Palestinian fedayeen
Palestinian fedayeen (from the
while most Israelis consider them to be "terrorists".Considered symbols of the
Emerging from among the Palestinian refugees who fled or were expelled from their villages as a result of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War,[5] in the mid-1950s the fedayeen began mounting cross-border operations into Israel from Syria, Egypt and Jordan. The earliest infiltrations were often to access the land's agricultural products they had lost as a result of the war, or to attack Israeli military,[citation needed] and sometimes civilian targets. The Gaza Strip, the sole territory of the All-Palestine Protectorate—a Palestinian state declared in October 1948—became the focal point of the Palestinian fedayeen activity.[6] Fedayeen attacks were directed on Gaza and Sinai borders with Israel, and as a result Israel undertook retaliatory actions, targeting the fedayeen that also often targeted the citizens of their host countries, which in turn provoked more attacks.
Fedayeen actions were cited by Israel as one of the reasons for its launching of the
Definitions of the term
The words "Palestinian" and "fedayeen" have had different meanings to different people at various points in history. According to the Sakhr Arabic-English dictionary, fida'i—the singular form of the plural fedayeen—means "one who risks his life voluntarily" or "one who sacrifices himself".[8] In their book The Arab-Israeli Conflict, Tony Rea and John Wright have adopted this more literal translation, translating the term fedayeen as "self-sacrificers".[9]
In his essay, "The Palestinian Leadership and the American Media: Changing Images, Conflicting Results" (1995), R.S. Zaharna comments on the perceptions and use of the terms "Palestinian" and "fedayeen" in the 1970s, writing:
Palestinian became synonymous with terrorists, skyjackers, commandos, and guerrillas. The term fedayeen was often used but rarely translated. This added to the mysteriousness of Palestinian groups. Fedayeen means "freedom fighter."[10][11]
Edmund Jan Osmańczyk's Encyclopedia of the United Nations and International Agreements (2002) defines fedayeen as "
Beverly Milton-Edwards describes the Palestinian fedayeen as "modern revolutionaries fighting for
History
1948 to 1956
Between 1948 and 1955, immigration by Palestinians into Israel was opposed by Arab governments,
The first struggle by Palestinian fedayeen may have been launched from Syrian territory in 1951, though most counterattacks between 1951 and 1953 were launched from Jordanian territory.[20] According to Yeshoshfat Harkabi (former head of Israeli military intelligence), these early infiltrations were limited "incursions", initially motivated by economic reasons, such as Palestinians crossing the border into Israel to harvest crops in their former villages.[20] Gradually, they developed into violent robbery and deliberate 'terrorist' attacks as fedayeen replaced the 'innocent' refugees as the perpetrators.[citation needed]
In 1953, Israeli Prime Minister
According to Martin Gilbert, between 1951 and 1955, 967 Israelis were killed in what he claims as "Arab terrorist attacks",[13] a figure Benny Morris characterizes as "pure nonsense".[23] Morris explains that Gilbert's fatality figures are "3-5 times higher than the figures given in contemporary Israeli reports" and that they seem to be based on a 1956 speech by David Ben-Gurion in which he uses the word nifga'im to refer to "casualties" in the broad sense of the term (i.e. both dead and wounded).[23] According to the Jewish Agency for Israel between 1951 and 1956, 400 Israelis were killed and 900 wounded in fedayeen attacks.[24] Dozens of these attacks are today cited by the Israeli government as "Major Arab Terrorist Attacks against Israelis prior to the 1967 Six-Day War".[25][26]
United Nations reports indicate that between 1949 and 1956, Israel launched more than seventeen raids on Egyptian territory and 31 attacks on Arab towns or military forces.[27]
From late 1954 onwards, larger scale Fedayeen operations were mounted from Egyptian territory.[20] The Egyptian government supervised the establishment of formal fedayeen groups in Gaza and the northeastern Sinai.[28] General Mustafa Hafez, commander of Egyptian army intelligence, is said to have founded Palestinian fedayeen units "to launch terrorist raids across Israel's southern border,"[29] nearly always against civilians.[30] In a speech on 31 August 1955, Egyptian President Nasser said:
- Egypt has decided to dispatch her heroes, the disciples of Pharaoh and the sons of Islam and they will cleanse the land of Palestine....There will be no peace on Israel's border because we demand vengeance, and vengeance is Israel's death.[31]
In 1955, it is reported that 260 Israeli citizens were killed or wounded by the fedayeen.[32] Some believe fedayeen attacks contributed to the outbreak of the Suez Crisis;[33] they were cited by Israel as the reason for undertaking the 1956 Sinai Campaign.[34] Others argue that Israel "engineered eve-of-war lies and deceptions.... to give Israel the excuse needed to launch its strike", such as presenting a group of "captured fedayeen" to journalists, who were in fact Israeli soldiers.[35]
In 1956, Israeli troops entered Khan Yunis in the Egyptian controlled Gaza Strip, conducting house-to-house searches for Palestinian fedayeen and weaponry.[36] During this operation, 275 Palestinians were killed, with an additional 111 killed in Israeli raids on the Rafah refugee camp.[36][37] Israel claimed these killings resulted from "refugee resistance", a claim denied by refugees;[37] there were no Israeli casualties.[37]
Suez Crisis
On 29 October 1956, the first day of
During the invasion of Sinai, Israeli forces killed fifty defenseless fedayeen on a lorry in Ras Sudar. (Reserve Lieutenant Colonel Saul Ziv told Maariv in 1995 he was haunted by this killing.)[21] After Israel took control of the Gaza Strip, dozens of fedayeen were summarily executed, mostly in two separate incidents. Sixty-six were killed in screening operations in the area; while a US diplomat estimated that of the 500 fedayeen captured by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), "about 30" were killed.[38]
1956 to 1967
Between the
During the mid and late 1960s, there emerged a number of independent Palestinian fedayeen groups who sought "the liberation of all
1967 to 1987
Fedayeen groups began joining the
The most severe act of sabotage of the fedayeen occurred on 4 July 1969, when a single militant placed three pounds of explosives under the manifold of eight pipelines carrying oil from the
West Bank
In the late 1960s, attempts were made to organize fedayeen resistance cells among the refugee population in the West Bank.[43] The stony and empty terrain of the West Bank mountains made the fedayeen easy to spot; and Israeli collective punishment against the families of fighters resulted in the fedayeen being pushed out of the West Bank altogether, within a few months.[44] Yasser Arafat reportedly escaped arrest in Ramallah by jumping out a window, as Israeli police came in the front door.[44] Without a base in the West Bank, and prevented from operating in Syria and Egypt, the fedayeen concentrated in Jordan.[44]
Jordan
After the influx of a second wave of
One such Israeli reprisal was in the Jordanian town of
On the night of 21 March 1968, Israel attacked Karameh with heavy weaponry, armored vehicles and fighter jets.[46] Fatah held its ground, surprising the Israeli military. As Israel's forces intensified their campaign, the Jordanian Army became involved, causing the Israelis to retreat in order to avoid a full-scale war.[48] By the battle's end, 100 Fatah militants had been killed, 100 wounded and 120-150 captured; Jordanian fatalities were 61 soldiers and civilians, 108 wounded; and Israeli casualties were 28 soldiers killed and 69 wounded. 13 Jordanian tanks were destroyed in the battle; while the Israelis lost 4 tanks, 3 half tracks, 2 armoured cars, and an airplane shot down by Jordanian forces.[49]
The Battle of Karameh raised the profile of the fedayeen, as they were regarded the "daring heroes of the Arab world".[50] Despite the higher Arab death toll, Fatah considered the battle a victory because of the Israeli army's rapid withdrawal.[46] Such developments prompted Rashid Khalidi to dub the Battle of Karameh the "foundation myth" of the Palestinian commando movement, whereby "failure against overwhelming odds [was] brilliantly narrated as [an] heroic triumph."[50]
Financial donations and recruitment increased as many young Arabs, including thousands of non-Palestinians, joined the ranks of the organization.
