EFFORTPOST Snapshots of the Lebanese Civil War - The Palestinians

Let me introduce the only distinction among the Palestinians that matters to you: Fatah vs. everyone else.

Fatah was founded by Palestinian exiles in 1959. At first it was just a pawn of the Egyptians, but when Egypt suffered the shocking humiliation of the Six Day War, it was able to wiggle its way out. With the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza many more Palestinians fled to refugee camps in the other Arab countries. Fatah managed to steal the credit for a Jordanian victory and the legend of the Palestinian fedayeen was born. It became a relatively independent organization. Of course it relied on donors from the Gulf States and Soviet bloc aid but it had enough patrons that it didn't fall into the control of any one of them. Fatah's leader Yasser Arafat tried to speak for the movement as a whole, but he could do little to restrain the other groups.

The Arabs had assumed that always assumed that Egypt would eventually roll up its sleeves and wipe out Israel once and for all. With the Egyptians humbled, there was desperate need of a new symbol of resistance.

Many Palestinians fled to refugee camps in Lebanon during the Nakba. As time passed and there was no hope of returning home in sight, the refugee camps became densely-packed slums. They were fortified and networks of secret tunnels were dug underneath, neccessary precautions since the Israelis bombed them ocasionally. All of the Palestinian groups I'm going to write about here were born in this environment: awful living conditions, no honest jobs, constant harrassment by the Israelis and the police of whatever country they were in. Many Palestinians would do just about anything for a job to feed their family, and if you weren't hired to work in the Gulf States then joining a militia was pretty much all you could do.

Nasser loved watching Esther Williams swim around. He had American diplomats bring him the reel when a new one came out. Maybe he should have been paying more attention to his air force, am I right!

Besides Fatah there was an alphabet soup of other Palestinian militias that claimed to be socialist revolutionaries, many of them doing the bidding of a certain foreign state: PFLP (Syria), PFLP-GC (Syria), as-Saiqa (Syria), Fatah Intifada (Syria), PLA (Syria) DFLP (Soviet Union), PCP (Soviet Union), ALF (Iraq), Abu Nidal's gang (Syria then Libya then Iraq). Most were splinter groups of the PFLP or Fatah that began when one subordinate commander decided he didn't like taking orders. Their foreign patrons gave them enough money to hire soldiers so they had an importance far greater than their support among the population.

PFLP fedayeen, 1969. These guys are supposed to replace Egypt?

These groups were responsible for most of the spectacular terrorist attacks seen in the West. Any time Arafat tried to negotiate, one of them would do an attack to embarrass him. (Fatah did do terrorism as well, including some of the worst cases.)

Hijacker Leila Khaled. She raised a lot of eyebrows in the West but nothing she did brought her people any closer to freedom.

1975

After being driven from Jordan in 1970 for trying to take over the country, the Palestinian leaders took up residence in Lebanon. This obviously caused a lot of consternation among Lebanese and Arafat had a hard enough time just trying to get the different groups to stop shooting each other in the refugee camp. He knew that this was their last chance. If they were driven from Lebanon they would have nowhere to turn. Arafat tried to keep the situation from completely spiraling out of control, but the other factions would not stop provoking the natives. The location of the camps around Beirut made it virtually impossible to avoid trouble, as they had to go through densely populated parts of the city to travel between them. Arafat's money, prestige, and relatively strong and cohesive military force gave him great influence in Lebanon's politics as well as Palestine's but there was no way to tamp down the lid forever.

Speaking of terrorism, Day of the Jackal came out a couple years earlier. A journo found a copy of the original Fredrick Forsyth novel in what he believed to be the luggage of a notorious Palestinian terrorist. This is where the nickname Carlos the Jackal comes from. Great movie btw.

Arafat commanded the respect of the bulk of the population in the refugee camps. There were three around Beirut and one just outside of each major city. Fatah had a large force of militia with little or no training, but it also had an elite force of men who were trained up to the standards of real soldiers. Some had been trained in the Jordanian Army before 1970 or the Soviet bloc. This little army would amount to very little in a big conventional war, but there were few men in the warring Lebanese factions who were on their level.

