Using events from 1968 onwards explain why the PLO moved making peace with Israel in 1993.

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Tom Charleson

Using events from 1968 onwards explain why the PLO moved making peace with Israel in 1993.

After WW2 the leaders of the superpowers of the world (America, Britain, and France) felt it was right to give the Jewish people a country of their own, after the horrors they endured at the hands of Hitler. They decided that the small country of Palestine, in the Middle East would be the ideal place, even though there were many Arabs living there already. They would rename the Jewish part of Palestine Israel. This would obviously anger the native Palestinians because they were forced to give up half of their land, which they had had for thousands of years, and all of the people living in those areas would lose their homes. This naturally brought about conflicts between the two religions. I will be trying to explain why the PLO moved making peace with Israel in 1993. I will use the factors: The PLO; Israel and the USA to back up my points.

The PLO (Palestine Liberation Organisation) was formed in 1964 as a direct consequence of the Jews living in Palestine and they are the also the largest Palestinian group of freedom fighters. In 1968 Yasser Arafat became the leader of the PLO and he has remained there, forever since. He believes that Palestine cannot defeat Israel through war, but instead they should use terrorism to try and destroy Israel. He said: “When we hi-jack a plane it has more effect than if we killed 100 Israelis in battle.”

Because of all of the wars between Palestine and Israel the PLO and many other Palestinians were living in Jordan, and in 1970 Jordan expelled the PLO, killing 10,000 Palestinians. They did this because they felt that the Palestinians were getting to strong and were threatening to overwhelm Jordan. Just before the Palestinians were kicked out 60% of Jordan’s population was Palestinian. This is a turning point because now that the PLO has been kicked out of Jordan, they have no good base from which to attack Israel. They also have lost a good ally. Then in 1982 after the PLO tried to murder an Israeli ambassador in London Israel retaliated by invading Lebanon and trapping the PLO in Beirut but the USA negotiated to get the PLO out. Now the PLO were scattered across 8 different Arab counties. Then in 1983 the PLO were expelled from Syria and instead moved to Libya.

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In 1972 the PLO took Israeli athletes hostage and eventually killed them at the Munich Olympic Games. In response to this Israel launched an air attack on Syria and Jordan, killing 500 people. In 1978 the PLO again demonstrated an act of terrorism by hi-jacking an Israeli bus and killing 39 civilians. In response to this Israel invaded Lebanon and killed 2,500 Palestinians and displaced 250,000. Both of these are significant turning points, because if we look at the damage caused to both sides, we can see that the Israelis dealt out far more casualties to the PLO and Palestine, ...

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