EFFORTPOST [Effortpost] Fatah's failure and the rise of Hamas

You may be wondering right now, why can't Palestinians support a group that's, you know, nice? Why do so many support Hamas?

To answer that, I have to tell you some of the history of Fatah, the Palestinian revolutionaries from my boomer generation and how they failed.

PFLP, DFLP, PFLP-GC, PFLP-LMAO, etc.

Leila Khaled, airplane hikacker for the PFLP.

Besides Fatah there were countless Palestinian groups formed by refugees by the 1960s. While they ostensibly were radical Marxists out to destroy Israel, in practice they ended up as mercenaries working for one or more other Arab countries or the KGB. Much of their time was spent fighting each other on behalf of their foreign masters. Their fighters were largely drawn from the desperate poor of the refugee camps who simply signed on so their families wouldn't starve.

Bourj el-Barajneh refugee camp, Beirut.

These groups carried out most of the spectacular international terrorist operations that the Palestinians became known for like airplane hijackings. These attacks did little to further the Palestinian cause but alienated the world. Some were clearly designed to offend, like pushing an elderly Jewish man in a wheelchair off the side of a cruise ship. (This is not to say Fatah didn't do some really sadistic terror attacks too.)

Rome Airport after the massacre by Abu Nidal's gang, 1985.

These radical groups quickly withered away to irrelevance when the Soviet Union collapsed and the whole ecosystem of state sponsored terrorism with it. But they left a legacy for Fatah. These were the guys they didn't want to be like: corrupt, out of touch with the people, and beholden to foreign governments.

Fatah's Rise & Fall

Fatah's origin is similar to these other groups except that after the 1967 war they broke away Egyptian control. While they still relied on foreign funding they found several sponsors so they could maintain their independence.

Abu Ammar AKA Yasser Arafat with Nasser and King Hussein.

They built up their forces among the refugees in Jordan and began raiding into Israel, quickly rising to prominence on exaggerated tales of their successes. But as charismatic as Yasser Arafat was, he had difficulty controlling his own party, let alone the radical factions. By 1970 the King of Jordan had enough and drove them out in a short but bloody struggle.

King Hussein inspecting captured Israeli equipment after the Battle of Karameh, 1968. Jordanian troops were mostly responsible for the victory but Fatah got the credit.

Next the Palestinians moved into Lebanon and started raiding again. Their arrival tipped the fragile balance of power there and civil war broke out, with Fatah as one of the most powerful factions. When they seemed about to win, the Lebanese Christians invited Syria in to stop them. Eventually a stalemate held with the Palestinians mostly restricted to a zone along the Israeli border.

Fatah members in Beirut, 1979.

By now Fatah had alienated Jordan, Syria, and most of Lebanon. The next shoe to drop was Egypt, which made a separate peace with Israel and became a pariah across the Arab world. Israel would never again have to worry about a conventional attack, so their army was freed up to invade Lebanon in 1982. Fatah's pitiful military forces were crushed and the survivors agreed to leave for exile in Tunisia, the closest Arab country willing to take them in.

Israeli troops drive toward the strategically vital Beaufort Castle, 1982.

The years that followed were bleak. With no way to attack Israel, the party lost a lot of its relevance. It could do little to protect the refugee camps, which suffered terribly at the hands of the Israelis and then even worse from the Syrians. Many of the best leaders were assassinated or defected. Several increasingly pitiful attempts were made to return to Lebanon and carve out a new enclave there. Finally Arafat made an incredibly stupid blunder, siding with Saddam Hussein against the US-led coalition in Desert Storm, which outraged the Saudis and most of the world. Meanwhile the US and regional powers gave Syria the green light to crush any opposition in Lebanon, ending any hope of Fatah returning.

Note that by now Fatah has been betrayed by or betrayed every nearby Arab country except Iraq.

Intifada

In the late 1980s-early 1990s, the nadir of Fatah, an unexpected event turned the situation upside down. Remember Palestine, the country that all of this was supposed to be about? Fatah and the radical Marxists had fantasized that the refugees would build up an army and invade Israel from the outside. This was clearly delusional now as they had proven to be at best a speed bump in a full-scale war.

But now those forgotten Palestinians remaining in the occupied West Bank and Gaza rose up in the Intifada, a fiery but mostly peaceful campaign to oppose the occupation. They managed to accomplish more in a few years than Fatah ever had with all its terrorism and bloodshed.

The first Intifada.

Israel finally agreed to peace negotiations and Arafat returned to Palestine to lead it. But too much damage had already been done. Fatah was as corrupt and out of touch with the population as the rival groups it had supplanted. It got few concessions of any consequence from the Israelis. As the peace process dragged on it gradually dependent on the USA and even Israel for financial, military, and intelligence support. By the mid 2000s it had lost most of its popular support and credibility as an independent voice for the nation.

An older and less impressive Arafat with Bill Clinton and Ehud Barak, 2000.

An alternative to Fatah began to emerge during the intifada. Hamas was newer and hipper, employing the Islamist ideology that was popular with the younger generation. But more importantly, it hadn't proven itself to be a failure the way Fatah had. It didn't carry the baggage of decades of broken promises and compromises with the enemy

Most Palestinians were in such a desperate situation that in the 2006 election they preferred the wild psychos of Hamas. At least they were fighting against the Israelis, not asking them for help fighting their political opponents at home. Fatah took its loss in the election about as well as Trump did and fighting broke out. They held onto power in the West Bank but Hamas took Gaza.