Fatah—powerful and pragmatic

Fatah was established in the late 1950s (Cobban 1984, 23),¹⁴³ with the stated aim “to liberate the whole of Palestine and destroy the foundations of [the] colonialist, Zionist occupation state and society” (Sayigh 1997, 87). Modeled after and inspired by the contemporary liberation wars and movements—and in particular those in Algeria, Cuba, and Vietnam—

Fatah had established itself as the main Palestinian nationalist faction advocating armed struggle against the Israeli occupation by the time it took leadership of the PLO in 1969 (Baumgarten 2005; Rubin 1994, 1–23). Partly as a side effect of adopting the strategies and tactics of these guerrilla groups, and partly as a byproduct of the Cold War—with the Soviet Union sponsoring many liberation movements against the colonial powers of the West—Fatah adopted a revolutionary and secular ideology, which it combined with a nationalist rhetoric 140 For details of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, see Sayigh (1997, 522–43).

141 As part of the invasion, and after the evacuation of the PLO, Israel cooperated with the Lebanese Phalange party to commit the Sabra and Shatila massacres, in which somewhere between 300 and 3 000 Palestinian refugees and Lebanese Shias were killed in two refugee camps on the outskirts of Beirut (Malone 1985).

142 Both the Oslo process and the return of the PLO to the occupied territories will be covered in some detail in chapter 5.

143 There are some discrepancies regarding the exact date between the different historical accounts of Fatah’s founding, ranging from 1958 to 1962 (Cobban 1984, 23–24; Sayigh 1997, 84).

influenced by the anti-colonial discourse.¹⁴⁴

Crucially, Fatah has arguably only paid lip-service to these ideals throughout most of its history. As a consequence of its strong focus on nationalism and lack of ideological rigidity, Fatah has been free to adopt and discard ideological rhetoric as its leaders have seen fit.¹⁴⁵ During the late 1960s and 1970s, Fatah therefore utilized the then prevalent anti-colonial discourse, as can be gleaned from its Constitution. However, as long as pan-Arabism remained an ideological force to be reckoned with,¹⁴⁶ it made sense for Fatah to downplay the exclusivity of its Palestinian nationalism. Instead, Fatah framed its goal of liberating Palestine as the necessary first step toward Arab unity (Sayigh 1997, 198–99).¹⁴⁷ Later, after the Iranian revolution of 1979 and the Islamic revivalism that followed, Fatah supplemented its old slogans, such as “the right to self-determination” and “revolution until victory,” with verses and excerpts from the Koran (Frisch 2005).

This ideological elasticity and pragmatism have had consequences for Fatah’s strategy, and given its dominance, also for the PLO and thus Palestinian politics. In particular, two key developments underline this. First, Fatah led the 12^th PNC session in Cairo, June 1 to 9, 1974, to adopt the so-called ten-point political program, which would come to influence PLO strategy and policy for the next decades (JPS 1987, 151). Although the first article in the adopted program rejects UNSCR 242 and states that the PLO “refuses to have anything to do with this resolution at any level, Arab or international” (PNC 1974), it also paved the way for alternative strategies in the struggle for liberation. Specifically, article two of the ten-point program states that the PLO “will employ all means, and first and foremost armed struggle, to liberate Palestinian territory and to establish the independent combatant national authority for the people over every part of Palestinian territory that is liberated” (PNC 1974).

Although the wording remains revolutionary, two crucial points should be highlighted from the above quotation. First, even if armed struggle remains the primary strategy, it implicitly 144 A brief look at Fatah’s 1968 Constitution supports such an interpretation. Among other claims, it states that Fatah is a national, revolutionary movement fighting against Zionism, colonialism, and international imperialism. In this way, Fatah frames the liberation of Palestine as part of the global fight against Western colonialism and imperialism, situation itself squarely in the anti-colonial camp (Rubin 1994, 8–9). Of course, the officially stated goals of any political party or movement might be sidelined for various reasons and should not be taken at face value (Panebianco 1988). They are, nevertheless, considered a useful source of data on ideology and policy positions (Budge et al. 2001).

