The Rejectionist Front (Arabic: جبهة الرفض) or Front of the Palestinian Forces Rejecting Solutions of Surrender (جبهة القوى الفلسطينية الرافضة للحلول الإستسلامية) was a political coalition formed in 1974 by radical

Palestinian Palestinians () are an Arab ethnonational group native to the Levantine region of Palestine. *: "Palestine was part of the first wave of conquest following Muhammad's death in 632 CE; Jerusalem fell to the Caliph Umar in 638. The indigenous p ...

factions who rejected the Ten Point Program adopted by the

Palestine Liberation Organization The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO; ) is a Palestinian nationalism, Palestinian nationalist coalition that is internationally recognized as the official representative of the Palestinians, Palestinian people in both the occupied Pale ...

(PLO) in its 12th Palestinian National Congress (PNC) session.

Origins

While affirming the PLO's commitment to fight

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

, the Fatah-sponsored Ten Point Program authorized the PLO to "establish nindependent combatant national authority for the people over every part of Palestinian territory that is liberated", which was regarded by many Palestinians as a possible first step towards a two-state proposal. At the same PNC session, the ultimate goal of the PLO was defined as recovering the

Palestinian right of return The Palestinian right of return is the political position or principle that Palestinian refugees, both Immigrant generations#First generation, first-generation refugees ( people still alive ) and their descendants ( people ), have a right to ...

and right of

self-determination Self-determination refers to a people's right to form its own political entity, and internal self-determination is the right to representative government with full suffrage. Self-determination is a cardinal principle in modern international la ...

"on the whole of the soil of their homeland". This prompted several of the more militant Palestinian factions to leave the PLO in protest and form the Rejectionist Front. They were mostly

far-left Far-left politics, also known as extreme left politics or left-wing extremism, are politics further to the left on the left–right political spectrum than the standard political left. The term does not have a single, coherent definition; some ...

organizations fearing a Palestinian-Israeli rapprochement. The Front was never an operative organization, but rather a statement of position. It was strongly backed by

Iraq Iraq, officially the Republic of Iraq, is a country in West Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to Iraq–Saudi Arabia border, the south, Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq border, the east, the Persian Gulf and ...

. While the involved factions continued to advocate a hard-line policy towards Israel, most of them eventually rejoined the PLO, for example in 1977, when the Steadfastness and Confrontation Front was announced. But tensions remained, and the Rejectionist Front or similar initiatives were revived virtually every time Arafat made a conciliatory gesture towards Israel. The most serious rift was in 1988, when the PLO recognized Israel, and most of the left-wing of the PLO again left, backed by

Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...

Consequences

Though the rift initially caused a popular breakthrough for the members of the Rejectionist Front, in the long run it only marginalized them and caused them to be perceived as lackeys of the Arab states. The fact that it was more of an alignment ''against'' Yasser Arafat rather than ''for'' anything in particular didn't help, as the Front brought "together" factions that had no common goal. This can be seen by the example of as-Saiqa, a movement that forms the branch of the pro-Syrian Ba'ath Party in the

Palestinian territories The occupied Palestinian territories, also referred to as the Palestinian territories, consist of the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and the Gaza Strip—two regions of the former Mandate for Palestine, British Mandate for Palestine ...

, and the Arab Liberation Front, similar however used by the pro-Iraqi Ba'ath Party. The alliance did nothing to improve cooperation between member factions, and internecine bloodshed continued. The Front also failed in its goal of weakening Arafat; the PLO Chairman remained securely at the helm of the organization and consolidated a massive war arsenal and order of battle in southern Lebanon in order to harass the Israelis. The Ten-Point Program increased Arafat's worth on the diplomatic front as more western states became willing to speak with his representatives. The members of the Front, contrastingly, isolated themselves as extremists and subservient to the Arab states that backed them and even to the USSR. In 1975 the

Lebanese Civil War The Lebanese Civil War ( ) was a multifaceted armed conflict that took place from 1975 to 1990. It resulted in an estimated 150,000 fatalities and led to the exodus of almost one million people from Lebanon. The religious diversity of the ...

