The PLO Covenant
Article 1: Palestine is the homeland of the Palestinian Arab people and an integral part of the great Arab homeland, and the people of Palestine is a part of the Arab nation.
Article 2: Palestine with its boundaries that existed at the line of the British Mandate is an indivisible territorial unit.
Article 3: The Palestinian Arab people possesses the legal right to its home land, and, when the liberation of its home land is completed, it will exercise selfdetermination solely according to its own will and choice.
Article 4:The Palestinian identity is an innate, persistent characteristic that does not disappear, and it is transferred from fathers to sons. The Zionist occupation, and the dispersal of the Palestinian Arab people as a result of the disasters which befell them, do not deprive it of its Palestinian identity and affiliation and do not nullify them.
Article 5:The Palestinians are the Arab nationals who were living permanently in Palestine until 1947, whether they were expelled from there or remained. Anyone born to a Palestinian Arab father after that, within Palestine or outside it, is a Palestinian.
Article 6:Jews who were living permanently in Palestine until the beginning of the Zionist invasion will be considered Palestinians.
Article 7:The Palestinian affiliation and the "material, spiritual and historical tie with Palestine are indisputable realities. The upbringing of the Palestinian individual in an Arab and revolutionary fashion, the undertaking of all means of forging consciousness and training the Palestinian, in order to acquaint him profoundly with his homeland, spiritually and material, and preparing him for the conflict and the armed struggle, as well as for the sacrifice of his wealth and his life to restore his homeland, until the liberation-all this is a national duty.
Article 8:The phase in their history, through which the Palestinian people are now living, is that of national struggle for the liberation of Palestine. Thus, the conflicts among the Palestinian national forces are secondary, and should be ended for the sake of the basic conflict that exists between the forces of Zionism and of imperialism on the one hand, and the Palestinian Arab people on the other. On this basis the Palestinian masses, regardless of whether they are residing in the national home land or in diaspora constituteboth their organization and the individuals-one national front working for the retrieval of Palestine and its liberation through armed struggle.
Article 9:Armed struggle is the only way to liberate Palestine and is therefore a strategy and not tactics. The Palestinian Arab people affirms its absolute resolution and abiding determination to pursue the armed struggle and to work for an armed popular revolution, to liberate its homeland and return to it to maintain its right to a natural life in it, and to exercise its right of selfdetermination in it and sovereignty over it.
Article 10:Fedayeen action forms the nucleus of the popular Palestinian war of liberation. This demands its promotion, extension and protection, and the mobilization of all the mass and scientific capacities of the Palestinians, their organization and involvement in the armed Palestinian revolution, and cohesion in the national struggle among the various groups of the people of Palestine, and between them and the Arab masses, to guarantee the continuation of the revolution, its advancement and victory.
Article 11:The Palestinians will have three mottoes: national unity, national mobilization and liberation.
Article 12:The Palestinian people believe in Arab unity. In order to contribute their share toward the attainment of that belief, however, they must, at the present stage of their struggle, safeguard their Palestinian identity and develop their consciousness of that identity, and oppose any plan that may dissolve or impair it.
Article 13:Arab unity and the liberation of Palestine are two complementary aims. Each one paves the way for realization of the other. Arab unity leads to the liberation of Palestine, and the liberation of Palestine leads to Arab unity. Working for both goes handinhand.
Article 14:The destiny of the Arab nation, indeed Arab existence, depends upon the destiny of the Palestinian cause. The endeavor and effort of the Arab nation to liberate Palestine follows from this connection. The people of Palestine assumes its vanguard role in realizing this sacred national aim.
Article 15:The liberation of Palestine, from an Arab viewpoint, is a national duty to repulse the Zionist, imperialist invasion from the great Arab homelands and to eliminate the Zionist presence front Palestine. Its full responsibilities fall upon the Arab nation, peoples and governments, with the Palestinian Arab people at their head.
For this purpose, the Arab nation must mobilize all its military, human, material and spiritual capacities to participate actively with the people of Palestine in the liberation of Palestine. They must, especially in the present stage of armed Palestinian revolution, grant and offer the people of Palestine all possible help and every material and human support, and afford it every sure means and opportunity enabling it to continue to assume its vanguard role in pursuing its armed revolution until the liberation of its homeland.