Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine

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The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) (Arabic الجبهة الشعبية لتحرير فلسطين - al-jabhah al-sha`biyyah li-tahrīr filastīn) is a Marxist-Leninist, nationalist Palestinian political and military organization, founded in 1967. It has consistently been the second-largest of the groups forming the Palestinian Liberation Organization (the largest being Fatah), but now has only limited popular support in the Palestinian Territories. It has generally taken a hard line on Palestinian national aspirations, opposing the more moderate stance of Fatah. It opposed the Oslo Accords and was for a long time opposed to the idea of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but in 1999 came to an agreement with the PLO leadership regarding negotiations with Israel. The US has listed it as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation as has the European Union [1]

History of the PFLP

Origins in the ANM

The PFLP grew out of the Harakat al-Qawmiyyin al-Arab, or Arab Nationalist Movement (ANM), founded in 1953 by Dr. George Habash, a Palestinian Christian, from Lydda/Lod in what is now Israel. The family had been forced into exile after the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. The 22-year-old Habash went to Lebanon to study medicine at the American University in Beirut, graduating in 1951.

In an interview with American journalist John Cooley, Habash identified the Arab defeat by Israel as "the scientific society of Israel as against our own backwardness in the Arab world. This called for the total rebuilding of Arab society into a twentieth-century society," (Cooley 1973:135).

The ANM was founded in this nationalist spirit. "[W]e held the 'Guevara view' of the 'revolutionary human being'," Habash told Cooley. "A new breed of man had to emerge, among the Arabs as everywhere else. This meant applying everything in human power to the realization of a cause." (ibid.)

Formation of the PFLP

The ANM formed underground branches in several Arab countries, including Libya, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, then still under British rule. It adopted secularism and socialist economic ideas, and pushed for armed struggle. In collaboration with the Palestinian Liberation Army, the ANM established Abtal al-Audah, Heroes of the Return, as a commando group in 1966. After the Six Day War of June 1967, this group merged in August with two other groups, Youth for Revenge and Ahmed Jibril's Syrian-backed Palestine Liberation Front, to form the PFLP, with Habash as leader.

By early 1968, the PFLP had trained between one and three thousand guerrillas. It had the financial backing of Syria, and was headquartered there, and one of its training camps was based in as-Salt, Jordan. In 1969, the PFLP declared itself a Marxist-Leninist organization, but it has remained faithful to Pan Arabism, seeing the Palestinian struggle as part of a wider uprising against Western imperialism, which also aims to unite the Arab world by overthrowing "reactionary" regimes. It published a newspaper, al-Hadaf (The Target), which was edited by Ghassan Kanafani.

Breakaway organizations

In 1968, Ahmed Jibril broke away from the PFLP to form the Syrian-backed Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command (PFLP-GC).

In 1969, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) formed as a separate, ostensibly Maoist, organization under Niaf Hawatmeh and Yasser Abd Rabbo, initially as the PDFLP.

In 1972, the Popular Revolutionary Front for the Liberation of Palestine was formed following a split in PFLP.

PLO membership

The PFLP joined the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the umbrella organization of the Palestinian national movement, in 1968, becoming the second-largest faction after Yassir Arafat's Fatah. In 1974, it withdrew from the organization's executive committee (but not from the PLO) to join the Rejectionist Front, accusing the PLO of abandoning the goal of destroying Israel outright in favor of a binational solution, which was opposed by the PFLP leadership. It rejoined the executive committee in 1981.

After the Oslo Accords

After the eruption of the First Intifada and the subsequent Oslo Accords the PFLP had difficulty establishing itself in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. At that time (1993-96) Hamas enjoyed rapidly rising popularity in the wake of their successful strategy of suicide bombings devised by Yahya Ayyash ("the Engineer"). Also, the fall of the Soviet Union together with the rise in the Arab world of Islamism - and particularly the increased popularity of the Islamist groups Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad - led to a decline in support for Marxist-Leninist organizations, and has marginalised the PFLP's role in Palestinian politics and armed resistance. However, the organization retains considerable political influence within PLO, since no new elections have been held within the organization.

As a result of its post-Oslo weakness, the PFLP has been forced to adapt slowly and find partners among politically active, preferably young, Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, in order to compensate for their dependence on their aging commanders returning from or remaining in exile. The PFLP has therefore formed alliances with other leftist groups formed within the PA, including the Palestinian People's Party, the Popular Resistance Committees of Gaza.

