Celebrating 80 years ...

The cover of the 1974 Rosh Hashanah edition of the Jewish Western Bulletin featured the article “PLO prepares name for its new state,” written by an unnamed “special correspondent.” The Palestine Liberation Organization intended to “call its new state – if and when it is established – the ‘Democratic State of Palestine.’ Its forces would be known as the ‘Palestine Defence Army.’”

London-based PLO representative Said Hammami, “known to be a close associate of [Yasser] Arafat and to reflect his views,” spoke of upcoming talks at which the “PLO would put forward a plan for a new state to be formed in territories evacuated by the Israelis – the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.” He stressed the PLO’s desire for “its own army, navy and air force,” and stated that the new state “would end the war with Israel ‘unless Israel goes to war with us.’” He called it “Israel propaganda” to focus on the PLO charter, “which states that only those Israelis who lived in Palestine before the ‘Zionist invasion’ (which is assumed to be 1917) could remain.”