arafat , was chairman of the PLO from 1969 to 2004 and established Palestinian control over the organization. Other groups in the PLO include the Syrian-backed As Saiqa and the Marxist-oriented Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). The PLO was initially committed to the dissolution of Israel, mainly through the use of armed force. Since its founding, the organization has sponsored innumerable guerrilla raids on Israeli civilian and military targets. although it has disclaimed responsibility for many of the Palestinian movement's more spectacular acts of terror. In 1974 the PLO received UN recognition, and a government in exile was recognized by Arab nations as a basis for a future Palestinian state, to be formed from land regained from Israel along the west bank of the Jordan River.

In 1976 the PLO was granted full membership in the Arab League. In 1982 the PLO was weakened when, after the Israeli siege of Beirut , Lebanon (see Arab-Israeli Wars ), PLO guerrillas in West Beirut were dispersed to other Arab countries. In 1988 the PLO responded to the Palestinian uprising, or Intifada , in the West Bank and Gaza Strip by proclaiming the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. The PLO also equivocally recognized Israel's right to exist and renounced terrorism. In 1991 the Lebanese army, with Syrian backing, forced the PLO out of its strongholds in S Lebanon, and PLO relations with the West deteriorated because of PLO support of Iraq in the Persian Gulf War . In 1993, a peace agreement between the PLO and Israel was reached providing for mutual recognition and a transition to a degree of Palestinian self-rule in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In 1994, Arafat appointed an interim 19-member Palestinian Authority , under his direction, to administer Palestinian affairs in the areas of self-rule; the Palestinian Authority has since become independent of the PLO.

Under a 1995 accord, self-rule was extended over a two-year period to all major Arab cities and villages in the West Bank, except East Jerusalem. Arafat was elected president of the Palestinian-controlled territory in 1996. In the same year the PLO formally revoked all clauses in its founding charter that called for the dissolution of Israel, and Arafat pledged to fight terrorism. Agreements in the late 1990s gradually increased the area of the West Bank under Palestinian control, but violence resumed in 2000 after further negotiations with Israel stalled. Following Arafat's death in 2004, Mahmoud Abbas succeeded him as PLO chairman and in 2005 as Palestinian president. In the Palestinian legislative council elections in 2006, Hamas won a majority of the seats in a victory that in part was a rejection of the corruption and failures associated with the PLO. Subsequently there was fighting between Al Fatah and Hamas forces in 2006 and 2007, and when Hamas seized control in Gaza in June, 2007, Abbas dismissed the Hamas-led government, accusing it of an attempted coup.

Attempts since then to establish a national unity government that includes both Al Fatah and Hamas have failed. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) | Palestinian political organization | Britannica.com Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Alternative Titles: Munaẓẓamat al-Taḥrīr Filasṭīniyyah, Munazzamat at-Tahrir Filastin, PLO Related Topics Fatah Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Arabic Munaẓẓamat al-Taḥrīr Filasṭīniyyah, umbrella political organization claiming to represent the world’s Palestinians —those Arabs , and their descendants, who lived in mandated Palestine before the creation there of the State of Israel in 1948. It was formed in 1964 to centralize the leadership of various Palestinian groups that previously had operated as clandestine resistance movements.

It came into prominence only after the Six-Day War of June 1967, however, and engaged in a protracted guerrilla war against Israel during the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s before entering into peace negotiations with that country in the 1990s. Foundation and early development After the Arab-Israeli war of 1948 the Arab states, notably Egypt , took the lead in the political and military struggle against Israel. The Palestinians themselves had been dispersed among a number of countries, and—lacking an organized central leadership—many Palestinians formed small, diffuse resistance organizations, often under the patronage of the various Arab states; as a result, Palestinian political activity was limited. The PLO was created at an Arab summit meeting in 1964 in order to bring various Palestinian groups together under one organization, but at first it did little to enhance Palestinian self-determination.

The PLO’s legislature, the Palestine National Council (PNC), was composed of members from the civilian population of various Palestinian communities , and its charter (the Palestine National Charter, or Covenant) set out the goals of the organization, which included the complete elimination of Israeli sovereignty in Palestine and the destruction of the State of Israel. Yet, the PLO’s first chairman, a former diplomat named Aḥmad Shuqayrī , was closely tied to Egypt, its military force (the Palestine Liberation Army, formed in 1968) was integrated into the armies of surrounding Arab states, and the militant guerrilla organizations under its auspices had only limited influence on PLO policy. Likewise, although the PLO received its funding from taxes levied on the salaries of Palestinian workers, for decades the organization also depended heavily on the contributions of sympathetic countries. Expansion and the rise of Yāsir ʿArafāt Similar Topics National Football League (NFL) It was only after the defeat of the Arab states by Israel in the Six-Day War of June 1967 that the PLO began to be widely recognized as the representative of the Palestinians and came to promote a distinctively Palestinian agenda.

The defeat discredited the Arab states, and Palestinians sought greater autonomy in their struggle with Israel. In 1968 leaders of Palestinian guerrilla factions gained representation in the PNC, and the influence of the more militant and independent-minded groups within the PLO increased. Major PLO factions or those associated with it included Fatah (since 1968 the preeminent faction within the PLO), the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), and al-Ṣāʿiqah . Over the decades the PLO’s membership has varied as its constituent bodies have reorganized and disagreed internally. The more radical factions have remained steadfast in their goals of the destruction of Israel and its replacement with a secular state in which Muslims, Jews, and Christians would, ostensibly, participate as equals. Moderate factions within the PLO, however, have proved willing to accept a negotiated settlement with Israel that would yield a Palestinian state, which at times has led to internecine violence. In 1969 Yāsir ʿArafāt , leader of Fatah, was named the PLO’s chairman.

From the late 1960s the PLO organized and launched guerrilla attacks against Israel from its bases in Jordan , which prompted significant Israeli reprisals and led to instability within Jordan. This, in turn, brought the PLO into growing conflict with the government of King Ḥussein of Jordan in 1970, and in 1971 the PLO was forcibly expelled from the country by the Jordanian army. Thereafter the PLO shifted its bases to Lebanon and continued its attacks on Israel. The PLO’s relations with the Lebanese were tumultuous , and the organization soon became embroiled in Lebanon’s sectarian disputes and contributed to that country’s eventual slide into civil war. During that time, factions within the PLO shifted from attacks on military targets to a strategy of terrorism—a policy the organization fervently denied embracing—and a number of high-profile attacks, including bombings and aircraft hijackings, were staged by PLO operatives against Israeli and Western targets. Britannica Stories Ringling Bros.

Folds Its Tent From 1974 ʿArafāt advocated an end to the PLO’s attacks on targets outside of Israel and sought the world community’s acceptance of the PLO as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. In 1974 the Arab heads of state recognized the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of all Palestinians, and the PLO was admitted to full membership in the Arab League in 1976. Yet the PLO was excluded from the negotiations between Egypt and Israel that resulted in 1979 in a peace treaty that returned the Israeli-occupied Sinai Peninsula to Egypt but failed to win Israel’s agreement to the establishment of a Palestinian state in the occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip . History Buff Quiz Israel’s desire to destroy the PLO and its bases in Lebanon led Israel to invade that country in June 1982. Israeli troops soon surrounded the Lebanese capital of Beirut , which for several years had been the PLO’s headquarters. Following negotiations, PLO forces evacuated Beirut and were transported to sympathetic Arab countries.

Increasing dissatisfaction with ʿArafāt’s leadership arose in the PLO after he withdrew from Beirut to Tunis , Tun., and in 1983 Syrian -backed PLO rebels supported by Syrian troops forced ʿArafāt’s remaining troops out of Lebanon. ʿArafāt retained the support of some Arab leaders and eventually was able to reassert his leadership of the PLO. Two intifāḍahs and the search for peace Bereft of bases from which PLO forces might attack the Jewish state and encouraged by the success of a popular uprising, the intifāḍah (Arabic: “shaking off”), that began in 1987 in the occupied territories, the PLO leadership developed a more flexible and conciliatory policy toward peace with Israel. On Nov. 15, 1988, the PLO proclaimed the “State of Palestine,” a kind of government-in-exile; and on April 2, 1989, the PNC elected ʿArafāt president of the new quasi-state.

