This episode of the dig is brought to you by our listeners who support us at patreon dot com and by Ver books, which has loads of great left wing titles. Perfect for dig centers like you. 1 that you might like is happy apocalypse, by Jean Baptist f. We tend to think of ourselves as the first generation to consider the impact that humanity has had on the environment. But the trend of being environmentally conscious. Is not nearly as modern as we imagine.
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Happy apocalypse dissect the moral dispositions, forms of power and subtle twists of reality that started us down the road toward the abyss Listeners can buy happy apocalypse directly from ver books dot com and save 40 percent at checkout using the discount code dig. That's DIG. Welcome to the day a podcast from Jacob up magazine. My name is Daniel Denver, and I'm broadcasting from Providence Rhode Island. This is the fourteenth episode of Fa.
The Dig series on twentieth century Arab politics with historian Del. Fa is arabic for revolution. It's a word that contains historical multitudes. Diverse political radical and revolt that have swept across arab lands over the past century. Perhaps the Palestinian revolution began when Fat mounted its first armed attack against the Israeli settlers state. The first In intel or first launch. On 01/01/1965, Or maybe it began with Fat founding in 19 59.
After which it quickly became the strongest of dozens of Clan Palestinian political organizations that were forming. For some, its origins could be traced to the movement of Arab nationalists reconnaissance operations in 19 63. The foundations of the revolution were laid as early as the Palestinian great revolt of 19 36, really, all the way back to the very first acts of resistance to British colonialism and its zion settle project. For Abe, the Palestinian
revolution is less a singular event. Something concentrated in the overthrow of a particular regime. And more a process whereby popular forces develop capacities to install a new order. Whenever it was that the revolution started, the process it signals was shifting and accelerating from the mid 19 sixties onwards. In the twilight of progressive Pan arab nationalist governments. This episode is the first of the very final episodes of Fa. And it charts the rise of the Palestinian revolution.
Our story begins in 19 64, when Arab states led by Egypt's Gem Del and Palestinian lawyer in diplomat, Ak Shu, formed the Palestine liberation organization. The final episode of this sequence and of the entire series will end in 19 82, when Israeli forces invaded beirut. And when the P withdrew from there, under severe external and internal pressure. The key moment in today's installment, the story we're telling in this episode. Is the June war of 19 67, also known as the 6 day war. Israel
launched a surprise attack with Us support. And then defeated the combined arab armies of Egypt, Syria and Jordan, zion forces conquered the sinai from Egypt, the go on heights from Syria and most devastating. That 22 percent of historic Palestine that had remained free of Israeli control since 19 48. Gaza, East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
The arab defeat in the June war was a terrible blow to Arab nationalist and anti imperialist politics and caused a crisis for No, who resigned and only continued as president after massive demonstrations broke out across Egypt, demanding his return. For Palestinians, it meant that everything was now lost to the Zion project The event became known as the Na or setback, a brutal sequel to the Na or catastrophe of 19 48.
But the Arab defeat also set off the Palestinian revolution as a full scale mobilization of Palestinian society against the Zion project. For Fat, that constituted the second in Del lanka or second launch, as this broad regional arab nationalist front led by No was forced into retreat. Independent Palestinian formations took the lead. A new moment, a fed armed gorillas became the vanguard. The humiliation of Arab states Sci fat unprecedented prestige and momentum.
Fed were recruited in huge numbers, and suddenly, they had far more room to maneuver in frontline states like Jordan Lebanon in Egypt. States that had previously cracked down harshly on cross border attacks against Israel. And Fat wasn't alone. The explosion of the Palestinian revolution after the 19 67 defeat prompted the movement of Arab nationalist alongside 2 smaller groups to found the left wing popular front for the liberation of Palestine.
The P would for a long time remain the second most influential faction behind Fat. It was a wing of the movement that was explicitly socialist. In which retained a view that Palestinian liberation would in insignificant part run through the Arab capitals, especially if countries border Palestine. This was part of a much bigger shake up in the movement of Arab nationalists. Something we discussed in our last episode on revolutionary Arabia.
In the wake of 19 67, the movement of arab nationalists ceased to exist as a pan arab organization breaking off into international formations along the lines of the P p. South Yemen national liberation front Far popular front for the liberation of the occupied Arabian gulf and the organization of Lebanese socialists. Syrian ba also formed their own Palestinian organization, A. Later, after Assad came to power in Syria, it would become a tool of his regime.
A split from the P produced the popular democratic front for the liberation of Palestine. Ultimately renamed the democratic fred for the liberation of Palestine or D. The young generation of P Leaders who founded the D, began as left wing critics of the movement of Arab nationalists and the P older leadership generation. That older leadership generation almost executed these younger left wing dis. They only survived and went on to form the D p, thanks to the intervention of Fat.
As we've explored an extraordinary depth over all of these episodes, twentieth century revolutionary and radical arab politics were fixated on how to free the region from constant imperialist assaults. Most particularly, imperial most malevolent expression in the Middle East. The Zion settle colonial project And during the Palestinian revolution, almost every political and ideological thread that we followed throughout this series, emerged as a faction of the liberation movement.
Plenty of internal conflict would follow. But overall, the Palestinian revolution did a far better job than most in building a form of unified strength out of ideological diversity and ind. After shock of 19 67 was felt far from the newly occupied territories. The defeat had impacts everywhere in the arab world, including by helping to make it possible for bop ci iraq too in 19 68, overthrow the nationalist regime that had governed there since 19 63.
This coup brought Ak hassan bak and Saddam hussein to power. It ina refrigerated a regime that would for better and for worse, intervene in the Palestinian revolution, and it would also come to mark a very sad ending for a once idealistic ba project in Iraq. That same year as we discussed in this episode. The Arab World's last No inspired free officers coup took power in Libya, led by Mo Ka. Ka to put it mildly would not prove himself worthy of No legacy.
Finally, we tell the story of how Fat and rival Palestinian factions. Took over the Palestine liberation organization between 19 67 and 19 69. Making it an umbrella organization for a multi tendency armed national liberation struggle that would demand that it be recognized as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. Next episode we'll cover the Palestinian defeat the hands of the Jordan military in 19 70, events known as black September.
We'll probably get all the way through the October war. Known in Arabic as the Rama war and in hebrew as the Yam war of 19 73. We extensively covered the 19 59 foundation of Fat and other aspects of earlier Palestinian history in previous episodes if you have now listened yet.
And if you love The, and if you love the dig because what other podcast would do something, like take half a year off from regularly scheduled programming to make fat, please contribute what you can at patreon dot com slash the dig. This is a political education project, and it's profoundly into us. We make it free to everyone regardless of your ability to pay because we want everyone possible to listen.
But This only works because those of you listeners who can afford to contribute voluntarily do so. Please contribute now at patreon dot com slash the dig. We do have gifts to mail you depending on where you live and how much contribute, and we send all contributors our wonderful newsletter. That's PATRE0N dot com slash the dig. Okay. Here's Del Ras cri who teaches history at Rice University.
A scholar of Arab and Palestinian revolutionary movements He's the author of monsoon revolution, Republicans, Sultan and empires in Oman. And the c author of the Palestinian Revolution digital Humanity's website. It's an incredible resource that really will be back online very soon. Really, the website is almost ready to go. Stay tuned. We will let you know. When that happens.
Let's start in 19 64 with the foundation of the P. And the organization, the P was founded to be, and we're gonna get get into this a lot more later. It it was rather different at the beginning from the organizational later became. This organization dominated by Fat and by figures like ace fat. But we'll get to that later. Let's start
at the beginning. Why why did Arab heads of state come together to form the P and and where did individual and organized Palestinians fit into an organization dedicated to Palestinian liberation, but at this point, in an organization that was in fact, run by Arab states. This guy who we've discussed before, Oc Shu carry, a Palestinian who who had served as saudi ambassador to the Un. He was made the first chairman of the P, but he was not calling the shots
on his own. What what sort of organized power did Palestinians exercise within a P that was still operating according to this more nas arab nationalist principle rather than than the sort of principle that would guide a national liberation movement? In other words, what sort of organization was the P and it's founding and how how was it founded
in that way? Well, Daniel, I'm not sure I would describe the founding of the P in the way that you did even though by the way, the way you did it reflects the prevailing general description in both Arabic and English writings. But if you if you go into the primary research. And if you look at the history of the foundation of the P o, you will find that yes, there was heavy involvement on the part of Jamal nozzle in particular, in allowing for such a thing to happen.
But at the same time, it was a great deal of, initiative, exhibited by the founder of the P. I'm additional clarity in organizing the Palestinian ranks, and mobilizing them towards founding such a structure. So the context is is very important to bear mind here. First, you had the collapse of the United Arab Republic, which we've discussed in previous episodes. It caused a major
strategic crisis in the in the region. If anybody was under the illusion that you were gonna end up within an Israel's israel surrounded by a a powerful state that controlled its, south western, and northeastern eastern boundaries, then that went out of the window. That that was no longer the case. And in fact, after the collapse the day United Air Republic in 1 of his discussions with Palestinians.
Made a very important statement in which he said that there is no plan to liberate Palestine on the part of any arab leader And if any air leader is claiming to have such a plan they are lying. And this sent major shock waves in Palestinian circles in general. Now Of course, as we've seen also in previous episodes, there had been a period of Clan mobilization.
That took place in the late 19 fifties and that produced a very large number of underground palestinian political movements that were trying to find a way forward. I were trying to answer a question that was posed by 1 of. Founders in the 19 fifties, ad car to always say to use circles, who will build the cat. You know, everybody knows when needs to be done with who will build the cat. And, you know, this is in reference to a fable from Ka with, The old
book of payable. So the situation demanded a major transformation in the palestinian and political arena. Not the least because there had also been a new development, which is the death of Ama at d bar passion. He had led the all Palestine government, which was established in 19 48, and which was supposed to represent the Palestinian people, which was supposed to declare, in fact, a Palestinian state during the Na as we know there was an Israeli state declared by the Zion militias in 19 48.
And when Palestine is tried to declare a similar state of Palestine government, They only received backing from, Egypt and and a few other states, but they got blocked by Jordan primarily. Which had designs on the Eastern part of Palestine, at the West Bank. So so in this kind of arena, you know, we had a situation where the main figure that it represented the Old government had passed away.
The Oil powers government had an office an official office in Cairo, it was supposed to officially represent the palestinian people as far as Egyptian authorities were concerned. But after the death of Arm henry Been Berkeley Pas, there was a vacuum. And the vacuum existed even during his lifetime to be honest because the old past government was never made active. Now now sir it came to a realization. He read the regional map.
He saw that unless there is representation given to the palace people in the international arena. The burden will be solely carried by the arab states when it comes to dealing with this question. And these states were dis united around it, In fact, they were dis united around a lot of issues. For reasons that we've described
extensively. Or were dis united around the question of Monarchy and republic, they had major disagreements on whether they were gonna ally with the West or they were gonna be an non ally airline. They had disagreements over capitalism and socialism. They had many disagreements. So Alas, of course, was an arena in which all of these dynamics were to play out. So Nas said it was was quite innovative when he thought, look, I have a special opportunity now.
There is a major crisis reflecting the region. And that crisis is the israeli state wanting thing to divert the waters of the river Jordan. For its national carrier project. And this was coin exciting with major suspicions that the israeli state was coming close to developing nuclear capacity. So if you have your receptor colonial neighbor acquiring nuclear weapons and also diverting major water resources in a region that is afflicted with water scarcity, then that's a very serious matter.
And nasa used especially the water question to invite the heads of major arab states of the arab states, basically the members of the Air to what became the first arab summit. And during that summit, you know, he invited them. So that was No motivation, where did Palestinian leadership fit into it. In particular, who was Ahmed, Shu, How did he
occupy this role? And then all So how did how did various Palestinian leaders respond to this this move to formal the P the Arab Hire committee for Palestine, which was still led by the former Grand Moved of jerusalem, H H hussein, in exile from Beirut. He was intensely critical. How did other groups like, like Fat founded in 19 59 and the movement of arab nationalist. How did they
respond? If we look at the map, first of all, you had, the mu was, of course, the leader of the Pas national current, and there was prominently there in Palestine up until the Na. But after the Na, he lost a lot of, capacity for leadership, not at least because the regional Arab states did not want him to continue to, lead the Palestinian political scene, but also because he is basis of support cut undermined as he no longer was able to access Palestine.
