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'abiyah li-Tahrīr Filasṭīn) is a militant Marxist-Leninist, nationalist Palestinian organization, founded in 1967.

1 Origins in the ANM
2 Formation of the PFLP
3 PLO membership
4 Breakaway organizations
5 Successors to George Habash
6 Current political situation
7 Armed attacks before 2000
8 Attacks during the Al-Aqsa Intifada
9 External links
10 References

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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," (Green March Black September: The Story of the Palestinian Arabs by John K. Cooley, London 1973, p. 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.)

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Formation of the PFLP

The ANM formed underground branches in several Arab countries, including Libya, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, 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 headquarted there, and one of its training camps was based in 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.

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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 commmittee (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.

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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 Maoist organization under Niaf Hawatmeh and Yasser Abd Rabbo, initially as the PDFLP.

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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 killed on August 27th, 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 revenge.

Ahmed Sadat was subsequently elected general secretary on October 3rd, 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 Authority refused to implement the court's decision.

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Current political situation

Image:Pflpmayday2005.jpegThe fall of the Soviet Union and consequent decline in support for Marxist-Leninist organizations, together with the rise in the Arab world of Islamism -- and particularly the increased popularity of the Islamist groups Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad -- 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.

After 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. This result does not reflect the party's level of support; in subsequent municipal election in a number of Palestinian towns, it succeeded in gaining only one seat.

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

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Armed attacks before 2000

The PFLP gained notoriety in the late 1960s and early 1970s for a series of armed attacks and 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 flight was targeted because the PFLP believed Israeli general Ariel Sharon, who had been a commander in Sinai in June 1967, was on board. 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. In response, King Hussein of Jordan formed a military government on September 16, 1970 and began shelling Palestinian guerrilla positions, eventually expelling the PLO from Jordan, in what became known as Black September and which, in turn, gave rise to the formation of a new Palestinian organisation, comprised of men associated with Fatah and the PFLP. This group also called itself Black September.

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Attacks during the Al-Aqsa Intifada

The PFLP 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, father of five children, who was shot while travelling in his car in the West Bank on August 27, 2001. ^[1]

A suicide bombing in a pizzeria in Karnei Shomron, Israel on February 16, 2002, killing three civilians - Keren Shatzki, 14; Rachel Theler 16; and Nehemia Amar. ^[2]

A suicide bombing in a Netanya market on May 19, 2002, killing three civilians - Yosef Haviv, 70, Victor Tatrinov, 63 and Arkady Vieselman, 40. This attack was also claimed by Hamas. ^[3]

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External links

Middle East terrorist incidents 1968-1973
[4], [5], [6] Secret documents regarding 1974 cooperation between the KGB and the PFLP against Israel and arming PFLP - (in Russian) from the Soviet Archives [7] collected by Vladimir Bukovsky

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