The PLO during this period also recognized United Nations Resolutions 242 and 338, thereby tacitly acknowledging Israel’s right to exist. It thus abandoned its long-standing goal of replacing Israel with a secular, democratic state in Palestine in favour of a policy accepting separate Israeli and Palestinian states, with the latter occupying the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Connect with Britannica Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up) When the State of Israel was established in 1948, nearby Arab states immediately waged war against the new country. As a result, a severe refugee problem was created among the Palestinians-the Arabs who had been living in and near the territories that were taken over by Israel. Many of these millions of people were displaced to several Arab states in the Middle East, while others were forced into refugee camps in Israel. Various Palestinian resistance movements formed in several countries. In 1964 the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was founded to serve as an umbrella organization for the many separate Palestinian political groups. Article History Founding the Palestine Liberation Organization Founding the Palestine Liberation Organization What led to the founding of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1964?

PLO was founded in 1964 as a result of the Palestinian nationalist movement with the aim to establish an independent state for the Palestinians. It was formed because Palestinians did not trust their protection with other Arab nations and wanted to fight independently for their rights and for a homeland that Israel had taken away from them. The meeting was held in Jerusalem after the Arab-Israeli war with its first leader being Ahmed Shukairy. The footing for establishing such an organization was laid down in 1964 in Cairo at an Arab League meeting where some parties believe that the reason for its establishment was Arab nations’ duplicity. At another Arab League meeting, PLO was officially recognized as the representative of Palestine for the first time. This meeting was held in Rabat, Morocco. PLO got the title of ‘the sole representative of Palestine’ by the over 100 nations that it enjoys diplomatic relations with and by the United Nations as well. The organization is composed of a number of guerilla groups and separate political factions; however, Al Fatah remains the most dominant group. These other groups include such as Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a Marxist oriented group and As-Saiqa, based in Syria.

The Palestinian National Army launched several attacks against Israel but it was never a major resistance operation. The PLO began building a more militant standing, establishing Yasser Arafat as the leader and working through his Fatah organization, when Israel brought destruction to the armed forces of Jordan, Egypt and Syria and took over the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and the Golan Heights after the Six Day War . One of the earliest strategies that Arafat adopted was to put a stop to Arab involvement in PLO’s business. He also made amendments in the Palestine’s National Council Charter. Arafat combined the goals of liberating Palestine and establishing a democratic state for both Arabs and Jews. He was made the chairman of the Executive Committee of the PLO, a position he held till his death. The start of 1980’s saw PLO dividing into several organizations but the ideology remained the same for everyone. Since its establishment, the PLO has launched a number of attacks against Israeli civilians and military. However, it has denied its involvement in some major attacks with Arafat’s public renouncement of terrorism.

In 1993, a peace agreement was signed between the PLO and Israel with the terms stating a mutual recognition of the authority and allowing self-rule in Gaza Strip and West Bank. To administer the affairs of this newly formed self-rule, Arafat established Palestinian Authority comprising of 19 members which became independent of the PLO. Mahmoud Abbas succeeded Arafat as a Chairman of PLO and as Palestinian president. Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO): History & Formation | Online Homework Help | SchoolWorkHelper Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO): History & Formation You are here: PDF The PLO was set up in 1964 by an Arab League decision in response to growing signs of Palestinian unrest. The Palestinians desired to reclaim the lands occupied by Israel, which they felt belonged to them, as said in the Bible. In 1964 the Arab states created the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). While it was supposed to represent the Palestinians, in reality it represented the views of President Nasser of Egypt, who guided the formation of the PLO. Its first leader made wild and irresponsible threats to drive Israelis into the sea, and had little support among Palestinians for he was seen as a puppet of the Egyptians.

In the 1960s Palestinian students began to form their own organizations independent of control by Arab governments (although the Syrians, Libyans, and Iraqis continued to fund and control particular groups). Yasser Arafat founded an independent Palestinian-run party called Fatah. He is said to have the backing, for most of the recent past, of about 80% of the Palestinian people. The position of the Arab governments was that a PLO under Arab League supervision would be the best way of satisfying the demands made by an emerging Palestinian national consciousness. Also, it was felt that through such an organization Arab governments could control Palestinian political activities. Ten years after its founding, the PLO was raised to the status of government. And in 1988, the PLO’s status was to be raised again, this time to a state in exile. After several negotiations, Arafat became a Terrorist leader and administrator of self-rule in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. In the 1967 Six Day War, the Arab armies did very badly against Israel, losing 67,000 square kilometres of land.

