Sport Diplomacy and National Identity: Palestinian Sport Under the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), 1969–1992

In 1969, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) began to focus on sports as a means of internal political mobilization and as a tool for public diplomacy within its national liberation project. The PLO’s involvement in sports peaked during the 1970s, when it achieved international breakthroughs, including broad recognition by continental and international sports federations, alongside Israel’s isolation and expulsion from those federations. In the 1980s, after leaving Beirut, the PLO concentrated on supporting sports institutions in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. These institutions played a significant role in political mobilization and in building structures that helped manage the first Palestinian Intifada (1987–1993). Across both diaspora and occupied territories, Palestinian sports between 1969 and 1993 strengthened collective national identity while advancing the PLO’s paradiplomacy until the Oslo Peace Accords’ signing in 1993.