By Martin Suchanek
FOR DECADES, the Palestinian left was a central force in the liberation struggle against Zionist expulsion, colonisation and the imperialist order. It reached its peak in the 1960s and 1970s; it also played a significant, sometimes leading, role in the first Intifada from 1987 to 1993.
Since then, however, its influence among the Palestinian masses has declined. The crisis of practically all organised movements has been undeniable for decades. The factors behind this decline are manifold.
A number of groups on the Palestinian left aligned themselves with the PLO leadership in the early 1990s and more or less supported the Oslo Accords with Israel. In return, they received an albeit smaller share of the sinecures of the Palestinian Authority. Politically, however, they discredited themselves because they ultimately degenerated into political accomplices of this very authority and its policies.
Other resistance organisations—above all the PFLP and also the majority of the DFLP—rightly rejected the reactionary Oslo Agreement, which was supposed to have led to peace with recognition of settler colonialism and a Palestinian state that was barely viable as early as 1993, from the outset. Their criticism of the sell-out to imperialism and Zionism was to prove historically and politically correct within just a few years. Nevertheless, these movements also lost influence.
There is no doubt that these consistently anti-Zionist sections of the Palestinian left, as well as opposition forces around Fatah, were much more exposed to repression by the occupying forces (and at times also by the Palestinian Authority). However, this does not ultimately explain why the PFLP and DFLP, for example, were unable to benefit from the increasingly obvious failure of the policies of the PLO majority and Fatah, but were themselves pushed to the political margins by the antagonism between Fatah and Hamas.
In addition, the collapse of the Soviet Union plunged large sections of the Palestinian left into ideological confusion, and in some cases also into a financial crisis. In addition to the USSR, ‘anti-Western’ reactionary Arab regimes, which had previously provided a certain degree of protection for the Palestinian left (and to which it had opportunistically adapted), either collapsed or changed course more or less spectacularly in order to save their skins. Even Syria, which remained the only constant point of retreat for the foreign leaders of the Palestinian left, turned to the USA and supported it in 1991 in the first Iraq war with around 17,000 soldiers.
These factors are an important, but ultimately not the decisive cause of the crisis of the Palestinian left. Undoubtedly, the fact that it proved incapable of adapting its strategy and policies to the changed conditions of the liberation struggle after the first Intifada played an important role. It did this in a more empirical and tactical way, but not by scrutinising its actual political strategy, which had been developed in the 1960s.
This applies in particular to the PFLP, whose strategy, tactics and programme we will focus on in the following article for several reasons. Firstly, for decades it was the largest and in many respects the leading organisation of the Palestinian left, advocating a consistent struggle against the Zionist occupation and for the liberation of the whole of Palestine by revolutionary means.
Secondly—and related to this—it developed its own conception of the revolution in Palestine. The document Strategy for the Liberation of Palestine adopted at its second congress in 1969, comprehensively sets out its analysis and political conclusions.1 A critical examination and evaluation is essential for revolutionaries who want to contribute to the development of a revolutionary strategy and programme for the liberation struggle. The document not only sets out a line and assessment for the past, but the PFLP itself points out in the introduction to the publication of the text in 2017 that, ‘this document lays out the fundamental understandings and analysis of the PFLP in relation to the colonization of Palestine, the forces of the revolution and the forces arrayed against the Palestinian people’.2
Although many important changes have taken place since 1969, the organisation states: ‘the fundamental analysis presented here remains the guiding political framework of a leftist, revolutionary approach to the liberation of Palestine—an approach that we view as fundamentally necessary to achieving victory and liberation in Palestine.’3
From the Nakba to the dominance of pan-Arab nationalism
Before we turn to that document and the politics of the PFLP, we will briefly outline various stages of the liberation struggle from the Nakba (catastrophe) of 1948 to the founding of the PFLP in order to provide a background for the development of the Palestinian left. Then we will look at the further development of the struggle and the politics of the PFLP.
As is well known, the founding of Israel was accompanied by the expulsion of around 750,000 to 800,000 Palestinians, more than half of the population at the time. This catastrophe is not only a historical defeat and a central event for the establishment of a new, imperialist order in the Middle East. The ignominious defeat of the Arab states and their military forces, the Arab Legion, also raised the question of its causes. At the University of Beirut in particular, a critical discussion developed and deepened, according to which the weaknesses of the Arab states and their leaderships should also be considered as causes for the defeat.
The disunity and fragmentation of the Middle East into numerous Arab states as well as their economic and social backwardness were responsible for the defeat. What was needed was unity and modernisation of Arab societies. Even if these points refer to the class basis of the respective regimes, the discourses among Arab intellectuals in the 1950s were basically characterised by a radical bourgeois or petty bourgeois nationalism.
