The PLO, Arafat and the armed struggle
Refugees organise their own national movement; under Yasser Arafat the PLO wages guerrilla war and terrorism, wins world recognition, and in 1988 declares a state alongside Israel.
- Armed Struggle and the Search for State: The Palestinian National Movement, 1949–1993 — Yezid Sayigh, Oxford University Press (1997)
- The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood — Rashid Khalidi, Beacon Press (2006)
- Yasser Arafat — Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World — Avi Shlaim, W. W. Norton (2014)
The Palestine Liberation Organization was founded in 1964 under Arab League sponsorship. The real energy, though, came from Fatah, founded in the late 1950s by young refugees including Yasser Arafat, which launched guerrilla raids from 1965. After the Arab defeat of 1967, and a battle at the Jordanian village of Karameh in March 1968 in which fighters stood up to an Israeli raid, Fatah took over the PLO, and Arafat became its chairman in 1969.
- Armed Struggle and the Search for State: The Palestinian National Movement, 1949–1993 — Yezid Sayigh, Oxford University Press (1997)
- Yasser Arafat — Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica
Based first in Jordan, the PLO was expelled after fighting with King Hussein’s army in “Black September” 1970, and moved to Lebanon. Factions carried out hijackings and attacks on civilians, including the killing of eleven Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics by the Black September group.
- Armed Struggle and the Search for State: The Palestinian National Movement, 1949–1993 — Yezid Sayigh, Oxford University Press (1997)
- Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881–2001 — Benny Morris, Vintage (2001)
- Address to the United Nations General Assembly, 13 November 1974 — Yasser Arafat, United Nations (1974)
- Armed Struggle and the Search for State: The Palestinian National Movement, 1949–1993 — Yezid Sayigh, Oxford University Press (1997)
Driven from Lebanon to Tunis in 1982, the PLO regained relevance with the first intifada. On 15 November 1988 in Algiers its parliament in exile declared a State of Palestine, in a text written by Mahmoud Darwish, implicitly accepting partition; Arafat soon renounced terrorism and accepted Resolution 242, opening talks with the US.
- Armed Struggle and the Search for State: The Palestinian National Movement, 1949–1993 — Yezid Sayigh, Oxford University Press (1997)
- The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood — Rashid Khalidi, Beacon Press (2006)
A national liberation movement, comparable to Algeria's or Vietnam's, that forced the world to recognise the Palestinians and moved, at great cost, from armed struggle to diplomacy.
- Armed Struggle and the Search for State: The Palestinian National Movement, 1949–1993 — Yezid Sayigh, Oxford University Press (1997)
- The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood — Rashid Khalidi, Beacon Press (2006)
A terrorist organisation that deliberately targeted civilians, including athletes and schoolchildren, until it recognised Israel in 1993, and whose leader never fully abandoned violence.
- Israel: A History — Anita Shapira, Brandeis University Press (2012)
- Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881–2001 — Benny Morris, Vintage (2001)
Why it matters today
The PLO turned a dispersed refugee population back into a people with a voice and a flag. It is still, formally, the representative of all Palestinians, and its symbols and songs remain central even as many Palestinians feel it has grown old and remote.