Founding of the PLO

The Palestine Liberation Organization was founded in May 1964 at a meeting of the Palestinian National Council in East Jerusalem, convened under the auspices of the Arab League. Its first chairman was Ahmad al-Shukeiri, and its founding charter called for the liberation of Palestine and the right of return for refugees.

After the 1967 war discredited the Arab states’ approach, the guerrilla movements — above all Fatah — took over the organization. Yasser Arafat became chairman in 1969, and the PLO was reconstituted as an umbrella for the armed and political factions of the Palestinian national movement.

In 1974, the Arab League summit in Rabat recognized the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, and the UN General Assembly granted it observer status. Arafat addressed the General Assembly that November, declaring that he came bearing “an olive branch and a freedom fighter’s gun.”