PLO -- The two-faced demon
The dark side behind PLO's public mask of moderation is terrorism. Despite all its public pronouncements to the contrary, the PLO never fully and effectively renounced the use of terrorism to achieve its goals, nor has it stopped conducting terrorist acts against Israel and other nations. What it has done is shift the responsibility for conducting the terrorist actions to various "deniable" elements of the PLO (i.e. Popular Front for Liberation of Palestine) or "outside" organizations that ostensibly are part of a "rejectionist movement" and beyond the control of the PLO. From Black September to Hamas, all terrorist organizations have been linked to the PLO, but Arafat, a media-relations genius, was able to make the world believe that these organizations were/are out of his control. Such tactics channeled the public outrage over terrorism towards Black September, Hamas, Hezbollah, Popular Front for Liberation of Palestine and other organizations, while keeping the world's attention on the Palestinian problem.
ex. 1: Black September
Just like Arafat distanced himself Haj Amin Al Husseini, despite the fact that he followed most, if not all his ideals, he tried to deny that Black September is a part of the PLO. Black September committed its most dramatic terrorist attack, code-named Ikrit and Biram, at the Munich Olympycs. Just before dawn on the morning of July 18, 1972, eight Black September terrorists slipped into the Olympic Village and made their way to an apartment block at Connollystrasse 31, where the Israeli Olympic team resided. The terrorists, led by Libyan named Mohammed Masalhad, forced their way into the apartment occupied by the Israelis and killed a weight lifter and a coach in the process. The terrorists took 9 Israelis hostage and, in exchange for their safety, demanded the release of 234 Arab prisoners incarcerated by the Israeli government and of West German terrorist leaders Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof. Terrorists were transported to the German air base at Furstenfeldbruck where 5 German snipers opened fire. As a result, all 9 Israeli athletes were killed, as were 5 terrorists.
The Munich attack wasn't the only terrorist act by Black September, a group named after PLO's military defeat at the hands of King Hussein (whose grandfather was killed by the al-Husseini family) when the PLO tried to establish a state within a state in Jordan, only the most dramatic one.
The PLO always tried to disavow any connection to Black September and were extremely successful at it. To this day, most people, newspapers and TV stations believe that Black September wasn't a part of the PLO. In reality, of course, it was a covert arm of Fatah's intelligence agency, Jihaz el-Razd. Once captured, Abu Daoud, a top Black September operator involved in the Munich Massacre said: "There is no such organization called Black September. Fatah announces its own operations under this name so that Fatah will not appear as the direct executor of the operation. What is called Black September is only the intelligence apparatus, Jihaz el-Razd." Abu Iyad, the second man in the PLO after the death of Abu Jihad (there are also intelligence reports by CIA and Mossad that he was the number 2 man in Black September) admitted in his book "My Home, My Land" that despite the claims that Black September members made that they aren't a part of the PLO, almost all of them belonged to some part of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
ex. 2: Hezbollah
Under the reign of the shah, Iran was the most West-friendly Arab country. He always supported the Palestinians on the diplomatic front, but Arafat and other PLO leaders complained that the shah's support was more symbolic than tangible. What really counted were actions, and in this category Iran collaborated and supported Israel. In addition, the shah supported King Hussein during his battle with the PLO in September 1970. As the shah started to lose ground in the late 1970's, there was an increase in Palestinian activity in Iran. The PLO left clear imprints on the Khomeini's revolution. Beginning in 1969, Iranian revolutionaries trained in the PLO camps throughout the Middle East. Just days after Khomeini came to power in Iran, overjoyed Arafat declared: "PLO trained within its camps 10,000 Iranians." He also claimed to have provided Khomeini with over 10,000 Kalashnikovs (Russian-made guns), as well as Palestinian volunteers. In return for this deeds, Arafat expected Iran to support his struggle, and that's exactly what he got in Hezbollah. In one of his first acts as the leader of Iran, Khomeini thanked Arafat and promised to help him in the future. Reading today's media, you will find that most reporters believe that Hezbollah is an organization that is supported by Iran and has no affiliation to the PLO. In actuality, Hezbollah is nothing more than a payback to the Palestinians for their efforts in overthrowing the shah.
