Fatah: International Terrorism

So as this method is facing diminishing returns, you see another method emerge, which is international terrorism. Now, this was pioneered by the for the Liberation of , a Marxist terrorist group that was relatively small that did some very dramatic airplane hijackings beginning in 1968 that captured world attention. Now, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine both demonstrates that international terrorism can be done, it can grab world attention, but it also forces to compete. You have a very exciting alternative that is attracting recruits, that's attracting fundraising, and Fatah feels the need to engage in international terrorism as well.

And so that's part of the reason they create the organization. And Black September carries out what is perhaps the most famous terrorist attack until the 9/11 attacks, which is hostage taking at the 1972 Munich Olympics. Now, with the Olympics, you have the attention of the world riveted on one place, and this is Munich. You have cameras, you have excitement. And it's very easy for the Black September organization to penetrate this.

One of their members poses as a waiter and gets a job. Others pose as businessmen to smuggle weapons in. And this is probably not a surprise because security is very lax.

German authorities in 1972 were trying to contrast the Olympic games with the last Olympic games held in Germany, which was held during Nazi Germany. And so they're portraying the 1972 Olympics as the carefree Olympics. They're trying to show that this is a new, open, free Germany that's not oppressive. And as a result, security is deliberately kept minimal.

So you have a very dramatic terrorist success in that the Israeli athletes are seized, and for days, they're paraded before the cameras of the world. And there's an attempt by the Germans to do a rescue, and this is completely botched. And you have 11 Israeli athletes die in this along with one German security personnel.

Now, you could argue that this attack was a failure. The Munich attackers wanted hostages released and they were unsuccessful in getting their goals. But in a deeper sense, it was a tremendous success for the . Abu Iyad, who was the operational leader of Fatah, he declares quote, "World opinion was forced to take note of the Palestinian drama."

So to go back to our discussion of terrorist strategies, one thing that terrorism does is it sets the agenda. So I'd like to read you another quote. And this one's taken from Arafat speaking before the United Nations, which he does several years after the Munich attacks. And he says before the UN quote, "Today, I've come bearing an olive branch and a freedom fighter's gun. Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand."

By the end of the 1970s, the Palestinians have achieved more diplomatic recognition then the have. And this is really remarkable. It shows the power of international terrorism to capture world attention.

Here at Georgetown, when I teach my students, I always ask them how many of them can name five Israelis and five Palestinians. And of course, they all can. But then I ask them, how many can name five people who've been leaders of the Congo in the last 20 years. And even though in Congo you have over four million people who have died, far more than the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, often they don't know anyone or maybe only a few, and it's because terrorism has grabbed media attention much more successfully than much bloodier conflicts.

Another important success from terrorism for the Palestinians was again galvanizing identity. And here, we're going to read another quote that gave shortly before his death. "We have made the Palestinian case the biggest problem in the world. has failed to wipe us out. We are here in Palestine facing them. We are not red Indians."

Now, from Arafat's point of view, he's drawing a contrast between the destruction of the Native American population in the and what he sees as the survival of the Palestinian people and even the growth of the Palestinian people. That this is a group of people that despite not having a state, despite military defeat, has become politically stronger and stronger.

Now, international terrorism also had many costs for Fatah and for the Palestinians. And one is linked to one of the biggest problems the Palestinians have faced in their history, which is that they have many different groups and many different terrorist groups. Because terrorist groups can be small, they don't have to be that powerful.

This has enabled lots of small groups of individuals, many of which didn't have much popular backing, to do terrorist attacks on their own and to set the agenda on their own. It meant that when Fatah wanted to be more cautious or conciliatory, other groups would be more aggressive and put Fatah in a bind and either force it to be more aggressive in turn or to look weak and passive.

But terrorism also created problems for the Palestinians when they wanted to shift towards a more peaceful approach to getting a Palestinian state. What Arafat and other Palestinian leaders tried to inculcate was the idea of a cultural resistance, that the Palestinians would strive often violently to fight Israel. But when Arafat embraces negotiations, this culture doesn't go away. So you have the idea that violent resistance is not just acceptable, but actually admirable. And it makes it hard for Arafat to crack down on elements within Palestinian society that continue to use violence.

And to go further, the repeated use of violence-- and again, especially terrorism, especially violence against civilians-- discredits the Palestinians at times in the United States, but especially among the Israeli people. So even as negotiations are going on, they're quite different than negotiations were with, say, of Egypt where in Sadat's case, he had earned respect. But in Arafat's case, it was endless suspicion.

There was an Israeli sense that this man is a murderer, and even though there are negotiations, he can't be trusted. And this class is not about negotiations. But it's important to know that terrorism both helped bring the Palestinians to the peace table, but it also made it much harder for a deal to be achieved.