The PPSF was founded as the
Palestinian Popular Struggle Organization (PPSO) in the
West Bank in 1967 by
Bahjat Abu Gharbieh, a former
Ba'athist, following a split from the
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). It had close ties to
Fatah, and in 1971 it officially became a Fatah-affiliated organization. It fell out with
Yasir Arafat in 1973, and left Fatah to act independently. In 1974 PPSF left the PLO to become a founding member of the
Rejectionist Front with other radical
Palestinian factions who rejected the
Ten Point Program adopted by the
Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). In 1969, the organization attacked civilian Israeli and Greek passengers
in Athens Airport in 1969 which resulted in 14 injures and one dead child. A year later, the organization also hijacked
Olympic Airways Flight 255 from
Beirut, Lebanon en route to
Athens. The hijackers ordered the flight flown to
Cairo, Egypt with five crew members. Initially close to
Egypt after its break with Fatah, it eventually slipped into decline. In 1982 it was revived jointly by
Syria and
Libya, in an attempt to bolster hardliner and anti-Arafat forces in the PLO (Syria was simultaneously fighting the PLO in
Lebanon). Members of the PPSF were mentioned as possible suspects in the 1988
Lockerbie Bombing, believed to have been orchestrated by the Libyan regime, but Samir Ghawshah denied the charges. ==Reconciliation with PLO and PNA politics==