Towards a Reluctant Relationship: 1964–70

Abstract

In the memorable phrase of Malcolm Kerr, the late 1950s and early 1960s was the period of the ‘Arab Cold War’, when the quest for Arab unity assumed a greater priority to the goal of the liberation of Palestine.¹ However, by the mid-1960s increasing frustration with the Arab states’ failure either to unite or effectively to confront the Israeli state forced the nationalist Arab regimes to refocus their energies on the Palestinian question. Nasir’s sponsorship of the formation of the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1964 was Egypt’s response to defending its self-proclaimed leadership of the radical Arab struggle against Israel. Syria’s support for the guerrilla activities of Fatah, the Palestinian faction which remained independent of the PLO until 1968, reflected Syria’s competitive resolve to assume the Palestinian mantle against its Egyptian rival. The massive Israeli victories of the June 1967 war only accelerated the process whereby the Arab-Israeli conflict dominated Arab policy-making and the PLO emerged as an independent Palestinian actor in its own right, with Fatah and the other Palestinian guerrilla organizations assuming leadership of the organization.