ABSTRACT

This chapter examines how the intifada, and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) diplomatic program sustained by it, have reshaped the PLO’s position in regional politics. On the Israeli front, the PLO and Palestinian community had been subjected to increased pressures in the years following the 1978 Camp David accords. On the eve of the intifada the PLO found itself in virtual isolation on the frondine, estranged from all the neighboring Arab states and faced with a joint Jordanian-Syrian effort to undermine its position. Whatever the ultimate effects of the intifada on Israel and the US, the PLO’s most immediate challenges and opportunities lay in the Palestinian and Arab spheres. By 1987 the PLO found itself in virtual isolation on the frontline, estranged from all the neighboring Arab states and confronting a Jordanian-Syrian axis aimed at marginalizing it ‘Arafat was obliged to secure the support of other Arab states to counterbalance efforts to bypass the PLO.