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Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)

Political organization founded in 1964 to represent Palestinians; historically combined armed struggle, diplomacy and governance roles and holds UN observer status since 1974.

Author: Leandro Alegsa Creation date: November 13, 2022 Last updated: May 14, 2026

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The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) is a political and national umbrella organization established in 1964 to represent the Palestinian people and their national aspirations. Originally formed with the declared aim of liberating Palestinian territory and achieving Palestinian self-determination, the PLO combined diplomatic activity, political organization and armed struggle during different phases of its history. It has been recognized by many states and international bodies as the representative of the Palestinian people and has held observer status at the United Nations since 1974 (UN observer status).

Structure and major components

The PLO is a coalition of political factions, organizations and institutions rather than a single party. Its main organs include the Palestine National Council (PNC), which functions as a kind of parliament in exile, and the Executive Committee, which acts as the organization's leadership. Fatah has been the dominant political current within the PLO since the 1960s and has provided many of its leaders and negotiators (Fatah). Other secular nationalist and leftist groups have also participated in the PLO over time; the internal balance among these groups has influenced PLO policy and tactics (PLO factions).

History and key developments

The PLO was created against a backdrop of regional upheaval and the displacement of Palestinians after the 1948 Arab–Israeli war. In its early decades the organization endorsed armed struggle against Israel and was involved in clashes and campaigns across the region, a record that shaped how it was viewed internationally and by Israel (armed clashes). Over time the PLO also built diplomatic ties and sought international recognition, culminating in its UN observer status in the 1970s.

Yasser Arafat emerged as the most prominent PLO leader from the late 1960s and served as its chairman for many years (Yasser Arafat). A major turning point came in the early 1990s when the PLO leadership engaged in direct negotiations with Israel, leading to the Oslo process. The Oslo Accords, signed in 1993, set out mutual recognition between the PLO and Israel and created a framework for limited Palestinian self-rule in parts of the territory (Oslo Accords). The principal Israeli signatory was Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin (Yitzhak Rabin), who served as Israel's prime minister at the time (Prime Minister of Israel); Rabin was later assassinated by an Israeli extremist who opposed the peace process (Yigal Amir).

From Oslo to the present

The Oslo agreements led to the creation of the Palestinian National Authority to administer parts of the West Bank and Gaza in the interim period envisaged by the accords (Palestinian National Authority). That body exercises varying degrees of civil and security control in different areas of the West Bank and once governed Gaza as well (West Bank, Gaza). After Arafat's death in 2004, Mahmoud Abbas became chairman of the PLO and later president of the Palestinian Authority, continuing negotiations and diplomatic activity on behalf of many Palestinians (Mahmoud Abbas).

Political role, claims and controversies

The PLO continues to serve as the primary diplomatic representative of Palestinians in many international fora and in bilateral relations with states. It advocates for Palestinian national rights including self-determination and the claim of a right of return for refugees displaced in and after 1948 (right of return). At the same time, its past use of armed struggle and association with militant groups have been central controversies; critics and supporters disagree about the legitimacy and effectiveness of different tactics. Internal Palestinian politics are plural and sometimes adversarial: for instance, Hamas is an influential Palestinian movement that has operated largely outside the PLO structures and at times has been in competition with it (Hamas).

Notable functions and challenges

Representation: The PLO acts as a diplomatic voice for Palestinians in international institutions and bilateral relations (UN).
Governance link: Through Oslo-era arrangements it is linked to the institutions that govern parts of the West Bank and Gaza (PNA, West Bank, Gaza).
Internal politics: Managing diverse factions and reconciling different strategies—negotiation, popular resistance, or armed action—remains a persistent challenge (factional balance).

In summary, the PLO is a central institution in modern Palestinian political life with a complex legacy of struggle, diplomacy and state-building efforts. Its evolving role reflects both internal Palestinian dynamics and the broader regional and international context in which Palestinian aspirations are pursued.

Logo of the PLO .

