The Foreign Policy of the PLO
Dr. Yezid Sayigh

In this case study, the PLO will be set in a cold war context, and we will be dealing with the opportunities and constraints facing the foreign policy of a non-state actor.

Foreign Policy Orientation

How did the PLO perceive foreign policy and international politics, and what kind of alignments did it have?

The PLO was based on the following key schools of thought:

Arab Nationalist Movement (ANM):
The ANM called for Pan-Arabism and Marxism (Habash and Hawatmeh) - it sought a big brother figure to aid the Palestinians. It was a strategy based on a wider alliance and held a strong normative view of policy.

2) Fatah school:
This group has its roots in Islamic groups. Most of Fatah’s leaders started out with Islamic movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood. Most members of Fatah were middle-class Gazans, with a modern, professional education, and they reflected the highly intellectual oppressed. Many had worked in the Gulf, ending up marginal people in Gulf society as part of the petite bourgeois. They sought statehood to attain their own identity and political system. The main tenants of Fatah ideology are as follows:

Strong state goals: The followers of the Fatah school of thought wanted a state, an entity, with their own Palestinian political institution to represent them.
Separate identity: The followers had a pragmatic approach, and did not think of the Palestinian entity as part of the Muslim state.
Dislike of political parties: They absorbed the ideologies and assumptions of the Muslim Brotherhood, which did not favor political parties.
Action-reaction theory: They saw politics in three circles: Palestinian, Arab, and the international arena:





The three circles affected each other: the Palestinian affected the Arab and that, in turn, affected the international. As a result of the war situation in which the PLO was working, there was little in terms of a democratic process. There was no change in the leadership: those with control maintained it and thus had a high degree of influence on foreign policy decisions.

Actual Foreign Policy

The ultimate aim was the establishment and recognition of a Palestinian state, as elaborated in the Falastinuna journal since 1954. The PLO was established in 1964, and when Fatah took over in l969, it brought its own notions of statehood and guerrilla movements. The PLO thus had a combination of both legitimacy and armed strategy, and enjoyed the recognition of a state without actually being one.

Early stages:
The PLO was recognized by the Arab states, and began to lobby the external environment in order to serve its national aims. It was conscious of the fact that it had to interact within an international arena, and it attempted to gain an understanding of its position within this system, searching for a strategy that would have international effects and acceptance. After facing rejection from the Soviet Union, the PLO tried to widen its relations with other liberation movements and Third World countries. China offered the PLO material assistance and invited it to open an office, and in 1970, the USSR came to the PLO to establish contacts. The search for a strategy continued, especially after the events of September 1970.

1970s:
The PLO was greatly affected by events in the international arena. After Nixon launched his strategic consensus plan - to shift responsibility to local allies - the Soviet Union increased its interest in local allies and the PLO, whilst establishing ties with Iraq and Egypt. The détente and various regional events caused the PLO to fear it was being left out in the cold, and thus it began to carry out acts to avoid being ignored. With the shift in the balance of powers - in USSR-US relations and in the region (October War, Arab unity, the oil embargo) - the PLO perceived a new regional order. It also realized that there was no support for a total Palestinian state, and it accepted the fact that diplomatic forces limited its aim of a state in all of Palestine: international events suggested that a more moderate policy would be more acceptable to the international community.

Strategy after 1973:
In light of such pressures, the PLO adopted a new strategy: its aim was no longer the destruction of Israel, but the establishment of a state in the West Bank and Gaza. It returned to its notion of three circles to achieve its aims, which were as follows:

Palestinian: The West Bank and Gaza become more important in PLO thinking. Moreover, leaders from the West Bank and Gaza became members of the PLO Executive Committee, and the number of members in the overall organization increased. There was a concerted effort to promote a new awareness of the importance of mass social action in the West Bank and Gaza.

Arab: The PLO sought to solidify support from the oil countries.

International: The PLO looked for new, stronger international backers, in addition to closer ties with the USSR, China and the Third World. In 1974, Europe became more active and by 1980 had established ties with the PLO.

The PLO succeeding in putting the Palestine Question - the issue of a Palestinian state with the PLO as the official Palestinian representative - on the international agenda. It maintained its military role, but only as a tool of diplomacy.


