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Unlock This CourseThe Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), led by Yasser Arafat, wanted a Palestinian state. After Black September in 1970-71 it was forced out of Jordan and moved its fighters and offices to Lebanon. Many Palestinian refugees already lived there in camps. From bases in the south, PLO fighters raided northern Israel with rockets and small attacks, and Israel hit back.
Lebanon was weak. Since 1975 it had been in a civil war between rival groups, mostly split by religion. The government could not control the PLO or the south. In 1978 Israel sent troops into south Lebanon after a deadly PLO raid, and the UN sent a peacekeeping force. The attacks continued.
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On 3 June 1982 Israel's ambassador in London, Shlomo Argov, was shot and badly wounded. Israel blamed the PLO, although the gunmen belonged to a rival Palestinian group. On 6 June 1982 Israeli forces invaded Lebanon. Menachem Begin was prime minister and Ariel Sharon was defence minister.
The stated aim was to push the PLO about 40 kilometres back from the border. But the army went on to Beirut, the capital. Sharon also hoped to destroy the PLO's power and to help a Phalange leader, Bashir Gemayel, become president of Lebanon. Israel was now fighting a war in a foreign country, not just raiding.
From mid-June Israeli forces surrounded west Beirut, where PLO fighters and many civilians were. There were weeks of heavy bombardment, and supplies of food, water and electricity were cut. Israel faced strong criticism abroad, and at home too.
The US envoy Philip Habib arranged a deal. Thousands of PLO fighters left Beirut in August 1982 under the watch of a multinational force of American, French and Italian troops. Arafat left on 30 August. The PLO moved its headquarters to Tunis, far from Israel.
On 14 September 1982 Bashir Gemayel, by then president-elect, was killed by a bomb. The next day Israeli forces moved into west Beirut. Between 16 and 18 September Phalange fighters entered the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps and killed a large number of civilians, mostly Palestinians. Estimates range from several hundred to about 3,500. Israeli forces had surrounded the camps and let the Phalange in.
The killings shocked the world. In Israel there were large protests. An Israeli inquiry, the Kahan Commission, reported in February 1983. It found that Israeli leaders should have seen the danger, and that Sharon bore personal responsibility. He lost his post as defence minister.
The multinational force came back to Beirut, but Lebanon stayed at war. In April 1983 a bomb destroyed part of the US embassy in Beirut. On 23 October 1983 two truck bombs struck the US Marine and French paratrooper bases, killing 241 American and 58 French servicemen. Western troops then left.
Israel stayed in the south. Many Shia Muslims there had at first been glad to see the PLO go, but they came to resent the occupation. Hezbollah grew out of this anger and fought the Israeli forces. It would remain a major force, as a later lesson explains.
Change and continuity: a major Arab state made peace with Israel for the first time. But the Palestinian question was not settled, so the fighting moved to a new place and a new enemy. The PLO lost its base but not its cause.
How significant was the PLO in the development of the Arab-Israeli conflict in the years 1967-83? Explain your answer. [16 marks]
You may use the following in your answer:
You must also use information of your own.
The PLO was significant because it put the Palestinians back at the centre of the conflict and drew Israel into new wars. But Arab states and the great powers shaped events at least as much, so I would call it very significant, though not the most important force.
After the Arab defeat of 1967, the PLO under Arafat showed that Palestinians would fight for themselves. Guerrilla raids and the hijackings of 1970, followed by the Munich attack of 1972, brought world attention to the refugees. This mattered because the Arab states had lost the war and Palestinians had been treated as a refugee problem. Black September in 1970-71 then forced the PLO out of Jordan, which shows both its strength and its weakness.
In 1974 the Arab states at Rabat named the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinians. This gave it an official role in the conflict. In the same period, though, the great events were between states. Sadat's attack in 1973, Kissinger's shuttle diplomacy and the Camp David Agreements were decided by Egypt, Israel and the USA. The PLO was not at Camp David, and the agreements left the Palestinian question open.
The PLO's presence in Lebanon was the main reason Israel gave for the invasion of 1982, although Sharon also wanted to remove the PLO as a political force. Israel wanted to end the attacks from the north, and the war led to the siege of Beirut, the PLO's departure to Tunis and the killings at Sabra and Shatila. It also helped to create Hezbollah. So the PLO's presence changed the conflict by widening it, though it lost its bases.
Overall, the PLO was highly significant because it kept the Palestinian cause alive and led to the war in Lebanon. However, it was weaker than the states, which decided the wars and the peace. It was most significant as the cause of events, not as the power that controlled them.
This is a top answer because it covers several aspects, weighs the PLO against other forces, uses its own knowledge and ends with a justified judgement.
For "how significant" questions, judge significance by a criterion, such as how much the PLO changed events compared with the states, and say which criterion you are using in your conclusion.