The Fatah movement is today marking the 38th anniversary since its establishment. The main assembly is taking place in the city of Gaza, where its chairman, Yassir Arafat, will give an “important speech”, as announced in the Palestinian daily newspaper Al-Hayyat Al-Jadida. The Palestinians are calling this day a national Palestinian holiday, since they regard it as the beginning of their struggle against the occupation.
The Fatah movement announced that in addition to the main assembly in Gaza, there will be assemblies and parades in all the towns and refugee camps in the Gaza strip and in the West Bank. According to Al-Hayyat Al-Jadida, a Fatah official stated that Arafat will be giving a speech appealing to the Palestinian people and to the whole Arab nation. The secretary of the movement, Marwan Barghouti, who is currently incarcerated in Israel on account of involvement in terror attacks, will give a speech on behalf of the prisoners in Israeli jails (the speech will be to transmitted via phone or in writing).
The Palestinian streets are decorated with Palestinian flags and with Fatah symbols, as well as large pictures of Arafat. Pictures of Palestinian martyrs have also been put up alongside notices calling to continue the opposition to the occupation and to walk in the way of the martyrs. Palestinian television has been broadcasting live from the celebrations since this morning (Tuesday).
The Fatah movement, in a manifest distributed in honor of the event, promised “to continue the struggle and the opposition to the occupation until the aims of the national endeavor are fulfilled [these are] liberty, freedom, returning [of refugees], full independence, a right to self definition, and the establishment of a Palestinian state, the capital of which will be Jerusalem”.
The movement emphasized the need to confront the violent aggressiveness and the ongoing escalation of the Israeli military throughout the homeland. The movement also called on Palestinians to resist the Israeli “Sharonic” danger, the military, financial and economic curfew, and the destruction of the Palestinian Authority.
It should be pointed out that two out of the three official Palestinian newspapers did not print any kind of greeting for the event. Only Al-Hayyat Al-Jadida, which has close ties to the Palestinian Authority, printed two greetings – the first was on behalf of an organization called “Sahim – Investing and Developing Skills of Youth”, and the second on behalf of the union of engineers in Khan Younis and in Rafah. The reason for this may be that the real anniversary is only tomorrow – January 1st- yet it is still puzzling since the celebrations are taking place today. Even more peculiar is the fact that greetings for chairman Arafat are usually published in the papers almost on a daily basis. These are frequently printed after he visits or gives aid to various organizations. This fact reflects the decline in the status of the Fatah movement as well as its chairman, Arafat.
A brief glance at the establishment of the Fatah:
The Fatah movement regards January 1st 1965 as the date of its establishment, since this was the date the movement attempted to carry out its first terror attack. They attempted to damage Israel’s main water pipe, the foundations of which were laid in 1964, in order to transfer water from the Sea of Galilee in the north down to the Negev in the south. An explosive charge placed in a canal in Beit Netofa was uncovered and the attack was thwarted, yet this sparked the beginning of the Palestinian struggle.
During its first years in the 1960s, the movement was composed of just a few hundred activists, and the number of terror attacks they carried out up until the Six-Day War in 1967 was less than a hundred. Eleven Israelis were murdered altogether in these attacks, and their effect on Israel was marginal, being more of a political issue than a military or an economic one.
The movement’s main argument has always been, and still remains, that the liberation of Palestine is initially a Palestinian affair and it is not to be handed over to the care of other Arab states. The Arab states should assist where possible or even send in their armies, but the Palestinians must have the upper hand in their struggle for liberty. The movement favors a civil revolt in which all of the people take part in the struggle. The reason for this is the failure of the Arab states to defend Palestine in 1948 and in the ensuing wars.
Yassir Arafat was one of the founders of the movement, and was later its spokesman and leader. During the fifth Palestinian national assembly, which took place in Cairo in 1969, the Fatah movement won the largest number of seats and Arafat was elected chairman of the active committee of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). During that same year the Fatah movement attempted to unite the various terror movements, and in February 1970 all the large Palestinian terror organizations were united under the leadership of Fatah.
The Fatah is still the central faction of the PLO and its members have key roles in the National Palestinian Authority. The Fatah movement has two wings – a military wing and a political one. The military wing has carried out several terror attacks against Israel over the past few years, and especially since the start of the current Intifada. These were condoned by the political wing, and even by Arafat himself, who still holds the title of chairman of the movement.