Of course, he had been an exile for a long time, but he still led operatives during day the years of the forties in the late thirties in Palestine. After Na, a situation got very weak, his power base was lost to the to his main enemy, the the the Kingdom of Jordan King Abdullah his main competitor. So
He ends up being an exile. He has some political credit because he was the old leader, but he he lost a lot of popularity and lost a lot of networks he lost a lot of ability to influence a situation. On the on the ground, especially amongst the youth who held the old leadership responsible for the collapse of Palestine loss during the Rag. So the him was there. Is a figure that's there is an important figure in in terms of the old capital yet, but he
had no new capital to expand. And, therefore, usually, it could play a role in terms of making noise. But it could not effectively intervene in the in the arena. You had some youth that like to connect themselves to him in some ways, for gaining some kind of moral authority of sorts. And that tended to be the case actually, with the original founders of Fat. Yes an Ara ama used to visit them of der regularly. And Air fat was a relative of the movie? Out used to like to pretend that he is.
He was not a relative of the movie, but from his mother's side, Ara has a connection to this scholar families of Jerusalem because his mother comes the was so old families. So he did live in Jerusalem for a while in his uncles, you know, and it's a mother's relatives house and near them of these areas. So, you know, it's it's like 10 steps removed, but he was very keen. On connecting himself with the movie and and sometimes you'd had used the mo comes with the Has family, of
course. And sometimes he had claim as associations with that and and and it's a it's a bit far fetched. You know, he is not a relative of the mu. But but he is to like to present that. And that tells us something, because it tells us that he was very keen to have this kind of pe. And to associate with an older tradition that did mean something and in a previous era, in a sense, and as he was trying to find a new, you know, horizon, revolutionary horizon, he was trying to connect with an older
leadership. Now not that everybody was doing that. A lot of the... For example, left wing formations in the Palestinian arena. They they used to distance themselves from the from the of the. Even though their parents were connected to him, The mo is 1 side of the equation. But then you had also... The people that came from the era of the mo, but we're not in the leadership. And in fact, they were in the opposition to the against them of the. Like, an amateur to Clearly was 1 of them.
The Su society was born in 19 o 8. He he was born to a very important political figure as at the Society, who was the move of the fourth ottoman army. And quite close, to the committee and Union and progress leaders. So he was 1 of the main grand in in acre, and Ak. His his father abandoned him at an early age, but abandon his mother. He had married a Turkish woman when he was an exile and and a toilet would given 1 of these exile situations
with an official position. You know, the Cop used to do all sorts of things. And he married of Turkish woman had the sun from her then when he went back home to Palestine, his first wife told him that he must divorce swimming, and they had a whole battle. So, Su clearly ends up growing up in To, which is relatively smaller town. In poverty with his mother, and and she dies when he's young, You know, he only sees his father when he's 8 years old.
And the reason why mentioning these stories is we have to understand these characters as human figures. He comes from a a very prominent family, but he lived a very poor child, and he felt neglect, and he grew up in a situation where he needed to prove himself.
And that became clear because after his mom died, he ends up moving to his father's house, in acre when this was still under the ultimate administration, of course, still when his father with big figure and faces a lot of adversity from his his step. Eventually, you know, like, he ends up spending a lot of career competing with of obviously, you're competing with his father in a way, like it's a very complex dynamic, but he becomes a distinguished lawyer.
Over the course of this period, he's also attacking the official leadership. The best in struggle. At the time which is the multi. Nevertheless, throughout this time he acquire strong skills in, is a great or, and I how failure to this day is is very well known to be a great or in classical Arabic. He has that eli. That accompanies that. So he'll give, like, long speeches, but they're spoken and very fine and effective language of the sword.
He's also very fluent in English, and actually, for a wiley spends time as a representative of the arab office, sets it up and in Washington, Dc. So this is somebody who is slightly different than the Us Portfolio in internal politics. He came out of training in the British legal tradition. He had to you know, carry out court cases in in in Palestine in Jerusalem in English with the British administration, So he had this this exposure to the diplomatic arena.
Now after the the na happens, he ends up entering the diplomatic service in Syria. It serves Syrian. He it goes to the Bend conference not representing Palestine actually, representing these arab countries. And then the Saudi, you know, he becomes 0 representative, but he keeps the Palestinian principles. So he as Clearly plays a big role even as a Saudi representative in the Un in promoting Algeria
independence. And the Moroccan independence and tu, you know, he he presents the ama megabyte issues strongly. And he talks about this in his memoirs. As he says, you know, we're worried to dilute there would be in these places because of colonialism. That they would lose their identity and culture and language, and they would just be completely that the arab and erased. So there was that sense but also the experience that he gained in
that period. Now, the big episode that brings him close to Nas. It happens over Yemen. When Nasa f clash over Yemen. And the Saudi as their representative in the Un, which is I'm the To go and announce the Egyptian aggression in Yemen or what they call that to get some kind of resolution out of that. So he completely ignores them and in fact, like starts making moves to the country, like, you know, suggesting you know, that that Nasa is a good
guy and so on. And so that, of course, means that F kicks him out, but also Nas finds him a wonderful new addition to his diplomatic end endeavors diverse. So they establish a stronger relationship over that, and that's why it gets invited as a Palestinian representative. How did this all come together to form the P o with with shu carry at its at its head, but also at this time, still very much arab beds of state principally No as sort of important powers behind the organization.
Okay gets you know, attends the the first up summit. And he manages essentially take the discussion in a direction that, not many people I wanted them to 1 with it. So, you know, the summit was supposed to discuss the responses to the diversion of the Jordan Motors and the security implications and so on. Essentially, he pushes the heads of state that are attending to agree to the formation of body representing the post C people. And he can sick vague formula around that.
Now what he does, you know, and it was supposed to be like, he was supposed to investigate the the the possibility and report to them, you know, like explore. He takes that as a mandate, actually. To form and found the organization. So he goes and starts a series, initiates a series of contacts and meetings with palestinians from different walks of life.
Some of what he does is very traditional, so he reaches out to the big Grande deeds and fancy families, from the prominent, backgrounds and so on, it does a survey of the different cities and towns or representatives of them. Of course, in exile and in, the West Bank and Gaza. But that's the focus primarily. However, he's also visiting different locations of pas, Exile asking different committees, the for the formation of committees to discuss with him a future conference.
In which Palestinians would gather and discuss diplomatic representation and national representation. So You know, in some countries where past were very well organized. What happened was you had committees formed and then you had an actual set of elections that, resulted in the nomination of delegates to be sent to this to this conference. That Jo clearly was announcing
that he was gonna hold. Okay? So that conference became, by the way, the first Person in National council declared self as such, which meant that it was became the the parliament of the palestinian and people in Exile. So in Kuwait, for example, they did elections. They were very well organized. It was a coherent community. It was was a a community that could operate fairly freely so they were able to to have a a very efficient mechanism. With in other places took clearly selected names.
He also met with some of the political underground parties, and and these were mostly younger people. There's a generational dimension to it. And there were also mostly people that either belong to the middle classes, lower metal classes or working classes. So they were not from the prominent big families like Chop own family. What ended up happening is that they were not as well represented.
In the, overall formula and the eventual formula that that that that he created when he held the first party the national council and Jerusalem So the P o initially took what you would call a a conservative approach to representation. However, it was a an approach to a presentation that tried to cover the regional scope of Palestine and the geographic scope of it, and we're talking historic Palestine, of course. Is primarily, areas that we're now under Israeli rule. After
48. What what is referred to in the west as israeli stated at the stage and what was referred to by Palestinians the stage as the occupied territories. Because our competitors territories is then where the territories is occupy the 19 48, not 67 as was to be the case later on. So Clearly goes for the geographic breadth, but the class composition is still primarily upper class. That leads some people to criticize him in the left.
But also, there's critique over what he was trying to do and its connection to the Arab state. So he, for example, holds the first Party in National council in Jerusalem, in East Jerusalem, which is under Jordan rule at this stage. And King Hussein insists that he come and open the proceedings. Now, of course, king hussein never wanted a meeting like this to happen in the first place.
He was very suspicious of that because traditionally, it was the Jordan argentinian state that rejected attempts at creating any self representation for the Palestinian people because that would then undermine his claim on the West Bank. Okay. But because of Nasa, pushing for this, because of the Arab summit, authorizing the exploration of founding representative structure of this kind. He ends up having to authorize and allow for the meeting to happen. And he wanted to be at the heart of.
So, this involvement of where states made some of the underground and see movements suspicious and and wary. The other thing they were worried about was what they saw as a bureaucratic set of structures that we're coming out of that. However, at the same time, and I'm I'm, I really want people to focus on this
point. The foundation of the P, the that that conference being held in jerusalem at that time was seen as a moment of hope as well, because there was in action in the past seen arena now for 16 years before that since 19 48, there had not been real genuine representation. So people jumped at the opportunity to be represented in that way. The P operated something called the Palestine liberation army, which stationed regular troops in Egypt, Iraq, Syria in Jordan. How was the Pla established? And
what sort of army was it? So 1 of the most important things that Did was that after he held this national council, which led essentially to him having now a parliament presenting the palestinian people, he created out of it an executive committee, he created out of it different bodies that had... Were supposed to have different tasks related to them. So they they created a structure for what they call the Palestine liberation organization.
They then imagined it to have a popular liberation army as as as you mentioned, which would be the arm of liberation, and which would include different Palestinians from across the the the region. However, that army had to be coordinated with the local arab state. Because the P o was operating. Remember as an officially authorized body by the arab bleak. And that was its point of strength, but also its point of weakness. Its main strength was that you have this, big
authorization. This is... These are the the entirety of the states of the region are saying we're backing this. And and as you know, in the international arena, it's all about recognition. So if you have a bunch of states saying, we recognize a certain body is having a certain representative capacity. That's a big deal. Especially for people like the post centimeters people. We're not only suffering from being refugees, but we're also suffering from being stateless.
Remember not all refugees are stateless, Daniel. For example, syrian refugees today are refugees, but they're not stateless. They still have syrian passports they have a Syrian state. Plus vaccines did not have that. So S is big move at this stage was to come and say, okay. Let's create an army anyways. And let's coordinate it with these states that have authorized equation of this body. And he gets authorization from the second arab summit for the supplying and and financing of
this army. And then they hold, basically, as series of negotiations with different states to host units of it. And essentially, the formula was there will be troops in syria, they will come under a certain arrangement with the Syrian arm. Palestinians scenes will be recruited to these troops but the training, the lia and the overall management of this would be closely watched by the syria milk. Because the concern of this, of the arab states at the time was that these troops
would not work against them. Remember, and would not work against their official policy. Same thing for the other countries in the region, Iraq and at its own setup that were under Egypt, Under Jordan, you had different, units. Jordan was, of course, the last to agree to that, and that came much later, who went better. But you had different formations. They were all by the way, named after old battles of Islamic,
liberation. So there... And that was basically, the mobilization trick that was pursued by basically, he liked the classical tradition, and he used these very classical kind of references. Anyways, these formations end up taking place, but they're constrained.
And and and we have now in the Past military arena as a result of the emergence of of this army, a difference between gorilla movements that were created by the Clan Political parties, and the official armed units, which were sponsored by the Pla in agreement to the Arab states.
We talked about the foundation of Fat 19 59 during a previous episode, and it was in 19 65, that Fat first launched it's armed its armed operations, which which initially focused on incur from frontline states into the territory that Israel had conquered in 19 48. What did Fa look like between 19 59 and the 67 war as as an organization and starting in 19 65 in terms of its military operations. So, Further in its early foundation years, was focused, as we've mentioned before,
on the idea of initiating armed struggle. That was their main obsession. Remember, we talked about it before, you know, Ahmad actually says, you know, as around fire, He keeps on saying, we will have... We need to have an Algeria revolution. Equivalent to that in Palestine. So he spends the whole of this period from the late fifties until 19 65, trying to convince people to follow that pathway. Of course, he's not alone in this era are others that that are committed to this idea.
The big debate and fat there was when will we be ready to launch this revolution. And that causes by the way big splits and for the eventually. So on the 1 hand, you have yes an to 1 sit yesterday, not not to more. You know, and is very pushy, is very aggressive about it. He's willing to do anything to to to make it happen. Is contacting all these people preparing all these units in different places. He has some people that are very loyal to him. Follow him on this slide.
