George Habash

Template:Infobox revolution biography George Habash (Arabic: جورج حبش) also known by his kunya "al-Hakim" (Arabic:الحكيم — the wise one or the doctor) (August 2, 1926 – January 26, 2008), was a Palestinian political leader, activist, and physician. Habash, a Palestinian Christian, founded the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and was the organization's Secretary-General until 2000.

A refugee, Habash graduated from medical school though his interests remained in politics. He held a firm belief that Palestine could be liberated from Israel only by a united Arab state. In accordance with his beliefs, Habash founded the Arab Nationalist Movement in 1951 and aligned the organization with Gamal Abdel Nasser's Arab nationalist ideology. He was a prominent figure in the Palestine Liberation Organization until 1967, when a coalition of Arab states were decisively defeated by Israel in the Six-Day War. As a result, Arab nationalism declined and Habash was effectively replaced by Fatah leader Yasser Arafat.

The ANM virtually dissolved after the war and Habash founded a new organization made up of Palestinians, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. In 1970, Habash was evicted from Jordan as the PFLP played a key role in provoking the Black September clashes in that country. In 1974, the Palestinian National Council adopted a resolution recognizing a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Habash who opposed any such solution, led several guerrilla factions out of the PLO to form the Rejectionist Front. Habash aligned the PFLP with the PLO and the Lebanese National Movement, but stayed fairly neutral during the Lebanese Civil War in the late 1970s. He suffered from a stroke in 1980 while he was living in Damascus and his health continued to deteriorate, allowing other PFLP members to gain influence in the group's leadership.

After the Oslo Agreements, Habash formed yet another opposition alliance consisting of Rejectionist Front members and Islamist organizations such as Hamas that grew to prominence during the First Intifada. In 2000, he resigned from his leadership post of the PFLP due to his poor health. He continued to be an activist for the group until 2008, when he died of a heart attack in Amman.

Early life

He was born in Lydda (today's Lod) to to a family of Palestinian Christian (Greek Orthodox) merchants. Habash was a medical student when he visited his family during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. In July 1948, the Israeli military violently captured the town from Jordanian and Arab Liberation Army forces and expelled its approximately 10,000 Palestinian residents, who were marched to the Arab front lines at gunpoint in what is now known as the Lydda Death March, which was later recognized by Israel as an act of excessive force . Benny Morris writes that Israeli witnesses agreed that the exodus was an extended episode of suffering for the refugees. He cites a death toll of 335 dead, while Arab Legion commander John Glubb Pasha wrote that "nobody will ever know how many children died."

Habash and his family became refugees. Israel refused to allow the refugees to return to their homes after the fighting stopped in 1949. Later, Israel passed the Absentee Property Law, which confiscated the homes and property of all Palestinians who were not present at their home (for any reason) at the end of the Israeli War of Independence. This included the Habash family home and property. (The issue of the treatment of the Palestinian refugees and their descendants remains among the most contentious issues preventing a settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict.)

Habash was a medical student at The American University of Beirut, where he met Wadie Haddad. In the 1950s, he joined "Youth of Vengeance," a group calling for violence against Arab government's policies toward expansionism. After graduating first in his class in 1951, he worked in Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan, and ran a clinic together with Haddad in Amman. He was a founding member of the Arab Nationalist Movement in 1951, which was inspired by Nasserism and other pan-Arab and Arab Socialist doctrines. He was implicated in the 1957 coup attempt in Jordan, which had originated among Palestinian members of the National Guard. Habash was convicted in absentia, after having gone underground when King Hussein proclaimed martial law and banned all political parties in response. In 1958 he fled to Syria (then part of the United Arab Republic), but was forced to return to Beirut in 1961 by the tumultuous break-up of the UAR.

Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine

In 1964 he began reorganizing the ANM, regrouping the Palestinian members of the organization into a "regional command." After the Six-Day War in 1967, disillusion with Nasser became widespread. This prompted the foundation, led by Habash, of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) as a front of several Palestinian factions, like the "heroes of return" and "Palestinian Liberation Front", along with the ANM on December 11, when he also became its first Secretary-General. Habash was briefly imprisoned in Syria in 1968, but escaped. In the same year, he also came into conflict with long-time ally Wadie Haddad, but both remained in the PFLP.

At a 1969 congress the PFLP re-designated itself a Marxist-Leninist movement, and has remained a Communist organization ever since. Its pan-Arab leanings have been diminished since the ANM days, but popular support for a united Arab front has remained, especially in regard to Israeli and western political pressures. It holds a firm position regarding Israel, demanding its complete eradication as a racist state through military struggle and promotes a one-state solution (one secular, democratic, non-sexist state).

