Inside the Plo: Covert Units, Secrets Funds, and the War Against Israel and the United States

If they were our terrorists, we'd be offering them money, drug operations, and PR assistance. But they're not ours, so we expose their sub-human brutishness. They probably are brutish but it's ideology and not ethics that drives this tawdry account. (RC) Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.

The authors here gather an impressive array of new information about the Palestine Liberation Organization, its origins, governing structure, internal power struggles, covert foreign relations, funding and operations. Livingstone, a former Time correspondent, and Halevy, an acknowledged antiterrorist authority, analyze the PLO's recent policy change involving recognition of Israel and formal renunciation of terrorism, and warn that this posture of compromise should be viewed with skepticism: "The eventual destruction of the State of Israel still appears to be . . . the PLO's ultimate goal." The elusive figure of Yassir Arafat, chairman of the PLO and commander-in-chief of its largest faction, Fatah, is brought into clear clearer than what?/than previous books, but let's just make it clear.gs focus in his various roles as spokesman, roving ambassador and "chief energizer of the Palestinian movement." The authors convincingly argue that the intifada uprising has resuscitated the PLO but has also probably accelerated its decline by forcing into the political arena a younger generation of Palestinians with goals different from those of Arafat and other PLO leaders. Photos.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The authors--Halevy, a Time correspondent, and Livingstone, an antiterrorism expert--have produced an in-depth study of the organizational structure of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the best to date. They provide background history on the rise of the PLO along with biographical sketches of most of the main members and their roles. Their best contribution is a breakdown of each of the components of the PLO with a thorough description of its terrorist activities and responsibilities for worldwide violence. They also outline the PLO's diplomatic efforts to gain political recognition and detail the huge financial empire that the PLO has assembled over the years. This is essential reading for an appreciation of Middle East developments, the PLO, and terrorism. Highly recommended.
- Sanford R. Silverburg, Catawba Coll., Salisbury, N.C.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.