Palestine A Four Thousand Year History by Nur Masalha

In the post-Nakba period a large number of Palestinian anti-colonial organisations and secular institutions were established. Several of these revolutionary bodies predated and anticipated the founding of the PLO in 1964 and these included the Palestinian Student Union in Cairo (1952), the General Union of Palestinian Students (1959), the first group of Fateh (Palestinian National Liberation Movement), founded in 1959 around an organ called Filastinuna (Our Palestine), the Palestinian Women’s League (1963) and the General Union of Palestinian Workers (1963).

The national bodies created in the post-Nakba period included:

• All-Palestine Government (Hukumat ‘Umum Filastin’) in Gaza on 1 October 1948.

• The Palestinian Student Union set up in Cairo in the early 1950s, led by Yasir Arafat.

• Fateh (Harakat al-Tahrir al-Watani al-Filastini; Palestinian National Liberation Movement) was founded in 1959. Its first underground magazine which began to appear monthly in 1959 – under the editorship of Khalil al-Wazir (1935‒1988), a refugee from al-Ramla – was called Filastinuna, Nida al-Hayat (Our Palestine, the Call to Life).

• The General Union of Palestinian Students (GUPS), established in Cairo in 1959, becoming part of the PLO in 1969.

• The Palestinian Women’s League was established in Cairo in 1963; later in 1965 absorbed into the General Union of Palestinian Women.

• The General Union of Palestinian Workers (GUPW) was established in Hilwan in Egypt in 1963, becoming part of the newly created PLO in 1965.

• The first Palestinian National Council (PNC) met in (East) Jerusalem on 2 June 1964 and formally founded the PLO. The PNC became the legislative body of the PLO.

• The Palestine Liberation Organisation was established in June 1964.

• The Palestinian National Charter (al-Mithaq al-Watani al-Filastini) of the PLO was first adopted in June 1964.

• The Palestinian National Fund was set up 1964 and conformed to Article 24 of the PLO to finance the activities of the PLO. The PNF is responsible for managing financial aid coming from a variety of sources:

funds from Arab states, contributions from wealthy Palestinians and a ‘liberation tax’ levied on Palestinians working in Arab countries.

• The Palestine Liberation Movement (Fateh) was established in 1965 and took over the PLO in 1968; the official organ of the PLO, Filastin al-Thawrah (Palestine of the Revolution), was set up in Beirut in 1972.

• The General Union of Palestinian Women was established in 1965 as part of the PLO and with the goal of organising Palestinian women and promoting an active role for them in Palestinian social, social, economic and political spheres.

• The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (al-Jabhah al-Sha ʿbiyyah li-Tahrir Filastin) is a secular Palestinian socialist organisation founded in 1967 by Dr George Habash (1926–2008), a Palestinian refugee from Lydda, Mandatory Palestine. It has been the second largest of the groups forming the PLO.

• The Union of Palestinian Women Committees was set up in 1980

to empower Palestinian women and to contribute to the Palestinian national struggle against the Israeli military occupation. Since 2001 the Union has been licensed by the Palestinian Interior Ministry.

• The Palestinian National Authority was established following the Oslo Accords in 1993. Since then it has internally governed a small part of the occupied Palestinian territories.

• The Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation (PBC) was established in July 1994 within the jurisdiction of the newly formed Palestinian National Authority. The PBC has a subsidiary radio station, the Voice of Palestine, and a satellite channel, Palestinian Satellite Channel. The Palestinian TV channel first began broadcasting in 1996 in Gaza (Jamal 2005).

• The Palestinian Department of Antiquities and Cultural Heritage was created by the Palestinian National Authority in 1994. Its long-time head, Palestinian archaeologist Dr Hamdan Taha, saw it as a revival of the Palestine Department of Antiquities which was established in 1920

under the British Mandate (Taha 2010).

The revolutionary politics of the PLO experienced sharp decline after the departure of the PLO from Lebanon in 1982. Since then the PLO and its national institutions have become largely marginalised after the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993, and especially since the creation of the Palestinian National Authority in 1994. However, the historic legacy, revolutionary politics and symbolic value of the PLO as a Palestinian national liberation movement, based on popular representation and enjoying significant support among anti-colonial movements in the Third World, go far beyond its current weak and dysfunctional organisational structures and virtual political paralysis.