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The Palestinian National Charter: Resolutions of the Palestine
National Council (July 1–17, 1968)

Issued by the Palestine Liberation Organization
Reprinted in Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict
Edited by Charles D. Smith
Published in 2001

"The Palestinians will have three mottoes: national unity, national mobilization, and liberation."

For almost twenty years after the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, most of the world saw the conflict in the Middle East as an Arab-Israeli conflict. This was because the major battles—from the war for Israeli independence in 1948–49 to the Six-Day War of 1967—were between Israel and the Arab nations that surrounded it. During this period, the Palestinian people—Arabs who had lived in the area historically known as Palestine before it was claimed by Israel—played a secondary...