History

Founding history

Ahmad Shukeiri, Palestine's representative to the Arab League, was charged with the establishment of an executive organization of the Palestinian side at the Arab League Summit Conference in Cairo in 1964. On May 28, 1964, the first Palestinian National Council P.N.C. met in Jerusalem and decided to establish an "Organization for the Liberation of Palestine" on June 1, 1964. Shuqairi assumed the leadership of the organization. Under Schuqairi (or Y. Hammudas after 1967) the PLO was de facto a tool of Egyptian policy.

Motives for the foundation

The initiative came from the Egyptian president at the time, Gamal Abdel Nasser, who saw political and military potential in the young Palestinians living in refugee camps, which he intended to use for himself. He entrusted his friend Ahmed Shuqairi with the PLO presidency.
Nasser claimed leadership of the Arab world for himself. After the Israelis' Jordan project, he felt compelled to take action and defend this claim.
The PLO was to be an official representation of the Arab people of Palestine and under the control of the Arab League.
The leadership of the various Palestinian groups, which until then had operated as secret resistance movements, was to be centralized.

Further development and detachment from pan-Arabism

Fatah remained aloof from the PLO for the time being. The Six-Day War of 1967 led to an intensification of the Palestinian problem in the Middle East. As a result of the new Israeli conquests, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians came under foreign rule or fled. As a result of the devastating defeats of the Arab armies, the Palestinian refugees were not fulfilled their twenty-year hope that "they would only have to wait in their camps for help from the neighbouring Arab countries". Instead of the repeatedly promised solution to the Palestine problem, the constant state of war brought new misery and occupation instead of freedom and self-determination. The Palestinians no longer wanted to be a calculus in the interest politics of Nasser and other aspiring Arab rulers. After Nasser's defeat in the 1967 Six-Day War, Shuqairi also lost influence and had to hand over the PLO leadership to the lawyer Hammudi.

In 1968, after a terrorist attack on a bus filled with Israeli children, the Battle of Karame took place, ushering in the takeover of the PLO by the Palestinian resistance led by Yasser Arafat. That same year, the PLO's mandates were redistributed. The resistance movements now formed the majority. Fatah was the strongest faction in the PLO. The armed struggle against Israel was included in the National Charter, the PLO's basic program. Hammudi was defeated on 3 February 1969 by Yasser Arafat, founder and leader of the militant-revolutionary al-Fatah and symbolic figure for the Palestinians' liberation aspirations and for the new self-image as a Palestinian people. From then on, the PLO pursued a decidedly Palestinian nationalism and the goal of establishing a secular state of Palestine within the borders of the old British Mandate territory of 1920 (this includes the territories of present-day Israel, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, part of the Golan Heights, and the Kingdom of Jordan).

With Fatah's takeover of the PLO, the focus of its work shifted from the political to the military. Numerous radical sub-groups became part of the PLO and have since had a strong influence on its activities. From 1970 onwards, the PLO fought an armed underground struggle, mainly from Beirut in Lebanon. Prior to that, it and other rebel groups had been expelled from Jordan after Black September. The expulsion from Jordan was triggered by an assassination attempt by the Palestinian DFLP on Jordan's King Hussein I, which resulted in a full-scale civil war. In the fierce battles between the PLO and the Jordanian military, some 3,000-5,000 Palestinians were killed, including many civilians. In its new base of operations, Lebanon, the PLO was soon again the cause of a civil war when it began to engage in skirmishes with local militias. First it fought the Maronite Phalange militia, and later the Shiite Amal militia. For this reason, the PLO was extremely hated by many Lebanese - Muslims and Christians alike; the Israeli invasion in 1978 even found brief support among large segments of the Lebanese population.