You know, it's closest collaborators where, people like, you had But also, there were others that were very involved with them on the military, front, you know, and they include figures that are not that well known in the in the in the west, you know, Man do say them, for example, subway, others like that. These were, very involved released in this early period at trying to initiate some form of military action.
Now they make a very good use, let's say, in the mid sixties, of several related phenomena. 1 is the development in Algeria, of a current under Mohammed He, that is sympathetic to them. And their pushes for some representation in Algeria. And that leads to Algeria, adopting a line that is amenable to And then allows it to train people. So the first, by the way, series of trainings. Happen in the Military academy in in Algeria as a result of this. And this happens under By the way. Not under
Mandela. So after Does his his his school, especially, it. And as a quick as a quick aside, I think at the time the Boom K against Spin bella was initially seen as perhaps a move into the Western camp against the revolutionary arab politics, but that's not exactly how it turned out at all. Well, I mean, it's a complicated story because it depends or which angle are you looking at it from. The palestinian Angle is very particular for Algeria.
Ben bella was held back by the fact that he had a strong relationship with Masa. So he would not mess around with the Percy and file because that's Nasa. That's next to Egypt. It's not next to Algeria, he's not gonna go and encourage armed actions in Palestine. You know, but until, like, you know, that's dealt with. But B allows for a greater, you know, he... He's clashing with Nothing. So he doesn't mind at all. But also there's general sympathy in Algeria towards
initiating armed struggle. It's not it's not an idea that will be unpopular in Algeria. Okay? Now, at the same time, you have a situation in Syria that also creates an environment that is amenable for for And and by the way, when I speak of for action, I'm not just talking about the first operation that took place on 01/01/1965. You know, like, that's not That's not the issue here. That's just, like, an initiation of a wave of actions, you know, between the then and 19 67.
It's... You know, so we're not just referring to what is known in literature as the first inter. We're referring to everything it took place between it and the 19 67 war. What allowed for actions to take place in that period was that you had certain figures within the Syrian military in the Syrian political leadership, that were sympathetic to the idea of initiating Palestinian Gorilla operations, either with Syrian support or from Syrian even from serial territory in some cases.
So to understand that context again, we have to reflect on the competition. Between Nasa and Syria at this stage and we've looked at it extensively in our episodes on Syria. Because you had, this period, you've had, a situation where the bath is trying to prove its credentials it's radical credentials. And the problem that they're facing. Is that there's a lot of players in the arena at this stage. And by the way, a lot of the splits that later happen in the palestinian arena
people always ask where. There's so many different parties and how do I understand them, They come out of that environment. Because initially, that the is the first to announce action, a lot of people then that were preparing for action, but hadn't taken the first step have to then deal with it. And and and that kind of shapes the geography of a different policy and gorilla movements at this at this stage. Let's turn to the 19 67
Arab war with Israel. We can't we just can't overstate the devastating impact of this defeat on on the frontline states that waged it. Egypt, Syria, Jordan, a huge defeat in just 6 days of fighting after an Israeli surprise attack. It was in particular, a humiliation for No. And the defeat also also, of course meant Israel's conquest of the last remaining territory of historic Palestine, in the Jordan damien Annexed West bank and East jerusalem and and Egyptian administered Ga.
This is when the so called occupied territories as many people know them today Were first occupied even though as we discussed earlier and as listeners know well by this point, all of Palestine today is occupied territory, including those territories first occupied. In 48. But this defeat, obviously, then had these these enormous consequences for the million plus Palestinian suddenly thrust under Israeli rule.
And also for the the Palestinian liberation struggle for the P o and for Fat, and for a number of other groups that would emerge. But But before we get to that, before we get to the Palestinian revolution, Lay out the bigger picture, what did it look like this crushing defeat of Arab armies, across the frontline states and across the entire arab world.
What were its consequences for the general balance of power between between Israel and Arab states and also also for this larger cold war balance of power that these that these regional fights as we've talked about this whole series that these regional fights have always have have for a long time at this point been indebted within. Yeah. So, Daniel, when it comes to 6 7,
first, let's start with the... Some of the mythology I wanted, the big myth is that Israel is being threatened by all these arab states that were wanted to go and destroy it, they were gonna through all the jewish population into the sea, and they were on this genocidal, you know, intentions, and they... Therefore it had to practice self defense, and it's it launched what they call it a preemptive strike. K? So This preemptive strike, this course is a total myth. We now know from the documents
that are available to us. And, there's... I... I would say... Dare say, among serious historians there's consensus on this, that there was no threat coming from 8. Okay. There are reasons for that. Because Nasa did not feel ready. Not because Egypt couldn't con considerably want to threaten in such a state. Nasa had a great big army that was ready with great defensive weapons. He would have loved to undertake what an Arabic would have been seen as a liberation of Palestine.
Fyi he had no intentions to throw any jews to the seat. There's no evidence to that whatsoever. Honestly was not a bloodthirsty thirsty crazy man that way. Like that. It was many things. But that's not 1 of them. K? There's all sorts of mythology around this. But he did not have anyways, the capacity or the desire to do the things that they were claiming that he was intending to do. What he had, However, was a desire to deal with the immediate crises that he was facing.
The israelis were engaging in a process of escalation throughout 19 67. And, they were claiming to be dealing with the border infiltration and the operation that were being done by passing gorilla movements, and they were putting a lot of pressure on Syria, threatening it. At the same time, they were putting pressure on Jordan threatening it. They had historically and even just before the war engaged in multiple aggression, including, villagers, in multiple places. Okay?
Now what that was doing was it was raising popular temperature in the surrounding arab states and demands for action, and demands for security and so on. And at the same time, because of the competition between the bath and no, especially bath in Syria. They again, wanted to show that they're more radical than dull and they're better than nasa, so they were claiming that, you know, they're
they engage a radio warfare with them. Where is nasa the great leader of the air nation as we're being attacked by Israeli forces? What is he doing ce around doing nothing. So He needs to find a deter move around the Israelis, deter formula. He wants to establish it. And he wants to also shut down the arab claims, there arab, you know, claims out that he's inactive, especially coming from from Syria.
And to do that, he goes and does something relating to territories of his in which he had he had lost much of a sovereignty in many ways after 56.
Since the tri aggression, Since the part aggression, he has a problem, which is that ser that Egypt cannot exercise its full sovereignty over Sinai and the straits of Iran, and the the the the shipping lines that lead to the red sea, part of the withdrawal agreement in 56, was that there would be international troops in the area and that you know, the Israelis were demanding also freedom of shipping there. So he does a move of withdrawing the Un troops.
And you know, and he... And then he does, like, a over, he parades, like Egyptian army units entering instead of them and so on. Like, in a big like, media show almost. That by the way, everybody knows there's no possibility or intention or to to invade with such a force. Because by the way, if you wanna mobilize, you don't do it that way. Anyways, it's not it's not a performative thing. You do it very carefully secretive, very organized kind of campaign.
In any case, it's clear for us looking at things in hindsight that he did not expect, the sort of response that he got out of that. He thought that he's gonna be engaging in well established a game of the terran. When we see these games playing out all the time. Look at the northern border of Palestine today, the 1 with Lebanon. There is a deter game being played to Ba and the Israeli state. They bomb 1 village. They bump... There's really bomb another. They burn a forest. As israelis
burn too. The but the at what point does that go into a full scale war? A usual rules of these games is that they don't? Until 1 party decides that the situation is amenable for them to engage in a full scale. Nasa did not believe that the 2 superpower would have any interest in allowing for a major war to take place or in allowing for the status quote to change. Johnson was giving a green light for the Israelis to go and change the rules of the game and go and strike a guess siege.
And Johnson is basically changing Us policy in a major way here. Because Us policy was not for Israelis to go and acquire new territories and defeat all the surrounding arab states and do all the things that they did. But he allowed it, and he essentially authorized it. In the same way that Us policy was not annexation of Jerusalem but Trump allowed it. The same way that Us policy at least in theory he was not genocide in Gaza. But now here we
go. There was a green light given to it and, you know, so historical contingency can sometimes produce major changes in policy that are done. By these figures and they get no pushback around and they get get away with it. And that's is exactly what happened now. You had a situation for which for a few weeks, a global mobilization. Oh, Israel is under threat, Israel is gonna have and that.
The israelis we're playing that to create an atmosphere that would allow for war, and then they strike with this green light that were they were given. Okay. And, of course, they strike with Western Weaponry that they're given because they're given a very good air force, excellent weapons, And the... Without them, they would not be able to do all the dated in 19 67. And they wipe out the Arab Air forces gaining immediate air superiority, which is decisive for that the war. It's purely an Air
force war. That's why it was a quick war. There was no real war. Because what happened was And this tells you about their actual egyptian intentions. The egyptian planes were as normal just laying there in the airports and and there israelis just came in bond hell aladdin. Now, later on, this becomes a big scandal in each And a big question arises. Did nasa know that they were not being protected or sheltered. Why didn't t hold the people responsible. Of course, Nas said, I had nothing to
do with this. This was ab abdul mohammed, my second man and my then my strong man in the army, who was, of course, part of the fee officers and Nas was not... Again, that we talked about this in the first episode. That's always had to deal with the bigger arrangement around them. This bigger committee around or free officers, including at the Hack was very popular in the Egyptian army.
So are big debates around this, Did the M play a big role, that are distract egyptian army from focusing on defensive measures and, you know, including around the Air force and everything else. All of this, these are the big questions of the time. But what this brings us to? Is that it created devastating the defeat for the arab Armies, but more importantly, it led to the occupation of vast swath of air blend. So you had huge part of Egypt occupied, Sinai.
And you had huge parts of Syria. To this day, okay occupied very important parts of Siri. The Go and Heights is J. You know, this is very strategic area. And there are big issues by the big questions around that. Should not have been easy to occupy. It's know, that... There's only a few passes around. That They've been heavily barricade since 19 48.
It's a it's highland. So it should have been you know, it should have been defended to the very end, but the Syrian army, did not do so well and got confused, and there was major problems with that. Other areas Connected others, like, fell unnecessarily. So there were big questions and the mask... That meant To this day, by the way, because the is israelis occupied the Z. It's occupied here territory, they can threaten Damascus directly. It's within firing range.
It's it's a very strategic point. So, you know, all of these states lost territory, but the Palestinians also lost whatever was left of Palestine, and that's even more important. So east jerusalem, which contains all the h sites. The West Bank concludes made the major cities of Palestine that were left in the Central El Plateau region. Na Jerusalem had grown, plus, of course, Bethlehem and other jean and To and other cities.
These fall under Israeli control. They were previously under jordan titanium control. Gaza Because this trip, a small territory with a very large palestinian population. Remember the entirety of the southern part of pal was distilled into it. It falls under Israeli central colonial control. Under direct military occupation. And what that means is that these... The people in these territories have no passports, no rights no civil, political or national rights, nothing.
They are under the the the the Whim and the whip of the Israeli authority. So a big question for groups like Fa and other Gorilla groups at the time was what is to be done with this? Now, on the arab level, there's a disc discourse change going on and also a change of political focus. If the issue before 19 67 was the liberation of the occupied territories in 19 48, that was the big issue that was what everybody was discussing. Or at least, the return of the refugees to these areas.
Now, the conversation was What are we gonna do about the territories that were occupied in 19 67. Each arab state had in it's surrounding Palestine had lost something. And they had a direct interest now in recovering it. These are these are their own territories trees. You know, put the sea territories on the side. These are their own territories that they lost now. They have big stakes in this game now. They have land to liberate for themselves.
Now, besides that, you have another dimension, which is on the Palestinian end, you have, now the loss of the rest of Palestine. So people wanna liberate that too. And it's a part of Palestine in which there are very few subtle colonists. There are no settle in it at that stage. So there is a question of, okay, What are we gonna do with this part that has fallen now under an administration. That does not recognize the right. So it's inhabitants, and that will place them in a situation, of tire
confrontation with it. So that becomes an open question. Internationally, the war ends with a security council resolution to 4 2. Which deals specifically with that part that got occupied in 67. But deals with it to a big formulation. It calls for the withdrawal of israeli troops from the the territories.
