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wealthy Greek Orthodox family in 1925, Habash witnessed his family's expulsion from Lydda, known as Lod in present-day Israel, in 1948. Three years later Habash graduated from medical school at the prestigious American University in Beirut with a specialty in pediatrics.8 Habash's determination to destroy the Jewish state motivated him to found the ANM. But as its name implied, Habash's ANM shared Nasser's views about Arab, and not merely Palestinian, national unity. The ANM did not form a separate Palestinian branch until 1961. Like Fatah, ANM mounted raids against Israel before the Six Day War and, like Fatah's operations, its attacks were inconsequential. Then came the Six Day War. Within months of Israel's victory, Habash converted the ANM into the PFLP. The PFLP was the fusion of the ANM and several small guerrilla organizations, the most notable the Palestine Liberation Front, formed in 1961 by Ahmed Jabril, a Palestinian who served as a captain in the Syrian army. With the transformation of the ANM into the PFLP came a radicalization in ideology. The PFLP adopted Marxism-Leninism and organized itself along classic Leninist lines. Habash became secretary general, but his Marxism did not run deep. The most important feature about the Marxist rhetoric was the call to establish alliances with revolutionary forces worldwide. In the coming years, this would translate into operational alliances with European and Japanese terrorist organizations.
The formation of the PFLP marked the beginning of a struggle for control of the PLO and the onset of a campaign of international terrorism in the cause of Palestinian liberation. The defeat in the Six Day War discredited the PLO almost as much as it discredited the Arab states. PLO chairman Ahmed Shuqayri was the first victim. Six months after the Israeli victory, the PLO executive committee replaced him with Yahya Hammouda, who proved to be as ineffective as Shuqayri. Arafat's hour was coming. Fatah's reputation was not damaged by the dismal performance of the Arab armies against the Israelis. On the contrary, because the defeat weakened the disciples of Nasser, it strengthened Arafat. Arafat was careful to cultivate a mystique about himself. The Palestinian leader managed to evade capture by Israeli intelligence during his forays into the occupied territories of Gaza and the West Bank, and Arafat's Fatah guerrillas crossed into Israel from Jordan to mount attacks. Fatah propaganda exaggerated the impact of the guerrilla raids, forcing other guerrilla organizations to press the attack and distort the truth about advances in the armed struggle. Arafat sought deliberately to embody the Palestinian nation in the popular perception, even though the effort to create a cult of personality conflicted with Fatah's principle of collective leadership. All this worked to his advantage. But Arafat benefited most from an Israeli operation to destroy the guerrillas in their enclave in Jordan.
In March 1968—the same month Lyndon Johnson astonished Americans with his decision to not seek reelection—some 15,000 Israeli troops supported by aircraft, artillery, and tanks assaulted Palestinian guerrilla bases near the Jordanian town of Karameh. The Israeli force was some fifteen times larger than the combined number of Fatah, PFLP, and PLA fedayeen amassed in Jordan. Rather than retreating in the face of superior enemy forces, Arafat ordered his men to stand their ground. Although the Israeli forces inflicted heavy casualties—killing more than one hundred Palestinians—Arafat's fedayeen managed to kill 29 Israelis and wound many more before the Israelis withdrew when the Jordanian army came to the defense of Fatah. In the popular perception, Fatah had forced an Israeli retreat, a feat of arms the combined armies of Egypt, Syria, and Jordan had never accomplished. The battle of Karameh transformed Arafat into the most credible leader of the Palestinians. In February 1969, Arafat was elevated to the chairmanship of the PLO.
The battle of Karameh forced the PFLP, as the principal opposition to Fatah, to take the offensive to restore its diminished image. The PFLP did not distinguish itself in the confrontation with the IDF, although PFLP secretary-general Habash bore no direct responsibility for his men's performance; he was in custody in Damascus when the Israelis moved against the guerrilla bases in Jordan. Nonetheless, while Fatah stood and fought, the PFLP fled to the mountains with the PLA. Withdrawal in the face of a superior enemy was sound guerrilla tactics, but it was politically damaging. All Palestinian guerrilla organizations were captive to the logic of armed struggle, which dictated that victory in battle is the measure of political legitimacy. To prove its militancy the PFLP made the ominous decision to attack Israel on its vulnerable “external front.” Fatah had launched the guerrilla war of national liberation in 1965; the PFLP now launched an international terror campaign.
