PLO: History of a Revolution - Pt 1 (2009)

Speaker 1: In 1948, the State of Israel was proclaimed. Palestine was lost. 16 years later, in 1964, the Palestine Liberation Organization, or the PLO, was founded. Made up of different factions, the PLO has been at the heart of the struggle to regain Palestine ever since. Setting up an independent Palestinian organization was not easy. The first challenge the Palestinians faced was to wrest control of their own destiny from the In early 1965, a series of attacks were carried out against Israeli civilians and infrastructure. A previously unknown Palestinian group, the Irgun, A group calling itself al-Aqsa, meaning the storm, seen here in training, claimed responsibility for the attacks. Al-Aqsa was started by a small group of Palestinian activists in the diaspora. They believed armed struggle was the only way to win back their lost homeland. The Arab regimes did not share this view. They feared being drawn into a conflict with Israel, for which they did not feel prepared. Palestine had been an area of conflict for many years. In 1947, Great Britain announced it was terminating its mandate over Palestine.

Speaker 2: I repeat again that His Majesty's government have determined to base their policy on the assumption that they must lay down the mandate under which they have sought for 25 years to discharge their obligations to fulfill the growth of the Jewish national home and to protect the interests of the Arab population. In order that there may be no misunderstanding of the attitude and policy of Britain, I have been instructed by His Majesty's Government to announce with all solemnity that they have consequently decided that in the absence of a settlement, they must Plan for an early withdrawal of British forces and of the British administration from Palestine.

Speaker 1: Britain handed over Palestine to the United Nations. In 1947, the UN General Assembly decided to partition Palestine into 2 states, one Arab, the other Jewish. This partition plan was rejected by Palestinians and neighboring Arab states. In early 1948, open conflict erupted between Jews and Palestinians. In a confidential briefing at the time, America's Central Intelligence Agency predicted a defeat for the Jews.

Speaker 3: As the Arabs gradually coordinate their war effort, the Jews will be forced to withdraw from isolated positions and, having been drawn into a war of attrition, Following the withdrawal of the last British troops in May 1948, Jewish leaders proclaimed the establishment of the state of Israel.

Speaker 1: On the very next day, 5 Arab armies from Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq immediately attacked the new Jewish state. One young Palestinian activist who was living in Cairo at the time was keen to join the fight.

Speaker 4: I left school. We gathered at the Young Muslims Association, and we decided that whoever wanted to fight would have to burn their books. I was among those who burned their books and went and joined the Army of Holy Struggle.

Speaker 1: The Arab armies were defeated. The newly declared State of Israel seized control of most of Palestine With the exception of Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip. By 1949, close to 3/4 of a million Palestinians had become refugees. In the late 1950s in Kuwait, amid the popular sentiment of Arab unity common in the region, a group of Palestinian exiles established a secret organization. They called it the Palestinian National Liberation Movement. It became known more popularly as Fatah. Yasser Arafat was one of the ringleaders of this new organization, which favored armed struggle to achieve the liberation of Palestine. في الكويت سمينها فاتح.

Speaker 4: It was in Kuwait that we named it Fatah. But before that, it was a continuation of our Palestinian nationalistic activities.

Speaker 1: Such activities were aimed at gaining autonomy from the Arab regimes, most dominant of which was the regime of Egyptian President Jamal Abdel Nasser. Rival Palestinian groups emerged, advocating coordination with Nasser's regime. جرى اتصال مع مع المسلمين في مصر مع رئيس عبد الناصر.

Speaker 5: We took a decision to form a Palestinian branch and coordinated this with President Nasser. It was agreed that our actions would conform with the overall Egyptian military strategy, that we wouldn't carry out military action that would prematurely draw Egypt into a war with Israel, for which it wasn't yet prepared.

Speaker 1: In 1964, President Nasser convened the First Arab Summit. His aim was to lead an Arab response to the continued existence and growing dominance of Israel. The Arab leaders voted to set up a body to organize the Palestinians in their diaspora. Ahmed al-Shuqairi, seen here on the right, a Palestinian diplomat from a well-known family, was chosen to head the newly formed body. From the outset, Shuqairi wanted an organization which would not just kowtow to Arab regimes.

Speaker 6: The Arabs agreed to set up the PLO as a means of releasing the frustrations But in came Ahmad al-Shukairy, who decided he was going to form a proper PLO. And he did. He must take the credit for setting up the PLO, its structure and national charter. He was a great man who should be recognized as such.

Speaker 1: 4 months later, in May of 1964, Shukairy convened the first Palestinian parliament in Jerusalem. It was called the Palestine National Council. King Hussein of Jordan, the country which had administered the West Bank since 1950, attended the meeting. The parliament consisted of Palestinian elders, as well as a younger generation who called for a more forceful approach to winning back their homeland. The parliament formally announced the establishment of the Palestine Liberation Organization and declared the State of Israel as illegal. To guarantee Jordanian acceptance of the meeting, Shukairy allayed Jordanian fears by announcing that the PLO had no designs on the West Bank and was only interested in regaining territory from Israel. Shukairy spent the next few years building support for the PLO. He set out to create a body that could truly be considered a voice for the stateless Palestinians. He traveled far and wide in his endeavors. Here he is seen in China, where he was accorded a welcome usually reserved for visiting heads of state.

Speaker 7: أحد الشقيري فلسطيني صحيح كان قريب للنصرية أحمد شقيري is a Palestinian first and foremost. True, he was close to Nasser, but he proved more than once that he was a Palestinian first. He didn't take on the job to be a tool of Nasser, but to channel the energies of the Palestinian people. He raised the bar when it came to Nasser's views on Palestinian nationalism.

Speaker 1: كان المفروض أن ننطلق في أربعة وستين.

Speaker 4: We were supposed to launch in 1964, before the Palestine National Council meeting in Jerusalem. I was there in Jerusalem, but didn't attend the meeting. I was preparing to launch military operations as a gift to the PNC. But we decided against it because we thought it might be perceived as an attempt to upstage the council meeting and its resolutions.

Speaker 1: Arafat and his revolutionary comrades in Fatah viewed the newly created PLO with great suspicion. They felt the organization was the product of the same impotent Arab regimes that had lost Palestine in 1948. The Fatah activists wanted instead to take matters into their own hands. And in January 1965, they began attacking targets in Israel. Although militarily insignificant, the first attack was a sign of things to come.