The Hotels War pitted local Sunnis, Lebanese Army defectors, and Palestinians against the Lebanese Forces.

The radical groups had their own militias but they were poorly trained and disciplined. They hired anyone they could, even many Arabs from other countries. In a war they might be expected to defend their own neighborhoods but not much more. Airline passengers were the only target they could outfight. They were especially resentful of Fatah at this time because Arafat had just begun opening up the idea of negotiations with Israel.

1980

It was the height of power of the Palestinian refugees. The 1975-1976 war had been hard on the Palestinians, with the entire Tal el-Zaatar refugee camp razed. They were now tightly intwined with the local Sunnis and their miltia Mourabitoun. But while Arafat hadn't managed to keep the peace, he at least kept the Syrians from taking complete control. They stayed out of a large area in the south of the country, including the border. Lebanon's army had disintegrated and couldn't stop them. So the Palestinians took over this area, soon known as Fatahland. They now had direct access to the border. Their artillery shelled Israeli towns sporadically, trying not to be caught in the enemy airstrikes that often followed. Enterprising terrorists also discovered a new way to attack. They could get around the border on inflatable boats, land on the beach, and find some Israeli target to attack. Of course it was always a bus or a school, but hey, at this phase of the revolution you can't expect us to take on soldiers.

The Soviet 130mm gun. Designed for long range, it can hit targets 27.5km away. This gave its operators plenty of room to hide the massive gun in.

1985

The Palestinian refugees were now virtually powerless in Lebanon. When they surrendered Beirut, they were scattered into distant exile in several Arab countries. The leaders were settled in Tunis, 2000km away from the enemy. To add insult to injury, the Israeli commandos occasionally made it that entire distance to pop up in Tunis and kill one of them. Fatah and its supporters had always imagined that it would build itself up until someday it could fight Israel in a final war of liberation, but now it was clear that trying to attack Israel from the outside was a dead end. From now on, the Palestinian cause would be taken up in the occupied West Bank and Gaza.

An attempt was made to capture Tripoli and use it as a base to bring Fatah back to Lebanon. Rather than side with Arab nationalists and Communists like he had in the past, their allies now were Islamic fundamentalists, a sign of how the old causes were dying out in favor of the new jihad. They were opposed by Syrian troops as well as several thousand Palestinians who had defected over the years to support Syria instead. The battle was over quickly and Arafat sent back into exile in a farcical repeat of the evacuation from Beirut.

1990

Some Palestinians loyal to Arafat still remained in Lebanon and they were still taking part in fighting. Now they were only helping the stronger forces like Hezbollah. They were able to hold onto their refugee camps for now, but they were no longer an independent player in Lebanon. All of the Palestinian movement's attention and energy was now focused on the occupied territories. The fantasy of fedayeen coming from the refugee camps to liberate the country was over. Arafat still commanded enough respect that he could represent the Palestinians in the new peace process that was developing.

The crew of the Enterprise was in some pretty serious trouble too! Part I of "Best of Both Worlds", the Borg invasion of Earth, aired in 1990.

Epilogue

In 2007 a splinter group of a splinter group of Fatah in the Naher al-Barid refugee camp outside Tripoli declared their allegiance to al-Qaeda. They beheaded several soldiers in a cowardly sneak attack. Since the army is the only institution in the country that unites all sects, this pissed off everyone. The camp was eventually flattened by artillery and bulldozers after a brutal siege, just like during the Civil War. I guess it was kids trying too hard to be cool like their dads.

Ain el-Hilweh outside Sidon remains. If you want to experience Escape From New York in real life, this is as close as you're going to get. Lebanese police and security forces are not allowed in. The local population settles everything themselves. This often means gang-style shootings but can escalate quite a bit. Stray RPGs have been known to land in Sidon. These days the battles are between Fatah and Islamists. Now they're fighting over buildings, not countries.

This one was pretty good too. I mean it's not like a classic or something but it's enjoyable.