ABSTRACT
The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) has been both a national liberation and a terrorist movement, one nation’s hope and another’s would-be executioner. The activation of the Palestinian masses in the territories was not wholly the PLO’s doing, and their attitude toward it could not be taken for granted. The PLO’s goal for most of its history was Israel’s destruction and its replacement by a PLO-ruled Palestinian Arab state. Public criticism of the organization among Palestinians has always been limited; opinion polls are unreliable. There is much private criticism about its shortcomings, incompetence, and corruption. In theory, the PLO’s ruling body is the Palestine National Council which appoints the organization’s fifteen-member Executive Committee. Pan-Arab nationalism also influences and sometimes subverts Palestinian nationalism. As Palestinian nationalists working for the PLO’s independent decision-making and an independent state, Palestinians are fighting for their own cause.