Speaker 8: Fatah declared it had mounted the first operation, although I don't believe it was the first Palestinian patrol to go into occupied Palestine. But the significance is that Fatah's declaration heralded the independence of Palestinian decision-making, that Palestinians would no longer be subservient to Arab government diktat, which would never have approved the launching of the armed struggle.

Speaker 1: Arab leaders greeted Fatah's operations with distrust and disdain. They were wary of a radical Palestinian group acting on its own initiative. President Nasser of Egypt suspected Fatah was an extension of the Muslim Brotherhood, with whom he was engaged in a vicious struggle. Palestinians who were allied to Nasser hurled elaborate accusations against their fellow Palestinians in Fatah.

Speaker 9: كانت الاتهامات تصل إنه هاي خلقتها CIA.

Speaker 7: We charged Fatah with being an anti-Nasser body affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, even a creation of the CIA. There was a real battle going on between Egyptian intelligence and Fatah. So when Fatah launched its first operation and announced the beginning of the armed struggle, the Arab nationalist movement mounted an all-out assault on Fatah and accused it of trying to drag Nasser into war.

Speaker 1: Other Arab leaders openly spoke out in favor of negotiation rather than armed struggle. In 1966, Tunisian President Habib Bourguiba arrived in Egypt on a tour of the region. While in the West Bank, he advised his Palestinian audience to seek a negotiated settlement in order to resolve the Palestinian refugee problem, a message he repeated in Lebanon. في بيروت معروف أن فيها صحافة حرة وكل إنسان ينجي يتكلم.

Speaker 10: We traveled to Beirut, which was known for its free press. We heard a lot of illogical things at the press conference held by Bourguiba. Someone said we are prepared to wait 100 years for a solution to the Palestinian issue, to which Bourguiba replied, "You are a journalist and not a Palestinian. Had you been a Palestinian, you would be adamant that a solution be found as soon as possible." Bourguiba's comments drew a hostile response.

Speaker 1: The Arab press denounced him as a traitor and a madman. In Cairo, the Tunisian embassy was set alight by angry demonstrators. The Arab leaders seemed to be out of step with the mood on the street. For his part, President Nasser sought to convince the West of the need to address the problem of the Palestinians before it provoked further violence What about the rights of the Arabs of Palestine who were expelled out of their country?

Gamal Abdel Nasser: We have about 1.5 million refugees expelled completely. You know, the Israelis speak about the Nazi treatment and how they were badly treated in Germany during the Second World War and before the war and so on. They treated the Arabs the same way.

Speaker 2: I'm sorry?

Gamal Abdel Nasser: Expelled them, killed them, killed their children, destroyed their villages, and there was escape from Palestine to the Arab countries. I was there in '48. There were the United Nations resolutions, the Security Council resolutions. Nothing was fulfilled. And then Israel took everything, took the property, Of those people? Everything. We learned everything from those people. What about the rights of those people? You are from Britain. Do you accept to give Manchester to some other people? And if you are American, I ask you, do you accept to give California to some other people? Or do you accept the status quo of occupying Manchester by some other by the Chinese, for instance, and then reach agreement after expelling the people of Manchester from their homes, depriving them from their property, from everything? This is the question of Palestine. This question is not represented in Britain or in the West because of the influence of the Jewish propaganda. The Arabs of Palestine want to to return back to their homeland, to regain their property. What was the answer of the Israelis? The answer of the Israelis was no. They will not permit single Arab to return back, and they will not give them back their property. But we can do the opposite. If you have a right and nobody is ready to give it to you, so the only solution is force.

Speaker 12: Ask this man when does he think he'll go back to Palestine.

Speaker 1: Nasser's views were echoed by Palestinian refugees who believed liberation was close at hand.

Speaker 12: إن شاء الله السنة هذه في أقرب وقت إن شاء الله يعني خلال الصيف هذا خلال الصيف هذا. He's hoping to go back to Palestine this very year. How does he think he's going to do that? كيف تظن أنك ستعود إلى فلسطين؟ كيف تظن أنك ستعود إلى فلسطين؟ He is going to liberate Palestine. How is he going to liberate it? With force of arms, or how? كيف يمكنك تحرير فلسطين يا ترى بطريق السلاح بطريق السلاح نعم yes by force of arms.

Speaker 1: The revolutionaries of Fatah led by Yasser Arafat found refuge and support within Syria, viewed as one of the most hardline regimes in the region at the time. And it was Syria that brought matters to a head in 1967.

Speaker 13: Syria began to cry wolf, claiming that Israel was about to wage war against it, and the Soviets concurred. So Nasser sent an Egyptian military delegation to the Golan that studied the situation and returned with the view that war was not in the offing. But then the Soviets repeated their claims of a coming war.

Speaker 1: With the mantle of leader of the Arab world firmly upon his shoulders, President Nasser found it difficult to step back from the escalating tensions in the region. In May 1967, he requested the withdrawal of United Nations observers from Sinai and closed the Suez Canal to Israeli shipping. To Israel, these moves were tantamount to a declaration of war. With conflict imminent, Arab leaders attempted to close ranks. King Hussein of Jordan, who had been the target of accusations and insults by Egyptian state media, made a hasty reconciliation with Nasser.

Speaker 14: Letting bygones be bygones was a means of escaping the insults. Egyptian media perfected personal attacks on His Majesty. But the euphoria of the reconciliation and path to war was soon transformed into weeping, which has continued to this day.

Speaker 1: A frenzied Arab world waited for the outbreak of war. As in 1948, expectations of an Arab victory and the destruction of Israel were high. The reality proved very different. In June 1967, in a matter of hours, Israel decimated the Egyptian Air Force. Israeli ground troops seized the Sinai Peninsula, overran Syria's Golan Heights, and occupied East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza. The Arab world was shocked and stunned. The Arabs lost what remained of Palestine. And even more Palestinians were forced to flee their homeland. Fatah felt vindicated. The Arab states had yet again proved incapable of defeating Israel. With the Arab regimes in disarray, The path now lay open for the Palestinians to fight for themselves. كانت مؤثرة جداً، ولكن كانت حافظ كبير إنه لا بد من التعويض.

Speaker 4: The defeat in 1967 was very painful, but at the same time, it was a great incentive for us to work harder and achieve something.

Speaker 1: أنا من الناس اللي كنت أدخل من الحدود السورية اللبنانية لا السورية.

Speaker 8: After the war, I used to make my way from the Lebanese border to Syria onto Jordan. I was never questioned. My car was full of weapons. The Arab armies were defeated, broken. We used to go to the Golan to gather weapons left by the retreating Syrians. There was a state of utter destruction in which the Palestinians, whose cause it was, rose and took action.

