The KGB generated a storyline that nowadays is often taken as factual. These are its basic points, none of them true:
1. The PLO, from its start, expressed the will of the Arabs living the geographic region Palestine, rather than the will of Moscow to create divisions and overthrow democracy.
2. Palestine is not just the name for a geographic region, but the home for a distinct and indigenous people, the Palestinian Arabs. Its Jewish citizens are colonizers from some unidentified foreign country..
3. Israel practices apartheid in which the Arab citizens of Israel are prevented from advancing.
4. Arab poverty in the territories controlled by Arabs is due to Israel, rather than to the Arab rulers Hamas and the PLO
See here (pp. 163-164)
Why is the Russian PLO embrace relevant today?
Since February 24, 2022, the day when the Russian attack on the Ukraine commenced, the top brass of PLO counter intelligence has been sitting in the Kremlin, egging on Moscow. By no coincidence, the League of Arab Nations, which spawned the Palestine Liberation Organization with Russian support back in in 1964, has supported the war launched by Russia.
In that context, the time has come to pay attention to the overlooked Russian role in Middle East]
On September 13 1993, when the Oslo Accords were inked on the White House lawn, RUSSIA sat with the US, as guarantors of these accords, even though they were never ratified by the PLO.
While the US has consistently aspired to play the role of an honest broker between the warring parties, Russia has acted under no such pretensions.
Instead, Russia consistently supports the PLO understanding of the Oslo Accords, that Israel must withdraw to the 1949 armistice lines, cancel annexation of the Old City of Jerusalem and the Golan, and recognize the "right of return"
Russia will now seek to ameliorate its image
What better way to assume a heroic posture than to assert itself of the guarantor of peace in the Middle East. and to support demands of the PLO,
Not only would the PLO welcome such a Russian initiative "for peace".
Such a Russian move would reverberate with support at the UN and the EU…and in Washington.
David Bedein is director of Israel Resource News Agency and heads the Center for Near East Policy Research, author of Genesis of the Palestinian Authority and Roadblock to Peace: How the UN Perpetuates the Arab-Israeli Conflict: UNRWA Policies Reconsidered..