At the same time, however, conditions in the Arab states themselves shifted with the rise of pan-Arab nationalism. In 1952, the coup by the Free Officers movement in Egypt brought Gamal Abdel Nasser to power. He broadened his social base beyond layers of the intelligentsia, the officer caste and the middle classes through land reform and established a Bonapartist regime.
In the struggle against British imperialism for control of the Suez Canal, Nasserism moved closer to the Soviet Union. The construction of the Aswan Dam, the nationalisation of the Suez canal and further state capitalist reforms brought the conflict with imperialism to a head.
In the Suez crisis of 1956-1957, Egypt emerged victorious against Britain, France and Israel, who were not supported by the USA because it wanted to avoid a major confrontation with the Soviet Union. This political success increased the prestige of Nasserism enormously. Pan-Arab nationalism took hold in Syria, Iraq and other countries and became a powerful political and ideological current. At the same time, the split in the Arab camp deepened, with the Gulf monarchies firmly on the side of the USA.
LAN and Fatah
During this phase, two organisations essential to the Palestinian liberation struggle were founded. Around 1952, the League of Arab Nationalists (LAN) was formed, and grew strongly, especially in Jordan, and quickly founded branches in other states. The LAN was initially a bourgeois nationalist organisation, but moved to the left under the influence of Nasserism and advocated a form of the stages theory of revolution from the outset. In the late 1950s and during the 1960s, under the influence of younger militants such as George Habash and Nayef Hawatmeh, it developed to the left, towards ‘Marxism-Leninism’, that is, with a Stalinist and Maoist flavour.
The other organisation that was to take on a leading role in the PLO as early as 1965 was Fatah, which was founded in Kuwait in 1957. Unlike Pan-Arabism, which saw the Palestinian revolution as part of the overall Arab revolution, Fatah was an early advocate of the primacy of the struggle for Palestine. This was to focus on its own nation and stay out of the internal struggles of all Arab states (just as they, in turn, stayed out of the political struggles of the Palestinians). Politically, Fatah was a bourgeois-nationalist liberation organisation, but from the outset it included all possible ideological currents (including those that considered themselves Marxist). It was quicker than others to focus on guerrilla warfare against the Zionist state, which earned it enormous prestige among Palestinian youth, a massive influx of fighters and political support. The heroism of the Fatah fighters in the Battle of Karame on 21 March 1968 finally led to the group establishing itself as the most popular and strongest force in the resistance, enabling it to take over the leadership of the PLO in 1968.
The defeat of the Arab states in the Six Day War in 1967 marked another political turning point. Israel occupied the Golan Heights, the West Bank and the Sinai peninsula. However, this represented a devastating defeat for pan-Arabism and Nasserism, not only militarily but above all politically. Even though the alliance of Egypt, Syria and other Arab states was able to achieve initial successes in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the Israeli army pushed the Syrian forces back again and was able to stop the advance of Egyptian troops. In contrast to 1967, this allowed an ‘honourable’ start to negotiations on a ceasefire and ultimately paved the way for a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt and the return of Sinai.
The defeat in the Six Day War also meant that the LAN fell far behind Fatah politically among the Palestinians. The founding of the PFLP in 1968 (partly from parts of the LAN) was a reaction both to the failure of Egypt and Syria and to the political dominance of Fatah.
However, before we look at their strategy in detail, let us continue with our sketch of the liberation struggle.
Guerrilla warfare as the main form
The late 1960s and 1970s were characterised by the dominance of guerrilla warfare. Even though individual groups such as the Palestinian Communist Party (now the Palestinian People’s Party), which emerged from the Jordanian CP in 1982, always rejected the armed struggle, it eked out a reformist existence because, under the Israeli occupation and military rule, all Palestinian organisations were banned, imposing extreme restrictions on the legal room for activity, including trades unions, in the occupied territories.
However, the focus on guerrilla warfare had far-reaching consequences for the liberation movement and the left. Firstly, only the population in the refugee camps outside the areas controlled by Israel—and after the lost Six-Day War this also meant outside the West Bank and Gaza—actually formed the recruiting ground for the resistance, the active base in the struggle. The guerrilla strategy also led everyone—Fatah and the left—to a further narrowing of the actual fighting forces, namely those who could be recruited for the guerrilla, i.e. for a professional armed struggle.
