The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (Arabic: الجبهة الشعبية لتحرير فلسطين, romanized: al-Jabhah al-Sha`biyyah li-Taḥrīr Filasṭīn, PFLP) is a secular Palestinian Marxist–Leninist and revolutionary socialist organization founded in 1967 by George Habash. It has consistently been the second-largest of the groups forming the Palestine Liberation Organization (the PLO, founded in 1964), the largest being Fatah (founded in 1959).

Ahmad Sa'adat has served as General Secretary of the PFLP since 2001. He was sentenced in December 2006 to 30 years in an Israeli prison. The PFLP has generally taken a hard line on Palestinian national aspirations, opposing the more moderate stance of Fatah. It does not recognise the State of Israel, it opposes negotiations with the Israeli government, and favours a one-state solution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.

History

In the wake of the 1967 Six Day War and the occupation of the West Bank by Israel, Palestinian Christian George Habash , established the PFLP, a resistance movement that combined Arab nationalism with Marxist-Leninist ideology.

During the 1960s and 1970s, the group gained notoriety for a series of armed attacks and plane highjacks, most notably with the capture of an Air France plane in 1967. Among the most prominent members of the group is Leila Khaled , who became an iconic symbol for Palestinian resistance and female power after she highjacked a plane headed from Rome to Athens in 1969.

In the 1970s, after Fatah – the leading secular Palestinian political party founded in 1959 by Yasser Arafat and others, the PFLP has consistently been the second-largest of the groups forming the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO), the umbrella organisation of the Palestinian national movement. But while Fatah developed links with Arab leaders and sought a less radical approach, the PFLP took a different route.

Like its founder Habash who had become disenchanted with Nasser’s Arab unity, the PFLP became disillusioned with what it saw as apathy among Middle Eastern leaders. The group therefore began fostering links with like-minded militant groups and global superpowers, developing ties with China, the Soviet Union and later on with islamists like Iran.

By the 1980s the rise of Islamist movements through a popular strategy of suicide bombings, particularly by Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, the PFLP began to lose ground as one of the leading resistance movements in Gaza and the West Bank. Furthermore, the fall of the Soviet Union left many leftist activists disoriented.

When the PLO signed the 1993 Oslo peace accords with Israel which marked the start of the Palestinian-Israeli peace process, the PFLP attempted to reinforce its position among Palestinian resistance groups by consigning to a group of Palestinian organisations that opposed the agreement.

After the occurrence of the First Intifada and the subsequent Oslo Accords the PFLP had difficulty establishing itself in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. At that time (1993–96) the popularity of Hamas was rapidly increasing.

In 1999, the PFLP accepted the formation of the Palestine Authority - the interim self-governing body established as a result of the Oslo Accords to run areas of the West Bank and Gaza - and sought to join the administration of Yasser Arafat, chairman of PLO and leader of the Fatah political party.

The group’s armed military wing, known as the Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades, is particularly active in Gaza where it has fought against Israel alongside Hamas and PIJ militants.

Ahmad Sa’adat

Ahmad Sa’adat took over as the secretary general of Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) after Israel’s assassination of Abu Ali Mustafa in 2001; he was imprisoned by the Palestinian Authority (PA) in Jericho a year later. He leads the PFLP’s ‘People’s Pulse‘ list which is contesting the May 2021 legislative elections.

In January 2006, while in prison, he was elected as a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC). A month later, Israel stormed the PA prison and took Sa’adat and five other inmates; he was then sentenced to 30 years in prison by an Israeli military court. He is currently held in solitary confinement.

Sa’adat was born in 1953 in al-Bireh (Ramallah). He was involved in student politics and joined the PFLP in 1969, and was gradually rose up through the group’s ranks. He has been imprisoned a number of times by Israel and the PA.

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