Editing Palestine Liberation Organization (section)

==Organization==
===Structure===
[[File:Orient House.jpg|thumb|[[Orient House]], the former PLO headquarters in Jerusalem]]
The PLO incorporates a range of generally secular ideologies of different Palestinian movements "committed to the struggle for Palestinian independence and liberation," hence the name of the organization. It's formally an umbrella organization that includes "numerous organizations of the resistance movement, political parties, and popular organizations."<ref name="un-observer">[http://palestineun.org/about-palestine/palestine-liberation-organization/ ''Palestine Liberation Organization'']. Permanent Observer Mission of Palestine to the United Nations</ref> From the beginning, the PLO was designed as a government in exile, with a parliament, the [[Palestinian National Council|Palestine National Council]] (PNC), chosen by the Palestinian people, as the highest authority in the PLO, and an executive government (EC), elected by the PNC.<ref name="un-observer"/> In practice, however, the organization was rather a hierarchic one with a military-like character, needed for its function as a liberation organization, the "liberation of Palestine".<ref name=masri/>{{better source needed|reason=The source is accessible to members only|date=December 2021}}

The [[Palestinian National Covenant|Palestinian National Charter]] describes the ideology of the PLO. A constitution, named "Fundamental Law", was adopted, which dictates the inner structure of the organization and the representation of the Palestinian people. A draft Constitution was written in 1963, to rule the PLO until free general elections among all the Palestinians in all the countries in which they resided could be held.<ref>[http://www.thejerusalemfund.org/www.thejerusalemfund.org/carryover/documents/draft.html ''The Draft Constitution of the Palestine Liberation Organization (1963)''] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131226003303/http://www.thejerusalemfund.org/www.thejerusalemfund.org/carryover/documents/draft.html|date=26 December 2013}} See Article 4. The Jerusalem Fund</ref> The Constitution was revised in 1968.<ref>[https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Peace/plocon.html ''Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO):Constitution'']. Text of the 1968 Constitution on JVL</ref>

===Institutions===
The [[Palestinian National Council]] has 740 members and the [[Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization|Executive Committee]] or ExCo has 18 members. The [[Palestinian Central Council]] or CC or PCC, established by the PNC in 1973, is the second leading body of the PLO.<ref name=memo_distinction/> The CC consists of 124 members<ref name=pcc_1996>See the 1996 list of members: [https://web.archive.org/web/20081025100117/http://middleeastreference.org.uk/plocc.html Members of the PLO Central Council as of 1996]. At middleeastreference.org.uk</ref> from the PLO Executive Committee, PNC, [[Palestinian Legislative Council|PLC]] and other Palestinian organizations.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.passia.org/palestine_facts/pdf/pdf2003/sections2/PLO-CC.pdf|title=PLO Central Council Members|website=Passia.org|access-date=8 March 2017
|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304102214/http://www.passia.org/palestine_facts/pdf/pdf2003/sections2/PLO-CC.pdf|archive-date=4 March 2016}}</ref> The EC includes 15 representatives of the PLC.<ref name="un-observer"/> The CC functions as an intermediary body between the PNC and the EC. The CC makes policy decisions when PNC is not in session, acting as a link between the PNC and the PLO-EC. The CC is elected by the PNC and chaired by the PNC speaker.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.al-bab.com/arab/countries/palestine/orgs1.htm|title=Arab Gateway: Palestinian organisations (1)|website=www.al-bab.com|access-date=15 January 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20021001205923/http://www.al-bab.com/arab/countries/palestine/orgs1.htm|archive-date=1 October 2002|url-status=dead}}</ref>

The PNC serves as the parliament for all Palestinians inside and outside of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including Jerusalem. The PLO is governed internally by its "Fundamental Law", which describes the powers and the relations between the organs of the PLO.<ref name=memo_distinction>[http://transparency.aljazeera.net/files/4698.pdf ''Memo: Distinction between PLO, PA, PNC, PLC'']. Al Jazeera, The Palestine Papers, 5 February 2006. [http://transparency.aljazeera.net/en/projects/thepalestinepapers/201218205949656112.html Available on]. Internal PLO document from Mazen Masri, legal researcher, to the PLO Negotiations Support Unit. See also note 4 in the pdf.</ref>

