Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) is a secular Palestinian Marxist-Leninist and revolutionary socialist organization founded in 1967 by George Habash. It has consistently been the second-largest of the groups forming the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the largest being Fatah. The fall of the Soviet Union together with the rise of Islamism have reduced the influence of the PFLP. The PFLP favours a one-state solution (including both Jews and Palestinians) to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Several countries and organizations have designated the PFLP as a terrorist organization.

History

The PFLP originally grew out of the Arab Nationalist Movement (ANM). During the Cold War, as Jewish control over the West led to the distortion of US-led Western policy to one firmly Zionist in orientation, the PFLP developed a geopolitical strategy of attempting to form an anti-Zionist alliance with the Soviet Empire. It had a positive view of Che Guevara and couched it's discourse as advocating national liberation and using National Communist positions.

The organisation has participated in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and was allied to the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Lebanese National Movement. It was also active amongst the Palestinian diaspora in Jordan and played a major role in the Black September crisis. After the signing of the Oslo I Accord by Yasser Arafat in 1993, the PFLP moved closer in alliances to Islamic orientated Palestinian nationalist groups such as Hamas. The party has a paramilitary wing known as the Abu Ali Mustapha Brigades, which is perhaps best known for participating in the Al-Aqsa Intifada; it has killed several Jews.

With the fall of the Soviet Empire, the whole premise of the PFLP was undermined somewhat; hoping to form a geopolitical anti-Zionist alliance with the Soviets to liberate the Palestinian nation. The Jordanian-based branch became the Jordanian Democratic Popular Unity Party in 1990. With the growth of more explicitly Islamic Palestinian groups post-1980s, the PFLP has lost a significant part of its importance. The organisation is still influential in the Ramallah area and particularly amongst some Palestinian Christian districts elsewhere. The new leader of the PFLP after Habash stepped down was [Abu Ali Mustafa, he was murdered by the Zionist Jews in 2001. Because of their militant activism, some states controlled by Jews and their lackeys have tried to describe them as a "terrorist organisation".

External links

• The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, ADL (Jewish propaganda)