The ‘remaining’ population, i.e. the vast majority of displaced workers and peasants or those living under occupation, ultimately functioned as passive supporters of the struggle, who could only provide material, moral and political support. Even if Leninists do not exclude any form of struggle per se, as Lenin himself explains in “The Partisan War”, it must always be understood as an ultimately subordinate form in the interplay with other forms of class struggle.4
The bourgeois leadership around Arafat as well as the Palestinian left, however, declared it to be the main form of the struggle for liberation—also due to a justified demarcation from the legalism and mechanism of most Stalinist CPs in the Arab region. The superiority of the ‘Marxist-Leninist’ party would therefore be proven by the fact that it would lead the guerrilla struggle more decisively and resolutely than bourgeois or petty bourgeois forces and was therefore called upon to lead the revolution.
This also led to the fact that alongside guerrilla warfare, i.e. armed attacks on Israeli units from neighbouring states (above all Lebanon, Syria and, until Black September, Jordan), individual terrorism emerged as a form of struggle among the Palestinian left, especially at the beginning of the 1970s, with all the consequences already categorically criticised by Lenin and Trotsky. One of these was that until the 1980s, organising in the occupied territories was neglected, even though mass protests against settlement policies, tax increases and the theft of land and resources (especially water) took place there time and again. However, this would have required other methods of struggle than focusing on recruiting for small, illegal guerrilla units.
Analysis and strategy of the PFLP
The basic problem of the Palestinian left was that, ironically, it agreed with Fatah on the nature of the revolution, namely that it would be a national-democratic one. Therefore, its goal could only be the establishment of a unified, democratic state of Palestine. This would be achieved through an alliance of the working class, peasantry and petty bourgeoisie, whose political representation was considered to be the PLO leadership.
In its central document, “Strategy for the Liberation of Palestine” (1969), the PFLP rightly states that revolutionaries need a clear understanding of the nature of the revolution, the different classes, their goals, enemies and allies, and that this itself is only possible on the basis of scientific socialism, a revolutionary theory.
This claim undoubtedly represents a correct starting point, which distinguishes the PFLP (as well as other traditional organisations of the Palestinian left) favourably from current, ‘post-Marxist’ or postmodernist-inspired, ultimately petty bourgeois political currents. We also fundamentally share the position that every revolution, if it is to be successful, requires a revolutionary political leadership, a party that acts on this basis (and, of course, constantly subjects this conception to scrutiny in the light of the experience of the class struggle itself).
However, the PFLP’s Marxism—and thus also its strategy, its programme and its idea of a revolutionary party—is, like that of the majority of the Palestinian left, influenced by Stalinism and especially by Maoism.
Stages theory
From them it adopts the stages theory of the revolution, according to which the Palestinian revolution is in the national-democratic stage. Although the PFLP polemicises against the misconception that the national liberation struggle is not a class struggle, it maintains that the current phase is not a socialist one:
‘As for the contention that we are now passing through a stage of national liberation and not of socialist revolution, this relates to the subject of which classes are engaged in the struggle, which of them are with and which are against the revolution at each of its stages, but it does not eliminate the class question or the question of class struggle.
‘National liberation battles are also class battles. They are battles between colonialism and the feudal and capitalist class whose interests are linked with those of the colonialist on the one hand, and the other classes of the people representing the greater part of the nation on the other.’5
It went on, ‘to sum up, our class view of the forces of the Palestinian revolution must take into account the special nature of the class situation in underdeveloped communities and the fact that our battle is one of national liberation, as well as the special nature of the Zionist peril.’6
The task of the revolutionary forces would therefore be to place the national liberation struggle at the centre. This stage must be completed first in order to then advance to the socialist revolution.
For the PFLP, however, this in no way means that all classes fight equally for the revolution or form its backbone. For them, the working class is ultimately the revolutionary class. But at the stage of the national revolution, their interests are congruent with those of the peasantry. Therefore, in their strategic orientation, workers and peasants, the class of wage earners and small landowners or landless owners of the means of production, always emerge as the central force of the revolution. In the words of the PFLP:
‘The material of the Palestinian revolution, its mainstay and its basic forces are the workers and peasants. These classes form the majority of the Palestinian people and physically fill all camps, villages and poor urban districts.
Here lie the forces of revolution… the forces of change.’7
The PFLP is therefore well aware that workers, peasants and farmers are two different classes with different class interests. These do not emerge in the democratic stage of the revolution alone. Consequently, the revolutionary force of liberation that the PFLP presents itself as is not an organisation or party of the working class, but a revolutionary workers‘ and peasants‘ party.