[[Ahmad Shukeiri]] was the first [[Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization|Chairman of the PLO Executive Committee]] from 1964 to 1967.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DWhgIe3Hq98C&pg=PA316|title=The Palestine Yearbook of International Law 1987–1988|last=Pineschi|year=1997|publisher=Martinus Nijhoff Publishers|isbn=978-90-411-0341-3}}</ref> In 1967, he was replaced by Yahia Hammuda. [[Yasser Arafat]] occupied the position from 1969 until his death in 2004.<ref name=lansford_p1634>Tom Lansford,[https://books.google.com/books?id=iC_VBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA1627 ''Political Handbook of the World 2014''], p. 1634. CQ Press, March 2014</ref> He was succeeded by [[Mahmoud Abbas]] (also known as Abu Mazen).<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna6459196|title=Mahmoud Abbas elected chairman of PLO|date=2004|website=[[NBC News]]}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-20033995|title=Profile: Mahmoud Abbas|date=29 November 2012|work=BBC News|access-date=8 December 2017|language=en-GB}}</ref>

According to an internal PLO document, the PNC continues to act if elections are not possible. In absence of elections, most of the members of the PNC are appointed by the executive committee. The document further states that "the PNC represents all sectors of the Palestinian community worldwide, including numerous organizations of the resistance movement, political parties, popular organizations and independent personalities and figures from all sectors of life, including intellectuals, religious leaders and businessmen".<ref name=memo_distinction/>

===Publications===
The PLO has published various newspapers and magazines first of which was ''[[Falastinuna]]'' and pamphlets.<ref>{{cite journal|title=Periodicals and Pamphlets Published by the Palestinian Commando Organizations|journal=Journal of Palestine Studies|volume=1|issue=1|pages=136–151|year=1971
|doi=10.2307/2536009|jstor=2536009|issn=0377-919X}}</ref> During the late 1970s its publications increased consisting of twenty-nine dailies, eighteen weeklies, thirteen biweeklies, sixty-two monthlies, sixteen quarterlies, and twenty-one annuals.<ref name=dina>{{cite journal|author=Dina Matar|title=PLO Cultural Activism: Mediating Liberation Aesthetics in Revolutionary Contexts|journal=[[Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East]]|page=360|doi=10.1215/1089201x-6982123|volume=38|issue=2|year=2018|s2cid=148869236|url=https://eprints.soas.ac.uk/24506/1/matar-plo-cultural-activism-mediating-liberation-aesthetics-in-revolutionary-contexts.pdf}}</ref> Some of them are ''[[Falastin Al Thawra]]'' and ''[[Shu'un Filastiniyya]]''.<ref name=dina/><ref name=rasha>{{cite journal|author=Rashid Hamid|title=What is the PLO?|journal=Journal of Palestine Studies|volume=4|issue=4|date=Summer 1975|jstor=2535603|doi=10.2307/2535603|page=107}}</ref> Its official news agency is [[Wafa]].<ref name=rasha/>

===Challenged representation===
As of 2015, there have not been elections for many years, neither for the PNC, nor for the EC, the PCC or the [[President of the State of Palestine]]. The executive committee has formally 18 members, including its chairman, but in past years many vacant seats in the Executive remained empty. Moreover, [[Hamas]], the largest representative of the inhabitants of the Palestinian Territories alongside [[Fatah]], is not represented in the PLO at all. The results of the [[2006 Palestinian legislative election|last parliamentary elections for the PLC]], held in the Territories in 2006, with Hamas as the big winner while not even a member of the PLO, "underlined the clear lack of a popular mandate by the PLO leadership", according to [[Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs|PASSIA]].<ref name=passia_plo-vs-pa>[http://www.passia.org/images/meetings/2014/oct/28/PA-PLO2.pdf ''PLO vs. PA''] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304102228/http://www.passia.org/images/meetings/2014/oct/28/PA-PLO2.pdf|date=4 March 2016}}, p. 9. Passia, September 2014</ref> Individual elected members of the [[Palestinian Legislative Council|PLC]] representing Hamas, however, are automatically members of the PNC.

