ABSTRACT
This chapter shows how the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) acts as a focus for Palestinian policymaking, operating as a nonstate actor with numerous attributes of a state and integrating many facets of Palestinian politics, the states of the Arab world, and even farther afield. Contact with PLO officials—indeed with anyone connected with what Israel defines as "terrorist organizations"—can be cause for prosecution by the occupation authorities. In many cases their movement for purposes of PLO meetings is forbidden or restricted by Arab governments. The Palestine National Council , the PLO Central Council, and the leading bodies of Fateh and other groups include a large number of union leaders, military officers, and student leaders as well as businesspeople, intellectuals, and community leaders. The debate leading to the 1974 modification of the PLO's aims and objectives is often described as having been provoked by the 1973 war and by the prospects for a regional settlement that it opened up.
