Founded in 1964, the PLO is an umbrella political organization and the embodiment of the
Palestinian national movement. It was established in order to centralize the different Palestinian resistance groups that came into being after 1948. In 1969,
Yasser Arafat, representing the
Fatah movement, became chair of the organization, a position he held until his death in 2004. Some of the other groups within the PLO are the Popular Front for the Liberation of
Palestine (PFLP) and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP). From the early 1970s through the early 1990s, the PLO operated politically and militarily from bases in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Tunisia. The PLO first gained international legitimacy when Arafat addressed the United Nations General Assembly in November 1974 and the organization was granted observer status to the United Nations. In the 1993
Oslo Accords, the PLO both received recognition from
Israel as the representative of the Palestinian people and recognized Israel's right to exist. Since Oslo, the PLO has seen its leadership absorbed into the
Palestinian Authority. Though
Hamas was not part of the PLO, there have been in recent years unity agreements between Fatah and Hamas, and a unity government deal was reached in June 2014. See "
Palestine Liberation Organization," Permanent Observer Mission of the State of Palestine to the United Nations.