Product Code Database
Fatah ( ; ), officially the Palestinian National Liberation Movement (), is a Palestinian nationalist and social democratic political party. It is the largest faction of the Confederation multi-party Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the second-largest party in the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC). Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, is the chairman of Fatah.
Fatah was historically involved in armed struggle against the state of Israel (as well as Jordan during the Black September conflict in 1970–1971) and maintained a number of militant groups, Terrorism in Tel Aviv Time Friday, 13 Sep 1968 which carried out attacks against military targets as well as Israeli civllians, notably including the 1978 coastal road massacre, though the group disengaged from armed conflict against Israel around the time of the Oslo Accords, when it recognised Israel, which gave it limited control over the occupied Palestinian territories. During the Second Intifada (2000–2005), Fatah intensified armed conflict against Israel, claiming responsibility for a number of suicide attacks. Fatah had been closely identified with the leadership of its founder and chairman, Yasser Arafat, until his death in 2004, when Farouk Kaddoumi constitutionally succeeded him to the position of Fatah Chairman and continued in the position until 2009, when Abbas was elected chairman. Since Arafat's death, factionalism within the ideologically diverse movement has become more apparent.
In the 2006 election for the PLC, the party lost its majority in the PLC to Hamas. The Hamas legislative victory led to a conflict between Fatah and Hamas, with Fatah retaining control of the Palestinian National Authority in the West Bank through its president. Fatah is also active in the control of Palestinian refugee camps.
Immediately after its establishment the name of the movement was first used in Falastinuna which was the official media organ of the Fatah.
Fatah joined the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1967, and was allocated 33 of 105 seats in the PLO Executive Committee. Fatah's Yasser Arafat became Chairman of the PLO in 1969, after the position was ceded to him by Yahya Hammuda. According to the BBC, "Mr Arafat took over as chairman of the executive committee of the PLO in 1969, a year that Fatah is recorded to have carried out 2,432 guerrilla attacks on Israel."
On the night of 21 March, the IDF attacked Karameh with heavy weaponry, armored vehicles and fighter jets. Fatah held its ground, surprising the Israeli military. As Israel's forces intensified their campaign, the Jordanian Army became involved, causing the Israelis to retreat in order to avoid a full-scale war. By the end of the battle, nearly 150 Fatah militants had been killed, as well as twenty Jordanian soldiers and twenty-eight Israeli soldiers. Despite the higher Arab death toll, Fatah considered themselves victorious because of the Israeli army's rapid withdrawal.
In 1970, the Jordanian government moved to regain control over its territory, and the next day, King Hussein declared martial law. By 25 September, the Jordanian army achieved dominance in the fighting, and two days later Arafat and Hussein agreed to a series of ceasefires. The Jordanian army inflicted heavy casualties upon the Palestinians – including civilians – who suffered approximately 3,500 fatalities. Two thousand Fatah fighters managed to enter Syria. They crossed the border into Lebanon to join Fatah forces in that country, where they set up their new headquarters. A large group of guerrilla fighters led by Fatah field commander Abu Ali Iyad held out the Jordanian Army's offensive in the northern city of Ajloun until they were decisively defeated in July 1971. Abu Ali Iyad was executed and surviving members of his commando force formed the Black September Organization, a splinter group of Fatah. In November 1971, the group assassinated Jordanian prime minister Wasfi al-Tal as retaliation to Abu Ali Iyad's execution.Seale, 1992, pp.81–82.
In the 1960s and the 1970s, Fatah provided training to a wide range of European, Middle Eastern, Asian, and African militant and insurgent groups, and carried out numerous attacks against Israeli targets in Western Europe and the Middle East during the 1970s. Some militant groups that affiliated themselves to Fatah, and some of the fedayeen within Fatah itself, carried out civilian-aircraft hijackings and terrorist attacks, attributing them to Black September, Abu Nidal's Fatah-Revolutionary Council, Said al-Muragha's group, the PFLP, and the PFLP-GC. Fatah received weapons, explosives and training from the Soviet Union and some of the of East Europe. China and Algeria also provided munitions. In 1979, Fatah aided Uganda during the Uganda–Tanzania War. Members of the organization fought alongside the Uganda Army and Libyan troops against the Tanzania People's Defence Force during the Battle of Lukaya and the Fall of Kampala, but were eventually forced to retreat from the country.