Palestinians came to believe that if they were ever to have their land, they would have to do it themselves. After the 1967 war, the situation changed drastically. The resistance activities of various guerrilla organizations, in particular the Al-Fatah and the PFLP, gained the increasing support of the Palestinians. With Arafat at the helm from 1969 and a resistance-oriented leadership, the PLO was more effective and played a central role in mobilizing the Palestinians and in expanding its basis of support both at the local and international level. The PLO became an umbrella organization for the various guerrilla groups. This increase in support was made possible because of the Al-Fatah’s ability to access to the growing numbers of volunteers from refugee camps which were freshly swollen due to the 1967 war. Most of these refugees suffered the frustration of having been displaced twice in a lifetime. This generated, especially among the young, a mood of defiance, as they were ready to question the credibility of the idea of relying on Arab governments to liberate Palestine. Furthermore, as a consequence of the war a large proportion of the Palestinian community became territorially united.

This brought the possibility of direct interaction between the various sections of the Palestinian community that had previously remained isolated from each other. On the other hand, the inability of the PLO’s conservative leadership to promote any effective resistance operations culminated in the eventual transfer of power to the armed-struggle orientated guerrilla organizations. Thus initially, the PLO had a broad base of support and represented the desires of the majority of the Palestinian people. The origins of the Al-Fatah can be traced back to the mid-1950s to a group of Palestinians that had neither relinquished their national identity nor their belief in the necessity of liberating Palestine via Palestinian means, rather than relying on other Arab states. Yet, throughout the 1950s the attitude of the Palestinians remained largely skeptical if not uncommitted to Al-Faith’s ideology. It was in the 1960s that the situation began to change, enabling Al-Fatah to expand its organizational structure and base. Under the leadership of Arafat, Al-Fatah pursued an ideology which simply stresses the nationalist struggle to liberate Palestine without dwelling too deeply on any theoretical speculations about the nature and form of the future Palestinian society.

This tactic was essential in gaining support against other movements, and aided the rise of Al-Fatah to become the dominating faction within the PLO. Militarily, the PLO has a broad base of human resources for recruitment, almost half a million. The PLO has established across-the-board conscription for all the Palestinian men between the ages of 18 and 30. As a result, the PLO is able to maintain three military forces. It could be said then that physically, it did indeed represent a cross-section of the population. However, even if they were significant in number, these lower-level members were not politically potent, and did not have their voices heard. Arafat continued on his policies, tending to brush aside differing opinions, leaving many disenchanted with his autocratic rule. Even before the PLO was declared a state in 1988, it functioned much like one. This was reflected in much of the powers it possessed. The PLO has been able to exert what amounts to sovereign powers over the Palestinian people in war situations. The PLO represented the Palestinians in wars with Jordan and Lebanon, and during various incursions into Israel.

The PLO also exercises extradition powers, as on many occasions Arab governments have turned over to the PLO Palestinians charged with criminal activities. They were tried and sentenced by the PLO judicial system. In these ways, it was supposed to represent the people. But various problems within the PLO undermined its legitimacy as the sole representative of the Palestinian people. Arafat’s ascendancy to power on the Palestinian issue had naturally provoked rivals to try the same tack in their own interest. As a result, maintenance of his supremacy within the PLO became Arafat’s full time preoccupation. Far from laying the basis for secular or democratic institutions that one day might serve as a nation, Arafat recruited Sumni Muslims like himself into a body known as Fatah, loyal to him on confessional lines. Unity itself was a mere appearance, a show for the sake of recovering honour. Far from uniting behind the Palestinian cause as words might indicate, every Arab state in practice discriminated against Palestinians living in its midst and had differing slants upon the PLO. This was due to its nature as an umbrella organization, the PLO comprises a number of resistance organizations. These organizations entered the PLO as groups retaining their ideological and organizational identity.