But what is clear is that there was now a situation where the The discussion now is also shifting even in the international arena towards discussing 67 territories rather than the broader territories. Because there had been lands occupied before, even under international law, by the way, which was skewed against pellets As you remember in the 19 forties, you know, it's good against all peoples in 19 forties not as esp. They're there under the partition plan, there's really
state got way more than it should. So there were lands that were occupied even by that definition. Now, discussion suddenly becomes restricted to 19 67. That it's a normalizing the 48 thirds. Obviously, not for Palestinians and their allies and for Many arabs, but on the international level, particularly in the west, it has that that effect. In the west but also, and quite significantly for the Soviet severe union. They they're talking about that because it always
pushed it to state solution light. So they're talking. Okay? Now, what needs to happen is it really would withdrawal for these territories and and arab state there. But that's and the focus is on that. Now, this is where it was so important to about seeing in our presentation. This is where the P o becomes of such crucial importance. Because all these conversations are happening without reference to Palestinians, and had there not been a P created. In 64, we would not have had a
conversation that included Palestinians later on. If you're not represented in the international arena, you will be erased. And and this becomes a big aspect of the Palestinian struggle later on. This is israeli occupation of the remaining territory of historic Palestine was was a disaster, obviously, known as the No, the setback that followed the na or or the catastrophe of of 19 48. But it had a set of contradictory
impacts. They also gave Fat and other Palestinian grill organizations, the opportunity to fight Israel, not just from exile in in neighboring frontline states. But but instead, directly, from under Israeli rule. What sort of contradictory impacts? Did this expansion of the occupation to the entirety of historic Palestine? On the 1 hand, the humiliating loss for Arab states and leaders on the other.
What impact did all of this have on on Fat and on and more generally on the armed national liberation struggle such that it added up to the the inauguration of this massively important era in Palestinian his the Palestinian revolution. So 1 of the byproducts of the 6 7 more was that it weakened the regional states surrounding Palestine, in particular, Jordan, This is very important to note because that meant, you know, remember, between 65 and and 67. You add Fat trying to carry out operations
from Jordan. And a few other, you know, formations we're trying to do the same, towards the real estate, but also they were trying to use the West bank, which was under Jordan to do. Just. What was their main obstacle the Jordan army? Because it would not allow them to actually establish safe bases would not allow them to carry out their operations freely. They would actually be chased by this army. And and, of course, Jordan the army has reasons to do that.
You know, it it wants to continue the status quo because it is where the israelis would come and attack Jordan and that that would result, in, a war that they could not control. And and and in which Jordan would be the weaker party. So they have their own reasons. But from a policy perspective, what that meant, also is that there was a constant defer of, deferral of el celebration. And and they were like, okay, at what point we'll be able to liberate if that's
the logic. You know? And again, this was a period when people are inspired by Vietnam. They're thinking about, You know, you know, we we we need to have, like, some kind of hanoi. For the Arabs. Okay. Liberated territory from which to fight for the total liberation of the homeland? Yes. And and that becomes the vision for Jordan in certain radical bus in circles actually after 67. Yeah actually, people speak of that, like, and particularly the
democratic front for the original Palestine. They use the slogan and, you know, man needs to become the annoy the arabs. You know, there there there is all of that going on. No, in any case, 6 7 has the impact of transforming Ba internal politics because You have this opportunity first of all of a weekend state in Jordan.
And which means that you might be able to organize now operations through there, and these operations could possibly allow you to infiltrate both the territories trees that that israeli state had before. 67, but also, the 19 67 territories themselves and so that you could launch an armed revolution from there. In fact, this language was referred to as the second Inter, a second launch. 8 so 67. You know, yes or Ada as as usual, his main skill was detecting a political opening. Okay?
And as we mentioned, mil momentarily, it wasn't always the best executed. There were... When you rush into these things, it can create many problems. So But in any case, he saw the political need and he went ahead and did it. He was quite brave about it. He went to actually smuggled himself into the West Bank. And started the, you know, doing different units there were others that were involved in that work at the time. They established to units in different parts of the west bank.
You know, a lot of these units were, centered in the north western Hills in in the West bank region, which can allow for better cover and and so on. You know, like, the this this this region has has area caves as as a few hills. It's like a it's a good place to to to fight and and to, store rapids. But also, you know, he was operating in different cities. So that there was a collection of weapons creating different cells. All of this kind of work was was was going on at at at this stage.
And it was receiving support, especially the the Algeria actually were crucial in this, they forced the Syrian to resume supporting for the. And the syrian needed them because Algeria had money. That was important for Syrian reconstruction re armament after the war. So, you know, you have a bunch of factors that facilitate again, this this process. What... What's the problem on the West bank front? Is that the Israelis figure out these cells fairly quickly, and the infiltrate.
So you have, like, then, a wave of camp... And a big campaign of instance suppression, and it it essentially leads to the crushing of the, first attempted that's at the second the log. And work would resume there thereafter... From the occupied territories, but it's much you know, it took a while to achieve that kind of level of military underground type of work. It became of a different age. Came primarily popular
mobilization. There was also military work done in in Gaza and later on, especially the early seventies, the P had, what what was called as Gu gaza experience, and there was a at this guy what the was referred to as Gu vargas as because he was, you know, organizing all these clan movements and revolutionary. Activities in Gaza in the early seventies. But what you had was a situation though where overall total revolution did not erupt in the West Bank and
Gaza because it was suppressed. However, after the initial abortion of operations in the West Bank, what you had was the attempt to establish military bases across the Jordan Valley in the areas of Jordan border. The israeli state in the west... And the occupied West Bank.
And and that effort was more successful because the Jordan state, did not have the full capacity to prevent it, but also because in the Jordan army after the humiliation of 67 the many of the officers were actually sympathetic to the idea of young people, mobilizing and joining these for that units is command units that would carry out the work from surrounding areas to Palestine. So the idea of a liberation war, a popular liberation war became quite established at the stage.
And the 67 what it allow for was the emergence of the the dream. Essentially, the translation of aspects of the dream that senior revolutionaries in the late fifties or early sixties had. Which was a dream of a fully mobilized palestinian population towards a battle of liberation and return. And It's was their concept of what revolution was. By the way, it's very interesting sometimes in common par, We understand the evolution as
a as the overthrow of an order. It's the moment in which an over order is overthrown. Whereas in these settings, especially in anti settings, it's usually the process of viking. An existing order is what's referred to as a a revolution. And what what makes it their revolution is that it's a longstanding standing commitment that is actually based and rooted in a full mobilization or near full mobilization of a cold
population. So that was the aspiration of groups like further in the early sixties, but they managed the 67 war and is debilitating the defeat. And the fact that you had new 250000 new refugees coming out of the West Bank. Fact that you had all these horrible really some aggression there and destruction and so on. All of that meant the the mobilization of the people became, a much greater possibility and actually, you had these groups that were Clan come to the surface now.
But he also had new groups emerging that we're committing themselves to armed struggle in the colonized world in those years. The act of engaging in a people's revolutionary war was seen as revolution. A it's a process. So, the terminology, by the way, when we refer to Vietnam in the United States psychology Vietnam war. You know, in Palestine, we call it the vietnamese revolution. And we called it that even before the last American soldier left
Vietnamese soil. And before the first American soldiers arrived when it was. We were calling it that when from the days when the French were being fought in Vietnam. So it's a it's a it's a long standing. So it's both an idea. It's an entity. It's a process, you know, the Algeria revolution was referred to a Algeria revolution before the Guyana courts were signed and and the French groups. Were forced out and in 62. You know, that that would... That's that's a certain usage. South Africa.
Referred to as a south African revolution to this day in in Pas literature and arab literature. It's it's not referred to as such in the English literature as far as I know what's you usually, you know, struggle against apartheid, the the road to democracy. You know, there are different terms that are used. In relation to it in anglo settings, but not in Palestine, South Africa. I mean, I know that people in south Africa called it that too in revolutionary.
Organizations there. So that's where the concept comes from. No. 1 interesting thing that happens is after 67 is every Bale ideological, major movement adopt an armed struggle outlook at this stage. And that that brings a total transformation also of the way this revolution is approached. So Fat is no longer the only party in town. I'm a z's Ron, and you're listening to the dig, a great place for analysis about where we are, how we got here and
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Fat for for a long time would continue to dominate the Palestinian national liberation movement, but but the arab defeat in 67, and the Palestinian revolution that that defeat unleashed prompted a lot rival gorilla organizations to emerge. Perhaps most importantly, the popular front for the liberation of Palestine or P p. Which was founded in large part by the
movement of Arab nationalist. So was it was a merger of the movements national front for the liberation of Palestine with 2 other organization, heroes of the return, and the Palestinian liberation front, which was tied to a Palestinian officer in the Syrian army named Ak. This is a really important and interesting moment because because listeners will recall that Fat was founded in 19 59 in a sense as a as a rep remediation of the movement of arab nationalists.
Which at the time was a very no organization that sought to liberate Palestine through building air immunity by contrast, Fat asserted that what Palestinians needed was a was a proper national liberation movement of var own, something like in Algeria, but But as we discussed in the last episode on Southern Arabia, the movement had been moving toward a third world leftist revolutionary position, a a turn that really rapidly accelerated after the 67 war, and it had huge impacts in Southern Arabia
and throughout the entire movement of arab nationalists and very much in Palestine. What was the significance of the foundation of the P? Both for the Palestinian national movement and for the movement of Arab nationalists? And how did its formation come about? Right. So as you mentioned, the P came out of First of all, the movement of where herb nationalists is deciding that it needed to enter the arena of armed struggle. Now that the 67 war had happened.
Now, of course, the P had existing lineages I mean, there's is a lineage to it. It didn't just come out of the blue, the movement where nationalists had, created different initiatives even during the early sixties in which, they carried out reconnaissance work, for example. So they were training people on military engagement. They were sending people on reconnaissance operations. However, they, were not engaging in, officially declared armed struggle.
And that becomes a major issue in APP history later on because they they try to assert that look for tech claims that they started their revolution in 65. Well, we were doing operations even before that, we even lost people before that, but these peoples took the credit first. It's not exactly true. Their politics was not oriented, and that's the bit that matters. Towards carrying out armed struggle.
And they were preparing, and they were waiting for the right moment that would be authorized by No for them to to do that. So so this is the the real context to the story. Now 67 happens, and they're like, we made a mistake. And they do a critique actually of the Ar regimes and their performance in the 6 7 more. Of course, like we've discussed in the case of the far and South, you know, we mentioned that the movement of aero had to reevaluate its entire policy. After this.
1 thing that happens is you have radical elements being able to push the the movement to, essentially, this band is a movement, but established local branches that were to operate in each of the respective arena that it used to operate and before. So really, there's no longer a movement where per s after the war. What you have is it's different local branches operate under different headings.
Now, in the case of Palestine, they had an organization, a military organization, a Commando unit organization that they referred to as S. And this organization made a move to unite with other structures that were operating in the arena that had some experience of armed struggle that had, in a way military capacity, but that were not fed there. And 1 of these organizations, as you mentioned, was up upon Allowed, your heroes of return.
This organization was connected to the power celebration army, and an officer called And Mad, in the past celebration army was behind its creation. And his interest was to initiate a structure that had greater flexibility than the Pla. Remember the Pla connected to our armies, it cannot go and carry out operations as it wishes. However, if members of the Pla had received military training. Through this officials officially sanctioned structure.
Wanted to do operations, they would carry it out through this this body and they might even be able to secure some weapons and equipment from the Pla, you know, in a clan time manner through it. So there was, an effort to identify with this group. Then you had also, another group join join in was led by a guy called I'm Ghibli, Lou mentioned them. He was a Syrian army, former senior army officer.
But, of course, he's a Palestinian and he was born in the Village of Y near Y, left in the Na 19 48 ends up in in in Damascus and developed very strong. Relationships with a lot of bath, a lot of military figures, a lot of political figures in Syria, partly through training in the military academy. He also develops good knowledge of certain, military techniques that are relevant to this type of struggle. Including you... Use of explosions and equipment of that sort. So he had he had it was an
explosives expert as well. It gained good experience. This alliance produced problems for for the movement of. Because this guy, I'm a brilliant in particular, liked leadership, like to be a leader. He was... He had a good military experience, but he did not have a political orientation. And He had been active in something called, Percy Liberation front, which he had established. There were lots of P f's, by the way, and there were other P left around, and we we don't have... We don't have the
time to talk about them. But this 1 had an very military focus but also proximity to the Syrian authorities. And and that became a longstanding standing feature of of it and of its of its leader. The crucial decision of the mover arab nationalists to cooperate with these figures was based on military capacity calculations. But later on, they found out that this working formula was no longer possible.
