PALESTINE LIBERATION ORGANIZATION

(PLO), coordinating council for Palestinian organizations, founded (1964) at the first Arab summit meeting. Composed of various guerrilla groups and political factions, the PLO is dominated by Al Fatah, the largest group, whose leader, Yasir Arafat, has been chairman of the PLO since 1968. 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. However, the PLO 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 the other 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 (see Gaza) 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 National Authority, under his direction, to administer Palestinian affairs in the areas of self-rule. 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. In 2003 the appointment of Mahmoud Abbas as Palestinian prime minister and the acceptance by Palestinians and Israelis of the internationally supported "road map for peace" led to a brief reduction in violence and new talks, but the cycle soon resumed. Abbas resigned, and Ahmad Qurei was appointed to succeed him, but Qurei, like Abbas, clashed with Arafat over control of the PLO's security forces.

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