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The PLO in Lebanon and the Lebanese Civil War
Lebanese Civil War
In the mid-1970s, Arafat and his Fatah movement found themselves in a tenuous
position. The Rejectionist Front opposed Arafat's growing calls for diplomacy
from the mid-1970s, implied in his Ten Points Program, which was denounced by
the Rejectionist Front, and by his support for a 1976 UN Security Council draft
resolution calling for a two-state settlement on the pre-1967 borders that was
vetoed by the United States. The population in the West Bank and Gaza Strip saw
Arafat as their best hope for a resolution to the conflict, especially in the
aftermath of the Camp David Accords, which Palestinians had seen as a blow to
their aspirations to self-determination. Abu Nidal, a sworn enemy of the PLO
since 1974, assassinated the PLO's diplomatic envoy to the European Economic
Community, which in the Venice Declaration of 1980 had called for the
Palestinian right of self-determination to be recognized by Israel.
During the Lebanese Civil War, the PLO first fought against Maronite militias,
then against Israel, then, finally, against the Syrian-supported Amal militia.
In the 1985-88 War of the Camps Amal and other pro-Syrian militias besieged
Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon to drive out supporters of Arafat. Many
thousands of Palestinians died of violence and starvation. After the Amal siege
ended, there was a great deal of intra-Palestinian fighting in the camps.
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