Hello! :)
I'm currently reading a book about the history of the Israel/Palestine conflict. I just finished a chapter on the Palestinian Liberation Organization, and I have a few unanswered questions.
How was the PLO involved in terror attacks? I know it was involved somehow; I just don't understand wether terror was ever explicitly endorsed by the PLO, wether it was something that was directly carried out by the PLO, or something else entirely.
On a somewhat unrelated note, does anybody know of a really good timeline of the Israel-Palestine conflict? A super detailed timeline would be a very helpful thing for me to reference while I'm reading about Palestinian history.
Thanks!
Hi!
The PLO was explicitly involved in many, and endorsed them as well. But to understand that, it's important to know that the PLO was not a single organization technically. It was more of an umbrella organization. Only in later years did it become dominated by one party (Fatah). Until then, and until well after its founding in 1964, it still included representatives from groups like the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), the DFLP (Replace Popular with Democratic), and more. Each of these groups carried out terrorist attacks. For example, the PFLP hijacked numerous planes, and fired on them as well, sometimes killing passengers and sometimes not. Fatah trained many who would go on to carry out attacks against Israel, and some of their offshoots (which they appear to have funded and assisted, though clear direction is murkier) have carried out attacks against Israelis as well.
One case that is now assumed to have been under Fatah leadership is Black September. The CIA declassified a report that stated that Black September was under the direction of Fatah (led by Yasser Arafat) and its intelligence organization, though Arafat would often feign ignorance and avoid direct contact with them, instead assigning deputies to do the dirty work. Black September was the organization that carried out the infamous Munich Massacre, where Israeli Olympic athletes were kidnapped and murdered in 1972 (kidnapped from their apartments in the Olympic village, no less). They also struck airports (like in Athens) and conducted other operations as well, but Fatah mainly focused on Israeli targets after 1974, before renouncing terrorism publicly in 1988 (and formally doing so in 1993).
This is a basic outline of the PLO's functions, but there are mountains of cases I could talk about.
As far as a timeline, it's very difficult to find one that could cover everything easily. Unfortunately, I don't think I know of one, and creating one would take more time than I have!