In the 1970s, the PLO was an umbrella organization of eight organizations with headquarters in Damascus as well as Beirut. However, the PLO's relations with Syria deteriorated in the early 1980s. In 1999, Syrian Defense Minister Mustafa Tlas called Arafat a "son of 60,000 prostitutes." Yasser Arafat first visited Damascus again in 2000, after a 17-year absence, at the funeral of President Hafiz al-Assad. Since Arafat's death, however, there seems to have been a rapprochement by Mahmoud Abbas with Syria. Through numerous attacks against civilians (hostage-takings, such as the Munich hostage-taking during the 1972 Olympic Games, or airplane hijackings), the PLO gained worldwide attention. At the meeting of the Arab League in 1974, the PLO was recognized as the only legitimate representation of the Palestinian people, and shortly thereafter it was also recognized by the United Nations, receiving observer status in the UN General Assembly. Its sometimes very bloody actions in Israel contributed to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon (see Ma'alot Massacre and Coastal Road Attack).

Loss of exclusive representation and development from 1987 onwards

With the First Intifada, beginning in 1987, the PLO's claim to sole representation and its leadership role among the Palestinians suffered. Organizations with more radical positions, such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad, gained more and more importance. Iraq's support of the Arafat-led PLO during the Second Gulf War resulted in the expulsion of Palestinians from Kuwait in 1991 and the collapse of Arab support for the PLO. Within days, some 450,000 Palestinians were forced to leave Kuwait. The catastrophe, which was comparable to the Nakba but received much less media attention, had consequences insofar as the Palestinians began secret mediations with Israel, which led to the Oslo Accords. Only after Arafat's death were leading Palestinian representatives prepared to apologise for supporting Hussein.

As of 1993, the PLO still played a significant role as a Palestinian partner in the Oslo and Cairo peace negotiations with the USA and Israel, and advanced Palestinian autonomy on the basis of the Gaza-Jericho Agreement. For the mutual recognition between the PLO and Israel, Yasser Arafat received the Nobel Peace Prize together with Yitzchak Rabin and Shimon Peres. In the first elections in the autonomous territories on January 20, 1996, Fatah received a large share of the vote and PLO leader Arafat was elected president of the autonomous authority. The establishment of Palestinian autonomy and Arafat's diplomatic successes initially brought back lost sympathy to the PLO.

With the failure of further peace negotiations at Camp David in 2000, however, a peace settlement was once again a distant prospect, and a lack of willingness to compromise on both sides has since led to growing conflicts. At the end of 2000, the second Intifada broke out, in which the PLO took part. A spiral of terror and retaliation reversed much progress. With Yasser Arafat under house arrest by the Israelis in 2001, his and the PLO's position of power declined further; more extremist organizations continued to gain ground ever since. The PLO maintained its own prisons in Lebanon, incarcerating Palestinians who did not want to support the PLO's struggle either personally or financially.

In the course of the rapprochement between Fatah and Hamas in 2011, it was announced that Hamas and Islamic Jihad would also be represented in the PLO in the future. On December 22, 2011, a provisional leadership committee was constituted in Cairo to prepare the accession of the two organizations.

Arafat (r.) with Ehud Barak (l.) and Bill Clinton in Oslo in November 1999

The National Charter

The text of the Palestinian National Charter, as amended in 1968, contains many sections calling for the destruction of Israel. In an exchange of letters between Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin, which took place in connection with the interim agreement on the West Bank and Gaza, Arafat agreed to remove these sections. On April 26, 1996, the Palestinian National Council voted to delete or correct all of these sections and determined that a new text should be drafted. A letter from Arafat to then U.S. President Bill Clinton in 1998 listed all the affected sections, and a meeting of the Palestinian National Council approved this listing. A public meeting of members of the PLO, the National Council (PNC) and the PLO Central Council (PCC), with Clinton present, also endorsed the letter.

Despite this, a new text for the National Charter was never drafted, leading to ongoing controversy. Critics of the Palestinian organizations claim that the fact that no changes were made proves the insincerity of the Palestinian side. One of the responses to this has been that the constitution of the future state of Palestine would replace the charter. The draft constitution published in 2003 contains the following section regarding the territory of the state: "it is an indivisible entity, based on the borders of 4 June 1967".

No change has been made to the Charter. Article 22, for example, still calls for the destruction of Israel. The Charter can be viewed in a German translation, for example, on the official website of the Palestinian representation in Berlin.