This view is still defended by supporters of the stages theory today by claiming a qualitative difference in the character and tasks of the revolution in the developed capitalist (imperialist) countries and the semi-colonial or colonised world. Thus, Samar Al-Saleh, in her defence of the PFLP strategy, “The Palestinian Left Will Not Be Hijacked—A Critique of Palestine: A Socialist Introduction”,8 writes ‘the late Marxist-Leninist philosopher Domenico Losurdo qualifies the frontist strategy taken in national liberation struggles, writing, “while the proletariat is the agency of the emancipatory process that breaks the chains of capitalist rule, the alliance required to break the shackles of national oppression is broader.”‘9
Thi,s and similar formulations, by no means only mean that the working class must try to win over the broadest possible layers of the rural and urban petty bourgeoisie as a leading revolutionary force. Rather, it is about a strategic alliance of the ‘revolutionary classes’ with all forces that oppose colonialism and imperialism. This includes above all the urban petty bourgeoisie and the middle classes, but possibly also those sections of the capitalist class whose interests are not aligned with those of the colonialists/imperialists.
This becomes clearest when we ask ourselves which mode of production, which class would rule under a regime that brings such a national revolution to power. It can only be a capitalist mode of production. Even if the personnel of such a regime would largely come from the petty bourgeoisie, the middle classes, it would still represent a form of rule by capital, not by the workers. For that, it would have to go beyond a merely democratic revolution, expropriate capital, establish a democratically planned economy for key sectors of the economy, etc.
It is not uncommon in the history of bourgeois revolutions that their most determined champions only came from a minority of the bourgeois class and were often recruited from the petty bourgeoisie (especially from the intelligentsia). Once in power, however, they must inevitably establish a bourgeois regime—in whatever political form (Bonapartism, democracy, theocracy, etc.)—because a petty bourgeois mode of production can never be the dominant one.
However, this question of the class character of the regime that will bring about a revolution either remains vague in the PFLP or is answered in line with the stages theory in such a way that the struggle for a socialist upheaval can only come to the fore after a successful anti-colonial or national revolution.
Therefore, there is no need for a separate workers‘ party, but the popular front can be based on two classes with different interests. The revolutionary party that is now to be formed is itself a cross-class party, because the different interests of the working class and the peasantry do not play a decisive role in the democratic revolution.
Even if the ideology of the PFLP is to some extent linked to the misconception of the character of the Russian Revolution of 1905 as a democratic revolution, it falls far short of this early Bolshevism. The latter had always resolutely opposed any attempt to create a common party of workers, peasants and farmers, but rather criticised it as an abandonment of the class standpoint in the democratic revolution. Such a cross-class party would only be possible if the working class deprioritised the pursuit of its own specific class interests—both its immediate economic interests and, above all, its historical, long term interests. And since the representatives of the bourgeoisie, but also of the petty bourgeoisie, however narrow-minded and short-sighted they may otherwise be, have a reliable class instinct regarding the question of property, they will demand not only verbal assurances from the representatives of the proletariat, but also deeds that prove that they are not pursuing a radical workers‘ politics.
A common party of workers, peasants and farmers thus necessarily represents a shackle for the proletariat—but it does not appear as such if one understands the revolution against Zionism and imperialism in the sense of the stages theory. In reality, however, like the entire stages theory, it must lead to the political subordination of the proletariat and to its being unable to become the hegemonic force in the liberation struggle.
Strategic and tactical alliances
In line with the stages theory, the PFLP is in favour of a strategic alliance with the petty bourgeoisie. The Strategy for the Liberation of Palestine analyses not only the working class and peasantry, but also the other classes of Palestinian society:
‘The bourgeoisie not only represents a very small part of the Palestinian nation (0.5 – 1 % of the community), but also lives under completely different conditions. Even if some of them may support the armed struggle, the bourgeoisie, which lives mainly in exile and not in the refugee camps, has for the most part made its peace with Zionism, imperialism and reactionary regimes.’
For example, the Palestinian bourgeoisie in Jordan, as the PFLP aptly points out in later analyses, has become a subordinate part of the capitalist class there.
In fact, according to the PFLP, the Palestinian bourgeoisie could be written off for the revolution. The petty bourgeoisie was different. As in other semi-colonies, this represented a rather large, heterogeneous class: Small business owners, craftsmen, students, teachers, lawyers, engineers, doctors and many other representatives of the ‘educated classes’.
Even if it lives under completely different, privileged conditions from the workers, peasants and farmers, it represents a strategic ally in the revolution, despite its fluctuations.