Consequently, PLO institutions are structured to reflect proportional representation of each organization in addition to the few independent members. This has turned PLO politics into coalition politics. The flux of events between 1967 and 1982 offered Palestinians several chances to demonstrate en masse in favour of the PLO, if they had been so inclined. But they refrained, not due to fatalism or cowardice, but because they may be willing to pay lip service to Arafat, not much more than that. Whether Palestinians outside the Occupied Territories would in fact accept the legitimacy of the PLO as their representative was put to test in Jordan in 1970. Jordanian frontiers were the result of British map-making, which left half of the country’s inhabitants Palestinian by origin. The rapid financing and arming by Arab power holders of Arafat’s mercenaries offered these Palestinians in Jordan a chance to repudiate King Hussein and declare themselves nationalists for the new cause. Unexpectantly, Arafat’s power challenge threatened to replace King Hussein with a PLO state in Jordan.

After 18 months, while tensions were running high, the PFLP hijacked international airliners, three of which were brought at gunpoint to Jordan. Taking advantage of this anarchic jockeying between rival Palestinian groups, King Hussein ordered his army to subjugate the whole movement. Palestinians in Jordan and on the West Bank gave evidence of their real feelings by denouncing the PLO and PFLP activists to the authorities and occasionally even helping to round them up. David Pryce-Jones observed that “wherever they live, they observe for themselves that the PLO is a means to enrichment and aggrandizement for the unscrupulous few, but death and destruction for everyone else”. Everywhere Palestinians have little alternative but to cling to this identity, as they continue to seek what freedom they can from power holders of different identity. In Syria, any Palestinian who attempted to form some independent grouping would be seen as a dangerous conspirator and summarily disposed of. This left many with no choice but to remain silent.

Fatah itself was split by power struggles initiated by a growing number of young Fatah activists who were trying to gain positions of power in local society, in the process challenging the older generation of Fatah leaders. They felt entitled to positions in the structures Arafat was trying to create. The newest generation of people not only refuse to be cajoled or coerced, but also have acquired political organizing and networking skills in neighbourhoods, refugee camps, Israeli jails, and above all, in the political bodies created during the Intifada (uprising). The problem of factionalism has plagued the PLO from its formation. However, instead of adopting a policy of inclusion to accommodate the general goals of the people, he excluded not only the opposition but also the local Palestinians who had acted as his proxies before his return. He had promised he would be the leader of all Palestinians, but acted only like the President of his trusted lieutenants. Instead of speaking of tolerance and political pluralism, he spoke of respect for his authority. On top of this, Arafat’s leadership was questioned. Arafat was criticized for filling his posts with loyalists whose professional qualifications are below average and whose reputations are tarnished.

Other appointments brought more and more Palestinians to the conclusion that Arafat was mired in the past, and that he would continue to follow the policy plans he had formed long ago. The Chairman’s primacy within the PLO had been seriously compromised as a result of the secret negotiations that had led to the September 13, 1993 agreement with the Rabin government. The relationship with the masses that the charismatic Arafat had enjoyed was diminished by the concessions he made to Israel. In modern day politics, he still remains a symbol of Palestinian nationalism, as does the PLO. But he faces much opposition. On the left various socialist groups think Arafat is too close to business and banking interests and too willing to negotiate with Israel or cooperate with America. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine is one of these. It is led by George Habash, a Christian doctor. It opposes any negotiations. On the right some Islamic groups feel the PLO is too willing to cooperate with socialists and is too willing to negotiate with Israel. They feel there should be a united Palestine where Jews could live but which would not be governed by Jews. The largest of these groups is called HAMAS, the Islamic Resistance Movement.

Several Palestinian radicals have their own military organizations. Abu Nidal is one of these. He is bitterly and violently opposed to the PLO for what he sees as its moderate positions. He has carried out airplane bombings and attacks on civilians and has tried to assassinate Arafat. He opposes any negotiation with Israel. He is probably funded by Iraq. In the latest turn of events, Yasser Arafat has decided to scrap the anti-Israeli section of the PLO charter calling for its destruction. Some have said that this is due to Israeli pressure in the peace process, which demanded the change before new talks and settlements. Shimon Peres has called it the “most important ideological change of the century”, but it is sure to upset the Islamic fundamentalists, and those in the PLO who desire a completely pro-PLO solution. While there is so much contention and opposition to PLO decisions, the PLO cannot be called the sole representative of the Palestinian people, although it has a large following. BIBLIOGRAPHY 1. David Pryce-Jones: The Closed Circle: An Interpretation of the Arabs Harper Perennial, New York, 1991 2.

