Prelude to Collapse

The Arab League took its responsibilities one step further in September 1947 when, in response to the United Nations'

recommendation to partition Palestine into Arab and Jewish states, it appointed a Technical Military Committee (TMC), to oversee "Palestinian defense needs."*””

Many Palestinian historians believe that the Palestinian forces and their Arab allies had no chance of victory over the Zionist forces because the Arab states did not heed their own experts' warnings of Zionist military superiority and did not give the Palestinians sufficient support to overcome it.

The Palestinians looked to the Arab League to

counterbalance Zionist military preponderance. But the league suffered from . . . constraints and divisiveness

. . . . Its first tentative move to meet Palestinian defense needs was made in September 1947 when it formed the Technical Military Committee, headed by an Iraqi former chief of staff. General Ismail Safwat, to report on Palestinian defense requirements. Safwat's first report, submitted on October 8 , was somber and

realistic. He accurately assessed Zionist strength and asserted that the Palestinians possessed nothing

remotely comparable to the Zionist forces "in manpower, organization, armament or ammunition." Urging the Arab states to "mobilize their utmost strength" promptly and form a general command, he warned that the Palestinians **”(... continued)

Covenant of the Arab League (Cairo: March 22, 1945), quoted in Survev of Palestine, p. 78. See also "Munadhdhamah al-Tahrir al- Filastiniyyah [The Palestine Liberation Organization]," Al-

Mawsu'ah al-Filastiniwah [The Palestinian Encvclopedia] (Damascus, Syria: Hai'ah al-Mawsu'ah al-Filastiniyyah,

1984) (hereinafter "Palestinian Encvclopedia - PLO"), p. 313. *”” W. Khalidi, p. 244. See also "Al-Lajnah al - ' Askariyyah al-Tabi'ah li Jami'ah al-Duwal al-'Arabiyyah [The League of Arab States Military Committee]," Al-Mawsu'ah al-Filastiniyvah

(Palestinian Encvclopedia). Vol. 4 (Damascus: Hai'ah al-Mawsu'ah al-Filastiniyyah, 1984), pp. 30-33.

ft jf.fc .4,

were in dire straits. The only Arab League reaction to Safwat's urgings was the allocation on October 15 of one million pounds sterling to the Technical

Committee. *”*

The Arab League was hesitant about confronting Britain before the end of the Mandate on May 15, 1948. Arab leaders still held out hope that " . . . somehow the justice of the Palestinian cause would be recognized and the Western powers would not allow the worst to befall the Palestinians."*””

In December 1947, the Arab League decided to supply the TMC with ten thousand rifles and three thousand volunteers. These formed an irregular volunteer force, whose members hailed from various Arab countries, known as the Arab Liberation Army (ALA) . However, it was not until the end of the British Mandate, on May

15, 194 8 , that regular Arab forces from Lebanon, Syria,

Transjordan, Iraq, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen entered the country. By that time, it was too late for them to be of any use to the Palestinians. The Arab governments " . . . regarded the

*”* Khalidi, pp. 308-309.

*”” Id. , p. 309. The 1984 edition of Mawsu'ah al-

Filastiniwah [The Palestinian Encyclopedia! offers a similar assessment citing "the inability of the Arab states to understand the strategies of the great powers controlling international

policy, their trust in promises, and their acceptance of delays, which resulted in their weakness in rising to the level of

confronting the dangers which threatened them, while World Zionism marshalled all of its local and international

capabilities in support of its strategic aims in cooperation with the great powers themselves." "Harb 1948 [The 1948 War]," Al- Mawsu'ah al-Filastiniwah, Volume 2 (Damascus: Hai'ah al-Mawsu'ah al-Filastiniyyah, 1984)(hereinafter "The 1948 War"), pp. 162-163; See also H. Kilani, "Hurub Filastin al-'Arabiyyah - al-

Isra'iliyyah [The Arab-Israeli Palestinian Wars," Al-Mawsu'ah al- Filastiniwah [The Palestinian Encyclopedia], Volume 5 (Beirut: Hai'ah al-Mawsu'ah al-Filastiniyyah, 1990), p. 503.

assessment of their military experts as exaggerated and

unwarranted. They still could not contemplate intervention by the Arab armies before the formal end of the Mandate on May 15. And when the time for intervention came, a force less than half the minimum considered necessary was all that was sent."*””

Although it took the newborn State of Israel more than a year to drive out the Arab armies and gain control of the

Palestinian areas, most Palestinian leaders and historians hold to this assessment of the reasons for Israel's victory in 1948- 49.*54 Certainly, the new generation of Palestinian leaders, which arose from among the war's refugees, shared this view.

