Yasser Arafat, Hijacks and Hostages

• Became PLO leader in 1968, tried to unite various PLO factions, he wanted to focus on raiding Israel, but others wanted to gain recognition by worldwide attacks
• PLO began to target Israeli planes, Embassies and Offices globally, Israelis took reprisals against Palestinian targets, often “accidentally” near refugee camps
• 1970: PLO took British, Swiss and US hijacked planes to Jordan and blew them up, King Hussein of Jordan was fed up with Israeli reprisals and feared foreign intervention, so expelled PLO
• This led to fighting in which 10,000 Palestinians were killed by Jordan, remaining PLO guerrilla fighters left for Syria and Lebanon