Until the Oslo Accords, Fatah represented this fighting, albeit wavering, petty bourgeoisie, while the PLO represented the joint liberation front or organisation. However, even before the Oslo Accords, the PFLP’s relationship with the PLO leadership was repeatedly conflictual, to the point of forming its own ‘leftwing’ alliances to exert pressure on it (e.g. the National Salvation Front in the 1980s). But the struggle for PLO unity was always a constant in PFLP policy, which was intended to prevent the wavering Fatah from defecting to the enemy camp or making too many concessions. In an interview in 1985, George Habash made it clear that the aim was to keep rightwing forces in the PLO on course:
‘In short, we rely on the historic and strategic alliances of the revolution.’10 And in the same interview: ‘In this respect, we proceed from a firm belief in the necessity of the return of the PLO to its national line so that it can remain a framework uniting the Palestinian people and acting as its sole legitimate representative.’11
But this unity, even if it is achieved, only means unity based on the programme of the PLO and its leading organisation. For Fatah, unity always openly means the unity of all classes of the Palestinian nation. At times, this was also ideologised by the idea that the Nakba and the Israeli occupation had also levelled out all class differences. This view ultimately only forms the ideological cement for the fact that Fatah—and thus the PLO dominated by it—always envisaged a bourgeois, capitalist, democratic Palestine, i.e. one in which the Palestinian bourgeoisie would rule.
When the PFLP talks about the workers, peasants and farmers being the leading forces of the revolution, it only means that they would consistently lead the national liberation struggle, fight most resolutely, while the bourgeoisie betrays in advance, and petty bourgeois forces waver. In other words, the question of which class should lead the revolution is limited to the one that most resolutely drives the struggle for a bourgeois-democratic Palestine. In the socio-economic field, with regard to the social order, the PFLP recognises in advance the inevitability of a capitalist stage of development in Palestine after the revolution. However, this means considering it inevitable that the revolution will bring the capitalist classes to power and assign the workers, peasants and farmers a subordinate position as an exploited class.
This is the inevitable result of any stages theory—especially if one adheres to it very consistently, as the PFLP does.
Guerrilla strategy, nationalism and international politics
For the PFLP, until the first Intifada, armed struggle, or more precisely guerrilla warfare, was the decisive strategic means of struggle against Zionism and imperialism. Until the end of the 1980s, it was in fundamental agreement with the PLO Charter and Fatah, albeit with a different theoretical justification.
But for the PFLP, in contrast to Fatah, the workers and peasants formed the central force of the armed struggle, specifically the fedayeen in the refugee camps in Jordan (until the early 1970s), Syria and Lebanon.
The workers and peasants in Israel and the occupied territories did not form a central force of the revolution until the first Intifada. Israeli military rule (and the Jordanian army after Black September, 1970) effectively made guerrilla warfare impossible there, so the focus was on recruitment in Lebanon and Syria, where the PFLP was able to build a real base. As the second largest faction in the PLO, it also always had a certain ideological and political influence among Palestinians both in the occupied territories and in the diaspora.
Since the PFLP (and most other currents of the Palestinian left) pursued the same objective as Fatah in the national-democratic stage of the Palestinian revolution, it was only on the field of armed struggle that it could prove itself to be the force called upon to lead the people.
However, this turned out to be impossible from the outset. Fatah had started the guerrilla struggle earlier than the LAN and PFLP. It had greater financial resources to train and arm the guerrillas and, after the battle of Karame, enormous prestige. The PFLP—and other organisations—attempted to compensate for this by turning to individual terrorism (which the PLO itself also carried out with more professional means), attacks and kidnappings. Although this turn, which lasted until around 1972, had all the disadvantages of individual terrorism, it did not help the PFLP (like other organisations that adhered to this method of fighting for much longer and completely fetishised it) in its competition with Fatah.
In fact, in the 1970s and 1980s, the guerrilla strategy increasingly proved to be a dead end. It became increasingly clear that the liberation of Palestine through guerrilla warfare, no matter how self-sacrificing, relying on recruits from the camps, could stir up Israeli retribution but in no way overthrow Zionism. In addition, the Arab regimes suffered a military catastrophe after 1967 and, after 1973, increasingly began to make peace with Israel.
Above all, however, the guerrilla strategy showed its limits from the outset with regard to the active base of the revolution. Ultimately, only those who choose a life as professional armed fighters, or are recruited as such, can fight in the guerrilla forces. The mass of workers, the urban and rural petty bourgeoisie and the middle classes are not involved in the proclaimed (or de facto) main form of the struggle, but are instead forced into the role of passive supporters.
This is also the decisive difference from the Leninist position on partisan struggle or guerrillas. As Lenin shows, under certain conditions, Marxism cannot exclude guerrilla warfare as a form of struggle, even signaling an upsurge in mass action (e.g. by peasants). But its role must be understood against the background of the overall movement of class struggle, as an ultimately subordinate moment.
The elevation of guerrilla warfare to the main strategic tool, on the other hand, essentially reflects the class character of the leading forces of the Palestinian liberation struggle of the 1960s to 1980s—revolutionary petty bourgeois or bourgeois nationalism. Fatah stands for the bourgeois, the PFLP for the radical petty bourgeois wing of the movement.
