Arab Nationalist Movement , a Palestinian Christian, was PFLP's Secretary General at its beginning. He had been influenced by the ideas of
Constantin Zureiq and
Sati' al-Husri, Arab nationalists of the 1940s and 1950s. The PFLP grew out of the
Harakat al-Qawmiyyin al-Arab, or
Arab Nationalist Movement (ANM), founded in 1953 by
George Habash, a
Palestinian Christian from
Lydda. In 1948, 19-year-old Habash, a medical student, went to his home town of Lydda during the
1948 Arab–Israeli War to help his family. While he was there, the
Israel Defense Forces attacked the city and forced most of its civilian population to leave in what became known as the
Lydda Death March. They marched for three days without food or water until they reached the
Arab armies' front lines, leading to the death of his sister. Habash finished his medical education in
Lebanon at the
American University in Beirut, graduating in 1951. In an interview with US journalist
John K. Cooley, Habash argued for viewing "the liberation of Palestine as something not to be isolated from events in the rest of the Arab world" and identified "the main reason for [Palestinians'] defeat" as triumph of "the scientific society of Israel" over "our own backwardness in the Arab world"; because of this, he "called for the total rebuilding of Arab society into a twentieth-century society" and a "scientific and technical renaissance in the Arab world". The ANM was founded in this nationalist spirit. "[We] 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." These groups combined to form the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) which was announced to the public on 11 December 1967, to coincide with a planned attack on
Ben Gurion Airport in
Lydda, which was a failure. 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 magazine,
al-Hadaf (The Target, or Goal), which was edited by
Ghassan Kanafani.
Operations 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.
Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades also claimed responsibility for several suicide attacks during the
Al-Aqsa Intifada.
Breakaway organizations In 1967,
Palestinian Popular Struggle Front (PPSF) broke away from the PFLP. In October 1968,
Ahmed Jibril led a break away from the PFLP to form the
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command (PFLP-GC), and was joined by Ahmed Zarur and his followers. The PFLP-GC took with them around 100 to 200 guerrillas, accounting for around one quarter of the PFLP's armed strength, and Jibril's old Palestinian Liberation Front base near Damascus. Zarur later split from the PFLP-GC to form the
Arab Palestine Organisation. In 1969, the
Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) formed as a separate, ostensibly
Maoist, organization under
Nayef 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. The PFLP had a troubled relationship with George Habash's one-time deputy,
Wadie Haddad, who was eventually expelled because he refused orders to stop hijacking operations abroad. Haddad has been identified in released Soviet archival documents as having been a KGB intelligence agent in place, who in 1975 received arms for the movement directly from Soviet sources in a nighttime transfer in the Sea of Aden.
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
Yasser Arafat's
Fatah. In 1974, it withdrew from the
PLO Executive Committee (but not from the PLO) to join the
Rejectionist Front following the creation of the
PLO's Ten Point Program, 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. In December 1993 PFLP withdrew from the PLO and became one of the ten founding members of the Damascus-based
Alliance of Palestinian Forces, eight of which had been members of the PLO, which was opposed to the Oslo Accords process. PFLP withdrew from APF in 1998. Currently, the PFLP is boycotting participation in the PLO Executive Committee
After the Oslo Accords After the occurrence 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 (1993–1996) the popularity of
Hamas was rapidly increasing due to their successful strategy of
suicide bombings devised by
Yahya Ayyash ("the Engineer"). The
dissolution of the Soviet Union together with the rise of
Islamism—and particularly the increased popularity of the Islamist groups Hamas and
Palestinian Islamic Jihaddisoriented many left activists who had looked towards the Soviet Union, and has marginalized the PFLP's role in Palestinian politics and armed resistance. However, the organization retains considerable political influence within the PLO, since no new elections have been held for the organization's legislative body, the
PNC. The PFLP developed contacts at this time with Islamic fundamentalist groups linked to
Iranboth Palestinian Hamas, and the Lebanon-based
Hezbollah. The PLO's agreement with Israel in September 1993, and negotiations which followed, further isolated it from the umbrella organization and led it to conclude a formal alliance with the Iranian backed groups. 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
Palestinian Authority, including the
Palestinian People's Party and 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. From its foundation, the PFLP sought
superpower patrons, early on developing ties with the
Soviet Union, the
People's Republic of China, and, at various times, with
regional powers such as
Syria,
South Yemen,
Libya,
North Korea, and
Iraq, as well as with left-wing groups around the world, including the
FARC and the
Japanese Red Army. When that support diminished or stopped, in the late 1980s and 1990s, the PFLP sought new allies and developed contacts with
Islamist groups linked to
Iran, despite the PFLP's strong adherence to secularism and
anti-clericalism. The relationship between the PFLP and the
Islamic Republic of Iran has fluctuatedit strengthened as a result of Hamas moving away from Iran due to differing positions on the
Syrian Civil War. Iran rewarded the PFLP for its pro-
Assad stance with an increase in financial and military assistance. The PFLP has been accused by Israel of diverting European humanitarian aid from
Palestinian NGOs to itself.
Elections in the Palestinian Authority 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
Palestinian presidential election to be held on 9 January 2005. These discussions were unsuccessful, so the PFLP 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, e.g. in
al-Bireh and
Ramallah, and winning the mayorship of
Bir Zeit. There are conflicting reports about the political allegiance of
Janet Mikhail and
Victor Batarseh, the mayors of Ramallah and
Bethlehem; they may be close to the PFLP without being members. 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, winning three of the 132 seats in the
Palestinian Legislative Council. Its deputies are
Ahmad Sa'adat,
Jamil Majdalawi, and
Khalida Jarrar. 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. Sa'adat was sentenced in December 2006 to 30 years in an Israeli prison.
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 27 August 2001 when an Israeli
helicopter fired rockets at his office in the West Bank town of Ramallah. After Mustafa's death, the Central Committee of the PFLP on 3 October 2001 elected
Ahmad Sa'adat as General Secretary. He has held that position, though since 2002 he has been incarcerated in Palestinian and Israeli prisons. ==Attitude to the peace process==