Lecture on the Re-Emergence of Palestinian Nationalism (1960's and 1970's)

The Re-Emergence of Palestinian Nationalism

1. Pre-1967:  Fatah and the PLO

2. Post-1967:  PLO organization

3. Jordanian crisis

 

In our last lecture, we looked at the 1967 war and some of its immediate consequences for the Middle East.  One of the most important of those consequences was the emergence, or rather re-emergence, after the war of Palestinian nationalism as an independent factor in the Middle Eastern equation.  This re-emergence was facilitated by the vacuum left in Arab politics by the defeat of Nasirist Pan-Arabism and Nasir himself.  The re-emergence expressed itself in the organizational capture of the Palestine Liberation Organization, which had been a creature of Nasir, by independent Palestinian groups led by Yasir Arafat's Fatah.  Today we will look at the course of Palestinian nationalism from its defeat in 1947-48, through its period of quietude and absorption in pan-Arab movements, to its reassertion in the post-1967 Arab world.  We will also look at the internal dynamics of the movement, considering the organizational, ideological and personal splits that have bedeviled it, and how those splits have affected the political structure that emerged within the PLO.  Finally, we will consider the 1970-71 Jordanian crisis, in which the PLO for the first time directly challenged an Arab state, and the effects of that crisis on the movement itself, on inter-Arab politics, on the Arab-Israeli arena and on Great Power politics in the area.

 

Despite the defeat in 1947-48, and the subsequent transformation of the Palestinian-Zionist internal conflict into the Arab-Israeli international conflict, Palestinian nationalists did not give up on their goal of establishing an independent Arab state in the former Mandate area.  The impetus for continued political activity in the 1950's came from a new generation of Palestinians, whose families had fled to other Arab states during and after the fighting.  The activities of these Diaspora Palestinians should not be exaggerated.  They were circumscribed by political controls applied by the Arab states.  They were hampered by the Pan-Arabist appeal of Nasir, which viewed individual nationalist movements as negative and separatist.  They were largely limited to modest organizational efforts; only in the mid-1960's did they begin to conduct guerrilla attacks on Israeli targets.  However, even these modest activities in the 1950's and early 1960's are important, as they laid the groundwork for what would emerge in the late 1960's as a rejuvenated Palestinian national movement.

 

In the late 1950's, in the relatively free political environment of Kuwait, a number of Palestinian student leaders from Cairo, including Yasir Arafat, joined forces with the local leaders of the Palestinian Diaspora, Khalid al-Hassan and Khalil al-Wazir, to form Fatah (palindrome for harakat al-tahrir al-falistiniyya).  The distinctive Fatah stance was its distance from Pan-Arab movements, then in their ascendancy, and its concentration on purely Palestinian national goals.  Self-reliance and self-organization were the organization's bywords, in pursuit of a strategy of armed struggle to "liberate" Palestine.

 

Just as Fatah was emerging as a viable organization, the dynamics of Arab politics presented it with the first of many challenges it would face in the inter-Arab arena.  You will recall that, in reaction to the Israeli plan to divert the waters of the Jordan River, Nasir called an Arab summit meeting in January of 1964.  The summit took no concerted action against the diversion plan, but did establish under Arab League auspices a Palestinian Liberation Organization. [in effect, a creature of Nasir, as was the Arab League]  This group was meant to organize Palestinian resources in the various Arab states to participate in Nasir's strategy for confronting Israel.  A veteran Palestinian diplomat, Ahmad Shuqayri, who had served in the diplomatic services of Syria, Saudi Arabia and the Arab League, was chosen by Nasir to lead the new organization.  Part of its mission was to organize Palestinian military battalions, called the Palestinian Liberation Army, to be attached to the various regular Arab armies. [under regimes' control, not direct Pal.]

 

Shuqayri sought to bring the various existing Palestinian organizations under the PLO umbrella.  Fatah, along with others, however, went their own way in planning independent guerrilla activities against Israel.  In these efforts it had the support of Syria, which was taking an actively hostile stance toward Israel in the mid-1960's.  The Syrian Bacth government also sought to patronize Fatah as a counter-weight in Palestinian politics to the Nasir-dominated PLO, and it allowed Fatah to use Syrian camps for military training and Syrian territory as a base for Palestinian guerrilla activities.  Fatah commenced its guerrilla activities at the beginning of 1965.  While at best a nuisance to Israel, which faced much more serious military challenges, these activities made a name for Fatah within the Palestinian community as an independent actor which spoke with deeds, not words -- a noticeable contrast to Shuqayri's overheated rhetoric and meager accomplishments.