Although hesitant at first to take sides in the conflict, Arafat and Fatah played an important role in the Lebanese Civil War. Succumbing to pressure from PLO sub-groups such as the PFLP, DFLP and the Palestine Liberation Front (PLF), Fatah aligned itself with the communist and Nasserism Lebanese National Movement (LNM). Although originally aligned with Fatah, Syrian President Hafez al-Assad feared a loss of influence in Lebanon and switched sides. He sent his army, along with the -backed Palestinian factions of as-Sa'iqa and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command (PFLP-GC) led by Ahmed Jibril to fight alongside the Christian forces against the PLO and the LNM. The primary component of the Christian militias was the Maronite Church Kataeb Party.
Phalangist forces killed twenty-six Fatah trainees on a bus in April 1975, marking the official start of the 15-year-long Lebanese civil war. Later that year, an alliance of Christian militias overran the Palestinian refugee camp of Karantina killing over 1,000 civilians. The PLO and LNM retaliated by attacking the town of Damour massacre, a Phalangist and Tigers (Ahrar) stronghold, killing 684 civilians. As the civil war progressed over 2 years of urban warfare, both parties resorted to massive artillery duels and heavy use of sniper nests, while atrocities and war crimes were committed by both sides.
In 1976, with strategic planning help from the Lebanese Army, the alliance of Christian militias, spearheaded by the National Liberal Party of former President Cammille Chamoun militant branch, the noumour el ahrar (NLP Tigers), took a pivotal refugee camp in the Eastern part of Beirut, the Tel al-Zaatar camp, after a six-month siege, also known as Tel al-Zaatar massacre in which hundreds perished. Arafat and Abu Jihad blamed themselves for not successfully organizing a rescue effort.
PLO cross-border raids against Israel grew somewhat during the late 1970s. One of the most severeknown as the Coastal Road massacreoccurred on 11 March 1978. A force of nearly a dozen Fatah fighters landed their boats near a major coastal road connecting the city of Haifa with Tel Aviv. There they hijacked a bus and sprayed gunfire inside and at passing vehicles, killing thirty-seven civilians. In response, the IDF launched Operation Litani three days later, with the goal of taking control of Southern Lebanon up to the Litani River. The IDF achieved this goal, and Fatah withdrew to the north into Beirut.
Israel invaded Lebanon again in 1982. Beirut was soon besieged and bombarded by the IDF; to end the siege, the US and European governments brokered an agreement guaranteeing safe passage for Arafat and Fatahguarded by a multinational forceto exile in Tunis. Despite the exile, many Fatah commanders and fighters remained in Lebanon, and they faced the War of the Camps in the 1980s in their fight with the Shia Amal Movement and also in connection with internal schisms within the Palestinian factions.
Fatah nominated Mahmoud Abbas in the Palestinian presidential election of 2005.
In 2005, Hamas won in nearly all the municipalities it contested. Political analyst Salah Abdel-Shafi told the BBC about the difficulties of Fatah leadership: "I think it's very, very seriousit's becoming obvious that they can't agree on anything." Fatah is "widely seen as being in desperate need of reform," as "the PA's performance has been a story of corruption and incompetenceand Fatah has been tainted."
