Summary
The PFLP appears in this booklet as Ghassan Kanafani’s organisation: publisher of his 1970 pamphlet The Resistance and its Problems, owner of the weekly Al Hadaf which he founded, and the organisation of which he was Politbureau member and spokesman.
Details
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Kanafani started Al Hadaf (The Target), the weekly paper of the PFLP, in Beirut in 1969 (The 1936-39 Revolt in Palestine, PDF p.3 / printed p.4).
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The PFLP grew out of the Arab Nationalist Movement, of which Kanafani had been an active member before becoming a Marxist alongside George Habash (The 1936-39 Revolt in Palestine, PDF p.3 / printed p.4).
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His pamphlet The Resistance and its Problems, published by the PFLP in 1970, is presented as at publication the most daring and responsible critique of the dynamics of Palestinian resistance (The 1936-39 Revolt in Palestine, PDF p.4 / printed p.6).
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The Tribute’s headnote records Kanafani as a member of the PFLP’s Politbureau and spokesman for the PFLP, and Al Hadaf as the weekly PFLP organ of which he was founding editor (The 1936-39 Revolt in Palestine, PDF p.33 / printed p.65).
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In Said, Chapter Three III: the Popular Front is one of the most prominent organizations grouped together in the Palestine Liberation Organization, and the Popular Democratic Front is an offshoot of the PFLP (The Question of Palestine, PDF p.180 / printed p.159).
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The Popular Front called for an Arab revolution as a way of regaining Palestine and has been categorical in its refusal to consider any sort of political, as opposed to military, settlement with Israel, the United States, or Arab reaction; the Democratic Front, born in 1969, first articulated the transitional program adopted by the PLO in 1974, refined in 1977, accepting a Palestinian national authority, now a state, on any part of Palestine evacuated by Israel (The Question of Palestine, PDF p.182 / printed p.161).
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In Said, Chapter Three III: the Popular Front and the Popular Democratic Front are Fateh’s principal rivals, and from the outset had a much more problematized awareness than Fateh seemed to have of the difficulties, the context, and the ideological issues surrounding the question of Palestine; together with the rejectionists, the Democratic Front challenges Fateh’s improvisatory, family-style politics on ideological, organizational and strategical grounds (The Question of Palestine, PDF p.182-183 / printed p.161-162).
Related pages
The 1936-39 Revolt in Palestine, Ghassan Kanafani, The Question of Palestine, Palestine Liberation Organization, Fateh, Popular Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine