🇵🇸 The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine

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 #YasserArafat and others, the #PFLP has consistently been the second-largest of the groups forming the #PLO, the umbrella organisation of the Palestinian national movement.

#Palestine #Resistance #GeorgeHabash #LeilaKhaled #History

🇵🇸 George Habash's contribution to the Palestinian struggle | As'ad AbuKhalil for The Electronic Intifada

George Habash lived his life for Palestine — every minute of it. He represented a model of revolutionary struggle that is exemplary in its dedication and asceticism, no matter what one thinks of the PFLP or its long political and military experience. One should not hesitate from rendering a harsh judgment against the #PFLP; ultimately it failed politically and militarily. And any evaluation of Palestinian political violence must be made in the context of #Zionist mass violence that for decades had set out to destroy Palestinian society and resistance and replace it with its own exclusivist vision.

But whatever that judgment it should not detract from an appreciation of the profound influence of the PFLP’s founder who helped shape the politics and worldview of a generation. The present political scene is devoid of any leaders of such character.

#Palestine #Resistance #GeorgeHabash #PFLP

🇵🇸 George Habash was the antithesis of #YasserArafat:

He was honest, while Arafat was dishonest; consistent when Arafat was inconsistent; principled, while Arafat was shifty; transparent, while Arafat was deceptive; sincere, while Arafat was fake; dignified while Arafat was clownish; modest, while Arafat was arrogant; tolerant of dissent, while Arafat was autocratic, and on and on.

George Habash embodied an era that extended from the #Nakba, or mass expulsions of Palestinians from their homeland in 1948, until the ending of the first phase of the Lebanese civil war in 1976. Up until that time, when a deep ideological transformation took place in the Arab world, Habash was a major actor on the Arab political stage. He was feared by Arab regimes, and respected and loved in the refugee camps. I don’t believe I have ever seen the ordinary people of the camps react to a person as they reacted to Habash. Their love for him was genuine because they felt that he was genuine.

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#Palestine #GeorgeHabash #PFLP