State building:
The PLO was beginning to operate at state level. It had a state shell, with an economy larger than some Third World countries, a semi-army, and an air force; it even began to train other forces. The PLO backed up friendly states, and succeeded in establishing a para-state position in the area, with its own offices in Western Europe. It worked on building and expanding its own institutions, social and otherwise, and was able to build an extensive, world-wide network. In 1979, the PLO received around US$4 billion in aid, and it seemed that everyone was on the PLO payroll. Everyone became part of the system, strengthening the social process of state-building. Meanwhile, the PLO, like a state, came under pressure from various angles, such as internal forces, Arab states, and the USSR, whenever it had to decide on important issues, such as the Camp David events.

External relations:
The Soviet Union became an important dimension in PLO policy and it was a key player in helping the PLO establish its international standing. However, Soviet influence and pressure on the PLO were limited; pressure was most effective only when alongside Arab pressure. In Soviet-PLO relations, the PLO was the key to the Soviet position in the region. Because of its ANM standing, the PLO could enhance or limit the Soviet position. Syria, at one time, had a stranglehold on the PLO because PLO forces were based in Syria - and its position vis-à-vis the PLO was thus much stronger than the Soviet Union’s. The PLO sought continuously to maintain good relations with all Arab states.

Second Cold War (1978-9):
International and regional events during this period, such as the Afghanistan War, the Iranian revolution, and the international confidence building measures in Europe, combined to threaten the strategy of the PLO, which now had less influence on the US through its Soviet relations. The Arab World was also polarized and divided into varying positions: the PLO was thus obliged to choose sides in the conflicts. Pressure was also intensified when the internal Palestinian opposition aligned itself with an Arab or Soviet position.

PLO factions:
Like many other national liberation movements, the PLO was often fragmented into opposing factions. The major factions were as follows:

PFLP: The Marxist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) had its roots in the old Arab Nationalist Movement and the nationalist theories of Western Europe. The ANM had, in its beginnings, been very anti-Communist, and it was not until 1964 that it adopted a Marxist/Socialist style. The debate over its approach began in the 60s and a new school of thought emerged with the entrance of a new, young intellectual elite in 1967. The PFLP was not really Marxist, pro-Soviet or pro-Communist; rather, it was guerrilla-Marxist. Its decision was affected not only by the new generation, but by external events. It was a time of Third World revolutions and guerrilla wars - Che Guevara, Mao’s China, etc.- and the PFLP was undoubtedly influenced by these events and the movements involved.

DFLP: The Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine was even more leftist and Leninist than the PFLP. In 1970, after the defeat of the leftist movement, the DFLP came to see itself as pro-Soviet. It became the key Soviet ally within the PLO, bringing in material assistance to the organization.

In 1970, many leftist movements and their slogans were discredited and this allowed Fatah to assert its power over the PLO. Until this time, there had been many divisions within the Palestinian ranks, and there was no total Palestinian recognition of the PLO as a sole representative. With the 1970 defeat came Palestinian unification and Fatah dominance.



End of the Cold War (1985 onwards):
The end of the Cold War had significant strategic implications for the PLO, for it could no longer play the game. Its demise represented the end of not just an entire political generation, but a world order, institutions, and a certain logic. The PLO had emerged on the scene in the 60s, prepared to deal with an international system that was set in a Cold War context. This new period and system challenged the PLO’s ability to survive.

Sensing that a change in the system was imminent and hoping to secure Soviet and Eastern Europe recognition, Arafat hurried to declare statehood in l988. The Palestinian National Council (PNC), meanwhile, recognized UN Resolution 242. The PLO faced implications from several events, including the loss of strategic Soviet support and the Gulf War. The war presented Arafat with a two-fold dilemma: that of choosing sides (when he needed both) and that of maintaining political legitimacy with the Palestinians while maintaining international PLO legitimacy. The PLO had to accept several realizations: a peace process with Palestinian, not just PLO participation (presenting Arafat with the threat of alternative leadership), and an interim, not final, arrangement with terms it did not want.

Discussion:

Question: Why is the PLO not establishing links with the Palestinians outside? Why is it not restructuring and getting them involved?

Answer: The PLO is realigning, restructuring and readapting, but with the same people. It is now adopting ways of relating to the Palestinians and dealing with the daily issues of self-rule. In addition, it is having to deal with many new constraints and possibilities.

Question: What new social alliances and patterns are emerging?

Answer: Ones that deal with national issues - domestic and internal. A new foreign policy, which aims at securing foreign aid is also emerging. The PLO is becoming irrelevant now, as the Palestinians have national institutions to serve them. The Palestinian leadership has emerged over the years from Hajj Amin’s Palestinian Congress to the PLO to the PNA, and each has had a greater role than the first.