Founded in 1964, it initially sought to establish an Arab state over the entire territory of the former Mandatory Palestine, advocating the elimination of Israel.

[19][20][21] Prior to the Oslo Accords, the PLO's militant wings engaged in acts of violence against both the Israeli military and civilians, within Israel and abroad.

[26] The group used guerrilla tactics to attack Israel from their bases in Jordan (which then included the West Bank), Lebanon, Egypt (Gaza Strip), and Syria.

The 1970 Avivim school bus massacre by the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), killed nine children, three adults and crippled 19.

In the late 1960s, and especially after the expulsion of the Palestinian militants from Jordan in Black September events in 1970–1971, Lebanon had become the base for PLO operations.

[citation needed] In 1975, the increasing tensions between Palestinian militants and Christian militias exploded into the Lebanese Civil War, involving all factions.

[citation needed] This was especially so in the aftermath of the Camp David Accords of 1978 between Israel and Egypt, which the Palestinians saw as a blow to their aspirations to self-determination.

[citation needed] This included Menachem Begin, who had stated on more than one occasion that even if the PLO accepted UN Security Council Resolution 242 and recognized Israel's right to exist, he would never negotiate with the organization.

Other Arab voices had recently called for a diplomatic resolution to the hostilities in accord with the international consensus, including Egyptian leader Anwar Sadat on his visit to Washington, DC in August 1981, and Crown Prince Fahd of Saudi Arabia in his 7 August peace proposal; together with Arafat's diplomatic maneuver, these developments made Israel's argument that it had "no partner for peace" seem increasingly problematic.

[33] After the appointment of Ariel Sharon to the post of Minister of Defense in 1981, the Israeli government policy of allowing political growth to occur in the occupied West Bank and Gaza strip changed.

Low-level Palestinian insurgency in Lebanon continued in parallel with the consolidation of Shia militant organizations, but became a secondary concern to Israeli military and other Lebanese factions.

[35] On 1 October 1985, in Operation Wooden Leg, Israeli Air Force F-15s bombed the PLO's Tunis headquarters, killing more than 60 people.

It is suggested that the Tunis period (1982–1991) was a negative point in the PLO's history, leading up to the Oslo negotiations and formation of the Palestinian Authority (PA).

[36] There was a significant reduction in centres of research, political debates or journalistic endeavours that had encouraged an energised public presence of the PLO in Beirut.

The Second or Al-Aqsa Intifada started concurrently with the breakdown of July 2000 Camp David talks between Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak.

The PLO was found liable for the death and injuries of US citizens in a number of terrorist attacks in Israel from 2001 to 2004 and ordered to pay a judgment of $655.5 million.

[44] For the first time, the PLO called for the establishment of a Palestinian state (to replace Israel) in which Christians, Muslims and Jews would have equal rights, thereby tacitly accepting Jewish presence in Palestine.

[43] PLO's proposal was similar to the one given by Egyptian Prime Minister Ismail Fahmy, in 1976, where he promised Israel peace on the basis of withdrawing to the 1967 borders, creation of State of Palestine in the West Bank and Gaza, and a nuclear weapons free Middle East.

[citation needed] In April 1996, a large number of articles, which were inconsistent with the Oslo Accords, were wholly or partially nullified.

Claims of historical or religious ties of Jews with Palestine are incompatible with the facts of history and the true conception of what constitutes statehood.

A draft Constitution was written in 1963, to rule the PLO until free general elections among all the Palestinians in all the countries in which they resided could be held.

[66] During the late 1970s its publications increased consisting of twenty-nine dailies, eighteen weeklies, thirteen biweeklies, sixty-two monthlies, sixteen quarterlies, and twenty-one annuals.

They demanded immediate and direct elections to the Palestine National Council to ″activate representative PLO institutions in order to preserve, consolidate, and strengthen the effective legal representation of the Palestinian people as a whole″, before changing the status within the UN.

After Hamas took over Gaza in 2007, Abbas issued a decree suspending the PLC and some sections of the Palestinian Basic Law, and appointed Salam Fayyad as prime minister.

[81] With a de facto defunct parliament and Executive, Mahmoud Abbas increasingly gained exclusive powers within both PLO and PA, as well as in Fatah.

)[87] In 1993, PLO chairman Yasser Arafat recognized the State of Israel in an official letter to its prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin.

In response to Arafat's letter, Israel decided to revise its stance toward the PLO and to recognize the organization as the representative of the Palestinian people.

[100] On 10 September 2018, National Security Advisor John Bolton announced the closure of the PLO Mission;[101] Nauert, a U.S. Department of State spokeswoman, cited as the reason Palestine's "push to have the International Criminal Court investigate Israel for possible war crimes.

[106]By "every part of Palestinian territory that is liberated" was implicitly meant the West Bank and Gaza Strip, albeit presented as an interim goal.

Effectively, the PLO recognized Israel's right to exist within pre-1967 borders, with the understanding that the Palestinians would be allowed to set up their own state in the West Bank and Gaza.