Follow Israel opinion on 
and 
.
and .The PLO remains a terrorist entity.
The Fatah organization, the mainstream body of the the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), was launched in 1964 by the Arab League, in the context of its full-scale war to liquidate Israel. The Arab League had one purpose in mind: to foment rebellion of Palestinian Arabs against the state of Israel.
The PLO executive did not ratify the Oslo accord.
After Palestinian Arabs living in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and Gaza came under Israeli rule, after the 1967 war, PLO incitement of Palestinian Arabs against Israel began to take shape.
On March 1, 1980, the PLO was officially declared by Israel to be an illegal terrorist organization. But Israel was open to the possibility of a change in that definition, in the interest of peace with the Palestinian Arab people.
On September 13, 1993, at the White House, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin and Israeli Foreign Minister Sjimon Peres signed the "Declaration of Principles" (the DOP) between Israel and the PLO together with Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas of the PLO. The agreement, which had been hammered out in Oslo, stipulated mutual recognition between Israel and the PLO. It required the PLO to cease and desist from terrorism, and for the PLO to nullify its covenant, which calls for Israel's destruction.
The Israeli Knesset ratified the Oslo accord by a vote of 61 to 50, with 9 abstentions, a week later. However, what received hardly any attention was the fact that on October 6, 1993, the PLO executive did not ratify the Oslo accord, for lack of a quorum.
Pinchas Inbari, the only Israeli correspondent covering the PLO in Tunis at the time, writing for the Israeli left-wing newspaper Al HaMishmar, broke the story of the PLO non-ratification of the DOP. The rest of the Israeli media, however, did not report that the PLO never ratified the accord, while the Israeli government acted as if the PLO had done so.
Yet, since the PLO did not ratify the Oslo accord nor renounce terrorism, the PLO and Fatah were not stricken from Israeli law as terrorist entities.
The other concrete commitment made by the PLO in Oslo was that it would officially cancel the PLO Covenant, which calls for Israel's destruction. On two occasions, the Palestinian National. Council gathered to discuss the PLO Covenant - on April 24, 1996 and on December 14, 1998. On neither occasion did the PNC cancel the PLO Covenant.
However, the government of Israel, facilitating the spin of the Oslo peace process, has consistently acted as if the PLO ratified the DOP and canceled the PLO Covenant.
Over the coming week, the Palestine National Council, the PNC, once again convenes. This reporter posed a formal question to the Israeli government asking if it will demand that the PNC finally ratify the DOP and cancel the PLO Covenant. The Israeli government spokespeople would not answer. PLO spokespeople, however, made it clear that the PLO is not being asked by Israel to ratify the DOP or to cancel the PLO covenant.
The US Congress may yet define Israel as an official sponsor of a terrorist entity.
The PLO, therefore, remains a terrorist entity.This means that, by its decision to arm Fatah, the government of Israel has become an official sponsor of a terrorist entity.
While the Bush Administration concurs with Israeli support of Fatah, lawmakers of the US Congress may yet define Israel as an official sponsor of a terrorist entity. The March 2002 US government designation of Fatah's Al-Aksa Martyrs Brigades as a terrorist organization has not changed. Under US law, any government that aids and abets an organization defined as a terrorist entity will forfeit US foreign aid assistance, which must be approved by the US Congress.
In other words, the Israeli government, in a move to placate the US administration, may undermine its own base of support with lawmakers of the US Congress.
Av 4, 5767 / 19 July 07