In 1990, the PFLP transformed its Jordan branch into a separate political party, the Jordanian Popular Democratic Unity Party.

Elections in the PNA

Following the death of Yasser Arafat in November 2004, the PFLP entered discussions with the DFLP and the Palestinian People's Party aimed at nominating a joint left-wing candidate for the presidential elections. These discussions were unsuccessful, and the PFLP then decided to support the independent Palestinian National Initiative's candidate Mustafa Barghouti, who gained 19.48% of the vote. In the municipal elections of December 2005 it had more success in e.g. in al-Bireh and Ramallah, and winning the mayorships of Bethlehem and Bir Zeit. [2] There is some confusion about the political allegiance of Janet Mikhail, the new mayor of Ramallah, some reports describe her as a member of the PFLP although most describe her as an independent.

The PFLP is powerful politically in the Ramallah area, the eastern districts and suburbs of Jerusalem and Bethlehem, the primarily Christian Refidyeh district of Nablus, but has far less strength in the rest of the West Bank, and is of little or no threat to the established Hamas and Fatah movements in Gaza.

The PFLP participated in the Palestinian legislative elections of 2006 as the Martyr Abu Ali Mustafa List. It won 4.2% of the popular vote and took three of the 132 seats in the Palestinian Legislative Council. In the lists, its best vote was 9.4% in Bethlehem, followed by 6.6% in Ramallah and al-Bireh and 6.5% in North Gaza.

Successors to George Habash

At the PFLP's Sixth National Conference in 2000, Habash stepped down as general secretary. Abu Ali Mustafa was elected to replace him, but was assassinated on August 27, 2001 when an Israeli helicopter fired rockets at his office in the West Bank town of Ramallah. The PFLP shot and killed the far-right Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi in November 17, 2001 in retaliation.

Ahmed Sadat was subsequently elected general secretary on October 3, 2001. In January of 2002, he was arrested by the Palestinian Authority under pressure from the United States and the United Kingdom and imprisoned in Jericho prison along with several other PFLP members accused by Israel of involvement in the Zeevi assassination. The Palestinian High Court ordered his release, stating that there were no legal grounds for the imprisonment, but the Palestinian National Authority refused to implement the court's decision. On March 14, 2006, the Israel Defense Forces attacked the prison and, after a 10-hour siege resulting in the death of two people and the wounding of 35, removed Sadat and five other inmates from the Jericho prison, arrested them, and took them to Israel for trial.

Attitude to the peace process

File:Bethlehem-pppelectionposter.JPG

2006 PFLP election poster in Bethlehem

When it was formed in the late 1960s the PFLP supported the established line of most Palestinian guerrilla fronts and ruled out any negotiated settlement with Israel that would result in two-states between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Instead, George Habash in particular, and various other leaders in general advocated one state with an Arab identity in which Jews were entitled to live with the same rights as any minority. Depending on the changing attitudes of the organization since then, it is unknown whether Habash intended to include all Jewish residents of Israel, or only those of Middle Eastern/Sephardi descent, as is sometimes stated in PFLP platforms^{[citation needed]}, or only Jews of indigenous Palestinian ancestry.

The PFLP platform never wavered on key points such as the overthrow of conservative or monarchist Arab states like Morocco and Jordan, the Right of Return of all Palestinian refugees to their homes in pre-1948 Palestine, or the use of the liberation of Palestine as a launching board for achieving Arab unity - reflecting its beginnings in the Pan-Arab ANM. Today, the PFLP is less staunch in its opposition to a negotiated solution than it was in 1987, when the First Intifada broke out, but generally maintains a hardline profile. Its Abu Ali Mustapha Brigades has been active during the Second Intifada, with attacks on soldiers, settlers and regular civilians, both on the Occupied Palestinian Territories and inside Israel proper.

Membership profile

The current PFLP draws its support from urban, usually university educated Palestinians of varying ages who lead a more secular lifestyle and therefore hold liberal beliefs in reference to social issues, and socialist views on economic ones. Whereas Hamas completely dominates the slums of Gaza, Qalqilya, and Hebron, the PFLP has its roots among the urban middle class, often Christians like their founder George Habash who fear Islamisation of the Palestinians and the erasure of the rights of minorities within a Hamas theocracy.^{[citation needed]}

The PFLP's armed wing, in the West Bank and Gaza, the Abu Ali Mustapha Brigades, draws much of its support from student organizations in universities like Al-Quds (eastern Jerusalem), Bir Zeit (Ramallah area), An-Najah National University (Nablus), and the American University of Jenin. The movement has thousands of active or passive activists in the West Bank, and a few hundred behind bars in Israeli prisons.

