Fatah

    AKA: Harekat at-Tahrir al-Wataniyyeh al-FilastiniyyehFatah is the Arabic acronym, presented backward, and Arabic for "victory through jihad."Palestinian National Liberation Movement.

    Summary: Fatah, founded in 1959, has long been the largest party fighting for an independent Palestinian state. Headed by co-founder Yasser Arafat until he died in 2004, Fatah eventually abandoned its efforts to eliminate the state of Israel through guerrilla/terrorist attacks. Instead, Fatah adopted a "land-for-peace" position, operating as the dominant party in the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in negotiations with Israel brokered by the United States. Fatah's domination of the Palestinian cause was challenged in 2006 when Hamas, an Islamist party, gained most seats in the Palestinian Authority parliament. Eighteen months later, Hamas gunmen drove Fatah out of the Gaza Strip, although Fatah remained dominant in the West Bank.

    Territory: Gaza Strip, West Bank.

    Religious affiliation or political orientation: Secular Palestinian nationalist organization.

    Founded: ~1959 (exact date is disputed).

    Stated goals:

    • Establishment of the Palestinian state.
    • Initially, it fought to eliminate Israel and replace it with a Palestinian statelater, it accepted the idea of a Palestinian state in the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip and West Bank.

    Key leaders: Mahmoud Abbas was elected to succeed co-founder and long-time leader Yasser Arafat, who died in November 2004. Marwan Barghouti, long-time Fatah leader in West Bank linked to Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.

    Alliances: The largest member of Palestine Liberation Organization; closely tied to Black September (1970-1973)al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and the Fatah-Tanzim, organizations that continue attacks on Israel and Israeli forces in occupied territory. Occasional operational alliances with the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and others.

    Activities:

    • 1958 or 1959: Founded as a Palestinian nationalist group focused mainly on Palestinian exiles, contrasted with the pan-Arabism advocated by Egyptian President Gamal Nasser.
    • 1965: Launched guerrilla and terrorist attacks on Israeli targets.
    • 1968: Joined Palestine Liberation Organizationbecomes the dominant organization.
    • 1969: Arafat became PLO chairmanFatah was responsible for over 2,400 terrorist attacks on Israeli targets.
    • 1970: Expelled from Jordan after "Black September"relocated to Lebanon.
    • 1982: Expelled from Lebanon by Israeli invasionrelocated to Tunisia.
    • 1987: First intifada (uprising) among Palestinians in Gaza Strip and West Bank"Fatah Hawks" played a key role in an increased level of terrorist/guerrilla attacks.
    • 1993: Fatah and other PLO members recognized Israel as part of the Oslo Peace Accords.
    • 1995: Fatah instituted Tanzim, a militia dedicated to guerrilla attacks.
    • 2000: Second intifada begins. Al Aqsa Brigadesan offshoot of Fatahrenewed terrorist attacks. Although Fatah renounced violence, two successor organizations have been active in the intifadauprising). The wave of terrorist violence began after the breakdown of Palestinian-Israel peace talks in 2000. Israel has accused Fatah of having an active role in the ongoing wave of terrorism.
    • Nov. 2004: Long-time leader Yasser Arafat died in a French hospital, succeeded by Mahmoud Abbas.
    • Jan. 2006: Fatah's long-standing position as the premier Palestinian nationalist group was challenged by Hamasan Islamist party that won a majority in the parliament of the Palestinian Authority.
    • 2010s: Several attempts were made to reconcile, but none were successful.
    • 2020s: The 2021 election was indefinitely postponed.

    Last known status: Fatah was effectively driven out of the Gaza Strip after five days of fighting against Hamas in June 2007. Fatah's leader Abbas remained president of the Palestinian Authority, but it was unclear whether he exerted any influence over Gaza, as opposed to the West Bank, where Fatah remained dominant. Reconciliation attempts between Fatah and Hamas failed in 2011, 2012, 2014, and 2017, but none of these agreements succeeded. The 2021 elections were canceled because of concerns about Israel's potential interference in voting in East Jerusalem. This assertion was used often in the past when elections were canceled.