Nationalism and Marxism
This is also expressed in the PFLP’s relationship to nationalism. For it, there is no contradiction between Marxism and nationalism. Or, in George Habash’s words: ‘I see no contradiction between being an Arab nationalist and being a true socialist.’12
This is not an accidental difference from the Marxist position, as emphasised by Lenin, for example, in “Critical Remarks on the National Question”:
‘Marxism cannot be reconciled with nationalism, be it even of the “most just”, “purest”, most refined and civilised brand. In place of all forms of nationalism, Marxism advances internationalism.’13
Precisely because nationalism is inextricably linked to bourgeois society, Marxism must understand and grasp it as a fundamental phenomenon. This also includes understanding the right of nations to self-determination and supporting the justified struggle against national oppression. Only by consistently advocating this bourgeois-democratic demand can the programme of the socialist revolution—the fusion of nations into a higher unity—one day become a reality. In order to pave the way for this goal, the working class must unconditionally recognise the right to self-determination of the oppressed nation. Therefore the working class must include this demand in its programme, indeed under certain conditions it must fight for leadership, attempt to become a hegemonic force, itself. But this is precisely why the revolutionaries of the oppressed nation themselves must never sink to the standpoint of nationalism, as Lenin emphasises: ‘combat all national oppression? Yes, of course! Fight for any kind of national development, for “national culture” in general?—Of course not.’14
In essence, Habash and the PFLP’s misconception of the nation reflects their conception of the democratic nature of the revolution and strategic alliance with Fatah in the form of the PLO.
International strategy?
But that is not all. The PFLP has also pursued a problematic international strategy from the outset. It rightly criticises Fatah’s refusal to recognise the inseparable link between the Palestinian liberation struggle and the anti-imperialist revolution in the Arab states. This led to the leadership around Arafat repeatedly looking for the wrong allies in the imperialist world and pursuing an opportunistic policy of ‘non-interference’ towards reactionary Arab regimes, such as Saudi Arabia or Egypt under Anwar Sadat.
The PFLP counters this with an alliance of ‘revolutionary forces’ on a global scale. But who are they? The working class, the poor peasants, worldwide? No. Rather, The Strategy for the Liberation of Palestine speaks of the People’s Republic of China, the USSR, Cuba and the other ‘socialist states’, i.e. bureaucratically degenerate workers’ states. Even if the PFLP is of course aware that the USSR recognised the founding of Israel before the Western states and did not always act consistently, it is ultimately described not only as an ally, but as the leading force in the struggle of the ‘revolutionary force’.15
In addition to the ‘socialist states’, this also included so-called progressive, anti-imperialist or patriotic, Arab regimes—above all Egypt under Nasser, North Yemen and Syria. With the collapse of Stalinism, the People’s Republic of Yemen and Egypt’s defection to the US camp, the only remaining close ally over the years was Syria, to which the PFLP remained loyal even during the Syrian revolution. Today, Iran has also been added to the list.
In the entire geostrategic thinking of the PFLP, in the struggle on a global scale, there are ultimately not two classes, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, but two ‘camps’. Even if the PFLP often speaks of internationalism, its politics are fundamentally different from proletarian internationalism. The latter is based on class struggle as an international struggle—and thus on the unity of the working class. Of course, this never arises spontaneously but must rather be achieved through the conscious action, the conscious—theoretically and programmatically guided—intervention of revolutionaries, by turning existing spontaneous tendencies into a conscious movement. Its highest and indispensable expression for the international revolution is the revolutionary workers’ International—not a collection of national revolutionary movements and state capitalist, Bonapartist regimes.
This represents the direct opposite of a workers’ International, which becomes particularly tragic when the working class and peasantry of these countries rise up against their supposedly ‘progressive’ regimes. The PFLP is then faced with the question of either opposing the ostensibly anti-imperialist regimes—or supporting them and thus supporting the counter-revolutionary oppression of workers, peasants and farmers.
Its own strategic conception points precisely in this direction. The adaptation to the Bonapartist, capitalist regimes therefore runs like a red thread through the history of the PFLP. It follows logically from a false analysis and strategy, the stages theory.
The first Intifada
More than anything else, the climax of the struggle of the Palestinian population in the occupied territories and in Israel has put the policies of the PFLP and all Palestinian organisations to the test.
The first Intifada broke out at the end of 1987 after the Israeli armed forces murdered four young people in the Jabaliya refugee camp in Gaza. Like all mass uprisings, it undoubtedly had the characteristics of a spontaneous uprising, a mass revolution that took everyone involved by surprise. However, it would be wrong to understand the Intifada as an expression of ‘pure spontaneity’.
