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Exploding the Myth of the PLO
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11143 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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3 / 1986 |
4,972 Words |
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Jillian Becker
Jillian Becker has traveled extensively throughout the Middle
East, interviewing those on all sides of the conflict. In
addition to numerous articles and broadcasts on the subject of
the PLO, she has authored a book, The PLO, The rise and Fall
of the Palestine Liberation Organization, 1984, Soviet.
Martin's Press. |
If the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) can be said to exist at all anymore, it can only be as a political fiction. This has been the case for some years now, but until a few months ago it suited the interests of many states, both Western and Eastern, to believe in it the way older children still let themselves believe in Santa Claus--and for the same reason: most of them still hoped it might bring them a present, namely, peace negotiations.
The PLO Before 1982
The PLO was never a cohesive organization. Before its ultimate disintegration in 1982, it consisted of eight groups, supported by different Arab powers. These were inimical to each other, and within the PLO the enmities were fought out, frequently and with bloodshed, group against group, so representative were they, not of the Palestinians, but of their masters.
The largest group was Fatah, led by Yasser Arafat, who from February 1969 had the title of chairman of the PLO. He received money chiefly from Saudi Arabia, some from other Arab oil producers, and some from taxes levied on Palestinian workers in a number of Arab states.
The second biggest was Saiqa, supported by Syria, whose interest in "liberating" Palestine was to acquire it as a Syrian province. Another was the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), led by a Greek orthodox Lebanese doctor, George Habash, whose first patron was President Nasser of Egypt.
From his group two others had broken off in the late
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