Fatah

The name is a reverse acronym of the Arabic for Palestinian National Liberation Movement; Fatah also conveniently is the Arabic word for ‘conquering’ or ‘victory.’

It was officially founded in 1965 by Yasser Arafat but originated as an idea by Palestinian professionals in the Persian Gulf States and students in Cairo and Beirut in 1959. One of Fatah’s co-founders was Khalid Yashruti, head of the General Union of Palestinian Students in Beirut from 1958- 1962.

Fatah dominated Palestinian politics following the humiliating defeat of Egypt, Syria and Jordan in the Six Day War of 1967, which also proved to be the death-blow to George Habash’s Arab Nationalist Movement.

Fatah immediately joined the PLO being granted 33 seats out of 105 on the Executive Committee, and within two years Arafat was made Chairman.

Following the 1968 Palestinian military victory at Karameh, Jordan, where Fatah Headquarters was, Fatah and other Palestinian resistance groups created a state-within-a-state. Roadblocks were set-up, illegal taxes levied (in other words they ran a protection racket), and Jordanian Law Enforcement and Civil Administration was ignored at best, and humiliated at worst.

By September 1970 King Hussein of Jordan had had enough and declared martial law- Black September had begun. The bulk of Fatah and other PLO groups fled to Lebanon.

Fatah set-up a separate armed-unit known as ‘Black September’ who sought revenge on Jordan and successfully assassinated Prime Minister Wafi al-Tal before going on to shock the world with the Munich Olympic Village Massacre.

From their base in Beirut, Fatah would launch cross-border raids into Israel and the IDF and Mossad would respond in kind.

When Civil War erupted in Lebanon in 1975 Fatah reluctantly sided with the Lebanese Nationalist Movement but nevertheless still continued to launch attacks against Israel, the most notorious being the Coastal Road Massacre.

In response Israel launched Operation: LITANI where the IDF occupied South Lebanon as far as the eponymous river.

By June 1982, following the botched assassination of Shlomo Argov, Israel’s Ambassador to the UK by Abu Nidal, the Israelis had all the excuses they needed to launch a full-scale invasion of Lebanon and crush the PLO forever.

To end Operation: PEACE FOR GALILEE as the IDF termed it and end the Siege of Beirut, Arafat and the majority of Fatah were given safe passage to Tunis.

Despite this many other Fatah commanders and troops remained in Lebanon, such as Abu Musa, and participated in the War of the Camps (1985-87). Arafat and Fatah were to remain in exile in Tunis until the Oslo Accords of 1993.

Following the suspicious death of Arafat in November 2004, the leadership of Fatah passed onto Mahmoud Abbas.

Fatah’s reputation had been tarnished amid allegations of corruption, financial impropriety and nepotism within the Palestinian National Authority. Subsequently Fatah were trounced by Hamas at the municipal elections of 2005.

The stage was set for a war with Hamas.