In the first week of September 1970, PFLP forces hijacked three airplanes (British, Swiss and German) at Dawson's field in Jordan. To secure the release of the passengers, the demand to free PFLP militants held in European jails was met. After everyone had disembarked, the fedayeen destroyed the airplanes on the tarmac.[45]
Black September in Jordan
On 16 September 1970,
Gaza Strip
The emergence of a fedayeen movement in the
Palestinians in Gaza were proud of their role in establishing a fedayeen movement there when no such movement existed in the West Bank at the time. The fighters were housed in refugee camps or hid in the citrus groves of wealthy Gazan landowners, carrying out raids against Israeli soldiers from these sites.[2]
The most active of the fedayeen groups in Gaza was the PFLP, an offshoot of the Arab Nationalist Movement (ANM)—who enjoyed instant popularity among the already secularized, socialist population who had come of age during Egyptian President Nasser's rule of Gaza. The emergence of armed struggle as the liberation strategy for the Gaza Strip reflected larger ideological changes within the Palestinian national movement toward political violence.
The ideology of armed struggle was, by this time, broadly secular in content; Palestinians were asked to take up arms not as part of a jihad against the infidel but to free the oppressed from the Zionist colonial regime. The vocabulary of liberation was distinctly secular.[2]
The "radical left" dominated the political scene, and the overarching slogan of the time was, "We will liberate Palestine first, then the rest of the Arab world."[2]
During Israel's 1971 military campaign to contain or control the fedayeen, an estimated 15,000 suspected fighters were rounded up and deported to detention camps in Abu Zneima and Abu Rudeis in the Sinai. Dozens of homes were
Lebanon
On 3 November 1969, the Lebanese government signed the
Israeli armoured artillery and infantry forces, supported by air force and naval units again entered Lebanon on 6 June 1982 in an operation code-named "Peace for Galilee", encountering "fierce resistance" from the Palestinian fedayeen there.[53] Israel's occupation of southern Lebanon and its siege and constant shelling of the capital Beirut in the 1982 Lebanon War, eventually forced the Palestinian fedayeen to accept an internationally brokered agreement that moved them out of Lebanon to different places in the Arab world.[41] The headquarters of the PLO was moved out of Lebanon to Tunis at this time.[41] The new PLO headquarters was destroyed during an Israeli airstrike in 1985.
During a September 2, 1982 press conference at the United Nations, Yasser Arafat stated that, "Jesus Christ was the first Palestinian fedayeen who carried his sword along the path on which the Palestinians today carry their cross."[54]
First Intifada
On 25 November 1987, PFLP-GC launched an attack, in which two fedayeen infiltrated northern Israel from an undisclosed Syrian-controlled area in southern Lebanon with hang gliders. One of them was killed at the border, while the other proceeded to land at an army camp, initially killing a soldier in a passing vehicle, then five more in the camp, before being shot dead. Thomas Friedman said that judging by commentary in the Arab world, the raid was seen as a boost to the Palestinian national movement, just as it had seemed to be almost totally eclipsed by the Iran–Iraq War.[55] Palestinians in Gaza began taunting Israeli soldiers, chanting "six to one" and the raid has been noted as a catalyst to the First Intifada.[56]
During the First Intifada, armed violence on the part of Palestinians was kept to a minimum, in favor of mass demonstrations and acts of civil disobedience.[57] However, the issue of the role of armed struggle did not die out altogether.[57] Those Palestinian groups affiliated with the PLO and based outside of historic Palestine, such as rebels within Fatah and the PFLP-GC, used the lack of fedayeen operations as their main weapon of criticism against the PLO leadership at the time.[57] The PFLP and DFLP even made a few abortive attempts at fedayeen operations inside Israel.[57] According to Jamal Raji Nassar and Roger Heacock,
[...] at least parts of the Palestinian left sacrificed all to the golden calf of armed struggle when measuring the degree of revolutionary commitment by the number of fedayeen operations, instead of focusing on the positions of power they doubtless held inside the Occupied Territories and which were major assets in struggles over a particular political line.[57]
During the First Intifada, but particularly after the signing of the Oslo Accords, the fedayeen steadily lost ground to the emerging forces of the mujaheddin, represented initially and most prominently by Hamas.[1] The fedayeen lost their position as a political force and the secular nationalist movement that had represented the first generation of the Palestinian resistance became instead a symbolic, cultural force that was seen by some as having failed in its duties.[1]