Firstly, massive uprisings and strikes by workers and shopkeepers have repeatedly shaken the West Bank and Gaza since 1967. Secondly, even before the Intifada, the liberation movement was turning more towards the population in these areas, partly because the guerrilla strategy had effectively reached its limits. It had been the first to begin increasingly illegal and semi-legal work among the masses. However, the PLO organisations (Fatah, PFLP, DFLP) also turned more strongly to this work before the Intifada:16
‘By 1987, at the latest, there was a whole network of local organisations everywhere in the occupied territories, which together formed a complete infrastructure: trade unions, student movements, women’s committees, medical aid committees, etc. All PLO organisations were involved. In the women’s and labour movements, DFLP, PFLP were leading, while Fatah had clearly focused on the Shabiba movement (a youth movement). Obviously, in 1987, there was hardly a village, camp or neighbourhood where Shabiba was not represented.’17
Fatah, as well as the PFLP and DFLP, enjoyed massive support among the insurgent population. Their cadres were recognised as the leadership from the outset. In January 1988, these four organisations formed the United National Leadership of the Intifada’ (VNFI), which assumed the coordinating, leading role in the following years.
However, the PFLP forces working in the occupied territories (as well as the DFLP, and in some cases Fatah) had far greater room for manoeuvre vis-à-vis their exile leaders. The VNFI, too, should by no means be seen as being completely controlled ‘from the outside’, i.e. by the PLO leadership. The first Intifada and the preparatory organisational work not only produced mass organisations, but also a movement leadership that looked to the exile leadership with a great deal of respect, but also had a certain degree of independence.
In addition, during the first Intifada, committees were also formed in various areas, not only to coordinate actions, but also to ensure the supply of the population during the general strikes and walkouts, thus representing embryonic alternative state structures. The illegalisation of all these structures by the Israeli occupation in August 1988 was undoubtedly a significant blow to them.
The Intifada bore all the hallmarks of a revolutionary situation; it was a revolutionary mass uprising. However, it also revealed the political weaknesses of the Palestinian left.
Even though the PFLP (and DFLP) had carried out important organisational work in the occupied territories, the Intifada contradicted the revolutionary scheme of these organisations, which had declared the guerrilla war to be the main form of struggle. In contrast, the Intifada was a movement that united all strata of the population—including Palestinian workers in Israel—in the struggle. In retrospect, the PFLP leadership itself also recognised this fact:
‘As for armed struggle, the PFLP advocated it until the Intifada. Under armed struggle, it is the fedayeen who fight, but under the Intifada, it is all the Palestinian people: children, women, artists, everybody. With the Intifada, I felt for the first time that it was possible to achieve freedom and independence in some part of Palestine.’18
Habash actually summarises one of the real limits of guerrilla strategy here—the narrowing of the base of the fighters. But he and the PFLP stop at stating the facts and a cessation of the guerrilla struggle. They do not, however, subject the organisation’s overall strategy to any critical review and have therefore refrained from any real redefinition of their policy to this day.
This problem is exacerbated by the adherence to the stages theory by all currents of the Stalinist-influenced Palestinian left, regardless of whether they led the armed struggle or not. In the Intifada, its politically disarming consequences are particularly evident. The movement is united by one goal: the end of the Israeli occupation of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
However, this not only raises the question of how it relates to the liberation of the whole of Palestine, but also which class will take power in these liberated territories should the withdrawal of the Zionist occupation be enforced. For Fatah, the question was always clear. It would be a bourgeois regime, and Fatah has successfully won over the propertied petty bourgeoisie and the petty bourgeoisie from the occupied territories since the early 1980s.
With regard to the class character of the regime of a future Palestine, however, the PFLP, DFLP and Fatah had nothing to oppose, as they themselves declared that the revolution should first concentrate on solving the national question, to which all others were subordinate.
This is why the Palestinian left, although it had mass support and a well-organised movement, failed to pursue an independent class policy in the Intifada. In order for the proletariat to become the leading class, it would have had to openly pursue its specific class interests and, above all, be prepared to resolve the question of power in its favour by establishing a revolutionary workers‘ and peasants‘ government. Whether this is possible in the whole of Palestine or initially only in individual parts is a question of the balance of power, no matter how precarious such a form might have been in view of the occupation.
The Palestinian left, however, consciously rejected the direct link between the struggle for national liberation and the struggle for a socialist Palestine, clinging to the stages theory instead of adopting a programme of permanent revolution.
This also meant that it was ill-prepared for the historic betrayal of the PLO leadership under Arafat. The latter supported the Oslo Accords, while the DFLP split over this issue. The PFLP correctly rejected it from the outset. But it did not pursue an alternative political objective itself.