The Popular Front's Campaign of Air Piracy
On 23 July 1968, three PFLP terrorists hijacked an Israeli El Al flight en route from Rome to the Ben Gurion International Airport in Lod and directed it to Algeria.9 The El Al hijacking was the first by a Palestinian terrorist organization and one of the longest in the history of air piracy—negotiations for the release of the hostages and the jet dragged on for 39 days. The PFLP action produced something no isolated guerrilla raid in Israel could produce, an international incident.
Terrorism is violence, but the violence is invariably symbolic. The symbolism was obvious. El Al is the national airline of the Jewish state, and attacking it was tantamount to attacking Israel. For Palestinians eager to see harm inflicted on Israel in retaliation for their sufferings, the PFLP's audacious action was cause for rejoicing. The decision to redirect the jet to Algeria had symbolic importance as well. The PFLP consciously entangled the Algerian government in the Palestinian struggle. The Algerian war of independence was the source of inspiration to the Palestinian fedayeen, and Algeria, which remained in a formal state of war with Israel, actively supported the guerrillas, principally Arafat's Fatah. Although a PFLP spokesman in Beirut insisted that the PFLP did not forewarn the Algerian government of the operation and would later demand that Algeria explain its reasons for resolving the crisis without consulting with the PFLP, it obviously was counting on the Algerian regime to abet an act of terrorism. Algeria's foreign minister, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, rebuked the PFLP for the action, but Algerian authorities took custody of the hostages and moved them a hotel.10
The day after the hijacking, Algerian authorities released nineteen passengers. Two days later they released ten more, all women and children. After their release, the passengers came close to praising their treatment. “The food was almost too good,” said an Israeli flight attendant after her release.11 But Algerian authorities refused to release the remaining seven passengers and five crew members on the pretext of conducting an investigation into the hijacking. The explanation was disingenuous in the extreme. By refusing to release the last hostages while the PFLP issued demands for the release of more than one thousand fedayeen imprisoned by the Israelis, Algeria implicated itself in the crime of air piracy. Israel demanded action from the United Nations and threatened to take action itself. Some Israeli politicians demanded retaliation by attacking Algerian civilian airliners on the ground.
In the end, it was not the threat of military action but the threat of an international boycott of Algeria, and Israeli concessions, that resolved the crisis. On 12 August, the International Association of Airline Pilots announced its members would refuse to fly to Algeria. The PFLP strategy to isolate Israel by making airline travel dangerous backfired. Although the Algerian government denounced these pressures, its position was untenable. While the Algerians held out, the Italians attempted to mediate. Unless Algeria was prepared to incur the wrath of the Palestinians by simply releasing the passengers, the only apparent hope for a resolution of the crisis was some movement by the Israelis. The PFLP demand for the exchange of more than one thousand fedayeen for the hostages was unconscionable. But as the crisis neared a second month, the Israelis modified their position. It was not an exchange of prisoners for hostages that was unacceptable, only the number of prisoners and the appearance of a quid pro quo. At the end of August the press leaked word that Israel was prepared to make a “humanitarian gesture” after the hostages and the aircraft were repatriated. Then, on 29 August, Palestinian guerrillas ambushed an Israeli patrol on the confrontation line on the Suez Canal, killing two Israelis and capturing a third. If the Israeli government needed another incentive to resolve the Algerian crisis, this was it. On 1 September, Algeria allowed the remaining hostages to fly to Israel via Rome. Israel made good on its pledge of a humanitarian gesture by quietly releasing 16 fedayeen held prisoner in Israel.
The hijacking initiated a terror campaign against civilian aviation that became more and more lethal over the next several years. Just after the hijacking, the PFLP called a press conference in the Beirut office of