Between self-interest and international norms: Legitimizing the PLO

The dominant factor underlying the PLO's international legitimization since the late 1960s has been self-interest, primarily Arab pressure and great-power competition. Yet international norms also played a role in the process, with various states using different strategies to bridge the dissonance between self-interest and moral ideals: ignoring international norms; interpreting blurred norms in the light of self-interest; manufacturing 'normative alibi'; and saying one thing but doing another.