This thesis has been submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for a postgraduate degree (e.g. PhD, MPhil, DClinPsychol) at the University of Edinburgh. Please note the following terms and conditions of use: This work is protected by copyright and other intellectual property rights, which are retained by the thesis author, unless otherwise stated. A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge. This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the author. The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the author. When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in Decline (1982-2007). Political Agency and Marginalisation. By Francesco Saverio Leopardi PhD Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies The University of Edinburgh 2017 2 Abstract. This thesis examines the political trajectory of the Popular Front for the Liberation Palestine (PFLP) during the period from the 1982 eviction of the Palestinian factions from their headquarters in Beirut, to the 2006-07 division between Hamas and Fatah in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). During this period, the PFLP experienced a process of decline that resulted in its marginalisation within the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and the wider Palestinian national movement. This study addresses the issue of the PFLP’s decline by focusing on its own political agency to determine the role of policy and decision making, ideology and political narrative in the marginalisation process. This work therefore, on the one hand, aims at putting the PFLP’s decline into historical perspective, identifying it as a process rather than simply the effect of outstanding events as it is often argued. On the other, its goal is to ascribe to ‘subjective factors’, namely aspects directly linked to the PFLP’s agency, the adequate weight in determining its decline. This appears particularly significant as the weakening of the Palestinian left has been frequently explained as a by-product of global and local external or ‘objective’ developments such as the downfall of the Soviet Union or the emergence of political Islam. By providing a comprehensive and processual analysis of the PFLP’s decline, this study not only aims at complementing the literature on the Palestinian national movement, which still lacks a focused approach on the main Palestinian leftist force. It also aims at shedding light on a major cause, and its historical origins, of the current Palestinian political impasse, namely the absence of an alternative between Hamas and the PNA’s governing entities, both crippled by a legitimacy crisis and unable to progress Palestinian interests. By virtue of its close survey of the PFLP’s conduct, a further goal of this thesis is to address the historical role of the PLO and its de-facto heir, the PNA. What is evidenced is the double, and contradictory, role of the essential but also constraining framework that the PLO and later the PNA represented for the PFLP’s policies. The focus on the PFLP’s political agency allows the identification of a pattern in its policy which affected negatively its standing within the Palestinian national movement. Throughout the period addressed, policy fluctuation marked the PFLP’s action, undermining the effectiveness of its political line and jeopardising its political 3 weight. The present study highlights how such a policy fluctuation pattern originated from major dilemmas and contradictions that the PFLP had to consider while producing its policies. The main dilemma, informing all other sources of tensions affecting the PFLP, has been defined as an ‘opposition-integration’ dilemma. In other words, the PFLP, while opposing the PLO leadership’s policies, first and foremost its quest for a diplomatic settlement with Israel under US patronage, needed to maintain its integration within the PLO regime, which represented an essential economic and political framework. This produced inconsistent, ‘fluctuant’ policies that prevented the PFLP from maintaining its political weight and stopping its marginalisation process. This opposition-integration dilemma was combined with other sources of tensions marking the PFLP such as: relations with other PLO opposition factions, relations with Arab partners, its contacts with Palestinian Islamists, the confrontation with the PNA after the 1993 Oslo accords or the internal divide between the exiled leadership and the cadres located in the OPT. The PFLP’s official publications, mainly retrieved from its mouthpiece, Al-Hadaf magazine, embodied the main source upon which this study relies. Beside this corpus of documents, other primary sources, such as documents issued by relevant actors, have been scrutinised, while all information has been read against the background of the wider academic literature currently available on the Palestinian national movement. This research also drew information from interviews with former and current PFLP members as well as with experts of the Palestinian national movement. 4 Lay summary. The present thesis studies the history of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), the main Palestinian leftist faction and second movement for size and popularity within the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), the umbrella organisation internationally recognised as representative of the Palestinian people. This thesis addresses the period between 1982 and 2007, as the PFLP experienced a marginalisation process during this time lapse. Such process started after the eviction of the Palestinian forces from their headquarters in Beirut following the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon and appeared completed in 2007, when the conflict between Fatah, ruling party of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) and Hamas, its main, Islamist rival, consecrated the polarisation of the Palestinian political field. In analysing this marginalisation process, the thesis focuses on the PFLP’s political agency, namely its decision-making process, policy production and the evolution of its political line to investigate the role of these ‘subjective factors’ in its decline. The goal is to outline how the PFLP responded to outstanding challenges (downfall of Soviet Union, rise of Islamist rivals, etc.) to provide a deeper, more complete description of the dynamics causing its decline. Based on this approach, this study describes a ‘policy fluctuation’ pattern affecting the PFLP negatively and resurfacing throughout the period addressed. By policy fluctuation what is meant is the PFLP’s inability to produce a consistent political line capable of balancing the different sources of pressures, both internal and external, endured over the time. The result was a fluctuation between such sources of pressure that undermined the effectiveness of the PFLP’s agenda, its political credibility and popular support. In the investigation of the sources of pressures, or contradictions, producing policy fluctuation, this study outlines a fundamental dynamic, influencing all other relevant factors: the opposition- integration dilemma. This dilemma, characterising the PFLP all over its history but whose effects were exacerbated after 1982, consists in the pursuit of opposition to the PLO leadership, namely Fatah, while considering integration into the PLO institutions, and therefore its overall unity, as a priority. This dilemma combined with other dynamics, such as relations with other Palestinian forces, relations with regional allies or internal divisions, worsening the policy fluctuations pattern. 5 The thesis follows a chronological order to keep track of the aforementioned dynamics over the time. The first two chapters focuses on the period between 1982 and 1987. Specifically, they respectively treat the PFLP’s policies towards the Palestinian internal situation, marked by deep divisions and the PFLP’s relations with Syria and the USSR. The third chapter addresses the PFLP’s conduct during the first half of the First Intifada (1987-1990) to show how returning problems jeopardised the PFLP’s chances to revive its political course. The fourth chapter covers the 1990s, a decade of great transformations with the 1993 Oslo accords between Israel and the PLO and the advent of the PNA. The fifth and last chapter approaches the history of the Second Intifada (2000-2005) and of the following years until the 2006-2007 Fatah-Hamas conflict. 6 Thesis Declaration. This is to certify that: the work contained within has been composed by me, and this is entirely my own work, and no part of this thesis has been submitted for any other degree or professional qualification. Signed: F.S. Leopardi Date: 09 October 2017 7 8 Acknowledgments. I would like to thank the University of Edinburgh for giving me the opportunity to pursue my PhD and develop my research and professional skills. I am also grateful to the Council for British Research in the Levant for providing a travel grant which was essential in ensuring the success of this research. Joining the Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies Department at the University of Edinburgh allowed me to be part of a welcoming and stimulating community. My gratitude therefore, goes to my supervisors Dr Anthony Gorman and Dr Thomas Pierret whose guidance and advice made the