The representative status of the PLO has often been challenged in the past.<ref name=masri/> It was for example doubted in 2011 by a group of Palestinian lawyers, jurists and legal scholars, due to lack of elections. They questioned the PLO's legitimacy to alter the status and role of the Organization in respect of their status within the UN. They demanded immediate and direct elections to the Palestine National Council to ″activate representative PLO institutions in order to preserve, consolidate, and strengthen the effective legal representation of the Palestinian people as a whole″, before changing the status within the UN.<ref name=maan-2011/>

===PLO versus PA===
The 1993–1995 [[Oslo Accords]] deliberately detached the Palestinian population in the [[Palestinian territories|Occupied Palestinian Territories]] from the PLO and the Palestinians in exile by creating a [[Palestinian Authority]] (PA) for the Territories. A separate parliament and government were established. [[Mahmoud Abbas]] was one of the architects of the Oslo Accords.<ref name=bbc-2009>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/1933453.stm Profile: Mahmoud Abbas]. BBC, 5 November 2009</ref><ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=NHCQBAFMwawC&dq=Through+Secret+Channels&pg=PA19 Who's Who in the Arab World 2007–2008]. Walter de Gruyter, 2007</ref>

Although many in the PLO opposed the Oslo Agreements, the executive committee and the Central Council approved the Accords. It marked the beginning of the PLO's decline, as the PA came to replace the PLO as the prime Palestinian political institution. Political factions within the PLO that had opposed the Oslo process were marginalized.

The PLO managed to overcome the separation by uniting the power in PLO and PA in one individual, [[Yasser Arafat]]. In 2002, Arafat held the functions of Chairman of the PLO/Executive Committee; Chairman of [[Fatah]], the dominating faction within the PLO; as well as [[President of the Palestinian National Authority]]. He also controlled the [[Palestinian National Security Forces]].<ref name=ahram/>

Only during the [[Hamas]]-led PA Government in 2006–2007 did the PLO resurface. After Hamas [[Battle of Gaza (2007)|took over]] Gaza in 2007, Abbas issued a decree suspending the PLC and some sections of the [[Palestinian law#Basic Law|Palestinian Basic Law]], and appointed [[Salam Fayyad]] as prime minister.

The PLO remains the official representative of [[Palestine]] at [[United Nations|the UN]].

===Internal politics===
On 4 February 1969, Fatah founder, Arafat, was elected [[Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization|Chairman of the PLO]] in [[Cairo]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=HAJIAAAAIBAJ&pg=2064,4351664&dq=arafat&hl=en|title=The Morning Record – Google News Archive Search|work=google.com}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FA0C14F839541A7493C7A91789D85F4D8685F9|title=Fatah Wins Control Of Palestine Group|website=Select.nytimes.com|date=5 February 1969|access-date=8 March 2017}}</ref> Since, Fatah has been the dominant factor within the PLO, which still continues in 2015.

Under pressure from the international community led by Israel and US, and from inside his own party Fatah, Arafat partially transferred some of his strongly centralized power in 2003,<ref name=mew_constitution/><ref name=ahram>[https://web.archive.org/web/20030811171247/http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/647/re2.htm ''Arafat vs Abbas'']. Al-Ahram Weekly, 17–23 July 2003, Issue No. 647</ref><ref name=cnn_2002-05-15>[http://edition.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/meast/05/15/mideast.arafat/index.html ''Arafat urges overhaul of Palestinian government'']. CNN, 15 May 2002</ref> causing strong tensions within the Palestinian leadership. Arafat appointed [[Mahmoud Abbas]] as prime minister, but this resulted in disputes about the transfer of tasks and responsibilities. Abbas was strongly supported by the US and the international community, because he was supposed to be more willing to give far-reaching concessions to Israel.<ref name=ahram/> While Arafat had retained most of his power and a power struggle within Fatah continued, the leadership was criticised for corruption and nepotism.<ref name=guardian>[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/jul/20/israel ''Arafat urged to end corruption after unrest'']. Chris McGreal, The Guardian, 20 July 2004</ref><ref>[https://al-shabaka.org/briefs/corruption-in-palestine/#return-note-4564-9 ''Corruption in Palestine: A Self-Enforcing System'']. Tariq Dana, Al-Shabaka, 18 August 2015</ref>

