Factionalisation from Below: The Case of Palestinian Fatah

ABSTRACT

This article examines the role of junior cadres in rebel group fragmentation. I argue that in a centralised rebel group factions will emerge when leaders block junior cadres’ access to senior decision-making bodies. Junior cadres who want to influence the organisation’s politics therefore face a choice between remaining within the rebel group and exiting it. Factionalising is a way to redress grievances by aggrieved junior cadres who deem peaceful mechanisms for upward mobility ineffective. Using original datasets and personal interviews, I find strong evidence supporting my argument in the case of Palestinian Fatah.

Acknowledgments

For valuable feedback and guidance, I wish to thank Shibley Telhami, David Cunningham, Kathleen Cunningham, Mark Lichbach, Paul Huth, Jori Breslawski, Trey Billing, Thair Abu-Rass, and Michael Milstein. For their exceptional research assistance, I wish to thank Maddox Angerhofer, Marie-Ann Wells, and Michelle Fan. For their invaluable insights, I wish to thank two anonymous interviewees. All remaining errors are my own.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. I use the terms ‘centralised leadership’ and ‘centralised decision-making’ structure interchangeably. Having a centralised leadership inevitably means that decision-making is centralised and vice versa.

2. Various studies describe the term ‘factionalisation’ as ‘fragmentation’ or ‘splintering’ and I use the terms interchangeably.

3. Huntington (1968) has famously argued that the absence of mobility opportunities ‘channels energies into politically deviant behavior’ such as corruption. (Huntington 1968).

4. That being said, all members of al-Mustaqbal, including the two who were also members of FCC when the faction emerged, are considered to be part of Fatah’s younger leadership. Insights I gained through interviews with several members of al-Mustaqbal point to evidence in support of my argument.

5. In the process of scheduling the interviews, I faced several obstacles due to political events and the outbreak of COVID-19. Specifically, some of the prospective interviewees were arrested by Palestinian or Israeli security forces just days before a scheduled interview. In addition, timing the interviews was particularly challenging. Unrest increased in Palestine following the release of the Trump administration’s policies towards the PA, as well as Israeli announcements about its intention to annexe parts of the West Bank. Finally, during my fieldwork the COVID-19 pandemic broke out and travel between Israel and Palestine was restricted. Amid growing uncertainty, I had to leave the region earlier than planned. Combined, these factors inhibited my ability to gather a larger sample of interviewees.

6. Yasser Arafat, Salah Khalaf (Abu Iyad), Khalil Wazir (Abu Jihad), and Khaled al-Hassan are Fatah’s founding fathers. The incumbent Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, Farouk al-Qaddumi, and Mohammed Ghoneim are prominent members who joined Fatah shortly after the organisation’s establishment and are considered to be Fatah’s cofounders. Together, Fatah’s founders and cofounders are often referred to as Fatah’s core leadership.

7. Historically, Fatah has blocked some prominent Palestinian Islamist rebel groups, such as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), from becoming members of the PLO.

8. Initially, the PLO’s main headquarters were in Jordan. Following King Hussein’s war against the PLO in 1970–1971, the organisation relocated to Lebanon. The 1982 Israeli invasion to Lebanon and its subsequent siege over Beirut, led to the removal of Fatah and the PLO’s senior leadership to Tunis, where they were located until the establishment of the PA in 1994.

9. According to the Oslo Accords, the PLC is, in fact, supposed to be the single most important decision-making body in the PA (Robinson 1998).

10. As the case of the al-Mustaqbal faction demonstrates, Fatah’s senior leaders had profound disagreements, occasionally resulting in factionalisations. But for the most part, inter-leadership disputes ‘have not resulted in formal breaks’ (Miller 1983). Even as disputes have intensified in the FCC, they rarely resulted in a leader giving up his position in the committee or splintering from Fatah altogether. The incorporation of Fatah’s junior cadres into the process of factionalisation explains the numerous faction emergences.

11. According to a member of one of Fatah’s factions, the reason for forming the faction ‘was not about ideology nor strategy. At the time, we agreed with the senior leadership on nonviolence and on continuing with the peace process.’

12. The ‘Tunisians’ or ‘returnees’ are popular synonyms often used to describe Fatah and PLO leaders and their loyalists. The terms are based on the fact that following the 1982 Israeli invasion to Lebanon and its subsequent siege over Beirut, senior Fatah and the PLO leaders withdrew to Tunis, where they were located until the establishment of the PA in 1994.

13. Walid Nimr was executed by the Jordanian forces in July 1971 (Sayigh 1997, p. 279); Mamduh Saydam died of cancer in July 1971 (Sayigh 1997, p. 294). Salim al-Za’anoun lost his seat (Sayigh 1997, p. 294).

14. Between 2009 and 2019 only one non-violent faction emerged: Fatah – Democratic Reform Bloc or al-Mustaqbal.

15. In 2011, Dahlan was expelled from Fatah after falling out with President Mahmoud Abbas and in 2016 the faction emerged, following the failure of reconciliation between Dahlan and Abbas (Rasgon, Adam, “Fatah Central Committee Profiles). The following individuals were added to FCC by a decision of FCC and endorsed by the FRC instead of Mohammed Dahlan: Nabil Abu Rdainah, Zakaria Al-Agha, Sakhr Bseiso, Amal Hamad (al-Ghani 2016, Middle East Monitor 2018).

16. Although Arafat established the Tanzim as an armed wing of Fatah in 1995, multiple sources report that Fatah’s ability to rein in the Tanzim has been gradually eroded. The pick comes in 2000 with the beginning of the Second Intifada as Tanzim members often acts independently from the orders of Fatah’s leaders. Indeed, multiple sources refer to Tanzim as internal opposition within Fatah (see e.g., Usher 2000; Schenker 2000; Fishman 2015). I have decided to code the Tanzim as a faction starting in 2000 (beginning of the Second Intifada) as the group acts in defiance of Fatah’s central leadership.

17. Fatah and the PLO’s ‘phased programme’ was a political programme to negotiate a political settlement with Israel in order to recover the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, as a preliminary phase towards the ultimate goal of liberating all Palestine. The programme alarmed many members of the different Palestinian guerrilla groups as well as non-combatant Palestinian refugees who were concerned that, if concluded, the programme would leave them in exile permanently. As a result, many of the refugees looked for more militant nationalist factions (usually leftist) within Fatah and the PLO (Sayigh 1997: 353).

18. I presented to the interviewee one reason at a time and wait for his reply. When needed, I asked follow up questions to extract as many details and examples as possible.

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Moran Stern

Moran Stern is a PhD candidate in Government & Politics at the University of Maryland and a Graduate Fellow in Advanced Israel Studies. His research focuses on causes of rebel group fragmentation. Since 2012 Moran has been a faculty member at the Center for Jewish Civilization in Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. Previously, he taught at American University Center for Israel Studies. Moran holds an M.A. in International Relations, Economics, and Middle East Studies from the Johns Hopkins University (SAIS) and B.A. in Philosophy and Communications from Saint Francis College, New York. He speaks Hebrew and Arabic.