 

The Arab defeat of 1967 dramatically changed the Palestinian political equation in favor of Fatah.  The idea of a conventional military strategy, relying upon the Arab armies, to achieve Palestinian goals was exploded, and Fatah's strategy of armed struggle through guerrilla war began to look like the only Palestinian military option.  The discrediting of Nasirist Pan-Arabism that the defeat brought made the Fatah political strategy of self-reliance, independence and Palestinian nationalism much more appealing to a broader range of Palestinians (and other Arabs) than it had been before.  Moreover, in the atmosphere of despair that gripped the Arab world after the defeat, it seemed that only the guerrilla organizations were capable of any political-military activity against Israel.  The battle between an Israeli force and Fatah defenders of the Jordanian town of Karamah in March 1968, in which the guerrillas held off a much larger Israeli contingent, was trumpeted in the Arab press and increased the political support and public relations cachet of Fatah.  Fatah's political position had become so strong, and Shuqayri's so weak, that the latter was forced to resign as PLO chairman in December 1967.  Over the course of the next two Palestine National Council meetings (July 1968 and February 1969), Fatah came to dominate the PLO, and Yasir Arafat became its chairman.  The organizational absorption of the PLO by Fatah greatly strengthened the political, military and diplomatic position of the Palestinian resistance, as Arab economic and military aid was funnelled through the PLO, and as the PLO had standing to deal in inter-Arab and international politics as a recognized organization.  (It was only after Karameh and with the beginning of Fatah control over the PLO that the direct Soviet-PLO relationship began.)

 

The defeat of 1967 also brought with it new problems and questions for the Palestinian movement.  On the strategic level, there was the question of what the ultimate aims of the movement should be.  Before the Israeli capture of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the movement was dominated by Palestinians from within the Green Line (explain), who could unite around the maximalist demand of complete "liberation" of Palestine.  But with the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, there was now the possibility of some negotiated withdrawal by Israel from these territories in exchange for peace and recognition.  For the Palestinians living under this new occupation, whom the PLO also claimed to represent, the maximalist demands were an impediment to recovery of what they had lost in 1967.  In the late 1960's, as Fatah was consolidating its control over the PLO and as the Palestinian movement was capturing the imagination of the Arab world, little significant change in the maximalist demands were made. [change from liberation to secular democratic state, but still entailed the end of Israel]  Rather, the movement stressed its commitment to armed struggle as the only way of achieving its maximalist goal.  However, this tension between the possibly attainable half-loaf and the pie-in-the-sky historical demand of the movement would be a permanent feature of Palestinian politics, and in subsequent lectures we will discuss how this tension has been working itself out.

 

Another permanent feature of Palestinian politics which emerged from the post-1967 realignment is its overall organizational fractiousness.  There is no doubt that Fatah was and is the dominant political organization within the Palestinian movement.  There is also no doubt that certain basic policy goals and orientations unite almost all the Palestinians.  However, the post-1967 period saw a proliferation of new Palestinian guerrilla organizations that would lead to permanent divisions within the Palestinian movement.  This proliferation was a reflection both of the increased interest and commitment within Palestinian and Arab ranks to a strategy of Palestinian nationalism and armed struggle, and of the desire of some Arab states to capitalize on those feeling for their own strategic, ideological and political purposes.  The Arab Nationalist Movement, led by George Habash, had originally been lukewarm about a Palestinian organizational entity, believing that it would conflict with the larger goal of Arab unity.  After 1967, the ANM, which always had a strong Palestinian component, transformed itself into the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine -- a guerrilla group independent of Fatah.  Fatah itself helped to midwife a split within the PFLP in 1969, out of which emerged another independent guerrilla group, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, led by Naif Hawatimah.  The governments of Syria and Iraq each sponsored their own Bacthist-Palestinian organizations -- Saciqa being the creature of Syria and the Arab Liberation Front that of Iraq.  The Arab Communist Party, particularly with the development of Soviet-PLO ties, also took a political (not military) role in Palestinian politics. [later, even more groups, and also independents affiliated with the various functional and corporate Palestinian organizations]

 

Fatah, in the first stages of consolidating its control over the PLO, made the strategic decision to welcome these new organizations, rather than attempting to freeze them out or force them under Fatah control.  The thinking was that the movement needed as much organizational support and manpower as it could get, and that cracking down on these splinter groups might alienate some Arab states.  It is clear now that many in Fatah came to regret the organization's failure to take a stricter line in asserting its control over the entire movement.  Independent actors like the PFLP and the DFLP have complicated the political life of the PLO, and, as we shall see in a moment, have drawn Fatah into political fights that it would have been better off staying out of. 

