Summary
The political program adopted by the Palestine National Council at its 12th session in Cairo on 8 June 1974, which reaffirms refusal of Resolution 242 at any level including the Geneva Conference, commits the Palestine Liberation Organization to employ all means, first and foremost armed struggle, to liberate Palestinian territory and establish an independent combatant national authority over every part of Palestinian territory that is liberated, frames any step towards liberation as a step towards the democratic Palestinian State of the previous Councils’ resolutions, and sets out Jordanian, Arab and international planks on national unity, a union of the confrontation countries and solidarity with the socialist countries and the forces of liberation and progress (PLO Interim Political Program (Ten-Point Program) (8 June 1974), lines 39-104 approx.).
What the file is
The PalQuest document page for the program, reproducing the English text with its adoption frame and closing paragraph. About 769 words in the text copy for the program and the page’s document metadata. The page gives the source as Journal of Palestine Studies 3, no. 4 (Summer 1974): 224, the location as Cairo, and the original language as Arabic; the text read here is the English text as printed on the page, with one slip kept as printed (“thee objectives” in point 10). The text copy has no page markers and is cited by lines. Site navigation and related-content furniture on the page are not part of the program and are accounted for at the end of the section by section entry.
Section by section
- Adoption frame (lines 39-52 approx.). “PLO INTERIM POLITICAL PROGRAM (10-Point Program)”, adopted at the 12th session of the Palestine National Council, Cairo, 8 June 1974. The Council acts on the basis of the Palestine National Charter and the Political Program drawn up at the eleventh session, held 6-12 January 1973; from its belief that a permanent and just peace is impossible unless the Palestinian people recover all their national rights and, first and foremost, their rights to return and to self-determination on the whole of the soil of their homeland; and in light of new political circumstances since the last session.
- Point 1. Reaffirms the PLO’s previous attitude to Resolution 242, which obliterates the national right of the people and deals with their cause as a problem of refugees; the Council therefore refuses to have anything to do with this resolution at any level, Arab or international, including the Geneva Conference.
- Point 2. The PLO will employ all means, and first and foremost armed struggle, to liberate Palestinian territory and to establish the independent combatant national authority for the people over every part of Palestinian territory that is liberated; this will require further changes in the balance of power in favour of the people and their struggle.
- Point 3. The PLO will struggle against any proposal for a Palestinian entity the price of which is recognition, peace, secure frontiers, renunciation of national rights, and the deprival of the people of their right to return and their right to self-determination on the soil of their homeland.
- Point 4. Any step taken towards liberation is a step towards the realization of the PLO’s strategy of establishing the democratic Palestinian State specified in the resolutions of the previous Palestinian National Councils.
- Point 5. Struggle along with the Jordanian national forces to establish a Jordanian-Palestinian national front whose aim will be to set up in Jordan a democratic national authority in close contact with the Palestinian entity established through the struggle.
- Point 6. The PLO will struggle to establish unity in struggle between the two peoples and between all the forces of the Arab liberation movement that are in agreement on this program.
- Point 7. In light of this program, the PLO will struggle to strengthen national unity and raise it to the level where it will be able to perform its national duties and tasks.
- Point 8. Once established, the Palestinian national authority will strive to achieve a union of the confrontation countries, with the aim of completing the liberation of all Palestinian territory, and as a step along the road to comprehensive Arab unity.
- Point 9. The PLO will strive to strengthen solidarity with the socialist countries and with the forces of liberation and progress throughout the world, with the aim of frustrating all the schemes of Zionism, reaction and imperialism.
- Point 10. In light of this program, the leadership of the revolution will determine the tactics which will serve and make possible the realization of these objectives (“thee objectives” as printed).
- Closing paragraph. The Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization will make every effort to implement this program, and should a situation arise affecting the destiny and future of the Palestinian people, the National Assembly will be convened in extraordinary session.
- Page metadata (lines 105-171 approx.). Date 8 June 1974, location Cairo, original language Arabic, source Journal of Palestine Studies 3, no. 4 (Summer 1974): 224; related event, the 12th Palestine National Council, Cairo, 1 June 1974 - 8 June 1974; related historic text, the Speech of Yasir Arafat at the UNGA, 13 November 1974. Navigation and site furniture are not part of the program.
Key passages
- “The Palestine Liberation Organization will employ all means, and first and foremost armed struggle, to liberate Palestinian territory and to establish the independent combatant national authority for the people over every part of Palestinian territory that is liberated” (point 2, lines 60-64 approx.).
- “Any step taken towards liberation is a step towards the realization of the Liberation Organization’s strategy of establishing the democratic Palestinian State” (point 4, lines 72-75 approx.).
Evidence the work relies on
A programmatic resolution, not an evidentiary work. It grounds itself in the Palestine National Charter, the Political Program of the eleventh session (6-12 January 1973) and the resolutions of previous Palestinian National Councils specifying the democratic Palestinian State, and in “the new political circumstances” since the last session, which it does not enumerate. It cites no reports, statistics or testimony. The page’s own provenance for the text is Journal of Palestine Studies 3, no. 4 (Summer 1974): 224.
Analysis
The program holds two positions together: an unchanged end (the democratic Palestinian State, return and self-determination on the whole of the homeland, refusal of Resolution 242 and of any entity bought with recognition, peace and secure frontiers) and a new intermediate form (a national authority over every part of territory that is liberated, point 2), which point 4 expressly subordinates to the end. Its machinery is organizational — national unity, a Jordanian-Palestinian front, unity of the Arab liberation movement, solidarity with the socialist countries — and tactical discretion is left to the leadership of the revolution under point 10. The text does not define the liberated territory’s boundaries, name the Geneva Conference beyond refusing it, or state how the national authority would be constituted.
People, organizations, places and events
Palestinian National Council, Palestine Liberation Organization, UN Security Council Resolution 242, Geneva Peace Conference on the Middle East, Hashemite Jordan Kingdom
Concepts
Self-determination, Right of Return, Armed struggle, Secular Democratic State
How it relates to other sources
The program is the primary text behind the account in The Question of Palestine that after the 1974 Council meeting the Palestinians had resolved upon a state and that the 1974 and 1977 National Council meetings committed the national community to a state on a liberated part of the territory with implicit recognition — Said’s characterization is held there; the program’s own point 3, refusing any entity whose price is recognition, peace and secure frontiers, is the wording against which that characterization stands. Its basis documents are the two charters already ingested, Palestine National (qawmi) Charter (1964) and The Palestinian National Charter (1968), and its point 1 is a direct response to Resolution 242 (1967) (22 November 1967) as made operative by Resolution 338 (1973) (22 October 1973). Five months later the General Assembly, in Resolution 3236 (XXIX): Question of Palestine (22 November 1974), reaffirmed the inalienable rights this program asserts and recognized the right to regain them by all means in accordance with the Charter.
Open questions
- The closing paragraph convenes the “National Assembly” in extraordinary session, while the adopting body named in the heading is the Palestine National Council; the text does not explain the naming.
- Point 10 prints “thee objectives” for “these objectives” in the text copy, kept as printed.
- The “new political circumstances” of the adoption frame are not enumerated in the text.
- The page gives the original language as Arabic; no Arabic text is reproduced in the file, so the English wording cannot be checked against it from this file.
Coverage
lines 1-171 of 171, read in full.