There have been numerous other expressions of discontent within Fatah, which is just holding its first general congress in two decades. Because of this, the movement remains largely dominated by aging cadres from the pre-Oslo era of Palestinian politics. Several of them gained their positions through the patronage of Yasser Arafat, who balanced above the different factions, and the era after his death in 2004 has seen increased infighting among these groups, who jockey for influence over future development, the political line, funds, and constituencies. There is concern over the succession once Abbas leaves power. There have been no open splits within the older generation of Fatah politicians since the 1980s, though there is occasional friction between members of the top leadership. One founding member, Farouk Kaddoumi (Abu Lutf), continues to openly oppose the post-Oslo arrangements and has intensified his campaign for a more hardline position from exile in Tunis. Since Arafat's death, he is formally head of Fatah's political bureau and chairman, but his actual political following within Fatah appears limited. He has at times openly challenged the legitimacy of Abbas and harshly criticized both him and Mohammed Dahlan, but despite threats to splinter the movement, he remains in his position, and his challenges have so far been fruitless. Another influential veteran, Hani al-Hassan, has also openly criticized the present leadership.
Fatah's internal conflicts have also, due to the creation of the Palestinian Authority, merged with the turf wars between different PA security services, e.g., a longstanding rivalry between the West Bank (Jibril Rajoub) and Gaza (Muhammad Dahlan) branches of the powerful Preventive Security Service. Foreign backing for different factions contribute to conflict, e.g., with the United States generally seen as supportive of Abbas's overall leadership and of Dahlan's security influence, and Syria alleged to promote Faruq al-Qaddumi's challenge to the present leadership. The younger generations of Fatah, especially within the militant al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, have been more prone to splits, and a number of lesser networks in Gaza and the West Bank have established themselves as either independent organizations or joined Hamas. However, such overt breaks with the movement have still been rather uncommon, despite numerous rivalries inside and between competing local Fatah groups.
The internal dissension was immediately obvious. Saudi Arabia King Abdullah told the delegates that divisions among the Palestinians were more damaging to their cause of an independent state than the Israeli "enemy".
Delegates resolved not to resume Israeli-Palestinian peace talks until 14 preconditions were met. Among these preconditions were the release of all Israel-held Palestinian prisoners, a freeze on all Israeli settlement construction, and an end to the Gaza blockade.
By affirming its option for "armed resistance" against Israel, Fatah appealed to Palestinians who wanted a more hardline response to Israel.
Israeli deputy foreign minister Danny Ayalon said the conference was a "serious blow to peace" and "was another lost opportunity for the Palestinian leadership to adopt moderate views."
Its leader Abu Ashraf Al-Armoushi and his comrades were killed in the Al-Basateen neighborhood of Ain Al-Helweh camp on 30 July 2023 during a fighting.
The November 1959 edition of Fatah's underground journal Filastinuna Nida al-Hayat indicated that the movement was motivated by the status of the Palestinian refugees in the Arab world:
- The youth of the catastrophe ( shibab al-nakba) are dispersed... Life in the tent has become as miserable as death... To die for our beloved Motherland is better and more honorable than life, which forces us to eat our daily bread under humiliations or to receive it as charity at the cost of our honour... We, the sons of the catastrophe, are no longer willing to live this dirty, despicable life, this life which has destroyed our cultural, moral and political existence and destroyed our human dignity.Baumgarten 2005, p. 32.
Armed struggleas manifested in the 1936–39 Arab revolt in Palestine and the military role of Palestinian fighters under the leadership of Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni in the 1948 Arab–Israeli Warwas central to Fatah's initial ideology of how to liberate Palestine.
Fatah has, since its inception, created, led or sponsored a number of armed groups and militias, some of which have had an official standing as the movement's armed wing, and some of which have not been publicly or even internally recognized as such. The group has also dominated various PLO and Palestinian Authority forces and security services which were/are not officially tied to Fatah, but in practice have served as wholly pro-Fatah armed units, and been staffed largely by members. The original name for Fatah's armed wing was al-'Asifah ("The Storm"), and this was also the name Fatah first used in its communiques, trying for some time to conceal its identity. This name has since been applied more generally to Fatah armed forces, and does not correspond to a single unit today. Other militant groups associated with Fatah include:
During the Second Intifada, the group was a member of the Palestinian National and Islamic Forces. Statement issued by the National and Islamic Forces 10 February 2001
|
|