    Fatah, the acronym (in reverse) of the Arabic name meaning Palestine National Liberation Movement, emerged as the largest organization in the Palestine Liberation Organization and the dominant force in Palestinian resistance to the state of Israel.

    Organized in about 1959 (sources disagree on the exact date) in Kuwait by Yasser Arafat and four other exiled Palestinians, Fatah has always been a secular (as opposed to Islamist) political organization dedicated to forming an independent state for Palestinians. Initially, this meant eliminating the state of Israel and substituting the state of Palestine on the same territory. At the time of Fatah's founding, Egypt claimed the Gaza Strip, and Jordan claimed the West Bank. Since the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel has occupied both areas.

    Fatah's history illustrates how one person's terrorist is another person's guerrilla fighter. Much of Fatah's activity has been purely political. Unlike some Palestinian organizations, Fatah's objective has continually been establishing a state for Palestinian Arabs. Other groups, such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, focused more on fomenting a Marxist-Leninist revolution beyond Palestinians. In contrast, others concentrated on the national objectives of other Arab states (e.g., restoring the Gaza Strip to Egypt and the West Bank to Jordan).

    Fatah's organizers cast it in the mode of the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN), the organization that achieved independence from France by using terrorist tactics, and other anti-colonial liberation movements active in Africa during the 1950s and 1960s. Fatah's leader viewed Israel as a neo-colonial entity primarily populated by European émigrés and supported by European colonial powers at the expense of native Palestinian Arabs. In 1969, Arafat declared in an interview, "Our liberation struggle links up with all other liberation struggles in the world to form a united struggle for the liberation of man and country."

    Fatah moved its headquarters from the Gulf to Beirut and began organizing among Palestinians, many of whom lived as exiles in Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. Fatah's aim was a revolution by the Palestinian people—including Arabs living inside Israel—leading to a Palestinian state. Most Fatah members were young men from the middle class, including many professionals.

    For Fatah, armed resistance—following the successful model of the Algerians—was the only way to achieve an independent Palestinian state. But since no such state existed, Fatah's armed attacks were often characterized as "terrorist."

    When the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was formed in 1964 at the behest of Egyptian President Gamal Nasser, Fatah did not join initially. It viewed the new organization as an instrument of Egyptian pan-Arabism rather than of the Palestinian people.

    Terrorists or Guerrillas?

    Instead, with support from Syria, Fatah began a campaign of attacks on Israeli targets along the Jordanian and Lebanese borders in early 1965. Part of Fatah's strategy was to goad Israel into counter-attacks that would escalate violence and eventually lead to war with Arab states.

    Such a war did ensue in 1967, although the Syrian military was a much more significant factor than the Palestinians, and the outcome of the Six-Day War was a complete disaster for the Arab side: Egypt lost control of the entire Sinai peninsula; Syria lost the Golan Heights; and Jordan lost the West Bank.

    Following the war, Palestinians launched a campaign of terrorism that included international airplane hijackings and attacks on Israeli military outposts in occupied territory and inside Israel. Fatah focused its efforts on the occupied territories and Israel, primarily by filtering guerrilla/terrorists across the Israeli-Jordanian border. This effort had been mainly curbed by Israeli defense forces by 1968.

    Nevertheless, Fatah's role in mounting guerrilla attacks significantly contributed to its prestige in the Arab world. A key event in Fatah's perception occurred on March 21, 1968, when 15,000 Israeli troops attacked the village of Karameh, just inside Jordan. A combined force of Palestinians and Jordanian military eventually repulsed the attack, although at significant cost. Whatever the military numbers, the battle established the Palestinians as a people prepared to fight the Israelis, and Fatah gained enormous prestige due to the subsequent propaganda. Arafat declared: "What we have done is to make the world realize that the Palestinian is no longer refugee number so and so, but the member of a people who hold the reins of their own destiny and are in a position to determine their own future."

    Later, in 1968, Fatah agreed to join the PLO and quickly came to dominate the organization. In February 1969, Arafat became PLO chairman (and continued as leader of Fatah). After that, the roles of Fatah, the PLO, and the Palestinian nationalist movement were closely intertwined.

