As non-state actors, the Palestinians have traditionally been accorded a secondary role in works on US foreign policy toward the Arab–Israeli conflict. Paul Thomas Chamberlin's The Global Offensive is a welcome attempt to redress this gap in the literature. Chamberlin demonstrates the central role played by the Palestinians in the Arab–Israeli conflict and the attempts of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) to oppose and accommodate the United States from 1967 to 1975. This is not an easy task as the Palestinians lack a state archive and other key institutions that would provide scholars with access to relevant materials and support different research projects. In addition, the PLO's records were seized and copied by Israel after the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, but access to them is restricted. Although Israel returned some documents to the PLO, those records are now missing. Chamberlin, an associate professor of history at the University of Kentucky, admirably employs and deftly integrates published Arabic-language sources with traditional US diplomatic archival records in a well-written and compelling narrative.

The Global Offensive takes the reader from Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan to the White House to the United Nations. It demonstrates how the reemergence of the Palestinian national movement fit within the “broad complex of liberationist forces scattered throughout the international system of the Cold War world.” Modeling their combination of guerilla actions, terrorism, and diplomatic initiatives on the Algerian and Vietnamese examples, Chamberlin argues that “the PLO emerged as the world's first globalized insurgency and became a seminal influence on other rebellions in the following decades” (3).

The 1948 Palestine War witnessed the establishment of the state of Israel, the erasure of Palestine, and the creation of the Palestinian refugee population. After 1948, Washington dealt with the Palestinians as a humanitarian issue, not a political problem. It sought to resolve the Arab–Israeli conflict by mediating between Israel and its Arab neighbors, often through presidential envoys, and ignoring the Palestinians. The emergence of Palestinian political groups advocating armed struggle in the late 1950s defied American efforts. Attempting to reduce the influence of these groups and maintain control over the issue of Palestine, the Arab League established the PLO in 1964 and it was initially beholden to Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser. However, after Israel's embarrassing defeat of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria in the June 1967 War, the organization was dominated by the Palestinian political groups, in particular Yasir Arafat's Fatah, and became an independent force in the region and internationally. Seven years later, it was recognized as the “sole, legitimate representative of the Palestinian people” by the UN and the Arab League. In addition, charismatic Palestinian leaders like Arafat and Dr. George Habash of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) were a challenge not just to the United States and Israel but also to Egypt's Nasser, King Hussein of Jordan, and Syria's Hafiz al-Assad. “A vibrant guerilla movement,” Chamberlin writes, “controlled by the Palestinians themselves would add instability to an already tumultuous regional system” (52).

Yet the emergence of an independent, Palestinian-led PLO also provided the United States and Israel with an opportunity for a comprehensive resolution to the conflict, which they ignored. Chamberlin argues convincingly that the Nixon administration “put a diplomatic freeze on the Arab–Israeli dispute at what may have been one of the most auspicious moments for a political solution in the history of the conflict” (85). Instead of engaging with the PLO, Washington sought to contain the organization diplomatically and suppress Palestinian guerilla fighters (fedayeen) militarily. This approach dovetailed with Israel's “active defense” policy, in which it dealt with the PLO as a military problem. Israel also used a combination of military and diplomatic pressure on neighboring Arab states, hoping this would lead them to restrain the fedayeen. Instead, Israel's disproportionate military actions and Washington's continued support at the UN Security Council led to an increase in the PLO's popularity in the region and internationally. Chamberlin writes, “each [Israeli] reprisal seemed to spur popular support for the guerillas and add legitimacy to their image as liberation fighters” (92).

The PLO drew on and benefited from a regional and global Palestinian diaspora. It also found support in Hanoi, Beijing, Havana, Moscow, and many Arab capitals. Chamberlin is careful not to treat the organization as a monolithic bloc and stresses the differences between the different factions, especially Fatah and the PFLP. For Washington, however, “the Palestinians had come to embody the threat of transnational radicalism everywhere” (93). This fear reflected the Nixon administration's larger goal of minimizing the implications of the failing war in Vietnam for America's global standing. Containing the Palestinian threat would lead to closer relations between the United States, Israel, and Jordan after the 1970 Jordanian Civil War. Yet expelling the organization from Jordan served to expand, not diminish, its actions and “would transform the global arena into a battlefield in the PLO's war with Israel” (141).

Although The Global Offensive is an admirable work, it does have some shortcomings. Most prominent is its abrupt conclusion with the US-brokered Sinai II agreement between Egypt and Israel and the outbreak of the Lebanese Civil War in 1975. While Chamberlin's contention that the PLO became enmeshed in the civil war is accurate, it ignores that the conflict's outcome was not inevitable. The PLO and its leftist Lebanese allies were on the verge of victory when Syrian forces intervened and enforced a stalemate, which surprised but pleased the Ford administration. In addition, the PLO's establishment of a para-state in Lebanon created opportunities for cooperation between the organization and Washington to safeguard the US Embassy in Beirut and assist with the evacuation of American citizens. A secret communication channel between the PLO and the United States was also established through the CIA's Robert Ames. Nor were the 1978 Camp David Accords a direct result of the Sinai II agreement. By 1976, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger conceded that the United States would eventually negotiate with the PLO, but only after treaties were signed between Israel and the neighboring Arab states in order to impose a solution on the organization.Footnote ¹ Moreover, the Sinai II agreement demonstrated the diminishing returns of Kissinger's shuttle diplomacy, and the need for a comprehensive approach to the Arab–Israeli conflict was openly discussed inside and outside the US government. The Carter administration attempted such a resolution, including outreach to the PLO, but was undermined in part by the Likud Party's surprise victory in the 1977 Israeli elections.Footnote ² Examining the interactions between the PLO and the United States after 1975 would have demonstrated the possibilities and limitations of improved relations. Indeed, the promise of that relationship remains unfulfilled.

The Global Offensive is an important addition to the historiography of the Cold War in the Middle East and is highly recommended. One hopes that diplomatic historians will continue to highlight the role of the Palestinians in works on US foreign policy toward the Arab–Israeli conflict before and after 1967.