Speaker 1: Arafat, traveling incognito, made his way into the occupied West Bank in an effort to organize resistance. But the Israelis were close on his heels.

Speaker 15: We had at least 500 to 600 members in the West Bank. In about 15 days, Israeli Defense Minister Dayan managed to capture about 300 of them, and everything fell apart. I remember Arafat being in the West Bank at the time, traveling under assumed names and having to escape.

Speaker 1: In September 1967, Arab leaders met in Khartoum to define a clearer and more uncompromising stance to Israel. They issued what became known as the 3 Nos: no peace with Israel, no negotiations with Israel, and no recognition of Israel. Chasened by the 1967 defeat, President Nasser made a political U-turn and embraced Fatah. ومن من كان ناصرياً وأصبح الفشل هناك حسب ناصر قلت يا سيدي الرئيس الناصر.

Speaker 16: A group of us in Fatah went to Egypt, and we finally met with Nasser. I told him I was a Nasserist. I said we are a group of young men who believed in their God and country and were intent on liberating it. He said Egypt would from now on share everything with us.

Speaker 1: Egypt began providing training and support for Fatah's guerrillas on the condition that operations not be mounted from Egyptian territory. Jordan quickly became the springboard of attack. The government in Amman could only stand by and watch. In March 1968, Palestinian guerrillas attacked a bus killing 2 Israelis. Defense Minister Moshe Dayan vowed to teach the Palestinians a lesson. The target was the Jordanian village of Karameh in the Jordan Valley, which had become a Fatah stronghold. Some 15,000 Israeli troops were mobilized and took part in the attack. The Palestinian defenders put up a stiff resistance. Jordanian army and artillery support proved crucial, inflicting heavy casualties on the invading Israelis. But not all Palestinian factions had favored a fight. Some had withdrawn from Karameh on the eve of the battle, leaving only Arafat's Fatah in the field.

Speaker 9: في حين الحركة القومية العربية.

Speaker 7: The Arab nationalist movement believed it was a mistake for a guerrilla force to face the enemy head-on, and therefore withdrew its fighters from Karameh. But Arafat took into account the popular reaction to such a confrontation and the support the Fideiyyin would gain in its aftermath.

Speaker 1: قلت لهم شيء.

Speaker 4: The Jordanian chief of staff and the commander of the Iraqi forces tried to convince me to withdraw from Karama. I told them, after the defeat of 1967, we took an oath to fight to the very end, and even if it meant martyrdom.

Speaker 1: The Israeli army defeated the Palestinians at Karameh. But a potent legend was born, that the Arabs would stand and fight, and that the Israelis were not invincible.

Gamal Abdel Nasser: We are not afraid.

Speaker 1: Karama proved a tremendous boost to Arafat's Fatah movement. Thousands of volunteers flocked to Palestinian guerrilla camps, while Arabs across the Middle East donated funds and supplies to these fighters. 3 years after its launch, Fatah and the Palestinian armed struggle now emerged into the mainstream. By gaining autonomy from Arab states and fighting for themselves, the Palestinians now became masters of their own destiny. From now on, the way of the gun was the path forward. But those guns would soon face off with fellow Arabs. By the end of the '60s, the Palestinians had become masters of their own destiny. But a bloody showdown was on the horizon, not with Israel, but with fellow Arabs. The Palestinian commando movement emerged as a force to be reckoned with in the region following the defeat of the Arab states in the 1967 Six-Day War. The Palestinians had taken their first step towards emancipation from the Arab world.

Speaker 7: All of these factors dealt a knockout blow to the Arab custodianship of the Palestinians and their cause, and thus Palestinians became the masters of their destiny.

Speaker 1: The Palestinians took full advantage of the state of chaos suffered by the defeated Arab regimes. Palestinian guerrilla factions, the most prominent of which was Fatah, consolidated their grip on the refugee camps in the Arab world. Hundreds of fresh recruits enrolled to join these factions. The image of young fedayeen, or freedom fighters, clad in the traditional Palestinian headscarf became an icon of resistance. Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser cast aside his initial misgivings and embraced At the same time, he dissolved his traditional alliance with the Arab Nationalist Movement, a rival Palestinian faction to Fatah.

Speaker 8: Abdel Nasser broke off his relationship with the Arab Nationalist Movement and adopted Fatah. Not only did he adopt Fatah, but he also took Arafat with him on a trip to Moscow.

Speaker 1: الله حمر طائشة مل عبد الناصر أم من الطفلة.

Speaker 4: I walked in, and Nasser met me across the room. And lo and behold, the Soviet troika got up, walked towards me, and greeted me. The next day, they launched an official dialogue with me.

Speaker 1: Other Arab regimes also vied for influence among the Palestinians as a way to gain leverage on the regional scene. Both Iraq and Syria encouraged the establishment of new Palestinian guerrilla factions allied to them. A declassified CIA document found that Fatah's independence had influenced Syria's decision to set up a Palestinian faction whose allegiance lay firmly with Damascus.

Speaker 3: The Syrian government, unable to subvert Fatah for use as a political weapon, recently organized a group known as the Vanguard of the People's Liberation War.

Speaker 1: But not all Arab states held the Palestinians in such high esteem. King Hussein was still reeling from the loss of the West Bank in 1967.

Speaker 13: Israel's occupation of the West Bank effectively meant the loss of half the country. Imagine a person suddenly having to walk on one leg. That's why the 1967 war was such an earthquake for Jordan.

Speaker 1: In Jordan, armed Palestinians strolled through the streets, enjoying freedom of movement and launching operations from Jordanian territory against Israel. Jordan began to view these attacks with increasing alarm. Nasser was assisting the Palestinians in training and arms, but he ensured that no operations were launched from Egyptian territory without stringent Egyptian control and coordination. Fatah and other Palestinian factions acted with much greater freedom within the weaker state of Jordan. In 1969, Palestinian Palestinian commandos shot down a Lebanese army helicopter during clashes with the Lebanese state. An Egyptian-brokered agreement known as the Cairo Accord put an end to the clashes. But the accord effectively legitimized the presence of armed Palestinian factions on Lebanese soil, something which was to have serious consequences for stability in Lebanon in the years to come. Besides creating waves in Arab regimes, the Palestinian factions also revolutionized their own society. In 1969, Fatah leader Yasser Arafat was elected chairman of the PLO. The election marked a new era. The guerrillas were in the ascendant, overthrowing the traditional hold of more established Palestinian families. Such was the impact of the PLO and the fedayeen that Arafat's image had made the COVID of Time magazine. But it was in Jordan The base for most of the Palestinian factions, where the Fedayeen's growing assertiveness caused most problems. They had set up a state within a state in Jordan, and the actions they planned and carried out soon began to rock the region. Armed gunmen roamed the streets of the capital, Amman, and Jordan's other main cities, like Irbid and Zarqa. Palestinian guerrillas no longer restricted themselves to bases in the more inaccessible parts of Complains about Palestinian excesses quickly mounted.