    Fatah and Black September

    In September 1970, following the forced landing and destruction of three hijacked civilian jetliners in Jordan, the Jordanian government attacked Palestinian guerrilla/terrorist groups headquartered in Jordan. Eventually, it forced Fatah's leadership to move to Lebanon. This period was dubbed "Black September," a term also used by a new terrorist organization led by Salah Khalaf (aka Abu Iyad). The Black September group carried out some of the most dramatic terrorist attacks from 1970 to 1973, notably the kidnapping and murder of eleven Israeli athletes at Munich's September 1972 Olympic Games. Although Black September was not officially linked to Fatah, some Israeli observers have alleged that the group was a direct outgrowth of Fatah and controlled by the larger organization. These ties were kept secret, these observers say, to prevent Fatah—and the PLO, which Fatah dominated—from losing credibility among established governments and from attracting Israeli retaliation.

    1973 Israeli-Arab War

    The role of Fatah changed after the brief war between Israel and Arab states that began on the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur in 1973. For Egypt, in particular, the result was regaining much of the Sinai peninsula it lost in 1967. For the PLO (and Fatah), the war was also a significant turning point since it marked the effective end of having Egypt as a strong ally. Fatah, the PLO, and allied Palestinian nationalist groups were left to carry out guerrilla war from southern Lebanon, even as that country experienced a prolonged civil war pitting Christians against Muslims.

    After a decade of attacks launched from Lebanon, in July 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon, driving as far as Beirut. The result was that Fatah's leadership was forced to relocate again, this time to Tunisia, whose capital is almost 1,500 miles from Jerusalem. This relocation resulted in a split between Fatah leaders and Palestinians living under Israeli occupation in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

    In Tunisia: Peace Talks

    Because Arafat, the leader of Fatah, was also the leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization, it is often difficult to distinguish the actions of the two separate groups. Nevertheless, as long as Fatah's leadership was headquartered far from Israel, its core support was in the Palestinian Diaspora outside Gaza and the West Bank. On the other hand, the PLO/Fatah remained the principal spokesman for Palestinian interests.

    In 1987, Palestinians living in occupied territories launched a home-grown uprising, the first intifada, carried out mainly outside the control or direction of Fatah.

    In this context, Arafat agreed to open peace talks with Israel, culminating in the Oslo Peace Accords signed at the White House in 1993. Under these Accords, the PLO (and Fatah) and Israel recognized each other's right to exist and negotiate borders later. Fatah and the PLO also agreed to end terrorist attacks on Israel. It seemed at the time that Fatah's three-decade-long guerrilla/terrorist war against Israel was about to end.

    Fatah, Tanzim, and Hamas

    Before 1993, the leadership of Fatah (notably Arafat) was based outside the Gaza Strip or West Bank (which were claimed by Egypt and Jordan, respectively). In contrast, many Fatah members were living in these two areas. The Oslo Peace Accords enabled Arafat and other exiled Fatah leaders to move to the West Bank and Gaza Strip, touching off a dispute between the formerly exiled leaders and Fatah leaders who had lived in these areas adjacent to Israel all along, with the "native" leaders objecting that the returnees failed to pay proper heed to their advice or give them appropriate weight in Fatah decisions.

    The result was the rise of an organization called Tanzim Fatah (and sometimes just Tanzim, a word meaning "organization") led by Palestinians who had long lived under Israeli occupation and many of whom resented the predominant role of those they called "the Tunisians." Whereas Fatah, the dominant organization in the PLO, was committed to peaceful negotiations with Israel, Tanzim was skeptical of this approach.

    At the same time, Islamist elements, notably Hamas, rejected peace negotiations and took the leading position in directing terrorist/guerrilla attacks against Israel. Hamas was often joined in these attacks by Tanzim, leading to accusations by Israel that Tanzim's "parent," Fatah, was not honoring its commitment to peace. For Arafat, this presented both a dilemma and an opportunity:—Tanzim represented significant numbers of Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip or West Bank who could not be ignored, and continuing violence (whether characterized as terrorism or guerrilla warfare) could serve to keep pressure on Israel to recognize a Palestinian state. Moreover, Hamas garnered significant support, partly because of its terrorist/guerrilla attacks and charitable and educational works. Tanzim was one way for Fatah to retain the loyalty of Palestinians who favored continued violence against Israeli targets.

