Kennedy Muise

March 26, 2017

Blog Post 2: Problems with PLO

            The Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) was involved in the Arab Israeli Conflict by working towards a two-state solution to separate Palestine and Israel into two sovereign states. While the PLO attempted to accomplish this solution through negotiations, peace-building, cooperation with other Arab states, and setting up a government, under the OSLO Accords, the PLO was rather unsuccessful in creating a stable environment for Palestinians and Jews to coexist. While there may be many issues with the PLO’s methods of stability, the main reason why the PLO was unsuccessful is that it failed to recognize the Muslim community in Palestine.

            One main goal of the PLO was to make Palestine a secular state. In their charter, The PLO recognized the importance of Arab unity in Palestine, and they wanted to protect this identity for every Palestinian, whether they were Muslim, Jewish, Samaritan, etc.; if everyone was united as an Arab, they would not be divided by religion (PLO Charter, Article 12). While this idea of unity seems well and good, the problem is that by creating a secular and unified state, the PLO ignored the customs of the large Muslim population living in Palestine. Muslim communities are used to outwardly expressing their religion, i.e. through traditional hijabs and burkas for women, prayer, chants, etc. While not all customs of Islam are necessarily just at least by western standards, such as burkas, the Muslim community at least deserves a chance to voice their opinions and thoughts in how the new Palestinian government should be set up, seeing that Muslims make up 93% of the population in Palestine (“Are All Palestinians Muslim?”).

            By not addressing the Muslim community directly, the PLO lost support from Palestinian Muslims to Hamas, another organization involved in the conflict. Unlike the PLO, Hamas recognized the values of the Muslim community such as “brotherhood”, jihad, and the importance of Allah over Arab identity. While I agree that the PLO’s idea of unity intended on creating equality amongst all Palestinians, despite their religious affiliation, I think the PLO would have achieved more success in fostering a stable government in Palestine if the PLO had thought of the Muslim community’s values and how to incorporate them into the foundation of the new government through negotiation and public policy.

               In addition, the PLO also lost its success in its attempt to cooperate with other Arab states. Another main goal of the PLO was to mutually work with other Arab states (Class lecture). However, if the PLO did not recognize the Muslim community in Palestine, who is to say they would effectively recognize other Muslim communities in the Arab world? Furthermore, if Palestine did not address the Muslim community, who will ensure that they are acknowledged on a global level, i.e. by the United Nations? In this way, the PLO’s ignorance turns from a domestic issue to a regional issue and even to an international issue. Nonetheless, without recognizing other Muslim communities and/or states, the PLO ran the risk of cooperating ineffectively with other Arab states that have strong Muslim populations, such as Iraq, which furthers the instability of the Palestinian government and ruins its chances for regional and international cooperation.

            The PLO’s failure to create stability in Palestine due to its disregard for Palestinian Muslims can be exemplified through the US involvement in the Middle East, especially Iraq. In general, the US is known for getting involved in the Middle East without acknowledging all the different customs, traditions, and ways of life that are significant in a predominantly Muslim region. In Iraq’s case, it is easy to realize that it is very difficult to create a democracy in a Muslim country due to Muslim customs and Shari’ah law. It is even more difficult for a western country, like the US, to instill the same democratic system in Iraq because US officials have little knowledge about the issues between ethnic and/or religious tensions between the Shias, the Sunnis, and the Kurds living in Iraq. When the US got involved in Iraq, before 2003, it was determined that “Iraq would become a ‘beacon of democracy’” even though the US “orchestrated the invasion [of Iraq]…based on false intelligence” (Hussain). While the US’s intensions may be to create a more democratic and westernized state in the Middle East, it continuously fails to recognize the customs of the Muslim population living in these regions, which causes destabilization and a vacuum for terrorism. Terrorist groups, like ISIS “are born out of destabilization created by Western military intervention” (Hussain). When the Muslim communities feel that their right to religion to taken away, infringed upon, or ignored, they are more likely to fight for their religion and their right to be heard, which is often yet unfortunately expressed through terrorism.

            The example of US intervention in Iraq and its failure to stabilize Iraq is a good example for why the PLO also had problems with stabilizing Palestine. Like the US, the PLO ignored a large portion of its population, leading to the rise of a more radical group, Hamas, which took support away from the PLO. If the PLO had recognized the Muslim community in Palestine, it would have been a much stronger and well-supported organization and could have potentially created a stable two-state solution between Palestine and Israel.

 

 Works Cited

“Are All Palestinians Muslim?”. Institute for Middle East Understanding. 5 Dec. 2005. Web. 26 Mar. 2017.

Hussain, Dilly. “ISIS: The “unintended consequences” of the US-led war on Iraq”. Foreign Policy Journal. 23 Mar. 2015. Web. 26 Mar. 2017.

PLO Charter