145 See Baumgarten (2005) and Løvlie (2014) for analyses of Fatah’s pragmatism.

146 I.e., until the defeat of the Arab armies at the hands of Israel in the Six-Day War of 1967.

147 The exact slogan was the reverse of the pan-Arabist, i.e., “Palestine is the road to unity” rather than “unity is the road to Palestine” (Sayigh 1997, 198).

opens for other strategies in the Palestinian fight for liberation. This marks a departure from the dominant idea that armed struggle was the only way to liberate Palestine. Second, it advocates the establishment of a Palestinian state on “every part of Palestinian territory that is liberated,” i.e., not necessarily the whole of historic Palestine (R. Hamid 1975, 108–9). In essence, then, the adoption of the ten-point program in 1974 constituted a radical shift for the PLO in both strategy and goals (Løvlie 2014).¹⁴⁸

Crucially, since the adoption of the ten-point program allowed for both negotiations and a Palestinian state alongside Israel, the Arab Summit held in Rabat, Morocco, in October 1974 rewarded the PLO by recognizing it as the Palestinian’s “sole legitimate representatives”

(Cubert 1997, 59). This, in turn, paved the way for the adoption of UN General Assembly Resolution 3237 in November 1974, which invited “the Palestinian Liberation Organization to participate in the sessions and the work of the General Assembly in the capacity as an observer,” i.e., granting the PLO non-state observer status in the UN (UNGA 1974b).

The second event underlining the ideological elasticity and pragmatism of Fatah was the Palestinian Declaration of Independence proclaimed at the 19^th PNC session in Algiers. On November 15, 1988, Yasser Arafat, Chairman of the PLO, announced a “moral and psychological” Palestinian state on the occupied Palestinian territories, with Jerusalem as its capital. In an accompanying document, UN Security Council Resolution 242 was referenced, specifying the territory of the Palestinian state as that of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, thus reducing the Palestinian territorial claim by some 78 percent (Muslih 1990; PNC 1988).

This proclamation of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders constituted a radical shift in PLO politics with far-reaching consequences; by adopting a two-state solution and thus de facto recognizing the State of Israel, direct talks between Israel and the Palestinians became possible for the first time.¹⁴⁹ In 1991 the demise of communism and the ensuing “new world order” made it possible for the US to arrange the Madrid Conference between Israel and Palestine (Usher 1995a, 2–3). This conference was the first of a range of talks between Israel 148 The adoption of this ten-point program led certain constituent PLO factions, and most prominently the PFLP, to temporarily leave the organization in protest. Collectively, these were known as the Rejectionist Front (Cubert 1997, 59).

149 Confronted with these examples of political pragmatism and ideological opportunism, a senior Fatah cadre retorted that Fatah has been and continues to be the “National Movement for the Liberation of Palestine, and not a party which has an ideology. We have no ideology. We are not Marxist. We are not Islamist. Fatah is not a party with a political or social program” (interviewed in Ramallah, May 24, 2011). Similar sentiments regarding the ideological elasticity of Fatah were expressed by various Palestinian scholars, including Dr. Giacaman and pollster and analyst Jamil Rabah (interviewed in Ramallah, April 5 and March 23, 2011, respectively).

and Palestinians leading up to the Oslo Accords, and the first in which Israeli and Palestinian officials negotiated directly with each other.¹⁵⁰

In sum, it is clear from the above that the PLO under the control of Fatah has played a dominant and crucial role in Palestinian politics from the late 1960s onward. Although the effects of the Israeli occupation far outweigh the influence of the PLO for Palestinians living inside the occupied territories, the establishment of Hamas by the Muslim Brotherhood in Gaza was partly a response to the lack of religiosity on the part of the PLO, as well as its failure to liberate Palestine after decades of trying. And as will be demonstrated in the coming chapters, the competition between the Fatah-PLO-PA nexus and Hamas has come to define and polarize the Palestinian political field (Hilal 2010; Løvlie 2014).