The PLO: The Rise and Fall of the Palestine Liberation Organization

The Palestine Liberation Organization was created by the Arab states as a weapon against Israel, but most of its victims have been Arabs. In Jordan it established itself as a rival power to the state and was forcibly expelled. Its building up of an army in Lebanon led to civil war and Israeli military intervention until it was again expelled in June 1982.

In 1982 and 1983, the author took herself into the midst of war to write this book, journeying for many days on roads known to be mined and ambushed, spent nights in rooms with glassless windows while shells exploded on all sides, and explored the ruins of PLO strongholds in the wake of bombardments, in order to find documents, testimony, and clues of all kinds to the history of the organization. She interviewed members of the many different sides involved in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The result is a powerful book which explains the structure, aims, tactics and role in middle eastern and world politics of the PLO.

Jillian Becker, whose first three books were novels, has also written short stories, criticism, and numerous articles which have been published on both sides of the Atlantic. She has lectured at universities and schools and to learned societies, police, and military specialists; and has broadcast on radio and television in England, the US, Canada, Europe, the Middle East and Africa on terrorism and related subjects. The PLO cements and enhances the reputation she established as an authority on terrorism with her famous work Hitler's Children: The Story of the Baader-Meinhof Terrorist Gang. A unique study of a terrorist organization from inception to demise, it was published in seven European languages and Japanese, was chosen as Newsweek (Europe) Book of the Year 1977, and was serialized in major daily newspapers in Britain, Norway and Japan.