It is also known that most of the Hezbollah leadership was hand-picked by Yasser Arafat. Immad al-Haj Mugniyeh, who directed more terrorist acts than anyone else in recent history, joined the PLO in his teens and moved up the ranks until Yasser Arafat hand-picked him to run Hezbollah (Sheikh Mohammed Fadlallah is the spiritual leader, but Mugniyeh is in charge of the group's operations). Almost everyone else in the Hezbollah think tank joined it this way. In addition, from day one, the PLO transferred large sums of money to a group that is supposedly completely financed by Iran, a lot of arms and it is sharing intelligence information with Hezbollah (as they do with Hamas).
As always, Yasser Arafat tried to distance himself from Hezbollah. In 1986, he condemned Hezbollah for kidnapping dozens of American and "even made efforts to free the prisoners." But according to some newspapers, including Wall Street Journal, some hostages were actually held in Fatah jails. It is also known that the PLO took part in many Hezbollah operations. In the 1986 kidnapping by Hezbollah, at least 6 kidnappers were PLO soldiers. Hezbollah also took part in some PLO initiatives, including the Achille Lauro hijacking.
ex. 3: The Achille Lauro Affair
On October 7, 1985, PLO terrorists seized a 624-foot tourist ship called Achille Lauro. Shortly after that, they murdered and threw overboard a wheelchair-ridden American Jew name Leon Klinghoffer. During the operation, the Palestinians' plan went terribly wrong. To correct the terrorists' mistakes, one of the PLO's top men, Mohammed Abbas arrived on the scene next day.
As always the PLO lied. At the outset of the attack, PLO leadership moved quickly to deny any connection to the hijackers. On the first day, Abu Iyad claimed that it was a new Palestinian faction with no affiliation to the PLO that is involved in the attack. The following day, the PLO made an official statement maintaining that the hijackers did not belong to any group loyal to Yasser Arafat, yet another outright lie. A day later, Arafat himself met with the media and denied any PLO involvement. He claimed that Mohammed Abbas was sent to the scene as a mediator. However, both Israel and the United States were able to intercept Abbas's conversations with the terrorists when he instructed them on how to conduct the operation. A U.S. Justice Department official stated that "the evidence we have right now is that he (Abbas) participated in all of this, guiding them (the hijackers) throughout." Then-Attorney General Edwin Meese III added that the U.S. had "hard evidence" that Abbas was a "principle in the hijacking." Later, Mohammed Abbas and six other terrorists were found guilty of murder of Leon Klinghoffer by the Italian court. Because Italy was terrified of the PLO, the terrorists received very light sentences. Right after the sentencing, one of the terrorists started chanting in the courtroom, "Long live Italian justice."
The PLO also tried to deny the murder of Leon Klinghoffer. PLO's foreign secretary Farouk Qadoumi, claimed in the U.N. that reports that an elderly man was murdered by the terrorists is a "big lie fabricated by the intelligence services of the United States." In December 1985 Farouk Qadoumi told an Arab League luncheon, which was attended by U.N. Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar, that Klinghoffer's "wife pushed him over into the sea to have the insurance. Nobody even had the evidence that he was killed." As late as in 1988, Mohammed Abbas said that at the Algiers meeting of the Palestinian National Council that Klinghoffer died because he went swimming. A paralyzed man went swimming in the middle of sea during a terrorist attack!!! But after considerable international pressure, Abbas admitted to the French magazine "Journal Dimanche" that the murder of Leon Klinghoffer "was the act of a young PLO fighter." This admission was mostly ignored by international media.
The Achille Lauro hijacking was one of the few times when PLO's lies about so-called other terrorist organizations were revealed. The whole world saw, but ignored the PLO trying to portray itself as diplomatic organization that wants to solve a conflict, while in actuality it was running the show.
Conclusion
Black September, Hezbollah and "the new Palestinian terrorist organization" in the Achille Lauro hijacking are representative of practically all other terrorist organization that aren't supposed to be connected to the PLO. But as you can clearly see, they were. The PLO used this tactics successfully over the past 25 years.
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