D. Postwar Palestinian Nationalist Trends

Following the Palestinians' 1948 defeat, three major

political trends developed. Two of them, the Arab Nationalists

*”” W. Khalidi., p. 313. According to the Palestinian Encyclopedia (1984), there was a "superficiality in the

information available in the apparati of the Arab army commands on the enemy forces while the Zionists knew much about the

Arabs." It also describes "a lack of political participation by the military command in any discussion of the war. Its members were in a strange situation. They did not come to the decision to enter the war until a very short time before it broke out and they did not have the time to make the preparations necessary for organizing the forces." "The 1948 War," p. 162; See also Kilani, p. 502.

*" See, e.g., Frangi, p. 85; Abu lyad, Mv Home, Mv Land : A Narrative of the Palestinian Struggle (New York: Times Books,

1981)(hereinafter "Abu lyad"), p. 12. The late PLO leader's autobiography contains first person accounts of important events in the history of the Palestinian national movement. See

and the Ba ' thists, were pan-Arabist and the third, the Fatah movement, espoused a more localized nationalism. The other trends, however, continued to exist. The Arab Higher Committee continued to operate under al-Hajj Amin al-Husseini's direction until his death in 1974.*””

The Palestinian Communist Party - founded in 1924 -

underwent a series of splits, the first of which took place in 1943, and the last of which occurred in 1982. Immediately

following the 194 8 war, the communist party concluded that Israel had become an established fact and that the Palestinians' battle

*”” The Ba'thist trend was nearly identical to that of the Arab nationalists. Both conditioned "Palestine's liberation" on the prior establishment of a unitary Arab state, both were

secular movements, both blamed perceived Western domination of the region for the Arabs' problems, and both rejected any

peaceful accommodation with Israel. Ba'th ideology differed from that of the Arab nationalists in that it contained the added

dimension of social reform. The Ba'thists' influence on the

Palestinian national movement was felt primarily in the emergence of the Palestinian Liberation Front (PLF) and the Arab Liberation Front (ALF), which continue to be sponsored by the Ba'thist

regimes in Syria and Iraq, respectively. The PLF, first

conceived by the party's Iraqi branch in 1959, merged with the ANM's front groups in 1967 to form the PFLP. In August 1968, the PFLP's PLF faction split from the main group to form the PFLP-GC

(General Command), under Ahmad Jibril's leadership. This

organization split again in 1977, the breakaway faction once more adopting the name PLF.

N. 'Alush, "Fikr Harakah al-Muqawamah al-Filastiniyyah (1948- 1987): Nadhrah 'Amah [The Palestinian Resistance Movement's

Ideology (1948-1987) : An Overview] , " Al-Mawsu'ah al-Filastiniwah (Beirut: Hai'ah al-Mawsu'ah al-Filastiniyyah, 1990)(hereinafter "'Alush"), pp. 909-911.

*56 "Muhammad Amin al-Hussaini (1890-1974) , " Al-Mawsu'ah al- Filastiniwah (Damascus: al-Hai'ah al-Mawsu'ah al-Filastiniyyah, 1984), Vol. IV, p. 142.

had to be waged against colonialism in g e n e r a l . Subsequent

offshoots were either integrated into Israel's political system or allied themselves with the most radical of the Palestinian nationalist organizations.^^®

Since the influence of these groups on the Palestinian national movement in general has been minor, this section will focus on the doctrinaire Arab Nationalists Movement (ANM) and the more practical Fatah. Since the respective approaches of these organizations toward resolving the Israeli-Palestinian issue were so markedly distinct from one another, their discussion is

particularly useful in introducing the movement's major political trends.

E. The PFLP's Predecessor: The Arab Nationalists' Movement (ANM)

Indissoluble Bond") literacy society, affiliated with the

American University of Beirut (AUB) The students who joined it in the late 1940's - among them, George Habash, Wadi' Haddad, Hani al-Hindi, and Ahmad al-Khatib - later formed the ANM's core

leadership. Habash and Haddad, both Palestinians, had been part

Matar, p. 31.

158 'Alush, pp. 948-952.