broke out. Far bloodier than its 1950s prelude, it featured most PLO factions on the side of the Lebanese National Movement, specially with the mainly Sunni al-Murabitun. The right-wing

Lebanese Front The Lebanese Front was a coalition of mainly right-wing Lebanese Nationalist parties formed in 1976 by majority Christian groups during the Lebanese Civil War. It was intended to act as a reaction force to the Lebanese National Movement (LNM) ...

had long seen the PLO as a threat to their supremacy in Lebanon's volatile sectarian balance. The Lebanese National Movement and PLO were seen too as a threat to Syria, as they opposed Syrian strategy. As a result, the Rejectionist Front itself became split between the PFLP and various smaller groups which sided with the LNM and Fatah, and as-Saiqa and the PFLP-General Command which sided with Syria. Throughout the late 1970s and then the 1980s the Lebanese wars decimated the ranks of some of the pro-Syrian groups, especially those who supported the Syrians in the War of the Camps. During that war, where the Front was joined by dissidents from within Fatah ( Fatah al-Intifada) led by Col. Said al-Muragha, many of them assaulted refugee camps leading to civilian casualties and accusations that they were turncoats concerned only with serving Assad's goals. The PFLP-GC, for example, which was commanded by the professional guerrilla Ahmed Jibril, wasted much of its efforts on fighting Arafat instead of attacking the Israelis in southern Lebanon, or in recruiting a local infrastructure in the West Bank or Gaza Strip. In addition, most of these groups became extremely dependent on the Syrian government financially and for military supplies. It may be that the PFLP and DFLP's neutrality in the War of the Camps saved them from the mediocre fate that led to the irrelevancy held by the PFLP-General Command to this day.

Decline and demise

The Front also showed obvious divisions in respect to the

First Intifada The First Intifada (), also known as the First Palestinian Intifada, was a sustained series of Nonviolent resistance, non-violent protests, acts of civil disobedience, Riot, riots, and Terrorism, terrorist attacks carried out by Palestinians ...

(1987–91), as well as the

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(1991). In 1991, Palestinian Popular Struggle Front was allowed to rejoin the PLO after accepting United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 and the concept of negotiations with

. The Abu Nidal Organization faded continuously into the shadows after 1991, as-Saiqa never grew out of its comfortable niche in the arms of Assad, the ALF did the same under the sponsorship of

Saddam Hussein Saddam Hussein (28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician and revolutionary who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 1979 until Saddam Hussein statue destruction, his overthrow in 2003 during the 2003 invasion of Ira ...

, the DFLP divided in two on the question of the Oslo Accords (1993), while the PFLP began an ambivalent participation in the peace process that never resulted in complete rejection or acceptance. Today, the Rejectionist Front as a whole is overshadowed by the hard-line Islamist groups

Hamas The Islamic Resistance Movement, abbreviated Hamas (the Arabic acronym from ), is a Palestinian nationalist Sunni Islam, Sunni Islamism, Islamist political organisation with a military wing, the Qassam Brigades. It has Gaza Strip under Hama ...

and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the Popular Resistance Committees, as well as hard-line affiliates of the PLFP and Fatah such as the Abu Ali Mustapha Brigades and the

Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades The al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades () are a Fatah-aligned coalition of Palestinian armed groups in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Created in 2000 amidst the Second Intifada, the Brigades previously operated as the official armed wing of the F ...

, respectively. Most of the organizations that once belonged to the Front today only have dozens of members.

Members of the Rejectionist Front

This is a list of organizations who participated in the Rejectionist Front in 1976: * Arab Liberation Front (ALF) * Palestinian Popular Struggle Front (PPSF) *

Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP; ) is a secular Palestinian Marxist–Leninist organization founded in 1967 by George Habash. It has consistently been the second-largest of the groups forming the Palestine Liberation ...

References

Bibliography