Arab Nationalist Movement - Palestine

Palestine

PFLP

The Marxist elements in the ANM reconstituted its Palestinian branch in the mid-1960s as the National Front for the Liberation of Palestine. In December 1967 NFLP unified with two other Palestinian factions, Heroes of Return (abtal al-awda) and Ahmed Jibril's Palestine Liberation Front (PLF). Together they formed the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), under Habash's leadership.

DFLP

In early 1968, a leftist, supposedly Maoist, faction headed by Hawatmeh broke away from PFLP to form the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP, initially PDFLP). At this point, both the PFLP and the P/DFLP had embraced Marxism-Leninism, a break with the ANM heritage that would be replicated in other branches, and tear what remained of the movement apart.

The PFLP and DFLP subsequently both spawned a number of breakaway factions, such as the PFLP-GC, the PLF and the FIDA. Many of these groups were active as a leftist hardline opposition within the PLO, and most participated in the Rejectionist Front of 1974.

Current situation

Even though the PFLP and DFLP remain very active in Palestinian politics and both have played a military role in the Al-Aqsa Intifada, their political support is rather reduced, especially within the occupied territories. Partly, this is related to the decline of the Arab left in general, a trend related to changes in Arab political culture but also to the fall of the Soviet Union. But in addition to that, the specific circumstances of the occupied territories have led to dual pressure from the radical Islamist opposition of Hamas, on the one hand, and the patronage resources available to Fatah through its control of the Palestinian National Authority on the other.