Speaker 14: Between 1967 and 1971, there were more than 30,000 cases of lawlessness, from the throwing of hand grenades to premeditated murder. There were even attacks against His Majesty the King. All of this was tolerated with tremendous patience by His Majesty, because I think he felt a certain responsibility for the events of 1967. To his dying days, he felt it, especially the loss of Jerusalem.

Speaker 1: King Hussein may have felt for the loss of Jerusalem and the West Bank in 1967, but his patience with the Palestinians was beginning to wear thin. For their part, Palestinian figures to this day contend that dark forces were at play, determined to bring about a showdown. أنا خلينا نكون صريح معك لم نكن أنبياء بلد.

Speaker 6: To be honest, we were not saints in Jordan. We made mistakes, but these mistakes were made out to be sins. Jordanian intelligence used to create their own fedayeen organizations whose role was to wreak havoc in the country. We apprehended one such organization set up by military intelligence with some 70 members. We deported them to Syria, and we later released them.

Speaker 1: The revolutionary zeal of the Palestinians knew no boundaries. Radical leftist ideology could be seen sprayed on mosque walls. Private property was considered up for grabs.

Speaker 7: This leftist zeal— I call it their late childhood— manifested itself in the celebration of Lenin's birthday, in delivering Marxist speeches from pulpits of mosques. It was an excuse for theft. Expensive cars would be stolen, and the excuse was that they belonged to the bourgeois classes. It was leftist immaturity.

Speaker 8: They were acts of provocation. The Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine used to paint slogans such as, all power to the resistance. What does this mean? It means that the Democratic Front was working towards the overthrow of the Jordanian regime.

Speaker 1: Tensions were rising on the streets of Amman. The dominant Palestinian faction, attempted to distance itself from such excesses. But Arafat could not, or would not, rein in the different factions and was unable to prevent the situation spiraling out of control. Groups such as the Popular Front and the Democratic Front were independent factions over which Arafat exerted little control. Things began to come to a head in July 1970, when Palestinian factions in Jordan staged massive rallies, Condemning President Nasser for accepting a peace plan submitted by U.S. Secretary of State William Rogers, Palestinian demonstrators shouted insults at Nasser. The Egyptian leader was furious.

Speaker 16: فذهبت إلى الأستاذ هيكل وقال لي إيه اللي جرتكم؟ إيه اللي حصل؟ ناصر's aide Hekal said, "What are you doing? The president is upset. You are swearing at us and using the radio station we provided you with in Egypt to do it." Then Nasser received us in Alexandria. He said he had been pacing up and down for 2 hours, trying to stop himself from saying anything that would hurt us.

Speaker 1: With tensions increasing in Jordan, it was a bad time for the Palestinians to fall out of favor with Nasser. To this day, some Palestinians feel the Egyptian leader gave a nod and a wink to King Hussein of Jordan to punish the Palestinians.

Speaker 6: That's true. He told King Hussein to twist our ear. But he didn't ask him to massacre us. And then Nasser went to Marsa Matruh, so he would not be in Cairo when things came to a head.

Speaker 1: But the Jordanians were still in two minds about what course of action to pursue against the armed Palestinians in their midst. Prime Minister Wazfiya Tell recommended a more conciliatory approach.

Speaker 17: بقول له دول الرئيس يعني على المعلومات اللي عنا بدأت تختلف شوية.

Speaker 7: I told him the Palestinians will not withdraw unless they are faced with a superior force. So Wasfi Tal said, "Are you dissenting?" I said, "No, this is our recommendation based on the intelligence available to us." His Majesty then intervened and adopted my recommendation.

Speaker 1: On September sixth, 1970. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, or PFLP, forced the Jordanians' hand. It hijacked airliners belonging to Swissair and TWA and forced them to land at a disused runway in the Jordanian desert known as Dawson's Field. A 3rd hijacking of an Israeli aircraft was thwarted midair with one hijacker killed and the other captured. The plane landed in London, and the hijacker, Leila Khaled, was taken into custody. Then, a PFLP member in Bahrain hijacked a British airliner and forced it to fly to Dawson's Field to join the other 2 hijacked planes. This spectacular act of air piracy was masterminded by a senior PFLP leader Called Wadih Haddad. The PFLP was born from the remnants of the Arab nationalist movement and headed by George Habash. It adopted a revolutionary Marxist doctrine. Wadih Haddad was one of its co-founders. He had become a mastermind of airline hijacking. Beginning in 1968, Haddad had put his theories of revolutionary violence into practice by hijacking several Israeli and Western But the multiple hijacking in 1970 was his most important feat to date. It required meticulous, even scientific planning.

Speaker 8: During the planning stages, Wadia had sent engineers and surveyors to Dawson's Field. They had returned with the recommendation that the runway could handle modern jets.

Speaker 1: Wadia Haddad spoke in sharp tone.

Speaker 9: He was obviously the man in charge. He told our chief of staff to pull the Jordanian troops back. He added that if we didn't comply, he would immediately blow up the planes within seconds. And he emphasized it in English by saying, I mean it. I remember this clearly.

Speaker 1: On September 12th, the PFLP removed the passengers and blew up the planes. With his hold on power rapidly disintegrating, King Hussein formed a military cabinet to finally deal with the anarchy in his country. The cabinet included intelligence officer Adnan Abu Ouda.

Speaker 13: When the military cabinet was formed on September 16th, I became minister of information. Wazfi Tell told me I would be the principal negotiator with the Palestinians. He said we would scare them into coming to the negotiation table. He never said anything about driving them out of Jordan.