Second Intifada and current situation
After being dormant for many years, Palestinian fedayeen reactivated their operations during the Second Intifada. In August 2001, ten Palestinian commandos from the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) penetrated the electric fences of the fortified army base of Bedolah, killing an Israeli major and two soldiers and wounding seven others. One of the commandos was killed in the firefight. Another was tracked for hours and later shot in head, while the rest escaped. In Gaza, the attack produced "a sense of euphoria—and nostalgia for the Palestinian fedayeen raids in the early days of the Jewish state." Israel responded by launching airstrikes at the police headquarters in Gaza City, an intelligence building in the central Gaza town of Deir al-Balah and a police building in the West Bank town of Salfit. Salah Zeidan, head of the DFLP in Gaza, stated of the operation that, "It's a classic model—soldier to soldier, gun to gun, face to face [...] Our technical expertise has increased in recent days. So has our courage, and people are going to see that this is a better way to resist the occupation than suicide bombs inside the Jewish state."[58]
Today, the fedayeen have been eclipsed politically by the
To rival the PNA and increase Palestinian fedayeen cooperation, a
Philosophical grounding and objectives
The objectives of the fedayeen were articulated in the statements and literature they produced, which were consistent with reference to the aim of destroying Zionism.[4] In 1970, the stated aim of the fedayeen was establishing Palestine as "a secular, democratic, nonsectarian state." Bard O'Neill writes that for some fedayeen groups, the secular aspect of the struggle was "merely a slogan for assuaging world opinion," while others strove "to give the concept meaningful content."[4] Prior to 1974, the fedayeen position was that Jews who renounced Zionism could remain in the Palestinian state to be created. After 1974, the issue became less clear and there were suggestions that only those Jews who were in Palestine prior to "the Zionist invasion", alternatively placed at 1947 or 1917, would be able to remain.[4]
Bard O'Neill also wrote that the fedayeen attempted to study and borrow from all of the revolutionary models available, but that their publications and statements show a particular affinity for the Cuban, Algerian, Vietnamese, and Chinese experiences.[4]
Infighting and breakaway movements
During the post-Six-Day War era, individual fedayeen movements quarreled over issues about the recognition of Israel, alliances with various Arab states, and ideologies.
During the Lebanese Civil War (1975–1990), the PLO aligned itself with the Communist and Nasserist
The PLO and other Palestinian armed movements became increasingly divided after the Oslo Accords in 1993. They were rejected by the PFLP, DFLP, Hamas, and twenty other factions, as well as Palestinian intellectuals,
Tactics
Until 1968, fedayeen tactics consisted largely of hit-and-run raids on Israeli military targets.[65] A commitment to "armed struggle" was incorporated into PLO Charter in clauses that stated: "Armed struggle is the only way to liberate Palestine" and "Commando action constitutes the nucleus of the Palestinian popular liberation war."[65]
Preceding the Six-Day War in 1967, the fedayeen carried out several campaigns of sabotage against Israeli infrastructure. Common acts of this included the consistent mining of water and irrigation pipelines along the Jordan River and its tributaries, as well as the Lebanese-Israeli border and in various locations in the Galilee. Other acts of sabotage involved bombing bridges, mining roads, ambushing cars and vandalizing (sometimes destroying) houses.[38] After the Six-Day War, these incidents steadily decreased with the exception of the bombing of a complex of oil pipelines sourcing from the Haifa refinery in 1969.[42]
The IDFs
Airplane hijackings
The tactic of exporting their struggle against Israel beyond the Middle East was first adopted by the Palestinian fedayeen in 1968.[67] According to John Follain, it was Wadie Haddad of the PFLP who, unconvinced with the effectiveness of raids on military targets, masterminded the first hijacking of a civilian passenger plane by Palestinian fedayeen in July 1968. Two commandos forced an El Al Boeing 747 en route from Rome to Tel Aviv to land in Algiers, renaming the flight "Palestinian Liberation 007".[65] While publicly proclaiming that it would not negotiate with terrorists, the Israelis did negotiate. The passengers were released unharmed in exchange for the release of sixteen Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.[65]
The first hijacking of an American airliner was conducted by the PFLP on 29 August 1969.