Nevertheless, out of the merger of these, different grouping, a front came about, and it became the popular front for celebration of Palestine. So this is where the front name comes from. Soon, a set of contradiction happen within this front that lead to multiple splits. And these splits add to the acc acronyms in the Pas arena, But that's 1 big tradition in addition to the fat tradition that exists.
Another tradition I should note Daniel and it's often gets omitted from the discussion is that the bath is formed their own. You know, it's not just the movement awareness have their own formations. About this form cycle. And initially, by the way, that that has some level of flexibility and independence in some ways. Because it's founded by by figures, they do have some weight It's a Jordan, an ex Jordan high ranking Jordan army officer, Duffy and Za mah that leads it initial phases.
And, you know, plays a big role in it. He later gets arrested by Half that I said the 19 70 as part of the the bath purge that he carried out, and and for many years, he ends up lang in assad prisons. Anyways, Yeah. And you have another bath formation. Which is the air liberation front, and that's closer to the Iraqi bath. And as listeners will recall, the Iraqi, bop and Syrian Bath. I mean, there just so many splits divisions amongst the bop.
Right. Now the arab liberation front is is weaker in the Palestinian area is doing primarily on arab k, from other arab countries that we're joining the plus here. Not nevertheless, it does exist and it has its presence. So you had these different formations coming in and and you can already tell from these little stories we're telling now that the complex regional geopolitics and up being reflected now in the Palestinian arena.
Every major state has an interest in having about the angola formation connected to it or in every major political ideology. Wants to display this capacity at at having, gorilla movement connected to it. The communist haven who traditionally did not believe in and Armed struggle partly because of their pro soviet orientation. They even have a big internal fight.
And a, a section of them, of corresponds an armed wing called they the uncertainty grouping things, they they they develop a set of divisions over this, and and we can talk about that some other time. But this this reality of 67 produces a total ideological transformation, but a state of heightened end mobilization on the part of all the major political players on the ground. The P p, however, is especially important in this period, because it becomes the second force in past in arena.
I mean, for the next, you know, 20 years or so, it is the major competitor to Fat, Although Fat is much larger, but it's still you know, has to contend, with the presence of a strong organization, likely the P b, which comes as a major competitor. And significantly. This is the moment when the P b enters as a an organization, that adopt marxism and marxism le as it's guiding ideology.
And that's a very interesting phenomena because as we know from previous episodes within the movement of our nationalist, that that's a new innovation. Of course, there... You had catered demanding that transformation from the early sixties onwards, but the traditional leadership is resisting them.
And, you know, George H, that that, of course, the founder, he admits this later on in multiple interviews in writings and so on and he says, like, look, I first encountered Marx I was arrested by the Syrian authorities, I was, I was lying in the Syrian jail in 19 68. You know, that's that's when that's when I discovered marx. He never read marks before. And so he had to undergo Marxist reed education in a way, in line with the rest of his movement.
As younger caters, of course, had Red Marxist writings before he did. And they were now all about people's liberation more. So they they... They were going through this major, phase in which they're fascinated by the Chinese and Vietnamese, experiences, and they're also referencing Cuba and and some of their publications later on, they even
talk about North Korea. And, you know, I don't think they knew just how not North Korea was gonna turn out to be here, but, like, you know, at that stage, there were interesting references to all these international experiences.
As you alluded to, a few moments ago, the P like the movement of Arab nationalists from which it emerged was driven by internal descent, and this was compounded, of course, by the the popular front nature, initially of the P which included these 2 other gu organizations that the movement felt like and needed for for their military capacity that they brought to the table that the movement did not at that point have. And there were 2 key splits that happened
very soon after the P piece formation. First, Mo B and Na, 2 younger generation leaders who we've discussed before, who who had a few years in the past called for entirely dissolving the movement into no. They now asserted that No petite Bourgeois characteristics had made it unable to defeat Zion and and they instead called for a more radical socialist direction.
And what happens next is that Ibrahim goes on to become a a key leader on the Lebanese left, which is something that we'll get into in in our next episode. H in 19 68 splits from the P p to form the popular democratic front for the liberation of Palestine later renamed the Democratic front for the liberation of Palestine. And then Ak B, that's Syrian army officer splits off to form the P p general command, which which became a Syrian proxy
in the Palestinian National movement. And and as an aside here in my research, I and I'm sure you know this very well, but was news to me, Jab decades later during the syrian civil war went on to lead defenses of assad, assad forces around around Palestinian camps in Damascus. Anyhow, what what are the reasons behind and implications of these these 2 splits from the P? There... The 2 splits are actually inter.
So Ahmad Was, you know, a major, military force in this stage in the the P. Yeah, that was supposed to be his role. He was supposed to play a key role in the military side. And he made a major became clear with a major strategic blu. Essentially, in 19 68, he refused to commit P forces to the battle of. And that they they lost a lot of cr in the pas arena because of that. So that's in 111I dimension. More importantly, ideological.
Arm was traditional generic nationalist, not a radical character in all. And without much ideology. In fact, I think he was quite opposed to too much ideology. He always emphasized that he's a man of action man of work, man of military applied the orientation. He was witnessing. He had come to the P p because we thought that the movement arrived nationalists could give him something. Not support.
So, you know, in the same way that the P came to him for reason, they they thought this is somebody with military experience. And he had some added value for us. He had come to them with an expectation of some added value. Except, of course, they were at that moment in a situation where they were clashing with Nasa, because they were undergoing this ideological transformation, and they were making these statements that were very critical.
Of all of the arab regional order that had been led by Nasa prior to 19 67. And Nas had been arresting and imprison their South Y many allies from the National Liberation front in Cairo. Well, that had happened. They they managed to... They dealt with that. You know, they they they compartment that, and they, you know, that traditional, movement is leadership picked the side of Nas. Over over their,
over their comrades in that... In that instance, which created problems for them with their comrades, you know, for a while and temporarily. I mean, later on their they're recovered then so habits us continued to be respected in south of him and later on. But, like, at that moment, there was tense. So you have you have you have these issues brewing at this stage. So this guy, how it really comes in and he's observing this. He's like, Well, I I wanted something from these guys. I'm not
getting get in the same way. It's obvious that they don't have this major backing from the leading arab state. In fact, the weird thing that was taking place now was that that backing was seemed to be increasingly heading towards feather. And and that's a major shift. You know, It's yes at ara. That suddenly becomes the darling of of No. And and and this is a new a new transformation because before Fact that was the the enemy number 1 for another and and
for the Egyptians in the Palestinians Arena. So all of this plays a role. Now, of course, Ama brie had his own experience with splits before. He he likes splits. He he had a split with Fat before. He had united with at an earlier stage in his career. And, when he found that he was not gonna be the the leader and when he had different issues with with Fat tech. You know, there there were many different issues between him and and then he ended up splitting.
So he had longstanding standing beef with the as sr from an earlier era, but now he developed new beef with George H in this in this in this new era. So what was also augmenting these issues was that these people that came from outside of the movement of our nationalist and were suddenly in this formula where the movement dominates. You know, in this front, PPI mean, yes, there are these partners, but they are really the junior partners.
And how much Greed makes these ridiculous claims about him having a huge organization from the early sixties. You know, he even appeared on El z in a famous interview the early 2 thousands, making all sorts of grand claims or we had. Women... Where you were just largest women's organization, and we had the biggest student whatever and we had this and that. The reality was that his organization, the parcel front the entity, a that he had commend was fairly small
it had. Some members had some formations, but it was off on site. It did have good grounding in certain military areas. So he comes in, and he's a junior partner in terms of size and this is surrounded by all these move nationalist people, which is a big movement a truly big movement with lots of branches with accumulated experience with ideology, it's a big world. And so and they have multiple organs as well, like, it's not just the show.
What are you find in these organs is that there's a big conflict going on between Na. And other figures associated with them, people like, yes at and others that are unhappy. With the traditional leaders. And then on the level of the traditional leadership, with had that in particular, who is H old comrade from the days of university. You know, they come from the same town. They it both our physicians. They come from the same church environment. They come from there's
so much in common between these 2. And and and, you know, By the way, what had that was a with a charming figure. He's a lovable figure. You know? So H has this loyalty to him. And had dad is really clashing with the... With this... These leftist. He thinks they're all fluff. They just talk, talk, talk. They don't act. He was a man of action. You know, And that's why, by the way, he becomes ahead of what's called the P
external operations. These are the people that go and carry out airplane and all of that, and we can talk about it later. But that's whether I had that for you. He was the the guy doing prison brake plans, and Jeff a prison in the 19 fifties. He was the guy that was doing all of these. Is that man of action. Now, there's a clash that happens between him and After what had dead, does a brave and and spectacular, prism brake operation that releases
George Habits from Serious. Syria had imprisoned Doors have, you know, the about, they never liked the movement or our ness people. So when they had an opportunity they caught him, they put him in jail, and locked them up. Okay? And and but but he had the luck of having a very strong operational cons mind like that with had that, what goes and breaks him out of syrian in prison and this amazing prison break. Somebody should do a movie about it. It's
insane. Like, I we don't have time to go into details, but it was a spectacular operation. Okay? Gets him out, and then there's habits comes around to the scene and he's like, what the hell is going on. These people are on And all of these people, and they're talking like left now and they're saying that this is their white wing leadership that is full of rubbish and we need to challenge it. And so what they do is they signal a shift
to the left this traditional leadership. They announced to commit meant to marxism lenin is But the the younger caters don't believe them. This is the second generation. They know that How and I yes I would with. And so and they don't believe them, but also they they they they clash with. And eventually, things deteriorate to an extent where in in 19 69.
They're more hardcore nationalist wing in the P p that was unhappy with the Marxist Lenin his shift, was actually getting ready to kill essentially execute. A large number of the so called left this way, you know the wink that was announced itself to be the the left. That was, you know, promoting my ideas and the that we spoke about earlier. And they had encircled them, captured their weapons and and and and Man had put them in a in a in a essentially they're
imprisoned them. And, of course, who saves this this left wing group that had been imprisoned by the nationalism who almost got executed. Take could guess, Daniel. Ahmed? No. Absolutely. Let me try let me try again. George bash? Absolutely not. Yes or aero fat. Absolutely. Through up year. So up yeah. And that's why the deer filthy, they they they had a good relationship with he had later on. He was heading the kind of fat equivalent to military intelligence.
It goes around, and he sees the situation. And I'm sure with consultation, of course, with with with the. We don't have direct proof, but almost definitely. They're like, great opportunity. That our main competitor is having this internal turmoil between the nationalists and and the and the Marxist. And we're gonna save the marxist from liquidation. And by doing so, they'll always have competing parties. But
The less cynical version of the story. That's, of course, the P always emphasizes that side, in their writing of the history. They're like, yeah, Look at the created our batteries is and it it was to under undermine us and the unity of the movement, and we we could have kept the unity of the movement and we got rid of these elements that we're causing us a headache. But the other way of looking at it also is that... And and I actually do believe in this
on the less cynical side. I do believe that there there is, of course, you know, always an opportunistic streak and in this. But at the same time, Ava did not want. Out of I did not want to set a major bloody precedent in internal Palestinian g fighting, you know, circles. There had been precedent in other struggles before precedence like that, another struggles was before. Algeria, for example, the Fl had liquidate, large parts of competing groups you know, in their effort to consolidate.
That never got practiced in the palestinian and revolution. And and I I think this is very important for people to to know. There had been some cases here and there. Especially by the way, by Ahmed Jab. He went and detonated a whole building in 19 76 to deal with his split in his own party and killed an entire like, big building in Beirut food the the explosives. Is it's it's very sad instead of Palestinian in history. Or the Abu Na organization, which was basically in a Iraqi proxy.
You know, and amateur bill, of course, was Syrian proxy at the time and these guys were rocky pro. So So you do have people engaging that with Dollar was assassination. But on the whole, amongst the mainstream groups. In a major cons parties of the pas revolution, you did not have that bloody path thing. The P p almost did it. Lucky for them in my view and, for the past year revolution, it did not happen at the time.
