Word: palestinians
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Thursday members of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) delegation, dressed in Arabic costumes and armed with toy machine guns and a waterpipe kidnapped a conference official from the Sheraton...
...plucky little King (or P.L.K., as he is fondly known in some quarters) became an Arab pariah. Hussein was ignored at conferences, slighted when oil subsidies were handed out, finally humiliated at the Rabat summit of 1974, where he was stripped of the right to represent West Bank Palestinians (who still hold Jordanian citizenship) in future peace negotiations with Israel. Instead the Palestinians were given the right to negotiate over the status of Palestinian territory on the West Bank and in Gaza. Arafat meanwhile was lionized. He took his "guns and olive branch" liberation theory to the podium...
...pendulum swung back last year in Lebanon. Arafat and the Palestinians misjudged their strength and thereupon entered a losing military and political battle with Syria. They now find themselves dependent on moderate governments in Egypt, Syria and Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile the irrepressible Hussein, who handled his humiliation at Rabat with particular grace, has re-emerged as a force in Arab peace negotiations. Today Hussein sits more securely on his throne, so much so that he has felt strong enough to advocate a Jordanian-Palestinian federation. Arafat is less secure but still a likely choice to head whatever Palestinian state emerges...
Such a union between a Palestinian state and Jordan still faces bitter debate next month in Cairo, when the Palestine National Council will discuss the issue and Arafat's acceptance of it. Even if the idea of confederation survives to become eventual reality, pairing ministates run by Hussein and Arafat would be like mixing oil and water. Committee rule would result in chaos and sooner or later a showdown. The P.L.K. won the last such showdown in 1970; if it actually came to another, he would very likely win again...
...years, the dream of America, which young Arabs have long admired, has been marked by an attitude of indifference, bias and wrong judgments in the political arena. Attempts to redress the injustices committed against European Jews have unfortunately been pursued without due sensitivity to the rights of the Palestinian people. This resulted in the complex tragedy that plagues the Middle East. We who believe that ending one injustice should not be done by committing another should try to find a just and human way out of this complicated dilemma. To this aim, we trust that the United States will pursue...