Speaker 1: Prime Minister Wasfi Tal's conciliatory approach did not win the day. The Jordanian army had other plans and deployed in full force onto the streets of Amman and Jordan's other cities. Vicious street battles soon erupted between army troops and Palestinian guerrillas. Fighting for their lives, the fedayeen put up a stiff resistance in the face of a Jordanian army bent on exacting revenge for all the humiliations it had endured at the hands of the guerrillas. Casualties mounted, with the Palestinians estimating that around 4,000 people were killed, most of them civilians.

Speaker 6: Civilians bear the brunt of urban warfare. We estimate that we lost around 950 fighters in Black September. And as for the civilians, Arafat exaggerates and says around 10,000 died. But the real figure is around 4,000 to 5,000 civilians killed.

Speaker 1: In the region, Arab anger mounted at what was perceived as an attempt at liquidating the Palestinian liberation movement. Promises of military assistance to the Palestinians from Iraqi forces stationed in Jordan failed to materialize.

Speaker 15: القوات العراقية اللي كانت موجودة في الأردن قوات The Iraqi forces stationed in Jordan were not there to assist the Palestinians. Their duty was to aid the defense of Jordan against Israel. They didn't let the Palestinians down.

Speaker 1: While Iraq kept its forces out of the fighting, the rival Ba'athist government in Damascus sought to intervene. Syria mobilized its armed forces and sent them into Jordan to support the PLO fighters. However, Syrian Defense Minister Hafez al-Assad refused to provide air cover to the advancing Syrian armor. King Hussein contemplated the unsavory option of requesting Israeli air support in a bid to beat back the Syrian advance.

Speaker 17: First, the Israelis agreed to mobilize their forces to get the Syrians' attention. And then— and that's all they did, actually. But they were ready to use their air force if requested. We managed to get the message back to them that the king doesn't want you to go in on the ground, and we don't want you to, but mobilization's fine. Don't do anything until we say to. That is, get ready to act if necessary, but don't do anything. And as you probably know, this was a dramatic moment. King Hussein used his own air force, and Hafez al-Assad stood down the Syrian Air Force. He knew that the Israelis might go into action if the Syrian Air Force acted.

Speaker 9: أنا لا أدري إذا كان هو فقط العامل اللي كان مؤثر على موقف حافظ الأسد هو عامل العلاقة.

Speaker 7: I'm not sure what the determining factor was for Assad. Was it his relationship with the Jordanian regime? Was it internal power struggle within Syria? Or did it have anything to do with the threats he was getting from the Americans and Israelis? not to intervene. He was aware of all of this, and he may have used the circumstances to his advantage, because shortly afterwards he mounted a coup d'état and came to power.

Speaker 1: Assad's position at this time would be a precursor to his future split with Yasser Arafat. The Palestinians were now on the run. An Arab League delegation headed by Sudanese President Jaffar Nimeiry and including Kuwait's defense minister, Sheikh Abdullah al-Sabah arrived in the Jordanian capital and managed to whisk a besieged Yasser Arafat out to Cairo.

Speaker 16: The Arab delegation came to Amman. They dressed Arafat in Kuwaiti robes and smuggled him out. Sheikh Saad was a hero.

Speaker 1: On September 27th, 1970, Nasser brokered a ceasefire agreement, which was signed by Arafat and King Hussein. The following day, Nasser died, leaving the Palestinians without their benefactor.

Speaker 5: We are the people.

Speaker 1: Arafat and Hussein signed a further agreement regulating the presence of Palestinian fighters in Jordan. But some Palestinians refused to accept the deal. The agreement collapsed, and in July 1971, King Hussein continued his attack. The Jordanian army overran the remaining PLO bases and positions, forcing the Palestinians to capitulate. Some Palestinian fighters chose to give themselves up to Israeli forces across the River Jordan rather than surrender to what they viewed as a grim fate at the hands of the Jordanians. Henceforth, the Palestinians would term the events that led to their expulsion from Jordan as Black September. The PLO had held sway over large areas of Jordan Now it was transformed into a broken movement in search of a sanctuary. One of Fatah's leaders, Salah Khalaf, otherwise known as Abu Iyad, was determined that the PLO remain a force to be reckoned with, despite the defeat in Jordan. Abu Iyad gathered a group of us and said, you have to prove to the world that the revolution has survived.

Speaker 18: We must show the world the long arm of the revolution.

Speaker 1: Abu Iyad announced the birth of a new group, which came to be known as the Black September Organization, taking its name from the conflict with Jordan. In November 1971, at an Arab Defense Ministers Council in Cairo, Black September struck its first blow. The target was this man, Jordanian Prime Minister Wasef Tal, whom Palestinians accused of responsibility for their expulsion from Jordan.

Speaker 5: Our group decided to assassinate Wasef Tal by any means possible. There were 4 of us in the hit team. I was under the command of Abu Iyad and Abu Hassan Salameh. They ordered us to go to Egypt. It was Sunday, November 28th, 1971. 3 of us waited for Wassef Attal in the lobby of the Cairo Sheraton. As soon as he entered the hotel, we opened fire on him. We shot him 14 times. Then we gave ourselves up. That was the plan. We were to kill him and then go to trial. I was 14 years old.

Speaker 1: To gain media exposure, the role that Yasser Arafat played in forming Black September and planning its operations has always been open to conjecture. Today, Al Jazeera can finally reveal the truth. كان أبو عمار مطلع على كل شيء.

Speaker 6: Arafat knew everything. He wasn't a guitar player; he was the leader of the revolution.

Speaker 1: لما كان يشتغل الأخ أبو إياد لا بتفاهم مع أبو الأخ أبو عمار.

Speaker 18: Abu Iyad used to act in concert with Arafat. When we were preparing for an operation in Jordan, Arafat came to our camp but didn't meet with us. Then Abu Iyad came by helicopter and met with us while Arafat was in another room in the camp. He didn't want to meet with us, but later on he did visit us.

Speaker 1: The assassination of Tell was just the opening shot of the Black September organization. A more dramatic operation was carried out the following year at an event chosen by the Palestinians because they knew the whole world would be watching. At the 1972 Munich Olympics, Black September operatives infiltrated the stadium. They infiltrated the Olympic Village, killing 2 Israeli athletes and seizing another 11 as hostages. The kidnappers demanded a prisoner swap and a plane to fly them out of West Germany. Holding the hostages at gunpoint, the kidnappers were transported by bus to an airbase and then flown by helicopter to an airfield Where 2 of them were shot dead by German snipers when they went to inspect the aircraft. German authorities claim another of the kidnappers then lobbed a hand grenade into the helicopter, killing all of the Israeli hostages. To this day, one of the principal planners of the operation remains unrepentant. كلنا ضباط جيش. إحنا قتلنا ضباط جيش بملاعب سريعة.