K. Qasimiyyah, "Al-Mudhakkirat wa al-Sir al-Dhatiyyah al Filastiniyyah [Treatises and the Course of Palestinian

Identity] , " Al-Mawsu'ah al-Filastiniwah [Palestinian Encyclopedia], Vol. 3 (Beirut: al-Hai'ah al-Mawsu'ah al-

Filastiniyyah, 1990)(hereinafter "Qasimiyyah - Treatises")," p. 821.

of the mass exodus of Arab refugees from what had since become Israel.

In the wake of the 1948 defeat, the literary society expanded its horizons to include discussion of the " . . . necessity for revolution, armed action, and c o u p s d'etat.

Al-'Urwah's members were particularly incensed by those whom they characterized as traitors and deserters, namely those who had led the fight against Israel and had failed, due to their

incompetence or their apparent accommodation with the enemy. They maintained that the only appropriate response to those whom they believed had betrayed the cause was death.

In March 1949, Habash and al-Hindi met with representatives of groups from Syria and Egypt with goals similar to theirs. The meeting resulted in the formation of Al-Kata'ib al-Fida' al-

'Arabi (Al-Kata'ib). The group listed Arab unity and 'the liberation of Palestine' as its ultimate objectives. The

Egyptian members, who had previously engaged in violent activity

160 _{Matar, p. 23.}

Id.; B.R. Al-Kubaisi, The Arab Nationalists Movement 1951-1971: From Pressure Group to Socialist Partv (Ann Arbor, Michigan: University Microfilms, 1971)(hereinafter "Al-Kubaisi"), p. 37. Basil al-Kubaisi doctoral dissertation verifies other

first-person and historical accounts of the ANM and offers detailed insight into its organizational structure and daily

existence. Al-Kubaisi was an active ANM member and continued his association with its leadership as a PFLP operative after

December 1967. His dissertation is based on interviews with former ANM members, many of whom later became PFLP leaders. Following al-Kubaisi's violent death in 1973, the PFLP lent further credibility to his dissertation by publishing an Arabic translation in its weekly magazine, Al-Hadaf. It also eulogized him as an important ANM and PFLP member.

in their own country, provided the Kata'ib with its paramilitary organization, while those from Beirut and Damascus were

responsible for its ideological f r a m e w o r k .

Under Al-'Urwah's organizational cover, the group trained in

the clandestine use of explosives against civilian targets and

carried out several successful attacks. By the summer of 1950,

Habash realized that the Kata'ib's methods had failed to win them

a mass following. Its organizational discipline showed signs of

disintegrating. During an attempt on the life of the Syrian

president. Colonel Adib al-Shishakli, the Kata'ib cell was

captured and interrogated by Syrian intelligence. As a result.

162 Al-Kubaisi, p. 43. See also W. Kazziha, Revolutionarv Transformation in the Arab World: Habash and his Comrades from

Nationalism to Marxism (New York: St. Martin's Press,

1975)(hereinafter "Kazziha"), p. 21. Kazziha's work analyzes the ANM's history from its antecedents' emergence in the late 1940's

and early 1950's through the founding of its successor

organization, the PFLP, in 1967. With the United Arab Republic's

establishment in 1958, the ANM, assisted by Egyptian President

Gamal 'abd al-Nasir, focused its efforts on helping him to unite

the Arab countries into a single nationalist entity, which it

hoped would shun alliances with the Western powers and marshall

its resources to remove Israel from the Middle East. In doing so, the ANM made use of its contacts in the area to establish cells of activists seeking to overthrow the pro-Western

governments in their respective countries, particularly those on

the Arabian Peninsula. Kazziha describes the mechanics involved

in establishing the ANM's Persian Gulf network, as well as the

ideological debates within the organization. A former member of

the ANM's Lebanese branch, Kazziha relies on his past experience

within the organization, as well as on interviews with ex­

activists with whom he maintains contact, to provide the reader

with a dispassionate and detailed history of the organization's

efforts to unite the Arab World behind the recovery of land lost

the group's core leadership, including Habash, was forced into

hiding and the organization simply crumbled.

In early 1951, as part of his efforts to reconstitute an

active organization, Habash proposed that a new nationalist

clandestine organization be formed and that Al-'Urwah's executive

committee members be its n u c le us .T h e members agreed and set

about formulating a political ideology.

From 1951 until 1956, the organization formed by Al-'Urwah's

executive committee did not officially exist. It was known,

depending on with whom it dealt, as the Arab Nationalist Youth,

the Arab Nationalists, and the Organization for Resisting Peace

With I s r a e l . it was not until 1956, the year of its first

conference, that the organization came into the open as the