stephen  d. leece

The PLA was the armed-wing of the PLO, founded in 1964 at the Arab League summit held in Alexandria. It was never under total PLO control, the main power being held by the host governments, usually Syria and Egypt, as was the same case for the PLO as a political entity.

The PLO would not gain independence until Yasser Arafat’s Fatah took over, complete with its own armed-wing in 1968-69 following the Arab States’ embarrassment at losing the Six Day War.

At its peak the PLA had eight brigades armed with Soviet-supplied equipment.

The three most important brigades were the Ayn Jalut Brigade based in Gaza, Qadisiyyah based in Iraq from 1964, and in Jordan from 1967, and Hattin Brigade in Syria.

The PLA was never a single fighting unit, but was treated as an auxiliary unit by the host nations.

From 1968 the PLA had the Yarmouk Brigade which performed Commando Operations on Israeli forces in Gaza.

As the PLA was effectively a puppet of host nations, especially as far as Syria was concerned, it was used to fight proxy wars, most notably against the Jordanians during Black September. This loss contributed greatly to Hafez al-Assad’s take-over of Syria.

In the Lebanese Civil War both Syria and Egypt tried to use the PLA as a proxy army against the PLO with zero success- a Palestinian will not fight another Palestinian.

Following Operation: PEACE FOR GALILEE (06/06/1982) the PLA was destroyed. Surviving fighters and the PLO evacuated Beirut for Tunis.

After the 1993 Oslo Accords, the PLA entered the Palestinian Territories as the Palestinian National Authority Security Services.

The PLA still remains in Syria, where it is currently receiving a terminal knuckle-sandwich from Syrian rebels.