In November of 1988, the Palestine National Council, that is the quasi-parliamentary body of the PLO, convened to make new political decisions, and very much with the Intifada in mind. And the pressure for change coming from within the West Bank and Gaza. The PLO made new, historical decisions, and they accepted two UN resolutions that the Palestinians had never accepted in the past. The PLO now accepted Resolution 242, and it also accepted the Partition Resolution of 1947. Though these resolutions were accepted with all sorts of reservations that made their interpretation a rather difficult and torturous exercise, nevertheless the PLO had taken decisions that were a long step towards the acceptance of the idea of a two state solution. The albeit qualified acceptance by the PLO of Resolution 242 and the Partition of 1947, paved the way for a much greater measure of international recognition of the PLO, including the willingness of the United States to engage with the PLO. But that willingness to engage with the PLO did not last for very long. In the Gulf War of 1990, 91, where Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, and the United States went to war against Saddam Hussein, Yasser Arafat, the Chairman of the PLO, took the side of Saddam Hussein. And having done that disqualified himself in the eyes of the Americans as a legitimate representative for the Palestinians. So when the United States initiated the International Conference at Madrid as the forum for the resumption of the negotiation between Israel and its Arab neighbors, the PLO was not directly represented there. The Madrid representation formula for the Palestinians accepted Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza, in the framework of a joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation, as the representatives for the Palestinians in the Madrid process. This was a very unwelcome formula from the PLO's point of view. The PLO, therefore, made it very clear, from the very beginning of the Madrid process of late 1991, that they would not allow the Palestinians, who were representing them, from the West Bank in Gaza, to actually speak for the Palestinian people. And the Palestinians who were in the joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation could do very little in the Madrid negotiations without prior approval of the PLO itself. And eventually, the PLO re-established itself fully as the negotiators on behalf of the Palestinians without any qualification, by joining Israel in what became the Oslo surprise, the agreement between Israel and the PLO. Which essentially allowed the PLO to eclipse the insider leadership from the West Bank and Gaza and to fully reestablish itself as the sole representative of the Palestinian people. By negotiating directly with Israel, the PLO was not only eclipsing the internal leadership in the West Bank and Gaza, but it was also trying to eclipse the Islamic factor which had emerged in Palestinian politics in the meantime. For considerable time, there had been a very strong and impressive showing for the Palestinian Islamic movements in the student unions of the various universities in the West Bank and Gaza. And in the Intifada in 1987, Hamas emerged as the leading Islamist organization amongst the Palestinians. And the Hamas leadership became a very serious contender with the PLO for the leadership of the Palestinian people. And it was far less clear, as Hamas emerged as a competing leadership with the PLO, exactly who the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people really was. While contending with the insider leadership and the competition with Hamas, the PLO also had to contend with the results of Jordan's decision to disengage from the West Bank in the summer of 1988. King Hussein realized that his efforts to maintain some kind of hold on the future of the Palestinians was not really making much gain. During the Intifada, there was considerable expression of anti-Jordanian feeling, which led the Jordanians to finally decide to disengage formally from the West Bank. What the Jordanians were saying to the Israelis by disengaging was not that the Jordanians were completely disinterested in the future of Palestine, they were not asking to be ignored. What the Jordanians were saying to the Israelis was that in order to settle the Palestinian question, they must also speak to the PLO, not just to the Jordanians. By pressuring the Israelis to talk to the PLO, the Jordanians were essentially challenging the PLO to deliver, that is, the Jordanians, by walking away from the West Bank, were putting the PLO to the test. Could the PLO really negotiate with the Israelis and lead to change on the ground? That was the challenge the Jordanians had put to the PLO. And it was with this challenge that the PLO had to deal in coming to terms with Israel and proving to the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza that the PLO was indeed capable of delivering a political solution to their predicament.
