The Plo: The Rise and Fall of the Palestine Liberation Organization

Jilian Becker's book is not new, it is from 1984, but still a good, and I would say, necessary read. She counters some popular beliefs about the origin of the conflict in the Middle East, about the role of the PLO and the various terrorist groups that partly rivaled with the PLO or infiltrated it successfully like Yassir Arafat's Fatah. She puts the Balfour Declaration into the perspective of the historic times of WWI, by explaining the original controvery between Jews and Arabs (not Palestians) and their numbers respectively, as well as their aims. With the rise of Haj Amin el Husseini, the later Mufti of Jerusalem (then a city with a Jewish majority) to the most extreme leader of the Arab population in the British mandate, the concept of jihad was implemented into the conflict right from the start.The PLO was created as a tool of Nasser's ambitions to unify the Arab world but was later captured by Arafat's Fatah. Arafat himself was a great nephew of the Mufti and son of a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. The all or nothing policies of both, the Mufti and Arafat, resulted first in the independence of a Jewish state and later on to no solution for the refugee problem, thus into a complete failure.Becker points out that Britain received the mandate over Southern Syria (Palestine) from the WWI Peace conference and from the League of Nations respectively in part because of the promise made to the Jews for an own homeland, expressed in the Balfour Declaration. However, with the onslought of WWII Britain tried to accomodate the Arabs by denying further Jewish immigration but failed in that attempt. The Mufti and his ilk rather hoped for a Nazi victory.Becker describes in detail the massacre of the Lebanese village of Damour, which was inhabited by Christians, by the Arafat led PLO in order to establish an own headquarter there. The PLO practically ruled Lebanon in the Seventies and didn't even refrain from murdering foreign journalists like the German writer Robert Pfeffer, a man who contributed to the German leading magazines Der Spiegel and Stern. Becker also points to the alliance of various Palestinian groups to outside extremist or terrorist groups like the German neo-Nazis of the WSG Hoffmann, the German Red Army Faction, the Japanese Red Army Faction, the Italian Red Brigades, the Basque ETA, the IRA, and others.Becker concludes with the remark that the PLO was "nothing but a savage instrument of Arab politics". However, she did not foresee its later triumph in becoming recognized by many countries and the UN as a legitimate representation of the Palestinian Arabs.

Biased

At last I understand some of the historical background to the Middle East and the problems of Jewish-Arab relations, as well as the background to the terrorist groups and outrages blighting the world today. A clear and fascinating account which brings order to a subject which otherwise would be confusing and difficult: a book which is also both quickly and enjoyably read.