Speaker 6: The hostages were all army officers. We killed only army officers who were dressed in sports tracksuits. The Israelis kill unarmed civilians. We did not murder children or unarmed civilians. But two months before Munich, the Israelis bombed a school, killing children. So the world must have a more balanced outlook.

Speaker 1: Further acts of violence ensued, grabbing the world headlines. In March of 1973, Black September gunmen stormed a diplomatic reception at the Saudi Arabian embassy in Khartoum. A siege ensued, which ended when the gunmen executed the American ambassador to Sudan, his deputy, and the Belgian A declassified U.S. State Department cable stated the operation was carried out with the full knowledge and authority of Yasser Arafat.

Speaker 3: The report also stated, One of the primary goals of the operation was to strike at the United States because of its efforts to achieve a Middle East peace settlement, which many Arabs believe would be inimical to Palestinian interests.

Speaker 1: By the end of 1973, the PLO leaders had decided that the Black September organization had outlived its usefulness.

Speaker 5: Usefulness.

Speaker 1: In the aftermath of the October 1973 war, a new political climate had emerged. Yasser Arafat now recognized that there was a limit to what military action could achieve, and that the Palestinians must present an acceptable political program to the world if their liberation movement was to achieve its goals. Defeat in Jordan and a series of headline-grabbing acts of violence had ensured the. It ensured the survival of the Palestinian revolution, but damaged it in the eyes of the world. Arafat decided that from now on, the gun would only support, but not supplant, his political agenda. But this view was not shared by other Palestinian factions, nor did it prove realistic, as the PLO was soon drawn into a civil war in a neighboring Arab country. Following expulsion from Jordan, PLO leader Yasser Arafat decided to pursue the path of diplomacy. There were hopeful signs in the early '70s, but the optimism was all to come crashing down.

Gamal Abdel Nasser: لقد جئتكم يا سيادة الرئيس بغصن الزيتون في يدي وببندقية الثائر في يدي.

Speaker 1: فلا تسقط الغصن الأخضر من يديه. لا تسقط الغصن الأخضر من يديه. لا تسقط غصن الأخضر من يديه. لا تسقط الغصن الأخضر من يديه. In November 1974, Yasser Arafat received a standing ovation at the General Assembly of the United Nations. He had spoken of a peace. A peaceful solution to Palestinian demands for a homeland. For the guerrilla leader, standing among statesmen, it was a crowning achievement. Arafat's journey to the UN had begun several years earlier. Following their expulsion from Jordan, some Palestinian factions concluded their fiery rhetoric and revolutionary zeal had harmed rather than helped their cause. Are you saying at the same time that there will be an increase in terrorism outside?

Speaker 19: No, I am saying there will be an increase in revolutionary struggle, in revolutionary struggle inside Palestine. And I refuse the word terrorism, because we are not terrorists. Our people in Palestine, if you are following them, they are doing demonstrations every day in Nablus, in Ramallah. They are refusing the Israeli conquer. Why do you call this terrorism?

Speaker 1: But if at the same time you hijack international aircraft and hold as hostages innocent women and children, how do you expect the rest of the world to sympathize and respect the Palestinian cause?

Speaker 19: First of all, the PFLP has declared lately that we stop this type of actions. This is number one. And number two, during all these actions which were done previously, we did not do harm to anybody.

Speaker 1: However, PFLP operative Wadih Haddad did not agree with Habash. Haddad dissented and was expelled from the group. But this did not prevent him from organizing further operations. In 1975, he sent a group headed by the Venezuelan revolutionary Carlos to Vienna to storm a meeting of OPEC and take several oil ministers hostage. But Haddad was angry that Carlos had not followed the meticulous plans he had drawn up.

Speaker 20: What Wadia may not have realized about Carlos is his narcissism, which manifested itself in the OPEC operation. Carlos acted against Wadia's orders, and when they met afterwards, Wadia slapped him. I think when Carlos negotiated and released the oil ministers, it gave the impression that he could be bribed, which was a main reason for the failure of the operation. From that moment, Wadia broke his connection with Carlos.

Speaker 1: A year later, a group of Haddad's followers hijacked an Air France airliner to Entebbe, Uganda. The Israeli The Israelis mounted a spectacular rescue operation, killing all the hijackers and freeing the hostages. Despite these acts of violence, the political track was moving. Following the 1970 expulsion from Jordan, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the DFLP, believed a more realistic political program was required. In 1972, it had floated the idea of accepting a 2-state solution. By the summer of 1974, the PLO had unanimously adopted the DFLP's ten-point plan. For the first time, the Palestinians spoke about establishing an independent national authority. The word Israel was never explicitly mentioned in the plan, but after years of armed struggle, the Palestinians were now implicitly recognizing the State of Israel.

Speaker 9: لأن البرنامج عرضت القيادة العامة وتمت وسمي برنامج المستسلمين.

Speaker 7: It was opposed by the pro-Syrian PFLP general command and called the defeatist's agenda. But Arafat and Abu Iyad were smart. They used the DFLP as a bulldozer or minesweeper to clear the way for it.

Speaker 1: ونشب النقاش ممتداً ما يقارب العام الكامل.

Speaker 4: It took almost a year of discussions, and on the eve of the PNC session in June of 1974, we came to a consensus with Fatah. the PFLP, and the pro-Syrian Sa'ika, and the 10-Point Program was adopted.

Speaker 1: Just weeks prior to his speech at the UN, Arafat received the mandate he'd long been seeking from Arab leaders. The Arab League summit in Rabat stripped Jordan of its traditional role in Palestinian affairs and named the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. For the Palestinians, it was a dream come true. Their decision-making would no longer be bound by the yoke of Arab diktat, although Arab states would continue to try and exert influence on Palestinian matters. The Jordanians felt the Rabat summit decision pointed the finger of blame at them.

Speaker 14: I wonder what would have happened if His Majesty had expressed his displeasure by withdrawing from the Rabat summit while leaving his prime minister there. Jordan was being harassed. Jordan was made out to be the root of the problem, not Israel.