After that incident, of course, you have the cementing of the creation of a split between, the p... The Marxist and the nationalists within the P. And What that leads to is the emergence of a new body led by Knife H under the title, the democratic popular front for the duration of Palestine. So he he adds the word the democratic popular front, because he's saying, we are the democratic wing of it. The old nationalist old guard nationalists
are not democratic. We're with democratic queen. And then, you know, later on, of course, people becomes too confusing and, you know, by, like, it's too long and and, eventually, they they they changed the name to the democratic front. Only. So the democratic front for the ratio pass. And that... That's how it becomes a the. And that takes place in in in 69, of course, as a result of these incidents taking place.
And enjoy it. It's it's fat that allows them though to have, you know, the political backing to be able to do this And initially, the military protection as we mentioned because they could have just been killed. Beginning in 19 68 the the P for a time adopted plain hijacking as a major part of their strategy.
Ultimately, that would play a key role in raising tensions with the Jordan Monarchy to to a boiling point, playing a role in laying the groundwork for the ugly violence of black September in 19 70, But but we'll get to black September a little later. For now, just explain the basic contours of the P p hijacking campaign. What was its scale purpose and impact? And how was it received across the Palestinian national movement in terms of its theory of revolutionary change.
So the theory here, really, the mastermind mind behind this line within the P p was air aforementioned with the had. And as we mentioned, amount of action, he he's looking around after 67, he's saying, look, this whole Western World is disgusting. They haven't just created 48. They haven't just called Palestine. Now they're they're the... After 67, they're even normalizing Israel even more and more. The buzz seen people are getting erased more and more.
So he was saying, look, we need we past people need to be put back on the map and they need to gain international. And this is a mode of thinking by the way that we see a recurring here and there in different liberation struggles. As a result of the amount of eraser and era, you have sometimes the emergence of patterns of thought and action that seek big spectacle. As an avenue for that, and sometimes spectacle that do involve actions like plain hijack. So with your how dad looks, and he says,
okay. What's a bigger spectacle than a eye hijacking get plane. Every news oregon will have to cover it. Every state will have to talk about it. They'll need to go intermediate negotiations with the P over it. It will allow for also reaching this enemy directly.
You know, because when you're hijacking their planes or when you're hijacking planes connected to them, you know, and later on, of course, they hijack other planes companies that fly there and so on, you know, but but with demands, they do different things for the wrist struggles such as, for example, release of prisoners. That was a big demand usually corrected the toy jack. Then you can you can put the cause on the map. You can remove the eraser of the cause. Suddenly, the name Palestine will
have to go back into the discussion. That was the theory. Now, of course, you had critics to that theory. The main critics inside the P p were actually the leftist wing, the Knife H at. They they said that this is adventures. And there were others that were kind of trying to decide how to think about it. Like, george H went along with it for a while, later on, he changed his mind around it. We... When he found out that it's causing too much trouble. But different people were trying to judge it
and in in different ways. Now normally, in the West, it's judged from a more holistic standpoint, And that's usually, you know, what do the poor victims on a plane enough to do with this? They are innocent civilians and so on. In the meantime, you know, the the P was sending a different message. They were saying that, our... Their evolution is our moral compass, you know, actually, that was a famous speech but was h to some of the hijacked adjunct people.
And, you know, they would say, like, we're not here to harm you. We're just gonna make a spectacle of this whole thing. We're gonna destroy a plane. You know, will exchange you for visitors or whatever, and you know, but it's... Of course, it creates a very difficult situation. On the 1 hand, a lot of people in the P thought this is yielding fruit because it follows... The they raised the banner of chasing the enemy
everywhere. That was official political line under the which these operations took place. But at the same time, And as with the people that were saying this is adventures and not political we're say, this was producing negative publicity. For the palestinian revolution, And it was maybe not yielding the political results that some people would have liked to have what have liked it to have yielded. So that that becomes the big debate around that particular tactic in that era.
Zion ism, of course is a settle colonial project fundamentally about ethnically cleansing Palestine indigenous people from the land. And yet and yet revealing, so much of the dominant discourse around the so called Israel Palestine conflict it's long been fixated on whether Palestinians will accept Jews presence on there. Land, whether or not Palestinians have a genocidal orientation towards jewish settlers. And it turns out as we've just... I think we've returned to a few times during that
history. That's a... Has everything upside down and is, in fact, a fantastic sort of colonial projection that we've seen historically from from Algeria to South Africa. In Palestine, various Palestinian factions have taken different positions on this issue, but but overwhelmingly, it has been Palestinians who have called for Jewish Arab coexist. The coexistence of settlers and and natives in Palestine.
And it was in 68 that that Fat began to pivot towards framing Palestinian not national liberation as as entail a secular democratic state for everyone. Jews included in historic Palestine. And and if I have it right, it was the D p that was particularly interested.
In thinking through the place of Jewish settlers in a liberated Democratic Palestine and also, in relating to the Jewish left in Israel and around the world, how during this period did Palestinians debate and formulate theories of what a liberated Palestine would look like.
So you had, actually, much of the conversation was taking place within Further, the significant conversation because that's the biggest movement, the biggest party, and it actually does adopt a single democratic secular state program. At a certain point out of the 60 68 process that you're referring to. So we have a situation where There is, first of all, a major conference hosted in Egypt in that period. And the Palestinians are represented in it but that comes to it, in particular.
Abu yeah is there an nab shot is there these are 2 major figures in the build south, by the way, is very fluent in English, but also is very familiar. With the western world yet at had the Phd from the university of Pennsylvania, yet had participated in the civil rights movement in United. States is from Gaza, but it comes from an experience of great exposure to different parts of the world. So he's in that conference and you have... But, yet also who's testing...
It's it's exploring the political waters, conference was chair by and what Said at. The conference was attended by European delegates from different movements, including, quite a few Jewish communists and and left his figures from europe. And a big debate ensued because it was you know, they were they were asking. Okay. What, we we we... You know, they were saying they they know that that what happened in 67 was big mistake. But what what about what will happen and the settlers
that had come to the land. And so on what will happen to the Jews that exist on the land now? You know, they came a settle economist, but they're there. And that actually, immediately, there was this response from, bit south, but authorized by... Well, yeah. There was, of course, the second person fact or the third person. I mean, I was part of the big Tri that
was leaving for that at the time. And the main or orientation that that he had authorized was, actually, will all live together in a secular and democratic space. And you know, there's big debate in circles on was that the moment that started the democratic as a state program or was there another moment? There is another story from a leading for the figure at the time. Who's... My to also be a good friend, mohammed Mai. Hai team. He was representing for the in France.
And they were having similar conversations in France, he would go to all these literary salons and so on, he had been sent by the way by the Algeria. They told, yes an Ada fact, We you guys need their representative in europe. You can't just not have representative in europe. So they selected them me had been to her representative in Algeria. They're like, romania told Ara. I'm gonna send.
I'm mai 2 friends will send him with an Fl representative he'll introduce him to the entire Fl network there. And the first question that he was asked there was what are you gonna do with the sentence? Now, according to... I did an interview with him around this actually both with them and with nab Bill Sat was other when the other encounter in Cairo. And both you know, our major figures in growing up this program on the fat and.
So in in in my interview they he told me what I discovered is that we didn't have a political program around this. What we had was a dream of return and liberation. We had a will to do that and pursue that dream, and we had a set of strategies and tactics around it. But we didn't have a political program that clearly articulated our policy towards the at. And that meant that this propaganda that we're just crazy bloodthirsty people that when I go and eradicate everybody there was was prevailing.
Because there's no counter to that, and there's no clear vision being proposed. So He says that he played a big role in pushing for that. So it's coming from multiple angles, but it's coming from conversations like that. And as Palestinians it's grapple with with this... Within fact and elsewhere, of course, within the left, like in D b, because it's it's... That is a major leftist this conversation ever. What are you gonna do
with set colonial populations? Is a question that the left has posed, and and it has solutions for it. That the left this stance traditionally is you never advocate for eradicating anybody even. If they came under, the umbrella of, a horrific set to call your project. You don't do it in South Africa. You don't do it in Zimbabwe. You don't even do it in in the Americas. But what you do is you strive to create, a reality of of equality of of, you know, a different future, basically.
And and the the democratic secular state became the formula for that. A major major, early milestone for the Palestinian armed struggle and for Fat in particular took place in March 19 68 in the town of Cara, Jordan.
When Israeli forces, attacking guerrilla positions there, suffered major losses inflicted by fat troops and According to the reading, I did, correct me if I'm wrong, more importantly, by Jordan artillery, but it was a massive propaganda victory Fat and prompted a huge rush of new recruits, King hussein even of Jordan, at that time, famously said, we are all fed now, which is remarkable because hussein relationship with with Palestinian Gorillas,
dramatically deteriorate in the coming months and years, but we'll get to that later. Explain the significance of the battle of Car, and what it revealed about this early stage of the Palestinian revolution and and its trajectory. So as as we mentioned earlier, you have after 96 7, you have fat, the P p, other umbrella formations, societal. They're all establishing bases the Jordan Valley military bases. The idea was that they were gonna carry out operations now to liberate Palestine
from there. If the previous attempts to delivery very fast came from inside past from the West Bank towards 19 48 areas now, it became centered on, the Arab country's border in Palestine, particularly Jordan because it has long 400 plus kilometer border with the Israeli state. Now, the town of Columbia is in the Jordan Valley, it is primarily composed of Palestinian refugees, although, of course, it is in an area that has a strong east bank Credit. Tribal
presence there. You have big Jordan tribes of 1 and others, there there are the dominant forces there. So you... And they... All of these the social makeup there was very much geared towards revolution. Everybody was upset over 6 7 there had been longstanding standing mobilization in these areas even before, including en camp. Now, Economic became particularly large hub for that work for the for the gorilla action for the... These liberation movements, and
It became increasingly clear. Rumors were beginning to spread that the Israelis were planning an attack on the tone of crime. So this produces a set of discussions in the Palestinian local color. Fat, which was led by us at Ara as a discussion an internal 1. And they have even Town hall meetings even around this at this stage. There's big conversations happening, you know? But out of it to add this mindset, by the way at the stage, he's like, we're gonna fight. If they come, we're not
gonna withdraw. We're gonna fight. No matter what. Because this is a moment where you need to fight even if you're gonna lose people. You'd need to show that, there was an armed force that did not withdraw. Given the fact that all air forces withdrew at 67. And the victory will come out of not withdrawing and fighting. That's his conception of victory with this. So that's 1 line that gets taken.
On the other hand, you have ami, he is heading the P b. And unlike Out who is using a political measure for victory. Miss thinking about this in purely political terms. Ama applies military logic. And the rest, of course, of the P, including movement bio figures follow him on that. They're like, it does not make sense. For gorilla groups to have to stay stationary when you have a classical army attacking.
A formal army attacking them that has far superior equipments, air power, artillery and so on. So they're like... And they're right, by the way, by purely military logic, they're right. You know, if you're a girl a movie you withdraw when there's a major offensive on the part of a of a military. You know? And in the meantime, you have a third force that was operating there, which is the Pla. They had a sort of troops stationed there, and they actually decide
not to withdraw. They remain, and they fight and they contribute. But the main core it's actually inside the town, and not on the outskirts. The Pla was on the outskirts. Inside the town, it was fat their fighters. And, you know, I I interviewed... The some of the few survivors that were left. Like, there's a guy that later becomes the governor of Bethlehem, very fascinating character. Because this guy looks like a Hollywood star, and You know, there's a picture of very famous
picture of him. We have it on the front of the Revolution website, which I'm excited to announce will be launched now. It's it's finally up online. You know, there's face picture of him hanging out with Muhammad ali and a tall, big, like, you know, strong, whatever. They're looking whatever I've meant. So, you know, and the this guy, though was was basically named Sal and he he he was there. Very few survive, by the way. Okay?
And when you talk to the people there, they're like, we knew that we were gonna die. That's it. Like, there was no way. But you're ready for it and were gonna put up a fight. And indeed, they lost a hundred people in this. You know, from the Side from the Side, which is a lot of fighters for them in this in 1 battle like that. But they were able to put a fight. Now a crucial rule in this battle is played also by the Jordan military units, especially the artillery units.
