The Radical Crescent: The United States, the Palestine Liberation Organisation, and the Lebanese Civil War, 1973–1978

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis analysis examines the efforts by the Palestine Liberation Organisation [PLO] to formalise relations with the United States before and after the October 1973 Arab–Israeli War. It details the public and private attempts by PLO Chairman Yasir Arafat to present the organisation as a legitimate partner for negotiations with Israel. However, the American secretary of state and national security advisor, Henry Kissinger, hindered the PLO’s diplomatic initiatives during the Richard M. Nixon and Gerald R. Ford administrations. Kissinger viewed the PLO as an impediment to his efforts to resolve the Arab–Israeli conflict through separate peace agreements, rather than a comprehensive solution. Despite Washington’s objections to the PLO, the organisation had regional and international legitimacy, its stature aided by its political and ideological allies. Yet these ties also contributed to the PLO’s involvement in the Lebanese civil war. Kissinger encouraged Syria’s June 1976 invasion of Lebanon to weaken, if not destroy, the PLO as an independent actor. Although the PLO survived Syria’s intervention, Kissinger’s actions and agreements limited the diplomatic initiatives of the Jimmy Carter Administration.