The Oslo Agreement and its consequences
The first Intifada thus ended in a political sellout. The first Oslo Accords were ratified in 1993 by the then-PLO Foreign Minister Mahmoud Abbas (not by the PLO itself). It contained the general but vague agreement that the Palestinians would be given the West Bank and Gaza as a state in return for the recognition of Israel. The status of Jerusalem remained unresolved and the issue of the return of displaced persons and settlements in the West Bank was to be clarified in future negotiations.
In 1995, the second Oslo Accords followed, according to which the West Bank was divided into different levels of ‘autonomy’, the so-called ‘Area A’ under the control of the Palestinian Authority, ‘Area B’ with shared control and ‘Area C’, which continue to be directly controlled by the Israeli occupation.
The agreement proved to be a political disaster. With the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, the Zionist right made it clear that it would not accept even a residual state of Palestine that was dependent on Israel and unable to survive on its own. The Zionist government continued to cover up settlement construction and land theft. By 2000, some 200,000 additional settlements had been built in the West Bank.
From 2000 to 2005, the second Intifada followed as a reaction to this development and provocations by Ariel Sharon, but it ended without any visible result for the Palestinians. The PFLP, DFLP, the left wing of Fatah (al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades), Hamas and Islamic Jihad took part in the uprising, while the Fatah majority and the Palestinian Authority did not. In fact, they became an extension of the occupation and imperialism.
From strategic alliance with Fatah to alliance with Hamas
However, these years also brought with them a massive shift in the balance of power among the Palestinians, as the 2006 elections made clear. The Islamist Hamas won a majority of 74 of the 132 seats, Fatah 45. The Palestinian left also suffered a defeat, with the PFLP winning 3 seats (4.2 % of the vote) and the alliance of DFLP, PVP (Palestinian People’s Party; formerly PKP) and FIDA (Palestinian Democratic Union) 2 seats.
The left was effectively marginalised by the polarisation between Fatah and Hamas—and this did not change even after 2006 and the de facto split between the West Bank and Gaza. However, Hamas became the leading force in the national resistance.
The PFLP (and effectively also the DFLP) reacted to this development by readjusting the stages theory and forming a strategic alliance with the ‘petty bourgeoisie’. With Fatah now largely absent from the liberation struggle (even if the PFLP remains in the Fatah-led PLO), Hamas stepped into the limelight as a strategic partner. For over a decade, the PFLP has been in what it calls a ‘strategic alliance’ with Hamas.
The Palestinian left (PFLP and DFLP) is in fact subordinating itself politically to the leadership of Hamas—just as it had subordinated itself to Fatah in the days of the PLO. The ‘Rejection Front’ against the Oslo Accords, which the Palestinian left formed with Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other groups, is not just a temporary military agreement, but basically a strategic alliance that is tantamount to the subordination of the Palestinian working class.
The Rejection Front is by no means limited to organisations in Palestine. For years, it has also extended to an alliance with the ‘anti-imperialist’ regimes in Damascus and Tehran. The Islamist regime is glorified as a reliable ally in the liberation struggle, for example, at a meeting between the PFLP and Hamas and representatives of Iran in 2017:
‘While many regional countries are trying to normalise their relations with the Zionist regime, Iran is the standard-bearer of combating Israel and the cause of liberating Palestine.’19
The PFLP and the DFLP have formed the so-called ‘Axis of Resistance’ with Iran, Syria, Hamas and Lebanese Hezbollah for years. At the beginning of the Syrian revolution, this crumbled as Hamas sided with the insurgents against Assad. Not so the Palestinian left, which remained loyal to its allies and denounced the Syrian revolution as a Zionist conspiracy.
‘The leftist and nationalist strands of the Palestinian political elite maintained their support for Damascus—like the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP)—declaring that the Syrian revolution was a Zionist plot.’20
Accordingly, the PFLP also welcomed the conquest of Aleppo by the Assad regime’s troops as a ‘significant victory’. Kayed al-Ghoul, a member of the PFLP politburo, explained his organisation’s position to The New Arab as follows: ‘supporting Syria and considering the events in Aleppo and other cities part of a plot to fragment the Syrian state.’21
This position undoubtedly represents one of, if not the political low point of the PFLP’s policy. However, the compliant support of the Syrian counter-revolution follows not simply from an obscure conspiracy theory, but fundamentally from the reactionary logic of understanding the global conflict as a struggle between ‘camps’ and not as an international class struggle.
As important and necessary as it is to show solidarity with the fighters of the PFLP and the entire liberation movement against the Zionist state and to fight against their criminalisation, a Marxist, revolutionary critique of their political analysis, their programme, their strategy and tactics is also indispensable. Only a break with the theory of stages and a policy based on the theory and programme of permanent revolution can show a way out of the leadership crisis of the Palestinian working class.
Notes