After [[Death of Yasser Arafat#Theories about the cause of death|Arafat's death]], Abbas increasingly gained exclusive powers within both PLO and PA as well as in Fatah, until he had acquired the same power as was previously held by Arafat.<ref name=frykberg>[http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/08/critics-slam-mahmoud-abbas-plo-resignation-farce-150827081457810.html Critics slam Mahmoud Abbas' PLO resignation as 'farce']. Mel Frykberg, Al Jazeera, 28 August 2015</ref> Abbas is criticized for his autocratic rule and refusal to share powers and plans with other Palestinians. In the absence of a functioning parliament and Executive, he even began to issue his own laws. Senior representative of Abbas' Fatah faction and [[Third Qurei Government|former Fatah minister]] of prisoner affairs, [[Sufian Abu Zaida]], complained that Abbas appointed himself as the chief judge and prosecutor, making a mockery of the Palestinian judicial system.{{citation needed|date=March 2019}} There appeared reports of widespread corruption and nepotism within the Palestinian Authority.<ref name=frykberg/><ref name=highlights_corruption>[http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/05/report-corruption-palestine-institutions-gaza.html# Report Highlights Corruption in Palestinian Institutions]. Hazem Balousha, Al-Monitor, 6 May 2013</ref> Only Hamas-ruled Gaza has a more or less functioning parliament.<ref name=birzeit>[http://lawcenter.birzeit.edu/lawcenter/en/conferences/911-the-legislative-status-in-the-palestinian-territory The Legislative Status in the Palestinian Territory]. Birzeit University, December 2012.<br/>″Article 43 of the Amended Basic Law grants the President the power to issue decrees that have the power of law in cases of necessity that cannot be delayed. ... Towards 9 January 2009, laws used to be sent by fax or email to the PNA President for approval within 30 days. Otherwise, laws would automatically enter into force. According to the new Law on the Official Gazette, these were published in the Official Gazette. After 9 January 2009, however, no laws have been sent to the President's Office for approval and promulgation. In this context, Mr. Barham went over major laws passed by the Gaza-based PLC.″</ref>

====2015 struggle for power====
{{see also|Politics of the Palestinian National Authority}}
With a ''de facto'' defunct parliament and Executive, Mahmoud Abbas increasingly gained exclusive powers within both PLO and [[Palestinian National Authority|PA]], as well as in [[Fatah]]. After the announcement in August 2015 of Abbas' resignation as [[Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization|Chairman of the Executive Committee]] and of nine other members as well, many Palestinians saw the move as just an attempt to replace some members in the executive committee, or to force a meeting of the PNC and remain in their jobs until the PNC decides whether to accept or to reject their resignations.<ref name=jp_purported>[http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Purported-Abbas-resignation-from-PLO-Executive-Committee-ridiculed-as-silly-show-413006 ''Purported Abbas resignation from PLO Executive Committee ridiculed as ′silly show′'']. Khaled Abu Toameh, Jerusalem Post, 23 August 2015</ref><ref name=reuters_heats>[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-palestinians-abbas-idUSKCN0QW14B20150827#4Qc7e4CCci6BkWJM.97 ''Abbas heats up Palestinian politics in PLO reshuffle bid'']. Nidal al-Mughrabi and Ali Sawafta, Reuters, 27 August 2015</ref> Met with fierce criticism by many Palestinian factions, a session of the PNC, who had to approve the resignations, was postponed indefinitely.<ref name=maan_postponed>[https://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=767521 ''PNC chair confirms controversial session postponed'']. Ma'an News Agency, 9 September 2015</ref>