Palestinian Political violence

The Palestinian political violence , called by some Palestinian terrorism and others resistance armed to the occupation , refers to the actions of violence undertaken for political reasons by individuals or groups Palestinians. The groups which support or organize these actions include the Hamas, the Islamic Jihad Palestinian, the Brigades of the Al-Aqsa martyrs dependant on the Fatah, the Liberation popular front of Palestine, FPLP-GC, the democratic Front of release of Palestine and the organization Abou Nidal. Some of these groups are listed like terrorists by the the United States and the European Union. PLO was also regarded as an terrorist organization by the United States until in 1993.

Like any form of political Violence, the authors claim that their actions are justified while the victims estimate the opposite. By putting side any consideration moral, political or tactical, these attacks are regarded as terrorists as from the moment when they aim non-combatant civilians directly, according to the various definitions of the term “terrorism”. The contrary argument consists in saying that the destruction and the attacks against the populations often were the subject of strategies of war considered as legitimate, as it was the case of the allied attacks against the German cities or Japanese women during the Second world war.

Assessment of the actions before 1993

From 1920 to 1948

The Arab attacks against Jewish populations in Palestine agent before the establishment of the State of Israel culminated at several times:

at the time of the pogrom of Jerusalem of April 1920,
at the time of the revolts in Palestine in May 1921,
at the time of the massacre of Hebron of 1929, and
during the great rising of 1936 to 1939.

The first leaders of the Palestinian groups were the sheik Aldine Izz Al-Qassam who was killed by British soldiers and the mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin Al Husseini, near to the Nazis.

From 1948 to 1956

According to David Meir-Levi, the Egypt maintained a terrorist war against Israel 1949 to 1956, launching 9000 attacks prepared since the refugee camps of the Gaza Strip. 400 Israelis were killed (260 over the year 1955 only) and 900 wounded by these attacks of Fedayin S .

From 1956 to 1982

In 1964, PLO was created to release the part of Palestine on which the State of Israel had been established.

After the black September of 1970, the adherent PLO and its groups started an international campaign against the Israelis. That took to the form of the massacre of the Israeli athletes at the time of the Prise hostages of the Olympic Games of Munich in 1972 and many diversions of civil aircrafts. During years 1970, Israel undergoes the attacks and the bombardments on the north of its territory since the bases of the PLO to the Lebanon. In 1974, a massacre is perpetrated in Maalot. These attacks lead Tsahal to launch the Opération Peace as a Galileo by invading the Southern Lebanon and to cause the escape of the leaders of the PLO with Tunis, allowing a relative calm in the area during one decade.

From 1993 to 2005

With the July 10th 2005, 821 Israeli civilians were killed, victims of Palestinian terrorist activities (mainly of the attack-suicides), since the Accords of Oslo of 1993. Among these, 553 were inside the lines of the armistice of 1949. The places of the attacks were buses, restaurants, discotheques, shopping malls, a university and residences of civilians in Israeli Colonies of the the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The surveys of a Palestinian institute, Jerusalem Media and Center Communication, showed a support of the Palestinian public opinion compared to the actions of violence against the Israelis, seen like efforts of resistance. Other recent public opinion polls showed an opposition of the majority of the Palestinians questioned to the " operations militaires" against Israeli targets, because they would go " against the national interest palestinien" . Certain Israelis estimate that the Palestinian Autorité, installed since the agreements of Oslo, does not make any enough to prevent the terrorist attacks and to reduce the support of the population with respect to these actions. The Palestinian Authority is sometimes shown to support certain attacks, in particular those of the Brigades of the Al-Aqsa martyrs, resulting from the armed wing of Fatah and to diffuse messages of hatred anti-Israelis by the means of television, the press and the education system Palestinian. The Palestinians rétorquent that it is not concretely possible for them to have the level of fight anti-terrorist requested by the Israelis, insofar as most of the Palestinian infrastructures suffered from confrontations with Tsahal.

There were examples of use by Palestinian groups children to carry out Attack-suicides. The March 16th 2005, an Israeli frontier guard close to Nablus found a bomb in the portfolio of Abdullah Quran, 12 years old. The attack was avoided only because the detonator placed in a cellphone did not function. Eight days later, the March 24th, Hussam Abdo, 16 years old, was stopped whereas it carried a belt of explosives, after having, according to its consents, summer paid by the branch of the Tanzim of Fatah, to explode itself at the same point of passage as the event of the previous week. It is a radio-controlled robot which was used to decontaminate its belt of explosives.

List Palestinian groups

Hamas

* Founded in 1987 by Ahmed Yassin and Mohammed Taha as a branch of the Muslim brothers,

* His goal is the destruction of Israel and her replacement by a Palestinian Islamic State.

Islamic Jihad Palestinian

* Founded in the years 1970 by Fathi Shaqaqi as a branch of the Islamic Jihad Egyptian,

* His goal is the destruction of Israel and its replacement by a Palestinian Islamic State.

* Its armed wing is the Brigades Al Qods.

* It does not play of social or political function contrary to Hamas.

Liberation organization of Palestine (PLO)

* Founded in June 1964 like a group of 8 Palestinian nationalist organizations based in Syria and in Lebanon.

* the name of black September was used by this organization in 1972 during the massacre of the Israeli athletes to the Olympic Games of Munich.

* This organization was regarded as Palestinian interlocutor in the discussions with Israel in the years 1990.

Sous-groupes members of the PLO

* Fatah (acronym reversed of " Harekat At-Tahrir Al-Wataniyyeh Al-Falastiniyyeh" (" Liberation movement main road palestinien")

* Founded with the beginning of the year 1960 by Yasser Arafat.

* this group took the control of the PLO since its creation then constituted the Palestinian temporary Authority envisaged by the Accords of Oslo

Groupes associated with Fatah

* the Brigade Ahmed Abu Reish

* resulting from the branch extremist from Fatah, this brigade was implied in taking of hostages in July 2004 in the Gaza Strip.

* the Brigades of the Al-Aqsa martyrs

* Founded by Fatah and the Palestinian Authority

* responsible for many attack-suicides and attacks against Israeli civilians,

* responsible for the execution of opponents with Yasser Arafat

* they are also at the origin of the Faucons of the Fatah which carried out a guerilla against Tsahal in the Gaza Strip

* the Popular resistance committees

* based in the Gaza Strip and probably close to the Brigade Ahmed Abu Reish.

* Force 17 (founded with the beginning of the year 1970)

* Unit of elite of the PLO to the personal service of Yasser Arafat

* shown terrorist acts, of combat, and intelligence services

* Hawari (1980s-1991)

* Intended for special operations of Fatah, under the name of Martyres of Tal Al inactive Za' atar

* for several years

* Tanzim (founded in 1995)

* Has organized the militia of Fatah

* Fondé in 1967 by Palestinian separatists of left

* joined the PLO in 1968 as a second faction of the PLO after Fatah, but left the PLO in 1974, showing the organization to give up its initial objective of destruction of Israel

* Organization Abou Nidal, also known as a revolutionary Fatah-Council

* Fondé in 1974 by Abou Nidal after a rupture within the PLO, it is afterwards a group of laic nationalists directed by his founder until his death in 2002.

Groupes resulting from scissions in the PLO

* FPLP-GC

* Fondé in 1968 by Ahmed Jibril separation with PFLP,

* its objectives is soldiers and nonpolitical.

* the group leaves the PLO in 1974.

* democratic Front for the release of Palestine or FDLP

* Fondé in 1969 as a Marxist-Leninist group which defends a revolution of the masses to arrive at the Palestinian nationalist objectives,

* the group was again divided in 1991 but preserved the radical line defended by Nayef Hawatmeh.

* the group belonged to the Alliance of the Palestinian forces which rejected the Statement of Principle of the Accords of Oslo in 1993, then of it is distant. A bringing together with the PFLP had been had a presentiment of in the middle of the years 1990.

See too

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