The Rise of the PLO and Arafat

1. The Rise of the PLO and Arafat

2. Q.O.D. 2-25-14 • Take a few moments to analyze/assess the outcome of the Suez Crisis.

3. Sources Used • http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/palestinian_liberation_order.htm • http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/plohistoryofrevolution • http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1994/arafat-facts.html • Arab-Israeli Conflict, Bickerton and Klausner

4. The Beginnings • In 1964, Gamal Abdul Nasser, the Egyptian president, convened the first Arab summit in Cairo. His aim was to lead an Arab response to the state of Israel and the deal with Israel’s planned diversion of the Jordan River waters. The Arab leaders voted to set up a body to organize the Palestinians in their diaspora. The summit also provided for the formation of a Palestinian Liberation Army

5. Ahmad al-Shuqairy, a Palestinian diplomat, was chosen to head the newly-formed body, The Palestine Liberation Organization.. Al-Shuqairy wanted an organization that would not just kowtow to Arab regimes. The PLO’s primary objective was to gain (though from their point of view regain) the land handed by the United Nations to Israel.

6. In its infancy, the PLO was not associated with violence. But from 1967 on, it became dominated by an organization called Fatah - meaning liberation or conquest.

8. Fatah and Arafat • Yasir (Yasser) Arafat grew up in Cairo and Jerusalem. He took part in the war against the new state of Israel in 1948, when many Palestinians were expelled. From there, he organized the guerrilla group Fatah, which attacked Israel. As Fatah languished in the aftermath of the Suez crisis, he moved to Kuwait where her worked as a successful engineer.

9. The 1967 War

10. In the aftermath of Arab defeat in the 1967 Six Day War, Palestinian guerrilla factions consolidated their grip on the refugee camps in the Arab world. In 1969, Fatah leader Yasser Arafat was elected chairman of the PLO, marking a new era in which the guerrillas overthrew the traditional hold of more established Palestinian families.

11. Palestinian Refugee Camp in Syria, 1967

12. Fatah became more extreme as Israel became more successful militarily (1967 and 1973) and more intransigent about handing back land conquered from the Arabs (Sinai and the Golan Heights in particular). Even more extreme units developed within the PLO. Probably the two most associated with terrorism were ‘Black September’ and the ‘Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine’.

13. These two groups believed that the only way Israel could be forced into returning land was to use violence – and bombing, hijacking and murder became their modus operandi.

14. 29 hijackings attempted or carried out by Palestinian factions between 1968 and 1977--trigger the Jordanian civil war, also known as Black September, as the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the PFLP attempt to seize control of Jordan from King Hussein.

15. The most infamous act of terrorism, among many, was the attack on the Israeli Olympic squad at the Munich Olympics in September1972. Though this attack was carried out by members of ‘Black September’, the main thrust of attention was on the umbrella movement it was in – the PLO. At the Munich Olympics, two Israeli wrestlers were killed outright by the terrorists while nine were held hostage.

17. An attempted rescue bid by the German police failed and the nine athletes were killed along with two German police and five terrorists. The surviving terrorists were arrested and imprisoned. Just six weeks later they were flown to Libya as a German airliner had been hijacked by ‘Black September’ and the threat of killing all on board was enough to win the freedom of those who had been involved in the Munich murders.