George Habash, leader of the PFLP, explained his view of the efficacy of hijacking as a tactic in a 1970 interview, stating, "When we hijack a plane it has more effect than if we killed a hundred Israelis in battle." Habash also stated that after decades of being ignored, "At least the world is talking about us now."
The tactics employed by the Black September group in subsequent operations differed sharply from the other "run-of-the-mill PLO attacks of the day". The unprecedented level of violence evident in multiple international attacks between 1971 and 1972 included the Sabena airliner hijacking (mentioned above), the assassination of the Jordanian Prime Minister in
Affiliations with other guerrilla groups
Several fedayeen groups maintained contacts with a number of other guerrilla groups worldwide. The IRA for example had long held ties with Palestinians, and volunteers trained at fedayeen bases in Lebanon.[70] In 1977, Palestinian fedayeen from Fatah helped arrange for the delivery of a sizable arms shipment to the Provos by way of Cyprus, but it was intercepted by the Belgian authorities.[70]
The PFLP and the DFLP established connections with revolutionary groups such as the
See also
- Egypt–Israel peace treaty
- History of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict
- Israeli casualties of war
- Israeli–Palestinian peace process
- Occupation of the Gaza Strip by Egypt
- Palestinian casualties of war
- Palestinian immigration (Israel)
- Palestinian political violence
- Reprisal operations (Israel)
References
- ^ ISBN 978-1-86064-213-5.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-86064-475-7.
- ISBN 978-1-59253-117-2.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-8130-1040-3.
- ^ a b Almog, 2003, p. 20.
- ^ Facts On File, Incorporated. Encyclopedia of the Peoples of Africa and the Middle East.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-86064-326-2.
- ^ "Dictionaries". Sakhr. Retrieved 2008-01-06.
- ISBN 978-0-19-917170-5.
- ISBN 978-0-313-29279-8.
- ISBN 978-1-56750-545-0. Mohammed al-Nawaway uses Zaharna translation of fedayeen as "freedom fighters" in his book The Israeli-Egyptian Peace Process in the Reporting of Western Journalists (2002).
- ISBN 978-0-415-93921-8.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-415-35901-6.
- ISBN 978-0-7146-5397-6.
- ISBN 978-0-14-028870-4
- ^ As an Israel Foreign Ministry official stated:
For years the army [i.e. IDF] has been informing the Ministry and the outside world that infiltration is being sponsored, inspired, guided, or at least utilised by the Legion or other powers that be. However...when [we] asked [the army for] ...some clear documentary proof of the [Arabs] Legion's complicity [in the infiltrations]...no clear answer came from the army. Finally Fati [i.e. deputy DMI Yehoshafat Harbaki] told Leo [Savir, senior Foreign Ministry official] and myself, on two separate occasions, that no proof could be given because no proof existed. Furthermore, Fati told me that having personally made a detail study of infiltration, he had arrived at the conclusion that Jordanians and especially the Legion were doing their best to prevent infiltration, which was a natural decentralised and sporadic movement. In fact, listening to Fati or his colleagues these days, one could almost mistake them for British Foreign Office [which consistently argued in this vein]." Benny Morris (1993) Israel's Border Wars, 1949–1956: Arab Infiltration, Israeli Retaliation, and the Countdown to the Suez War Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-829262-3P 67
- ^ UN Doc S/1459 of 20 February 1950[permanent dead link] a report on the activities of the Mixed Armistice Commissions
- ISBN 978-0-19-829643-0p 61
- ^ "Records show that until the Gaza raid, the Egyptian military authorities had a consistent and firm policy of curbing infiltration...into Israel...and that it was only following the raid that a new policy was put in place, that of organizing the fedayeen units and turning them into an official instrument of warfare against Israel." – Shlaim, pp. 128–129. However, official policy and actual actions were not always consistent – whether due to incompetence or deliberately turning a blind eye to Palestinian actions, both in Jordan and in Egypt. In fact, during this period there were some 7,850 infiltrations and border incidents on the Jordanian border (including incidents in which Jordanian troops sniped into Israeli areas, conducted intelligence forays or, in one case tried to block the Israeli road leading to the southern Israeli town of Eilat) – how many of these actions by Jordanian troops were local initiatives and how many were officially sanctioned is not clear. On the Egyptian border there were in this period approximately 3,000 infiltrations and incidents, the vast majority along the Gaza section of that border. These too were virtually all Palestinian in origin, but also included an undetermined number of shooting incidents initiated by Egyptian troops – usually against Israeli border patrols. Carta's Atlas of Israel Volume 2: The First Years 1948–1961 (Hebrew)
- ^ ISBN 978-0-7146-5246-7.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-86064-326-2.