Peter Calrocovessi: World Politics since 1945 (5th Ed) Longman Group, New York, 1987 3. Kamal Kirisai: The PLO and World Politics Frances Pinter, London, 1986 4. Muhammad Muslih : Arafat’s Dilemma Mr Kwok’s notes Related posts: May 28 1964 – The Palestine Liberation Organization is Formed - On this day in History Things to do in Los Angeles May 28 1964 – The Palestine Liberation Organization is Formed The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was created on May 28, 1964. The organization became associated with the demand for an independent state of Palestine. The PLO became recognized as the "sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people" by the United Nations. At the close of World War I, the League of Nations was entrusted the responsibility of handling the region that would later become Israel, Jordan, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip. The League of Nations handed what came to be known as the British Mandate to Britain for administration.

In 1921, the British authorities divided this region and all the land to the west of River Jordan became the Palestine mandate. With the rise of Hitler and the Nazi party and anti-Semitic sentiments through the 1930s, Jewish immigration into Palestine started to peak. Alarmed by this sudden and mass influx, the Arabs of Palestine came into direct conflict with the Jews and clashes became increasingly violent and pronounced. The Arabs of Palestine were backed by other Arabs in the region. By the time Britain gave up its mandate in 1947 and the region came to be supervised by the United Nations directly, a two-nation solution had already started to evolve. The establishment of an Arab state and a Jewish nation seemed imminent. However, the Arabs rejected the proposal. On May 15, 1948, the Jews headed by David Ben-Gurion declared the foundation of Israel as an independent state. The formation of Israel brought things to a head. The political and military struggle against Israel was led by Egypt and supported heartily by other Arab nations. Following the Arab-Israeli war of 1948, the Palestinians realized that their resistance remained diffused due to the lack of a cohesive organized leadership.

The political activity of the various organizations lacked coordination and remained weak and ineffective. In 1964, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) [Munaẓẓamat al-Taḥrīr Filasṭīniyyah in Arabic] was created at the first Palestinian Arab conference held in Jerusalem as an umbrella political organization to unite the discordant Palestinian organizations and to represent the Palestinian Arabs who lived in mandated Palestine before the establishment of the State of Israel. Later, the organization grew to represent the rights of their descendants. Initially, the formation of the PLO was not seen as a significant effort in enhancing the cause of Palestinian self-determination. The Palestine National Charter, the organization’s guiding principles, included the complete removal of Israeli influence in Palestine. The PLO also refused to acknowledge the foundation of the State of Israel and marked it out as an enemy. Mr. Ahmed Al-Shuqairy became the first head of Palestine Executive Committee. The PLO, however, did not come into prominence till after the Six-Day War of June 1967. The Six-Day War of 1967 was an outcome of Russian intelligence reports to Syria announcing the deployment of Israeli troops on the Syrian border headed to an invasion.

Despite being incorrect, the reports led to an alarmed Syria seeking out Egyptian support in preparation for war. In a sweeping pre-emptive move, Israel routed the Egyptian air force with missile power and caused major damage to Egyptian tanks deployed in the Sinai and Gaza regions. Syria ended up losing Golan Heights and Jordan had to part with East Jerusalem. In a war that lasted a mere 6 days, Israel had quadrupled its territory and declared Jerusalem as the country's capital. The mass exodus of Palestinian refugees from Israel into refugee camps brought the PLO into sharp focus. Yasser Arafat took over as the leader of the PLO in 1969 and spearheaded a protracted guerrilla war against Israel from various bases in Jordan, Lebanon and other Arab countries. In the 1970s, the PLO pursued terrorism as a strategy, though this was publically denied. Towards the end of the 1970s, however, Arafat started to chalk out his goal of attaining the world community’s acceptance of the PLO as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. The PLO was granted a full membership in the Arab League in 1976.

Israel invaded Lebanon in June 1982 in an attempt to destroy the PLO bases in the country and the PLO headquarters in the Lebanese capital of Beirut. PLO was subsequently forced to evacuate Beirut. In 1987, the outbreak of the popular uprising, intifā ah, led the PLO leaders to consider negotiations with Israel. On November 15, 1988, the PLO declared the State of Palestine, quasi-state and the following year Arafāt was elected its president, thus crystalizing the two-nation solution. The PLO, however, alienated its major financial aid providers in 1990 by deciding to support Iraq during the Persian Gulf War. In 1993, Israel and the PLO signed their first set of agreements called the Oslo Accords. Despite sporadic success, the negotiation failed with the outbreak of the Al-Aqṣā intifā ah in the first decade of the 2000s, with Hamas threatening to overshadow the PLO in Palestine. The PLO’s efforts gained Palestine an observer state status at the United Nations in 2012.