 

Finally, the growing strength of the movement among Palestinian populations, and among the Arab publics in general, combined with the PLO's increasing acceptance as an independent player in Arab politics by the other Arab states, led to tensions with those states where large Palestinian populations posed a threat to the regimes -- Lebanon and Jordan.  This threat was especially severe, not just in terms of domestic politics, but also because of the Israeli policy of strong and swift retaliation for guerrilla attacks.  Since Fatah and the PLO in general were unable to establish an infrastructure of opposition within the West Bank and Gaza, they were forced to concentrate their organizing efforts on the Diaspora Palestinians, particularly in Lebanon and Jordan.  These countries became jumping-off points for Fatah and other organizations' raids into Israel and the occupied territories.  The Lebanese and Jordanian governments bore the brunt of the Israeli reprisal raids, and felt the pressure of demands from both Palestinians and from their own citizens to defend the country.  As the Palestinian organizations built up a rudimentary military infrastructure in both Jordan and Lebanon, the frictions between them and the forces of those governments increased.

 

It was in Lebanon that this process first led to crisis.  The complications that the Palestinian movement brought to the already brewing storm of Lebanese politics will not detain us here (we will deal with the Lebanese crisis at length in a later lecture).  Suffice it to say that the Palestinians had the support of a number of Lebanese groups and actors (mostly those opposed to Maronite domination of politics).  Given this division within Lebanese society, the government was forced to reach a compromise agreement with the PLO that would govern its activities in Lebanon.  In November 1969 Arafat and the Commander of the Lebanese Army met in Cairo, under the mediation of Nasir, and worked out what became known as the Cairo Agreement.  Under its terms, the PLO was given responsibility for governance of the 16 UNRWA [Relief and Works Agency] Palestinian camps in Lebanon -- the first official recognition by an Arab state of PLO responsibility for Palestinians within its borders.  In exchange the PLO agreed to confine its bases to a few border areas and to allow a certain measure of Lebanese control over its commando activities.

 

Given the demographics of Jordan, where even after 1967 well over half of the inhabitants of the Kingdom were Palestinians, such a muddling-through compromise was not possible.  Various incidents since 1968 had led to increasing tensions between the Palestinian groups and the Jordanian army and the Jordanian state.  The PFLP and the DFLP were both actively campaigning against the government of King Husayn, on the theory that only when the "reactionaries" in the Arab world were removed could the "liberation" of Palestine be achieved.  In this state of heightened political tensions, both the Fatah leadership and King Husayn at the beginning sought to avoid a crisis.  Husayn feared the effects of an out and out confrontation with the militants on his ability to rule his mostly Palestinian subjects.  Fatah sought to avoid entanglement in the domestic politics of Arab states, fearing that would both deflect it from its Palestinian nationalist agenda and embroil it in debilitating inter-Arab feuds.  However, neither side could in the end endure the atmosphere of constant crisis.  It was, in the end, not something that happened in Jordan, but rather a decision by Nasir, that finally lit the spark of the Jordanian crisis.

 

In March 1969, after having rebuilt some of his military strength, Nasir had launched what became known as the War of Attrition, a battle of artillery barrages and air sorties across the Suez Canal between Egypt and Israel.  With increasing Egyptian reliance on the Soviet Union and American identification with Israel during this period, the risk of escalation grew with the increased severity of the military exchanges.  Finally, in August 1970, Nasir agreed to an American-sponsored cease-fire in the War of Attrition. [in all probability because the Soviets were unwilling to risk an escalation in the fighting]   Husayn quickly joined him in accepting the cease-fire, looking forward to peace negotiations. [an Arab cover for Husayn to do something he felt he couldnot do on his own]  This move, limited as it may seem now, was read by many as the first step on the road to a negotiated peace settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict.  Largely in an effort to sabotage any such moves, the PFLP chose this time to stage a spectacular series of hijackings.  In another overt and brazen challenge to King Husayn's authority, (an assassination attempt had occurred just before, on September 1) three planes were flown to an airstrip in Jordan under PFLP control, where in front of the world press they were blown up.  The pressures on Husayn to finally reassert his authority were enormous.  He had some months before acceded to Palestinian demands in removing from the Jordanian government a number of military leaders who urged a firmer stand against the PLO.  Feelings in the largely East Jordanian Arab Legion were running high against the brazen Palestinian fighters, and some kind of quiet military coup against Husayn by his own army could not be discounted.

