EXCERPT
Following the launch of armed strikes against Israel, Fatah’s rise to power in the PLO was swift. Yasser Arafat, who was among the party’s founders, was elected chairman of the PLO in February 1969. Fatah’s bold strategy had displaced the Arab Nationalist Movement from its position of influence.
Fatah’s posters were part of that bold strategy. The aim was to excite the passions of Palestinians and convince them that Fatah was right: they had the strength and unity to liberate Palestine by themselves.
Faced with maintaining the revolutionary credentials that had brought them to influence, Fatah pressed the PLO’s various institutions into service of the revolution. The PLO had founded its Department of Arts and National Culture in 1965, under the directorship of the artist and art historian Ismail Shammout. Beirut became the base of the PLO after 1971 and the PLO’s patronage drew Palestinian and other Arab artists to this centre of artistic activity. By the end of the 1970s, the PLO was publishing over 100 magazines, newspapers and journals from Beirut. These publications required cover images that could be cut out as posters. As a result, the PLO became a pillar supporting artists, as they supported its cause.
Source:
https://www.historytoday.com/miscellanies/behold-palestine
__________________________________________