1908 - James Bond creator, Ian Fleming, is born 1918 - The Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan is established. 1937 - Volkswagen is founded. 1940 - Belgium surrenders to Germany in World War II. 1961 - Amnesty International is founded. Palestine Liberation Organization Palestine Liberation Organization You are here: Home / About Palestine / Palestine Liberation Organization Palestine Liberation Organization The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was established in 1964 and has been the embodiment of the Palestinian national movement. It is a broad national front, or an umbrella organization, comprised of numerous organizations of the resistance movement, political parties, popular organizations, and independent personalities and figures from all sectors of life. The Arab Summit in 1974 recognized the PLO as the “sole and legitimate representative of the Palestinian people” and since then the PLO has represented Palestine at the United Nations, the Movement of Non-Aligned Countries (NAM), the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), and in many other fora.

In addition to its broad national and political goals, the PLO has dealt with numerous tasks with regard to the life of the Palestinian people in their main communities and throughout the world through the establishment of several institutions in such realms as health, education and social services. As such, the PLO is more than a national liberation movement striving to achieve the national goals of the Palestinian people, including the independence of the State of Palestine with East Jerusalem as its capital. Structure of the Palestine Liberation Organization Palestine National Council The PNC, which is the highest decision-making body of the PLO, is considered to be the parliament of all Palestinians inside and outside of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including Jerusalem. The PNC normally sets PLO policies, elects the Executive Committee and makes the necessary changes in its own membership, as well as changes to the Palestine National Charter (a special meeting is required) and to the Fundamental Law of the organization. The PNC also elects a speaker, two deputies and a secretary, who make up the Bureau of the Council. The Council has its own standing committees for various aspects of its work, such as its legal and political committees.

The composition of the PNC represents all sectors of the Palestinian community worldwide and includes numerous organizations of the resistance movement, political parties, popular organizations (each of the above is represented by specific quotas) and independent personalities and figures from all sectors of life, including intellectuals, religious leaders and businessmen. Central Council The Central Council, which was established by the PNC in 1973, is the second leading body of the PLO. The Council functions as an intermediary body between the PNC and the Executive Committee. At present, the membership stands at 124, including 15 representatives of the PLC. Executive Committee The Executive Committee is the daily leading body of the PLO and it represents the organization at the international level. The Committee is elected by the members of PNC and it is responsible to the PNC. Its main function is to execute the policies and decisions set out by the PNC and the Central Council. The Committee is also responsible for adopting a budget and for overseeing the functioning of the departments of the PLO, the responsibilities of which are distributed among its members. Decisions of the Committee are taken by a simple majority. Its membership stands at 18, including its Chairman. Members of the Executive Committee: Chairman: H.E.

Dr. Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) Secretary-General: Mr. Wasel Abu Yousef Palestine National Fund The Fund is managed by a board of directors and by a chairman who is elected by the PNC and who automatically serves on the Executive Committee. The other members of the board are appointed by the Executive Committee, with a maximum of 11 members. Revenues for the fund come from two sources – a fixed tax on the wages earned by all Palestinians living in Arab countries and collected by those respective governments and from financial contributions by Arab governments and peoples, an amount that in the past was substantial. Palestine Liberation Army The Palestine Liberation Army (PLA) was established as the official military branch of the PLO in 1964, in accordance with the resolutions of the 1st Palestinian Conference (the 1st PNC). At that time, three brigades were established: Ein Jalut in Gaza and Egypt, Kadissiyah in Iraq, and Hiteen in Syria. In practice, those brigades were dominated by the general command of the armed forces of their respective host countries.