Speaker 1: Soon after Arafat's triumph at the UN in November 1974, consensus among the different Palestinian factions over the 2-state solution proposal began to falter. After its expulsion from Jordan, the PLO had moved its headquarters to the Lebanese capital, Beirut. In April 1975, civil war broke out in Lebanon. Lebanese politics divided into 2 camps: a Christian-led right and a Muslim-dominated left led by the socialist Druze politician Kamal Jubalat. For years, Lebanon's Muslims had clamored for a fairer distribution of political power. The Palestinians felt a natural affinity for their cause. Desperate not to repeat the mistakes committed in Jordan, the PLO leader sought to keep his forces out of the Lebanese conflict.

Speaker 18: I know that Arafat tried to keep the Palestinians out of the war at the beginning, but that was never going to be possible.

Speaker 2: Impossible.

Speaker 18: Especially with the— especially with the common nationalisms, you know, the Jumblatt, Kamal Jumblatt version of nationalism.

Speaker 1: But by 1976, the Palestinians no longer felt able to stay on the sidelines in Lebanon. Palestinian fighters linked up with the leftist forces and gradually advanced into the Christian heartland. Syria found the idea of a PLO-backed regime in Lebanon a recipe for disaster. It feared such a regime would provoke Israel into military intervention. military action that would drag Syria into war. For their part, Israel and the United States also took a dim view of the rise of the Lebanese left and its Palestinian allies. In one of the more bizarre alignments of interests in Lebanon, Syria decided to throw its weight behind the Christians. With a green light from Washington and tacit Israeli consent, Syria sent its army into Lebanon in June of 1982. 1976 to stem the Palestinian leftist advance. كان طلب من سوريا أن تدخل لبنان.

Speaker 18: Syria was asked to intervene to curb the expansion of the Palestinian and Lebanese leftists. The Lebanese left had become troublesome to Arab regimes. The leader of the left, Kamal Jumblatt, was viewed as a threat to Lebanese and Arab stability. Another factor was the mutual dislike between Arafat and Syrian President.

Speaker 1: Syria's military intervention was stepped up following an assault on a Damascus hotel by the anti-Arafat Abu Nidal Palestinian group. The perpetrators were quickly apprehended and hanged in public. Faced with the Syrian onslaught, Arafat appealed to the Arab world for assistance, accusing Syria of attempting to liquidate the Palestinian resistance. The Syrian army was ordered to The Syrian assault forced the Palestinians onto the defensive. They were no longer able to mount an effective resupply of their besieged refugee camps in the Christian areas. The camps, principal among which was Tel Azatar, were overrun and their residents expelled or massacred. 2 Arab summits were quickly convened. They established what became known as the Arab Deterrent Forces, made up principally of the same Syrian forces that had entered Lebanon, with only token representation from several other Arab states. Syria had prevailed. تبل وراء توجه نظر الرئيس حافظ الأساد بين.

Speaker 8: President Assad's view was that Syria, in its bid to achieve strategic parity with Israel, had to be supported by two strong wings: a Lebanese wing and a Palestinian wing. That is, if Syria was to have influence on the political scene, it had to become the sole legitimate representative of Syria, Lebanon, and the Palestinians.

Speaker 1: While Lebanon was in the throes of conflict, on another front, there were moves towards peace. In 1977, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, a longstanding ally of Arafat, made a groundbreaking visit to Israel to sue for peace. In exchange for land, Arafat was stunned. But Arafat had been making his own peace moves. His representative in London, Said Hamami, had been promoting the Palestinian vision of a two-state solution at Arafat's behest.

Speaker 5: أبو عمار والقيادة الفلسطينية كانت مقتنعة.

Speaker 6: Arafat and the Palestinian leadership were convinced that the most important thing was achieving Palestinian aspirations, not the method employed. To achieve them, and if the method to achieve them was a civilized and peaceful one, then that would be better than a violent one. Arafat and the PLO leadership firmly believed this.

Speaker 19: كان الرئيس عرفات يعرف جيداً.

Speaker 5: Chairman Arafat knew very well that the 1973 war demonstrated the limits of collective Arab action and what the international community could accept. Therefore, the leadership of Fatah was convinced that the Palestinians could never achieve anything more than a state based on the lands occupied in 1967.

Speaker 1: But some Palestinians took a very different view. Palestinian guerrilla leader Abu Nidal believed a 2-state solution was tantamount to capitulation. He split from the PLO and formed his own group, calling it Fatah, the Revolutionary Organization. Revolutionary Council and based it in Baghdad. The Iraqi regime, once again hostile to Arafat's leadership of the PLO, provided backing to Abu Nidal's splinter group. In January of 1978, gunmen loyal to Abu Nidal assassinated Said Hammami at the PLO office in London. It was to be the first of many killings of fellow Palestinians that Abu Nidal would carry out. Despite its talk of a 2-state solution, the mainstream Fatah under Arafat did not relinquish its armed struggle. In March 1978, a Fatah unit led by a female commando, Dalal al-Mughrabi, commandeered an Israeli bus near the city of Haifa. In the ensuing firefight, 36 Israelis were killed. Israel responded by invading southern Lebanon and setting up what it termed as a security zone to drive PLO forces out of rocket range. Almost a year later, Israel struck a massive blow against the PLO by assassinating Abu Hassan Salameh. Salameh was in charge of Arafat's personal security. Over the years, he had been developing contacts with the CIA and was seen as a point man for interaction with the Americans.

Speaker 17: We had, through the CIA, some kind of a liaison relationship with Ali Hassan Salama, and that had to do, ostensibly, with security issues.

Gamal Abdel Nasser: You know?

Speaker 17: And it worked. The embassy was never attacked in those days. Now, people still argue whether that relationship led to Ali Hassan Salama becoming an agent of the CIA.

Speaker 19: Right.

Speaker 17: Or not. I personally think that he did, but I can't prove it. I was in government during that period, and we were in fact receiving remarkably sensitive intelligence from inside the PLO at the highest levels. And I— if it wasn't Ali Hassan Salameh, it was somebody very much like him.

Speaker 1: Arafat could do little to parry such blows being Delivered by Israel, but it was a different matter when Abu Nidal resumed his assassination of Fatah representatives abroad. In June 1978, from his base in Baghdad, Abu Nidal ordered the killing of Fatah's bureau chief in Kuwait. Fatah explicitly accused Iraqi intelligence of complicity in the assassination. Two months later, the Abu Nidal group killed Fatah's Paris representative. Fatah retaliated. Retaliated by attacking the Iraqi embassy in Paris and targeting Iraqi diplomats in London, Paris, and Karachi. Abu Nidal struck yet again on June 1st, 1981, killing the PLO Brussels representative. But Abu Nidal's most significant operation was to come a year later. On June 3rd, 1982, an Abu Nidal gunman opened fire on Israel's ambassador to London. Critically wounding him. Israel responded by launching a military operation more massive than its 1973 war effort against the combined forces of Egypt and Syria. The 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon had been an open secret for some time. The Lebanon-Israel border had been a constant point of tension, as Palestinians and Israelis traded rocket Arafat had realized that it was only a matter of time before Israel launched an all-out attack.