    On the other hand, the distinction between "Tanzim" and "Fatah" was somewhat unclear, and Israel often ignored the difference (to the extent it existed) to discredit its enemies.

    al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades

    In 2000, another offshoot of Fatah, the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, was organized, coinciding with the breakdown of Palestinian-Israeli peace talks and the onset of a new intifada (uprising) among Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip and West Bank. Although the PLO was officially dedicated to ending terrorist attacks on Israeli targets, the al-Aqsa Brigades carried on attacks in both the occupied territories and inside Israel, including suicide attacks, a tactic borrowed from the Islamist guerrilla groups.

    Israel blamed Arafat and the PLO for allowing the al-Aqsa Brigades to operate and retaliated with attacks on the PLO infrastructure in the occupied territories.

    After Arafat

    Yasser Arafat died in 2004. His long-time deputy, Mahmoud Abbas, was chosen to succeed him. In January 2005, Abbas was also elected president of the Palestinian Authority. Israel gave This nascent government limited authority to govern the Gaza Strip and West Bank, even though both areas were subject to Israeli occupation and military raids on suspected terrorists.

    In January 2006, Fatah was dealt a surprising setback when candidates of Hamas, an Islamist group, won a majority in the Palestinian parliament. His election challenged Fatah's long-standing role as the most prominent Palestinian party. It made it impossible to progress toward full statehood since Hamas refused to recognize Israel's right to exist.

    Although Hamas had a majority in parliament and controlled the cabinet, Fatah retained control of the principal security apparatus. Gun battles between Fatah and Hamas forces became frequent, especially in Gaza, a Hamas stronghold. In February 2007, Saudi Arabia brokered a Palestinian peace conference in Mecca, resulting in the two rivals forming a "unity government."

    The peace was short-lived. By May 2007, gun battles between the two sides had again erupted in Gaza. In five days in June, Hamas seized effective control of Gaza, driving President Abbas and the Fatah security apparatus out and raising the prospect of a Palestinian Authority divided between Fatah in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza.

    Fatah and October 7, 2023

    On October 7, 2023, Hamas members launched a devastating surprise attack on Israel. Emerging from Gaza strongholds, Hamas breached Israel's massive wall complex separating Israel from Gaza. Hamas proceeded to attack both Israeli civilian and military targets. Hamas inflicted approximately 1,200 civilian deaths and absconded with approximately 250 Israeli hostages. Israel proceeded to launch military operations in Gaza to destroy Hamas. Media reports suggested Israeli military attacks on Palestinian civilians had resulted in over 40,000 deaths by mid-2024.

    Following October 7, 2023, Fatah, Hamas's decades-long nemesis, provided vocal support for Hamas and perhaps material and personnel support as well. Fatah partially recovered its prominence as many suggested an improved version of the organization could replace Hamas as the sovereign authority in Gaza. Internal division persisted between Fatah and Hamas, even as Israeli forces continued to inflict destruction in Palestine in its bitter conflict with Hamas.

    In July 2024, representatives of Hamas and Fatah met in China. They signed a proclamation that both organizations would form a single unity government in Gaza at the conclusion of the continuing conflict with Israel. The government of Israel, nonetheless, reiterated its position that neither group would make up the future leadership structure of Gaza following the end of hostilities.

    Bibliography

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    Gadi, Hitman. The Fatah-Hamas Rift: An Analysis of Failed Negotiations. State University of New York Press, 2022.

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    Jeffrey, Jack. "Hamas and Fatah Agree to Form a Government. What Does It Mean and Who Are These Palestinian Groups?"AP News, 23 July 2024, apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-fatah-hamas-beijing-declaration-d3cc29dd3748c77aeeda9294be6522d5. Accessed 22 Aug. 2024.

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    Tahhan, Zena Al. "Hamas and Fatah: How are the Two Groups Different?" Aljazeera, 12 Oct. 2017, www.aljazeera.com/features/2017/10/12/hamas-and-fatah-how-are-the-two-groups-different. Accessed 3 Oct. 2023.