Libya's Pre-1996 History Revisited: Part 6

A Wall Street Journal editorial recently proposed that the Democratic Obama-Clinton Administration consider the option of some kind of “humanitarian military intervention” in Libya in 2011 in response to the recent deadly attacks on demonstrators inside Libya by the current Libyan regime’s security forces. Yet most people in the United States know very little about the hidden history of Libya. Guy Arnold’s 1996 book, The Maverick State: Gaddafi and the New World Order, for example, observed:

“In 1970 Gaddafi staked his claim to leadership in relation to the Palestinian question and by May of that year was advancing a Libyan plan to co-ordinate action against Israel; the plan envisaged financial contributions, the unification of commando organizations and the creation of an Arab Palestinian `government-in-exile’….

“…On 17 September [1970] [Jordan] King Hussein…used his Bedouin army to destroy the Palestinian threat and in eleven days of fighting in and around Amman about 1000 Palestinians were killed and many more wounded in what the Palestinians came to call `Black September’…Gaddafi supported the Palestinian rebels…and redirected his aid to the Palestinian guerrillas…

“The Palestinians now made Lebanon their principal base and an estimate of 1972 suggested that as many as 600 Libyans joined the Palestinians, some taking part in the rocket attack upon Tzefat in northern Galilee on 9 January [1972]…

“…A rift developed with the Palestinians during the early stages of the Libyan cultural revolution which Gaddafi launched [in]…April [1973] and 13,000 Palestinians then resident in Libya complained that they had been ill-treated; some teachers and students were deported and 30 people arrested. In July [1973] the PLO claimed that Libya had closed its guerrilla training camps and had dismissed many Palestinians from their jobs. Yet, despite what appeared to be a major quarrel between Libya and the Palestinians, Gaddafi continued to maintain his links with the various Palestinian groups including Yassar Arafat…

“…A 1982 Israeli Defense Force [IDF] document provides details of Libyan financial support to the PLO which included a 1978 promise of $39.3m a year.

“In January 1980 a rift developed between Gaddafi and Arafat…Libya formally broke relations with al-Fatah and all aid was suspended; Libya continued its support to the other Palestinian groups…

“…Gaddafi…decided to expel 30,000 Palestinian refugees [in 1995] on the grounds that with the Israeli-PLO agreement the Palestinian problem had been solved. Gaddafi told the pro-Libyan daily Al-Arab, published in London, that he wished to dramatize the fact that, despite the PLO-Israel peace accords, most Palestinians remain refugees…On 26 September 1995, the Libyan authorities ordered all Palestinians to report to emergency camps on the Egyptian border ready for expulsion within 24 hours…

“…If negotiations [between Israel and the Palestinians] collapse, Gaddafi will be able to argue that he was right all along…”