Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

516 • PALESTINE LIBERATION ORGANIZATIONPalestinian Authority created on 4 May 1994 is often viewed as thesuccessor of the PLO, technically it is an interim governing agencyfor the administration of the Palestinian territories pending final statusnegotiations between Israel and the PLO. Within the Arab Leaguethe PLO remains the main representative of the Palestinian peopleboth within the Palestinian territories and among Palestinians livingoutside the territories of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.When the PLO was founded on 28 May 1964, its nominal leader,Ahmad al Shuqairy, had declared that its purpose was to “drive theJews into the sea.” Later the PLO asserted that it sought to establishan independent Palestinian homeland on any liberated part of “historicPalestine” and would recognize the right of the State of Israel to existin exchange for that homeland. In either case, it is a revolutionaryirredentist and ethnonationalist group that has, until recently, usedterrorism and armed struggle as a means to achieve an independentPalestinian national state. While some constituent members of thePLO, such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine(PFLP) and other groups, have stated the aims of creating a Pan-Arabrevolutionary movement, or a Marxist-Leninist revolution, or even aworld revolutionary movement, as among the goals of the Palestinians,such views are often idiosyncratic to these groups rather thanrepresentative of the PLO as a whole. Al Fatah, which has maintainedthe largest share of seats on the PLO Executive Committee, has notlinked the issue of Palestinian national rights to the goal of Pan-Arabunity or to any specific social-economic order or program.The original PLO was created by the first Palestine National Council(PNC) shortly after it convened on 28 May 1964, largely under thedirection of the Arab League. Its complete subservience to the Arabstates at that time was reflected in the fact that its national chartermade no mention of seeking to create an independent Palestinianstate. Members of al Fatah, the oldest Palestinian guerrilla group, basicallyignored the PLO at the time, regarding it as irrelevant to theirown preparations for armed struggle against Israel. After the Arabdefeat in the 1967 war discredited the Arab regimes sponsoring thePLO, al Fatah and other similar guerrilla groups entered the PLO andseized control in February 1969, electing the head of al Fatah, YasirArafat, as chairman of the PLO Executive Committee.While the PLO since then has been willing to accept material aidfrom the various Arab states, as well as from Iran following its 1978