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Palestine,
Israel and the Arab-Israeli Conflict
A Primer
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The
Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)
The
Arab League established the PLO in 1964 as an effort to control
Palestinian nationalism while appearing to champion the cause. The
Arab defeat in the 1967 war enabled younger, more militant Palestinians
to take over the PLO and gain some independence from the Arab regimes.
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PLO
leader Yasser Arafat addressing Palestinian children. |
The
PLO includes different political and armed groups with varying ideological
orientations. Yasser Arafat is the leader of Fatah, the largest
group, and has been PLO chairman since 1968. The other major groups
are the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), the
Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) and, in
the occupied territories, the Palestine Peoples Party (PPP, formerly
the Communist Party). Despite factional differences, the majority
of Palestinians regard the PLO as their representative.
In
the 1960s, the PLO's primary base of operations was Jordan. In 1970-71,
fighting with the Jordanian army drove the PLO leadership out of
the country, forcing it to relocate to Lebanon. When the Lebanese
civil war started in 1975, the PLO became a party in the conflict.
After the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, the PLO leadership
was expelled from the country, relocating once more to Tunisia.
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Palestinian
women training. |
Until
1993, Israel did not acknowledge Palestinian national rights or
recognize the Palestinians as an independent party to the conflict.
Israel refused to negotiate with the PLO, arguing that it was nothing
but a terrorist organization, and insisted on dealing only with
Jordan or other Arab states. It rejected the establishment of a
Palestinian state, insisting that Palestinians should be incorporated
into the existing Arab states. This intransigence ended when Israeli
representatives entered into secret negotiations with the PLO, which
led to the Oslo Declaration of Principles (see below).
UN
Security Council Resolution 242
After
the 1967 war, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 242, which
notes the "inadmissability of the acquisition of territory
by force," and calls for Israeli withdrawal from lands seized
in the war and the right of all states in the area to peaceful existence
within secure and recognized boundaries. The grammatical construction
of the French version of Resolution 242 says Israel should withdraw
from "the territories," whereas the English version of
the text calls for withdrawal from "territories." (Both
English and French are official languages of the UN.) Israel and
the United States use the English version to argue that Israeli
withdrawal from some, but not all, the territory occupied in the
1967 war satisfies the requirements of this resolution.
For
many years the Palestinians rejected Resolution 242 because it does
not acknowledge their right to national self-determination or to
return to their homeland. It calls only for a just settlement of
the refugee problem. By calling for recognition of every state in
the area, Resolution 242 entailed unilateral Palestinian recognition
of Israel without recognition of Palestinian national rights.
Page
9 | The October 1973
War
Camp David I
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