 

On September 16, 1970 Husayn broke the fevered atmosphere by appointing a military government and ordering an offensive against Palestinian military and civilian strongholds in Amman and the north.  In response, on September 20, Syrian tanks entered Jordan in support of the beleaguered Palestinian forces.  Husayn turned to the United States, and indirectly through it to Israel, for help.  The United States and Israel coordinated on a plan of military maneuvers that called for Israeli air strikes against the Syrian deployments, while the US would beef up its naval presence to deter Soviet intervention.  In the end, the Syrian Air Force (under a general named Hafiz al-'Asad) did not fly support of the ground invasion, and Husayn was able to confront the Syrian forces without outside assistance.  The Soviet Union also apparently played a role in urging Syria to desist from its course, and the other Arab states, most notably Egypt and Iraq (which had 17,000 troops stationed in eastern Jordan), did nothing to support Syria or to undermine Jordan.  Husayn emerged from this crisis with his regime intact and the upper hand over the Palestinian groups in Jordan.

 

In response to the carnage in Jordan (3,650 dead and 11,500 wounded -- the Palestinians call it Black September), and growing revulsion in Arab public opinion against Husayn, Nasir called for a summit meeting in Cairo to deal with the situation.  A cease-fire was agreed to (with Husayn bargaining from a position of strength), and the King escaped the meeting with an absolute minimum of official Arab criticism of his actions.  As the summit came to an end, Nasir, who had been in ill health, succumbed to a heart attack and died.  Over the course of the next year, the Jordanian army would slowly but surely role up the remaining pockets of armed Palestinian strength in the country, ending any possibility, up to the present day, of the PLO using Jordan as a base for operations against Israel.

 

The crisis in Jordan, as we have seen, involved all four of the aspects we consider important for analysis of international politics of the Middle East.  In essence it was both a domestic and inter-Arab conflict, and in its unfolding we saw inter-Arab involvement (Syrian intervention, Iraqi non-intervention, Egyptian-sponsored summit), an activation of the Arab-Israeli factor (Israeli military mobilizations), and superpower involvement (both the US and the USSR).  The effects of the crisis also can be seen in all four aspects of our variables.  Domestically, King Husayn reaffirmed his control over Jordan and eliminated the Palestinian state within a state that had developed there.  The bulk of the Palestinian forces, along with the Fatah and PLO infrastructure, made its way to Lebanon, where the state was weaker and the polity more divided, to find a more congenial home.  The impact of this shift on Lebanese politics would be enormous.  In Syria, the recriminations over the failed intervention led to another internal Bacth party coup, with General Hafiz al-'Asad coming to power.  The final exertions to organize a summit by Nasir in the end cost him his life, and ushered in the Sadat era in Egyptian politics.  One can hardly imagine two more important changes for the Middle East as a whole than the coming to power of al-'Asad and Sadat.  As for the Palestinian movement itself, the lesson of Jordan was not that they should avoid involvement in local politics, but that they should find strong local allies.  The organizational incoherence that had drawn Fatah into this fatal confrontation did not lead to increased efforts by Arafat to control the other Palestinian organizations.

 

In inter-Arab politics, the age of Nasir had really ended in 1967.  Nasir's silence during the crisis, and his moderate tone toward Husayn at the summit, signalled a new turn in inter-Arab politics.  Under his successor, Egypt eschewed direct involvement in the politics of other Arab states, and promoted a vision of Arab cooperation based on regular state-to-state dealings, regardless of regime type or ideology.  It is of course impossible to say that Nasir would have followed a similar strategy as Sadat, but certainly his restraint during the crisis gave a signal of his new reading of how inter-Arab politics should be conducted.  The events of September 1970 also established a lasting enmity between Husayn and the PLO, and between Husayn and the great bulk of Palestinians in general.  After a period of many years, diplomatic contacts between Jordan and the PLO were renewed, but the prospects for real cooperation between the two remain limited, in large part because of the legacy of these events.

 

In the Arab-Israeli sphere, the Palestinian-Jordanian divorce (of sorts) is a factor that plays a major role today.  Also, the expulsion of PLO military forces from the Jordan valley improved Israel's security position, to the extent that, when peace feelers were extended by Sadat in 1971, Israel did not feel compelled to respond positively.  In the superpower realm, the most important result of the crisis was that it cemented the policy of US-Israeli cooperation in the Nixon Administration.  The Administration had been somewhat divided on how to play the Arab-Israeli issue, but this tangible proof of Israel's strategic value in supporting a pro-Western Arab state against the incursions of a pro-Soviet Arab state convinced Nixon and Kissinger that the best position for the US to take would be one of unstinting political and military support for Israel.  Only through such support, they reasoned, could the Soviet Union and its Arab allies be persuaded that negotiation, not war, was the route for recovery of Arab territories.  The improvement in Israel's security position brought about by the PLO exodus from Jordan and by the new level of American commitment led to a false sense of security in Washington and Jerusalem about the stability of the Arab-Israeli conflict.  This sense of security was exploded by the October 1973 war, which will be the subject of our next lecture.