Fatah

Formed by the Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat during his youth, Fatah has historically been the biggest and most influential group within the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

Arafat and his colleague Khalil Wazir (later known by the nom de guerre Abu Jihad) founded al Fatah after leaving Egypt for Kuwait in 1957. Fatah's platform departed from the pan-Arabism of the day, and instead called on the Palestinians to lead an armed struggle for Palestine. The group began as an unnamed network of underground cells. Members published Our Palestine: The Call to Life, a magazine in which they called for the eradication of Israel. The magazine set forth Fatah's mission and brought in new recruits. Fatah formally organized in 1963 and set up a central governing committee.

The name Fatah is a reverse acronym for the Arabic phrase “Harakat al Tahir al Watani al Filastini” (Movement for the National Liberation of Palestine). The members reversed the initial letters of the words to form “Fatah,” which also means “victory” in Arabic. Fatah gained the support of Syria and emerged from the underground in December 1964, when members blew up a water-pump installation in Israel. In the following years, Fatah members continued to infiltrate and attack Israel, entering from Lebanon or Jordan.

After Israel won the Six-Day War in 1967 and occupied the Sinai Peninsula, the Golan Heights, the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank, Fatah leaders recruited Palestinians displaced by the war. It established guerrilla-training centers in Lebanon and Jordan and increased the raids on Israel, provoking many counterattacks. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Fatah also offered training to terrorist groups from around the world.

In a 1968 battle in the town of Karameh, Jordan, Fatah forces held off an Israeli counterattack. As accounts of the standoff spread, al Fatah gained prestige and Arafat garnered international attention. The number of volunteer fighters also swelled. Fatah joined the PLO in 1969, and Arafat was elected chairman of the PLO's executive committee. Upon his election, Arafat reportedly declared, “Armed struggle is the only way. We reject all political settlements.”

Jordan's army clashed with the PLO in the early 1970s and overpowered the group, expelling it from that country. Black September, a radical branch of Fatah, emerged in 1971. Black September was responsible for the Munich Olympics massacre in 1972, as well as other terror attacks against Israel. Meanwhile, the PLO moved its base to Lebanon, where it became embroiled in Lebanon's prolonged civil war. In 1982, after Israel invaded Lebanon, the group evacuated Beirut under international guarantees of safety.

Senior Fatah officials broke from Arafat's rule in 1983 and moved to a closer relationship with Syria. With Syrian backing, Fatah attacked Arafat and his troops in Tripoli, Lebanon. Arafat managed to keep control of the PLO, however, and he moved its headquarters to Tunisia.

In the late 1980s, Fatah developed a political wing, forming the moderate majority within the PLO. It has been criticized by militant groups such as Hamas and the former Fatah member Abu Nidal's breakaway group, the Fatah Revolutionary Council. In 1988, under the leadership of Arafat and al Fatah, the PLO accepted Israel's right to coexist with Palestine and effectively denounced terrorism.

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