Word: fatah
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SOUTHERN LEBANON was known as "Fatahland" not so long ago, but villages which once teemed with Palestinian fedayeen now welcome the Syrian occupation which has at least momentarily crippled the Palestinian guerrilla movement. As Syrian President Hafez Assad dictates terms to Fatah leader Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian military and political assertiveness of April 1975, which touched off civil war in Lebanon, seems far away. Arafat's enforced meekness is even further removed from 1974, when he stood before the United Nations General Assembly, riding the crest of Third World acclaim and proclaiming the ascendancy of the Palestinian liberation movement...
...rivals, and the creation of a myth than on carefully-thought-out action. The author portrays his subject as a charismatic but dangerously impractical firecracker whose leadership consistently has needed the tempering hand of more pragmatic strategists in order to turn propaganda into organization, and organization into action. Thus, Fatah's rise to prominence appears to have been more the result of the ideological and tactical guidance of those close to Arafat than of "Abu Ammar" (Arafat's code name) himself. And the group's earliest strikes against Israel were due to the planning and materiel of Syrian officials...
Kiernan's book is also a bit disappointing towards the end, for he basically wraps up his detailed treatment of Arafat and Fatah in 1965, following it with a quick run-through of events during the past decade. While it is probably more important to give a detailed narrative of the earlier years, since less is known of them and they provided the psychological as well as political basis for Arafat's subsequent actions, Kiernan would have strengthened his treatment by not running out of steam before the reader's curiosity runs out. The superficial outline of events from...
...handful of people remaining in Damur stood in a bedraggled group near a church-quiet, anxious, clinging to their few belongings, which they had wrapped in small rugs. The leftists' commander, Abu Musa-a polite, unshaven Fatah officer-charged that Lebanese army commandos had helped defend the town, even though the army is supposed to be neutral. He gave the civilians the choice of staying or leaving for Christian-held areas; they chose to leave. Except for medicine and bare necessities, they were not allowed to take anything with them. Militiamen loaded furniture, household goods, washing machines and stereo...
...been further sapped by disunity within its own ranks. Formed in 1964 as an umbrella organization of six fedayeen groups, the P.L.O. has always been loose-knit and ideologically divided. In the past year internal squabbles have intensified. On the one side are the relative moderates: Arafat's Fatah (6,700 members of whom some 2,000 are active fighters) and Syrian-backed Saiqa (about 2,000 members, including 1,000 fighters). Opposing them are such "rejection front" groups as George Habash's Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (estimated membership: 3,500), the P.F.L.P.-General Command...