That were stationed on the hills overlooking the Jordan valley. And I think the geography is difficult to explain to people here. But for those that don't know what Jordan Valley is. You have the river Jordan, it's in the lowest point of earth. It ends up. Like, Is is is right next to that river, but it's the it's minus 370 meters below below c level. Okay? That's why the dead see, you know, it flows into that. Incredible geography. But you have around these high mountains or
both sides. On the 1 hand, the the top of the huge, like mountain on the left side, you have jerusalem and the other side you have. And and essentially, the the Jordan germanium troops are stationed on 1 side, and they have artillery position there. Because if there isn't is israeli attack will ever be mounted on the on the East bank of the Jordan, I. E on Jordan Proper, and on the capital man, would have to
go through that. So so The head of the Jo army at the time was man sympathetic to the Fed. His name was M Had A. And he makes a decision on the spot, to go and actually bombard israeli troops as they were attacking the Units. And you know, there's a big debate jordan. Of course, they don't on the king because saying claims that he authorized the decision and he gave the real.
But others don't believe that at role. They they actually say it's Mature You took the initiative, this this this general comes and says, I'm you know, a actually rejects orders to not attack as israeli forces and Bombard. A reason why I'm un dwelling on this, Daniel is that there's a big debate on who juan Because Kara becomes so important at this stage. Yes a heart. He comes in and he capitalize on it in a big way. He says. You know, because they managed to... Eventually as
israelis have to withdraw. They don't actually buy the territory, cause a lot of damage, but they lose a lot of equipment And it gets you know, some their tanks and so on gets paraded in a man, the damaged vehicles, it gets shown to the whole world. And and a big media you know, event to set around that and it gets covered widely in the press. Worldwide. You know, it's a big deal. And and out of what, and, you know, uses that completely invest the credit immediately.
It's like, you know, we did it through the determination through not withdrawing through through through through fighting to the very end and so on. And immediately, further expands. They get, like, 15000 recruits. I mean, according to Abu yard, like this moses it's like, in in a few days, we get, like, 15000 people like, wanting to join up. Like, it's like... And and, of course, the numbers grow. Like, it's a huge amount. So people, everybody wants to join
down all of a sudden. And they don't even have the capacity to absorb these people. And they they they they start, like, really, really, really expanding exponentially at this stage, but also they anchor this principle that the Israeli army is possible to defeat, and the only way to defeat it is through organizing gorilla organizations that can carry out the work that the classical army refuse to do.
The revolution in so far was also a social revolution that transformed Safari society, including very much the place of women. In Society. What sort of impacted the to the Palestinian revolution, and particularly this this pivotal battle in Cara have on the social aspects of the Palestinian revolution of women's place in Palestinian society and in the struggle in particular.
And so, Daniel, if the 19 fifties was a period of great expansion of women men joining political parties, and we've alluded to that before ideological parties, especially through the schools, the high schools and the teach teachers training colleges. There was a massive expansion of women's involvement in politics. In the fifties. The sixties, especially after, the battle of, late sixties. So the involvement of women increasingly in armed struggle. That's 1 aspect of of of of what happens ins.
So, and it starts with Modest beginnings but it expands substantially. Over the next few years in the age of the passing revolution. So you have, fascinating figure. Who response to Kara calamity at the stage and she becomes the leading the leader of the Fat women's him at this stage, which is, may say. Dear friend of mine who passed away recently, and she was an incredible poet and and and thinker her and writer, but also evolutionary.
She had formally been in the bath, started off briefly as a communist then doing the bath, and and and then many years later, during Fat after. So you know, in 67, she had gone through deep depression. She had been, like, you know, banging head on the on the walls, that kinda of thing, like, being, like, to hell. Then when the Fed cadet started operating. She was... Like, I wanna join this.
But all the major women's groups at the time were, engaged in a logistical work and in supply and support work. So, you know, they were suing clothes for the fighters and providing medical aid and things like that. And she doesn't respect that. I mean, I had long chats with her about this over the years. She respected that a lot. But in reality, she was like, I don't enjoy that work. I hate suing. I hate cookie. I... Whatever I wanna be a fighter.
So eventually, actually, she does join, and she starts pushing alongside some other women who took a different approach to the traditional 1 and wanted to join as well. They began to push for training and starting women's involvement in Work. And, of course, they complained many years later. I mean, the come... A lot of them complain to me that, initially, they put a man in charge of them. Called Pad is well known, left together with him. Fed also from Bath background. So more
socially open. Let's say then some of the ones that came from a muslim brother with background at that stage. They were... The people like him men, like him were actually interested in promoting this phenomena. But still, we were like, you know, the best they you could do is put a man in charge, like it it sucks, but it was his start. So they started with 20 women and and they started training, but then expand they expanded.
Eventually, you started getting both a greater activation of the main union of women, which had been founded as part of the P01 of the, big achievements of the P in its mobilization aspect was not just the creation of the Pla. With the creation also, or or the diplomatic representative offices, but also the creation of popular organizations, but they called popular organizations and unions. So there was a union for students, a union for women.
The women's union was very strong and the students union was very strong general unit passing students. And the workers union, of course, was was very strong. So the women's union grew exponentially during this period, at the same time, women's armed struggle grew substantially in this period. And then you add also the emergence of local women's committees within the different parties. And I'll give you an example. But there similar things we're happening in the P p. Iconic figures like Leila
C. Of course. Yeah. And and and there were many others that that you you don't hear about, you know, but but yes Highlighted was the most famous, of course, This this phenomena, and of course, the D has many women neither the that it produces at at this stage. That grows substantially after on. That's another by product. Now on the social level in Jordan, the transformations initially were not felt immediately because it was... The Jordan germanium experience under armed struggle
organizations was 3 years. It was from 67 to 19 70, maximum 71, you know, when with the exit from, Z. Whereas, it really takes a deeper deeper form in Lebanon. And in the past senior refugee camps there. The women's organizations start to have major impacts social impact there. I mean, in Jordan, they did also they started many different programs a lot of... They were dealing with a lot of issues they were borrowing from different struggles.
For example, you know, there was, a man and and 1 of the refugee camps that was known to be beating up as as his wife. And and the the woman heard of that, but It soon women women's Union unit, like, office decided that they're gonna c go and and catch him. Because they had heard that in the Vietnamese movement, the women would go and catch the to men and threatened him with with the
women punishing him in front of everybody. So they they told them they'll do the same year and it got scared that stopped doing that. You know, So you had incidents like that that were challenging different practices of course, in feminist ways. But the the depth of the experience in Lebanon, at... The revolution, there lasted much longer, of course. And and that allows for for a deeper engagement on the social level. Let's turned to 2 major coup that took
place in Arab countries during this period. First, in Iraq, then in Libya, both of which had important impacts on the Palestinian revolution. But let's start with with Iraq where we've spent a lot of time throughout this series. In 19 68, the Bath party took power in a who led by Ak And Saddam hussein. We've extensively covered all the background to this period in in prior episodes, but to briefly recap here.
The Iraqi government led by a dual cream Qa took power in a 19 58 revolution then through the British aligned Hash Monarchy. Qa was then overthrown by a nationalist alliance coup in February 19 63, which was followed by a brutal purge of Ko communist allies. But then in November 19 63, the nationalists turned on the bath and purged them. How did ba manage to seize power and to do so so decisively in 19 68. And then what impact did the new regime, 1 that would last until the Us invasion in 2003?
What impacted did that have on the of A iraq and on the region as a whole and in particular on the Palestinian revolution? We cannot underestimate the impact of a put major political change happening in a state like Iraq on the region as a whole, but also the Palestinian revolution in the Palestinian people. So this could took place after the 67 more.
Post 67 you were bound to get major regional changes, Daniel because this was another major, defeat It's a defeat that shook the regional map, but also, it's a defeat that affected the the old center of radical power, in the region that is that are developed and was to prominence throughout the fifties. Center in being higher. So the bath is in in Air iraq saw this as, an opportunity. They had the necessary strength in the in the army to carry it out.
They were able to carry it out with a relatively, you know, smooth and blood list outcome. Although, they engaged in a few spectacle of violence afterwards that were, you know, show trials and so on that we're geared to presenting to the world an image of, radical response. To 67. In terms of Iraq orientation, what was important about this school is that an initiated a greater attempt to cultivate on the long run, closer relationships with the Soviet union.
So that was 1 dimension of what was taken place, after, 68. But also, iraq was entering into a set of arrangements where it was re evaluating its entire regional position. Clearly, it was not working closely with Egypt at this stage. The rf the the Sedan government was initially close to that direction. Of course, you know, how the rough man continued you know, in in along similar lines, but this was signaling some break from that. Not a complete
1. It wasn't, like, total open facility along the older lines that were initiated about the canadian pla, but there was a shift of source here. There was a competition with Syria that was bound to come out of this because this is bath that was carrying out an action in another big country. It had taken over government in Iraq at a time when the old leadership of the bath in Syria was marginalized. By the events in that country and by a series of bath takeover overs
from the military wing. And this is the 66 Ba military wing who against the Bath civilian leadership that brings sal J to power just to orient listeners. Correct. And and accumulated events that that led to that were described by, of course, as the the bitter experience. We that's say we called it he's from the old leadership. You know, so there was that feeling on the part of the old leadership. So in new about this, we're trying to
signal well in Iraq. Knew people that came to power are... I know, I'm Not bucket, but also his cousin. Dumb hussein. Behind the scenes was was now a major operator. You know, both of them were trying to signal that, look, where are the real bath. And we we'll honor the tradition of the old bath we're bringing in this this leadership.
So there was a general atmosphere regionally that that changed certain relationships between Iraq and Syria Iraq and Egypt, but also between iraq and they and the the Soviet Union. You know, there was a res shuffling taking place as a result of this this this
school. Now later on, of course, this had major precautions on the internal air scene that we could talk about you know, extensively, but 1 byproduct on the long run is that, you had the consolidation of Saddam Hussein power gradually throughout this this period. He he manages to insert himself and acquire control over the main security organs and intelligence organs. Which, of course, is where the power lies
in a setting like this. So and however whoever takes control over these organs can determine overall policy in the long run. And so Saddam was increasingly emerging as the strong man in Iraq, until, you know, by the close of the decade of the 19 seventies, he became the only man in Iraq charge. So that that that initiates a total process, that has its own logic. A put a see in perspective, And you cannot say that, Ra who changed the map in this school.
Did not transform everything about Palestine. But it was going to play a role in the events of black September, and we'll we'll get to that when we talk about it. The second coup was the Arab world's last no inspired free officer coup, which takes place in 19 69, when free officers overthrow the Libya monarchy.
What led these free officers led by Moa, what led them to pull off this coup in the way that they did and what was the coup significance for the arab world and for the Palestinian revolution, in particular. So, with with Libya, we we need to look at the background to this you know, socially, there was a serious story behind this this this school. You had a country that is very large geographically libya be is is a vast state, you know, by Arab and African standards. It's 1 of the biggest.
And has an enormous mediterranean coast. And, you know, it has it has fertile areas and of course, a very large desert as well. But the main factor that transforms there'll be a landscape is that in 19 59, you have enormous wealth beginning to pour in because, you know, the beer becomes a major energy producer. And the population is relatively small despite the vast size and despite these major resources.
Nevertheless, under monarch rule which was firmly alight to the west and s under western control, there there there there was no clear national project. That was able to consolidate, the the the state in an effective way And the development efforts were rather limited, Daniel. The Libya has diverse regions. There are 2 big, you know, regional blocks there, you could argue 3, at least, you know, when it comes to the coastal areas.
1 is centered around the big city of Ben, and and that's in the east other 1 is centered around tripoli, there are areas in the center that also matter, and of course, there are areas in the in the in the south in in the the desert. If you wanted to have a functioning national formula, you needed to consolidate all of these regions. You also needed to account for tribal diversity. Kinship networks do matter in that setting and and and they're part of the story.
I would have required a very strong and active nation building project, a national identity project. And and that was rather weak in this spirit. Now amongst the army, you had a great deal of discontent building up, and certainly, the 67 word did not help. Like from from a an perspective on this front. There was a feeling of alien elimination from government in relation to its alignment with the western dominant powers.
At a time, when you had a very strong and nas current, you know, certainly, you know, up till the 67 war. So the Libya army like other armies in the region ended up having a free officers for formation operating within it. And this formation in a way could be seen as both a reflection of the failure of a nation building program under monarch possibilities that would produce loyalty to the monarch, as well as failure of a more comprehensive development policy that could serve such a program.
So this coupled with the ideological dimension and the resentment towards vi alignment can explain why this phenomena happened. Now at the heart of this was an officer named Mama Ka, who later on, kept on emphasizing that, you know, I'm not the president of this project. You know, he he he he was kept on signaling that, you know, this is a broader popular movement of sorts. He assumed the title the brother leader of their revolution rather than president or someone he did not like that,
central titus Although... In the long and, by the way, he got into this indispensable idea of being the King of Kings of Africa that was eli styled himself that, so in a different in a different pace of his life. He got all the monarchs of the African continent to meet and obviously, he he he financially contributed to that and and did a fancy ceremony in which he it was announced as that. But initially, you know, it was trying to signal that this is an egalitarian project.
This is very important for people to know when they're thinking of this from a radical perspective. Initially, K is not a fan of communism. He is very much a nationalist fencing himself follow as following on the footsteps of Yam den, confronting imperial and so on. And, you know, 1 of the statements that Fed philadelphia was most proud of is that initially when he when he made this move. Nas said famously,
I see in you my youth. He addressed him that, like, you know, I'm so nothing, by the way, adi the, met d Later on would have would have retracted that statement because they are very different characters. For that is much more whim and and he has a a more random pattern. Although, of course, it's not the character the world leader that that that, you know, sometimes, you read about in the West, there are
explanations for people like that. But but he did have very set a problematic policies, and he was definitely, somebody who engaged in different aspects of consolidation of power that that had, you know, that led to the designs of freedoms and and to arbitrary arrests and the loss of of of many political and and civil rights and in Libya
in the long run. From a palestinian perspective, what this meant was the fall of a state that was regionally aligned the west, the main development that that occurred as a result of this, is that on the long run, this became a source of resource mobilization and funding for various palestinian groups at various moments.
More often than not, these groups were ones that had to demonstrate some form of loyalty to H They did not tend to be, by the way, the main group, which is for there, you know, often for their, you know, it supported a wide range of groups over the course of his loan career, but 1 of the biggest beneficiaries actually was a group that we alluded to earlier in the episode.
Which was ahmed b split from the popular front, you know, ahmed debris after the experiences of the popular front in 19 6 8 and and Kara and so on He e, you know, as he was observing the internal struggles that we're happening with the movement nationalist, he ends up forming a split called the the popular front evaluation palestine general command.
The P, which became closely aligned with Syrian actually, but received a good amount of funding and weapons from Cord including some very advanced weapons, relatively speaking, you know, there was surfaced air missiles and so on, during the Siege Beirut, that would became very beneficial, but the P had more weapons that it could use at that stage where. So Ka, what became a center for resource mobilization, but it was very whim.
He was promoting a strange ideology that our listeners might 1 to Google, ideology that he called another real Adam at 30 is a third world theory, and it's not referring to the third world. It's the third the third theory, basically, third international theory. You know, so so and that that outlook of his... What he was saying basically that you have capitalism, you have communism, and then you have the third world theory that he was coming up with.
And it was articulated in the green book, of course, which he authored that includes many different reflections on various subjects. Some of them... Some of them quite quite strange. Like, for example, the the chapter on the social question relating to to women, starts by assert that man is is male and women is female. But... And then, like, it goes on, to say that they are equal, but there's differences because women get periods and men don't. Like, it's
like, that's a kind of... And actually, by the way, this is... I'm kind of saying get verbatim. That's that's literally So... But on a more serious note, he did fancy himself as initiating some forms of socialism. And there were some interesting policies that had a progressive bend to them. But it never went, like, fully really socialist. Like, he thought he was doing popular committees model, for example, And it would do things like housing...
Some progressive housing policies. Like it say, like, okay. You can't e somebody they live in a house. There were things elements like that, but there was always another twist to it that never made it fully, you know, progress it when it comes to the social outcomes. Are there some echoes of early attempt to find a third way between surely Bourgeois nationalism and and communism or socialism. Can can I be honest with you today? I, well, I should be honest with who obviously I'm listeners?
I could never take the the green book as seriously as anything written by any other... By by by political parties in the Suite. In my assessment as a historian, I I've... There's is there's no clear logic and Cad is thinking. It is what you could call, like, a milkshake approach to political theory. It is not a real political theory. Then it's just like, Let's just put a bunch of ingredients in there mix it up. And a lot of it had to do with him signaling that he's an intellectual.
Like, it's a form of political literature Somebody should write about this. Like a book about that kind of political literature. The great leader type of political literature. You know, later on tok imp comes up with stuff like that. Others... You know, and it's different than, let's say, great leader literature that operated within Marxist context.
Because you had that in Albania or the En hardship, for example, or you had that in North Korea, but but that kind of literature although it's narcissistic and it's it's strange. It still has enough of a connectivity to Marxist theory, because there's an actual you know, tradition in which it could be anchored at some level, despite, you know, eccentric of the author or... But with Ka, you know, I think and and not enough has been done on in in the contractual history issue
on that kind of phenomenon. And I think somebody should. It's not gonna be me by the way, but But I don't think it would be right to put it on the same footing as genuine attempts and and established movements like the bath. To find the sense of practice. The other thing that is to be remembered here is that this is very much an individual intellectual model. It is not based on a movement having internal debates within it and trying to
find the pathway. So so... And that... That's always very different. In 19 69, the P underwent a really dramatic transformation, becoming a Palestinian led national liberation organization made up of the Palestinian led by the largest and most powerful faction Fat. How did Fat end up taking control of the of the P o and Why was it that Fat took over the P not by themselves, which they may have had the strength to do.
But instead by bringing a large number of rival Palestinian infections with them. Yeah. So so after 67, there was and the 6 7 war. There was a crisis that took place between And, Gem. And the crisis had to do with the response to the war. I mean, the region was undergoing a set of transformations that were clear. The P o was not ready for these transformations.
Before at 19 67, the Egyptians needed a Palestinian body that would be representative and that could contribute to the stability of the regional order that they were trying to build around Egypt's priorities. So which meant that they needed to pass anybody that would not, for example, ins to armed operations in the hearing now. But that could have a representative capacity, maybe build long term military capacity that could be utilized later.
And the P was perfect for that. I sc was perfect for that. That was precisely the reason why the P was critique at the time. Was Critique is set bureau that are connected to the air regimes. Maybe that was unfair. That was a critique that people in Fat and other underground clan movements were making. Relation to it. Now once the 67 war happens.
Nasa has a crisis. First of all, the classical armies we're not able to defend not only what what's left of Palestine, but even their own regional borders in relation to the Israeli estate. So a bit of gorilla action or a lot of it in this context was not in contradiction with the overall policy that Nasa was trying to promote And that girl action was gonna happen anyways. Now that Understood that. It became clear.
It was gonna take forms that that were impossible to control even if you wanted to control. And because the overall state structure in the region that could rep replace Pal and Gorilla groups that had existed before it had been weakened at least temporarily. So there was a vacuum that allowed for a flourishing ecosystem to to develop around our policy armed stroke. So the solution was for nasa was
okay. I need to find a way to have AP0 that unites the old gorilla groups, which had operated underground in the past, with the existing structure that was more bureaucratic that, you know, came about under okay. And in the meantime, internally within the Pas arena, there was a lot of movement against Leadership because they were saying, well, the P o did not do its job here. Adequately, it's it's basically needs to be revolutionized.
And there needs to be a connection between The gorilla movements now, they need to take charge because they're are the ones that are gonna liberate Palestine. Talk will not liberate palestine. And a lot of the critique now that was directed at Security was actually focusing on his main point of pride. Which was his eli and his usage of classical arabic in his speeches.
So, you know, a lot of the attacks on him at the time, were, like, Well, he keeps making these very fancy beaches and ornate language while actually not engaging in real fighting. In the meantime, the Movements are are with putting their lives at risk on the field. So there was a compelling
set of arguments. Anyways, there were also internal problems inside the P itself inside the P executive committee or major contradiction, we can go into the the micro dynamics, I I will talk about them, by the way, in the book that I'm writing now, I talk about them extensively. But but this is, you know, our listeners do not need to know about this right now. It's too much. But the honest truth is there was the 67 created such pain and confusion and and a a sense of a need for new beginning.
That these people in the executive committee were also saying, look, we need to incorporate. The, gorilla movements into the formula, and we need to rethink what the B is. Now, let me tell message that Out is trying to intervene. And he now has the credit of being the biggest movement that that has armed operations on the ground. And after Corona, it's credits even go up up up up, you know, it that was like, a... That was his most brilliant political intervention. In the pas
political arena. I knew went to seize the moment, and he knew how to make the his movement the number 1 movement in their arena because he sees the initiative immediate. And he invested the stock he got out of the the Economic battle. In in major ways politically. Now, he also played it smart because he knew that there's a regional arena around. And that the Pal arena was not gonna be emptied out of formations that will be connected to other regional states.
But also the passing arena, will continue to have ideological divisions, particularly between, the 2 biggest wings of the movement. Which are further and the movement of arab nationalism. So his approach to this was
Okay. We'll enter the P o and we'll reshape the P o as an organization effectively, representing the fighting fighting forces on the ground, which is a criteria that meant that you had to have by the way, to be a member now of the P, you had to have some fighting capacity on the ground, yet to have gorilla movement on the ground, you had to day. Presses. This is a new rule that that gets introduced in this moment.
And it also meant that essentially, the p becomes an organization representing the entirety of these fighting forces on the ground. And to understand this in abstract terms, the P o now was drawing on what they call revolutionary legitimacy. If in its initial phase, it drew upon regional legitimacy as in their arab state scheme, and it was legitimate because they authorize formation. And they said we recognize recognized this represented buddy.
This new phase in the P life, was saying the legitimacy will not be derived now politically from the recognition of arab states it would be derived from the fact that the structure represents those groups that are active and engaged in armed struggle on the ground and in revolutionary struggle on the ground. And this is a significant transformation that tells you something also about the political moment about how important and how popular The idea of revolutionary struggle became now.
Fed struggled. I mean, you mentioned earlier, Daniel king hussein reference after Corona. You know, he said that we at all
the inn. He was also calling himself the first, you know, Fide because they have that thing in in these settings things, you, Jordan they're call him the first sports man and the first, you know, so Riyadh You know, you know, it it signaled that even the king or who was in contradiction structurally with these movements had to, yield to this notion because of the the the popularity of them.
So Does, or or yes Is I'm, of course, Roman, he engages in building a coalition, then that would initiate this process. And So he reaches out to those grouping that that that did not belong to his competitors, you know? Because he his partners and this. And, eventually, he carries out this this this process with the support of the Bath in Sai, with a collection of of smaller movements, you know, they initiate the initial
transformation of the P law. Later on, and this becomes a big aspect of the, of the next phase of the P history, the question of the absorption of the P p. Becomes a big internal question on the agenda. And there was a lot of, you know, ebb and flows in there. Sometimes, p P would be like, we're sending delegates, but we're freezing our membership. Okay? And other times, it'd be like, yeah, we're fully participating.
So it became a constant process, but what was the main characteristic of the process from 19 69 onwards, is that, yes, our effort was able to implement there a situation where Fat was the party that had the greatest amount of seats because it was the biggest, but also it could draw upon independence, it could draw upon, also, you know,
in the in the pas National Council. But in the in the executive committee and the higher you know, ranks of the of the executive side of the P there requires, party formation or or movement formation to be represented in it. He was growing on a coalition of forces. That was the fourteenth episode of Fo, the Dig series on twentieth century Arab politics with Del Ras Cr, who teaches history at Rice University A scholar of Era and Palestinian revolutionary movements.
He's the author of Republicans, Sol and empires in Oman. And the c author of the Palestinian Revolution Digital Humanity's website. A really amazing resource that will be back online really, really soon. Stay tuned. We will announce it here. Thank you for listening to the dig from Jacob Magazine. As Mark once said after noting that, revolutions are the locomotives of history. While other podcasts have only interpreted the world in various ways. Our point is to change
it. We're posting new episodes every week. The dig was produced by Alex Lewis. Our associate producer is Jackson Roach. Music by Jeffrey Bro. Our communications coordinator is Sylvia At. Our senior advisors are F Franco and Ben maybe Check out our vast archives and newsletters at the radio dot com. Follow us on Twitter and also now Instagram at The Radio and find us wherever you get podcasts and subscribe to this podcast. If it's on itunes or wherever
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