- ^ Yoav Gelber, 2006, "Sharon's Inheritance" Archived June 5, 2013, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ ISBN 978-0-19-829262-3.
- ^ "Map". Jewish Agency for Israel. Archived from the original on 2009-06-23.
- Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
- Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
- ISBN 978-0-313-31357-8.
- ISBN 978-0-415-35901-6.
- ^ Lela Gilbert (2007-10-23). "An 'infidel' in Israel". The Jerusalem Post. Archived from the original on 2013-07-06.
- ISBN 978-0-7864-3105-2.
Fedayeen to attack...almost always against civilians
- ^ "Fedayeen". Jewish Virtual Library.
- ^ "Record". Anti-Defamation League. Archived from the original on 2007-10-16.
- ^ Meron Benvenisti. Sacred Landscape, The Buried History of the Holy Land since 1948: Ghosts and Infiltrators. University of California Press. Archived from the original on 2006-09-04. Retrieved 2008-01-16.
- ISBN 978-0-19-829262-3.
- ISBN 978-0-7914-5585-2.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-7391-0064-6.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-89608-601-2.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-19-829262-3.
- ISBN 978-1-85984-442-7.
- ISBN 978-0-415-34851-5.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-7425-2504-7.
- ^ Time Magazine. July 4, 1969. Archived from the originalon October 22, 2012.
- ISBN 978-0-415-26820-2.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-86064-291-3.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-415-26726-7.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-58234-049-4.
- ISBN 978-0-19-829643-0.
- ^ Bulloch, John (1983). Final Conflict. Faber Publishing. p. 165.
- ISBN 978-0-8032-8783-9.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-415-26820-2.
- ISBN 978-0-521-27216-2.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-58234-049-4.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-7923-2426-3.
- ISBN 978-0-8386-3262-8.
- ^ Friedman, Thomas L. "Syria-Based Group Says It Staged Israel Raid", New York Times, 1987-11-27.
- ISBN 978-0-679-42120-7.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-275-93411-8.
- ^ Suzanne Goldenberg (August 27, 2001). "Israeli jets avenge raid on army by commandos". The Guardian. Retrieved 2008-02-04.
- ^ Al-Jazeera English. 2009-01-20.
- ^ Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine Archived November 21, 2008, at the Wayback Machine Arab Gateway to Palestinian Organizations.
- ^ "Political Program Adopted at the 12th Session of the Palestine National Council". Permanent Observer Mission of Palestine to the United Nations. 1974-06-08. Archived from the original on 2008-01-18.
- ISBN 978-1-58234-049-4.
- ISBN 978-1-85743-184-1.
- ISBN 978-1-58234-049-4.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-55970-466-3.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-7391-0709-6.
- ^ ISBN 978-3-7281-2949-9.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-55553-389-2.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-7146-4865-1.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-56000-901-6.
- ISBN 978-1-58234-049-4.
Further reading
- Orna Almog (2003). Britain, Israel and the United States, 1955–1958: Beyond Suez. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-7146-5246-7.
- Michael Curtis (1971). People and Politics in the Middle East. Transaction Publishers. ISBN 978-0-87855-500-0.