Over time, however, changes were made to the PLA’s structure, including, for instance, the establishment in 1968 of commando units in Gaza to fight against the Israeli occupation, known as Kuwat al-Tahrir Al-Sha’biya (Popular Liberation Troops). With the establishment of the Palestine National Authority (PNA) in the mid 1990’s, important parts of those brigades were absorbed into the PNA security forces. Departments The Organization has established departments that are responsible for several important spheres of work, each headed by a member of the Executive Committee. The departments include, among others, the Political Department, the Department of Returnees, the Department of Culture and Information, and the Department of Popular Organizations. Palestine Liberation Organization facts, information, pictures | Encyclopedia.com articles about Palestine Liberation Organization Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East and North Africa COPYRIGHT 2004 The Gale Group, Inc. 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 The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright The Columbia University Press Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), coordinating council for Palestinian organizations, founded (1964) by Egypt and the Arab League and initially controlled by Egypt. Composed of various guerrilla groups and political factions, the PLO is dominated by Al Fatah, the largest group, whose leader, Yasir Arafat , was chairman of the PLO from 1969 to 2004 and established Palestinian control over the organization.

Other groups in the PLO include the Syrian-backed As Saiqa and the Marxist-oriented Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). The PLO was initially committed to the dissolution of Israel, mainly through the use of armed force. Since its founding, the organization has sponsored innumerable guerrilla raids on Israeli civilian and military targets. although it has disclaimed responsibility for many of the Palestinian movement's more spectacular acts of terror. In 1974 the PLO received UN recognition, and a government in exile was recognized by Arab nations as a basis for a future Palestinian state, to be formed from land regained from Israel along the west bank of the Jordan River. In 1976 the PLO was granted full membership in the Arab League. In 1982 the PLO was weakened when, after the Israeli siege of Beirut , Lebanon (see Arab-Israeli Wars ), PLO guerrillas in West Beirut were dispersed to other Arab countries. In 1988 the PLO responded to the Palestinian uprising, or Intifada , in the West Bank and Gaza Strip by proclaiming the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. The PLO also equivocally recognized Israel's right to exist and renounced terrorism.

In 1991 the Lebanese army, with Syrian backing, forced the PLO out of its strongholds in S Lebanon, and PLO relations with the West deteriorated because of PLO support of Iraq in the Persian Gulf War . In 1993, a peace agreement between the PLO and Israel was reached providing for mutual recognition and a transition to a degree of Palestinian self-rule in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In 1994, Arafat appointed an interim 19-member Palestinian Authority (PA), under his direction, to administer Palestinian affairs in the areas of self-rule; the Palestinian Authority has since become independent of the PLO. Under a 1995 accord, self-rule was extended over a two-year period to all major Arab cities and villages in the West Bank, except East Jerusalem. Arafat was elected president of the Palestinian-controlled territory in 1996. In the same year the PLO formally revoked all clauses in its founding charter that called for the dissolution of Israel, and Arafat pledged to fight terrorism.

Agreements in the late 1990s gradually increased the area of the West Bank under Palestinian control, but violence resumed in 2000 after further negotiations with Israel stalled. Following Arafat's death in 2004, Mahmoud Abbas succeeded him as PLO chairman and in 2005 as Palestinian president. In the Palestinian legislative council elections in 2006, Hamas won a majority of the seats in a victory that in part was a rejection of the corruption and failures associated with the PLO. Subsequently there was fighting between Al Fatah and Hamas forces in 2006 and 2007, and when Hamas seized control in Gaza in June, 2007, Abbas dismissed the Hamas-led government, accusing it of an attempted coup. Attempts since then to establish a national unity government including both Al Fatah and Hamas failed until 2014, but tensions between the two continued . Cite this article World Encyclopedia © World Encyclopedia 2005, originally published by Oxford University Press 2005. Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Organization of Palestinian parties and groups, widely recognized as the main representative of the Palestinian people.

Founded in 1964, with the aim of dissolving the state of Israel and establishing a Palestinian state to enable Palestinian refugees to return to their ancestral land, many of its component guerrilla groups engaged in political violence against Israel. In the 1970s, these guerrilla activities escalated into acts of international terrorism. Dominated by the al-Fatah group led by Yasir Arafat , in 1974 the United Nations and the Arab League recognized the PLO as a government-in-exile. In the early 1990s, PLO representatives conducted secret negotiations with Israel, culminating in the Israeli-Palestinian Accord (1993). See also Gaza Strip ; Palestine ; West Bank Cite this article

Question: In which year was the Palestine Liberation Organisation formed?
Answer: 1964