Armed attacks of the PFLP

This is a list of armed attacks attributed to the PFLP. It is not complete.

Armed attacks before 2000

The PFLP gained notoriety in the late 1960s and early 1970s for a series of armed attacks and aircraft hijackings, including on non-Israeli targets:

The hijacking of an El Al flight from Rome to Lod airport in Israel on July 23, 1968. The Western media reported that the flight was targeted because the PFLP believed Israeli general Yitzhak Rabin, who was Israeli ambassador to the US, was on board. Several individuals involved with the hijacking, including Leila Khaled deny this. The plane was diverted to Algiers, where 21 passengers and 11 crew members were held for 39 days, until August 31;
Gunmen opened fire on an El Al passenger jet in Athens about to take off for New York on December 26, 1968, killing one passenger and wounding two others;
An attack on El Al passengers jet at Zürich airport on February 18, 1969, killing the co-pilot and wounding the pilot;
The bombing of a Jerusalem supermarket on February 20, 1969, killing two Israelis and wounding twenty others;
The hijacking of a TWA flight from Los Angeles to Damascus on August 29, 1969 by a PFLP cell led by Leila Khaled, who became the PFLP's most famous recruit. Two Israeli passengers were held for 44 days;
Three adult Palestinians and three boys aged 14 and 15 years old threw grenades at the Israeli embassies in The Hague, Bonn and the El Al office in Brussels on the same day, September 9, 1969 with no casualties;
Attack on a bus containing El Al passengers at Munich airport, killing one passenger and wounding 11 on February 10, 1970;
The bombing, with a barometric pressure device, of a Swissair flight bound for Israel, killing 47, on February 21, 1970; for details see Swissair Flight 330.
On September 6, 1970, the PFLP (including Leila Khaled) hijacked four passenger aircraft from Pan Am, TWA and Swissair on flights to New York from Brussels, Frankfurt and Zürich; and on September 9, 1970, hijacked a BOAC flight from Bombay to Rome. The Pan Am flight was diverted to Cairo; the TWA, Swissair and BOAC flights were diverted to Dawson's Field in Zarqa, Jordan. The TWA, Swissair and BOAC aircraft were subsequently blown up by the terrorists on September 12, with no casualties. The event is significant, as it was cited as a reason for to the Black September clashes between Palestinian and Jordanian forces.

During the Al-Aqsa Intifada

The PFLP's Abu Ali Mustapha Brigades has carried out attacks on both civilians and military targets during the Al-Aqsa Intifada. Some of these attacks are:

The killing of Meir Lixenberg, councillor and head of security in four settlements, who was shot while travelling in his car in the West Bank on August 27, 2001. ^[1]
The 21 October, 2001 assassination of far-right Israeli politician and Israeli Minister for Tourism Rehavam Zeevi, the only Israeli politician to have been assassinated in the current intifada.
A suicide bombing in a pizzeria in Karnei Shomron, on the West Bank on February 16, 2002, killing three Israeli civilians. ^[1]
A suicide bombing in a Netanya market in Israel, on May 19, 2002, killing three Israelis. This attack was also claimed by Hamas^[1], but the Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades have identified the perpetrator on their website as one of their members[3][4]

External links

PFLP's official site
Interview with imprisoned PFLP General Secretary Ahmad Saadat- Fight Back! News, Summer 2003

References

^ ^a ^b ^c ISRAEL AND THE OCCUPIED TERRITORIES AND THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY. Without distinction - attacks on civilians by Palestinian armed groups, Amnesty International, July 11, 2002.

Green March Black September: The Story of the Palestinian Arabs by John K. Cooley, Frank Cass & Co,. Ltd., London 1973
'Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP)' from Country Reports on Terrorism, 2004. United States Department of State, April 2005. http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/45394.htmhttp://library.nps.navy.mil/home/tgp/pflp.htm, http://library.nps.navy.mil/home/tgp/pflp.htm
[5], [6], [7] Secret documents regarding 1974 cooperation between the KGB and the PFLP against Israel and arming PFLP - (in Russian) from the Soviet Archives [8] collected by Vladimir Bukovsky

[amnesty-1] ISRAEL AND THE OCCUPIED TERRITORIES AND THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY. Without distinction - attacks on civilians by Palestinian armed groups, Amnesty International, July 11, 2002.

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