Speaker 8: Arafat was the only one who believed an Israeli invasion, which would reach Beirut, was inevitable. He convened the PLO's military council and formed a committee headed by the PLO's chief of staff, Saad Sa'il, to plan the defense of Beirut.

Speaker 1: Many Palestinians expected a repeat of the 1978 invasion—an assault with limited objectives. سادة مناخ يعتقد فعلا بأن العملية الإسرائيلية لن تكون شاملة.

Speaker 4: The belief was that the Israeli operation would not extend beyond 40 kilometers from the international border. This affected Palestinian preparations for the invasion, as well as Syrian and Lebanese preparations. Therefore, resistance to the invasion in southern Lebanon was ineffective.

Speaker 1: On June 6th, 1982, after 2 days of airstrikes, Israel launched its land invasion of Lebanon. With the exception of stiff resistance put up by the defenders of the Palestinian refugee camps in southern Lebanon, Palestinian forces in general quickly collapsed. Commanders abandoned their fighters in the field and fled for safety. Arafat was livid. Arafat was incredulous.

Speaker 15: He kept on saying impossible. He couldn't believe the Israelis were advancing so far, so quickly. He ordered stiff resistance. Later on, I learned that he was very angry that there was no real resistance.

Speaker 7: هنا حصل سوق تقدير. The operational headquarters in the south. The commanders believed that all was lost and left. I went to Arafat's headquarters in Beirut and told him what happened. He became agitated and started swearing.

Speaker 1: Syrian forces in Lebanon were drawn into the fighting. An epic 3-day air battle left the Syrian Air Force virtually decimated. Unable to sustain such losses, Syria agreed a ceasefire with Israel to allow the Lebanese Within the first week of the invasion, the Palestinians were now left on their own.

Speaker 9: Abu Ammar ما ما ما جعلها فقط إنه يعني.

Speaker 7: Arafat did not just accept that the Syrians had been defeated; he made it seem like the Syrians didn't fight at all. But the Syrians did fight in the Beqaa Valley and the mountains around Beirut, and lost lots of men and equipment. But they fought to defend themselves and not the Palestinians. The Syrian army had no orders to check the Israeli advance if the Israelis had left the Syrians alone.

Speaker 1: By now, the Israelis had arrived at the gates of the Lebanese capital. But the closer they drew to Beirut, the tougher the fighting became.

Speaker 18: They fought, and they fought very bravely against the Israelis. Very bravely.

Speaker 1: The siege of Beirut had begun. The PLO was encircled. Some Palestinian leaders advised the PLO should surrender, but Arafat had other ideas. في أحد الاجتماع.

Speaker 7: At one early meeting, the leader of the PFLP General Command, Ahmad Jibril, suggested accepting Israeli terms of withdrawal under the banner of the Red Cross, disarmed and in Red Cross-provided overalls. Arafat said he would say a prayer to help him arrive at a decision. So he went away and returned and said, I sense the winds of heaven blowing. God has ordered me to fight.

Speaker 1: The winds of heaven, as Arafat described them, meant holding out for better conditions. In a bid to raise morale, Arafat and his officials toured the streets of the besieged Lebanese capital. Massive Israeli bombardment caused civilian casualties, but also strengthened the Palestinians' resolve. Finally, in August, after two months of siege. After months of siege and bombardment, U.S. envoy Philip Habib announced that an agreement had been reached. The agreement gave safe passage for the PLO fighters to leave Lebanon on the understanding that Israeli forces would not enter West Beirut. The evacuation of the PLO marked the end of an era. After more than 10 years in Lebanon, the PLO was finally It was a dramatic moment for the fighters, for the Lebanese, and for the Palestinian refugees left behind. Most PLO leaders left to Damascus, but Arafat, signaling his His displeasure with Syria chose to go to Greece. Within days of the departure of the last Palestinian fighters, Lebanese president-elect Bashir Gemayel was assassinated. Breaking the American-brokered agreement, Israeli forces moved into West Beirut under the pretext of keeping the peace. The Israelis accused the PLO of leaving 2,000 of its fighters in Beirut's refugee camp. The charge was a fabrication. The Israelis quickly encircled the refugee camps and brought in their allies from the Christian Lebanese Forces militia. On September 16th, 1982, dozens of Lebanese Forces militiamen entered the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps.

Speaker 21: We knew, of course, that the Israelis had surrounded the camp, and we also knew that in the night, the flares was there, that the campus was lighted up. We saw it from far distance. And after, I remembered the night was very strange. It was so quiet. It was like a ghost town. And we didn't realize that inside this ghost town was the killing and the shooting.

Speaker 1: Under the watchful eyes of their Israeli allies, the Lebanese militiamen embarked on one of the most horrific massacres of modern times. Skies were lit by Israeli flares as the militiamen continued their ugly work.

Speaker 21: And then we started— came in the same way, and we saw the bodies. And I went around with my tape recorder. I had no crew. I had no television crew in the beginning. To count bodies, throwing up, throwing up, counting bodies.

Speaker 7: De har åpenbart blitt mishandlet.

Speaker 21: Et tjuetals menn fra fjorten. And the more bodies we found out was there in alleys, women killed, children killed, and we also saw they had used bulldozers to. To take the rubble over the dead bodies. We couldn't believe our eyes.

Speaker 1: By the time it was finished, the Sabra and Shatila massacre had claimed the lives of some 800 Palestinian and Lebanese civilians. The Israelis set up a tribunal to investigate the massacre. In its final report, the Kahan Commission found that Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon bore personal responsibility for the massacre. The PLO, in exile and no longer the force it once was, could only watch impotently. Stripped of his base in Lebanon, Arafat was in a political wilderness. Israel and its American benefactors had established a foothold in Lebanon, one that Syria, backed by the Soviet Union, sought to overthrow. In the eyes of Damascus, the much-weakened PLO was ripe for the taking, and a defeated Yasser Arafat was of no political consequence. But for the master of Palestinian politics, who had just emerged from doing battle with the Israelis, the fight for survival was about to enter a new and bloodier phase.