The 1969 congress also saw an ultra-leftist faction under Nayef Hawatmeh and Yasser Abd Rabbo split off as the Popular Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PDFLP), later to become the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP). During Habash's time as Secretary-General, the PFLP became known as one of the most radical and militant Palestinian factions, and gained world notoriety after a string of airplane hijackings and attacks against Israel affiliated companies as well as Israeli ambassadors in Europe mostly planned by Haddad. The PFLP's pioneering of modern international military operating brought the group, and the Palestinian issue, onto newspaper front pages worldwide, but it also provoked intense criticism from other parts of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

Black September

The PFLP ignored tensions with the mainstream leadership of Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction, and instead focused on bringing about revolutionary change in Jordan, where the Palestinian guerrilla movement was headquartered at the time. Habash expressed the opinion that what proceeded was not "only military but also psychological warfare" and one had to "hold the Israelis under permanent pressure".

This created friction with the authorities, and the Dawson's Field hijackings of 1970 were instrumental in provoking the Black September crackdown, which came close to destroying the PLO. As a result, the PFLP was heavily criticized, and internally, Wadie Haddad was accused of embarrassing the movement, and politically sidelined, but he was later reintegrated. In autumn 1970, Habash visited Beijing.

After Black September, the PLO fedayeen relocated to Lebanon. In 1972, Habash experienced failing health, and gradually began to lose his centrality within the organization. The Palestinian National Council's (PNC) adoption of a resolution viewed by the PFLP as a first step towards a two-state solution in 1974, prompted Habash to lead his organization out of active participation in the PLO and to join the Iraqi-backed Rejectionist Front. Only in 1977 would the PFLP opt to rejoin, as the Palestinian factions rallied their forces in opposition to Anwar Sadat's peace overtures towards Israel. During the Lebanese Civil War that broke out in 1975, PFLP forces were decimated in battle against Syria and its Phalangist militia and Lebanese government allies. Later, the PFLP would draw close to Syria, as alliances shifted, but PFLP involvement in the Lebanese war remained strong until the U.S.-negotiated evacuation of PLO units from Beirut in 1982, and continued on a smaller scale after that.

Relations with the mainstream PLO remained as poor as ever, and when Arafat was caught off-guard by the Syrian-backed Fatah Uprising rebellion within his Fatah movement in 1983, the PFLP declared itself neutral, as Syrian Army and Syrian-aligned Lebanese and Palestinian militias (such as Amal, as-Sa'iqa and Syrian-controlled PLA brigades) pounded PLO positions.

In 1980 Habash had had a severe stroke and due to his consistently poor health he lost influence within the PFLP with younger members stepping up to assume greater responsibilities. During this time Habash lived in Damascus, Syria and the PFLP neared the Syrian Ba'thist regime of Hafez al-Assad, united by the common interest of opposing Yasser Arafat's increasingly moderate positions on Israel. In 1992, however, Habash was in poor health and left Damascus to return to Amman.

Oslo agreement

After the signing of the Oslo Peace Accords in 1993, Habash and the PFLP again broke completely with Arafat, accusing him of selling out the Palestinian revolution. The group set up an anti-Arafat and anti-Oslo alliance in Damascus, for the first time joined by such non-PLO Islamist groups such as, Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which had grown to prominence during the First Intifada. After finding the position sterile, with Palestinian political dynamics playing out on the West Bank and Gaza areas of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), Habash carefully sought to repair ties to Arafat, and gain a hold in post-Oslo politics without compromising PFLP principles. This balancing act couldn't save the PFLP from being eclipsed by the militant Islamist factions on the one hand, and the resource-rich Fatah with its PNA patronage network on the other. The significance of the PFLP in Palestinian politics has diminished considerably since the mid-90s. The PFLP participated in the Palestinian legislative elections of 2006 as Abu Ali Mustafa won 4.2% of the popular vote.

In the late 1990s,Habash's medical condition worsened, but he still refused to set foot in the Palestinian territories so as not to give the impression of legitimizing the Oslo Accords. In 2000 he resigned from the post as Secretary-General, citing health reasons. He was succeeded as head of the PFLP by Abu Ali Mustafa who was assassinated by Israel during the Second Intifada. Habash went on to set up a PFLP-affiliated research center, but he remained active in the PFLP's internal politics. He is still popular among many Palestinians, who appreciate his revolutionary ideology, his determination and principles, the rejection of the Oslo Agreements and his intellectual style.

Death

Habash died on January 26, 2008, at the age of 81 of a heart attack in hospital in Amman, Jordan. The President of the Palestinian National Authority, Mahmoud Abbas called for three days of national mourning.

External links

• A Visit With George Habash: Still the Prophet of Arab Nationalism and Armed Struggle Against Israel, By Grace Halsell, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, September 1998, pages 49, 136

• Al Jazeera report on Habash death

• BBC Report of Habash Death

• BBC Obituary

• NY Times Obituary