Fatah, al-

Palestinian nationalist organization, founded in 1957 to bring about an independent state of Palestine. Also called Tahir al-Hatani al Falastani (Movement for the National Liberation of Palestine), it is the main component of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

Al-Fatah was formed by Yasser Arafat and other Palestinian students in Cairo, Egypt, in 1957. Its fedayeen (guerrilla) forces began to launch raids into Israel (from Jordan and Syria) from 1965. By 1969 al-Fatah had established control over the PLO, enabling Arafat to become PLO leader.

In the early 1970s, al-Fatah's forces were driven from Jordan into Syria and Lebanon, where it established bases in the south from which attacks on Israel were launched. However, in 1982 al-Fatah forces had to evacuate Beirut. By the 1980s al-Fatah membership had broadened to include a majority of secular moderates who supported negotiation with Israel. This led to increasing challenges from more militant Palestinian Islamic nationalist groups, notably Hamas, who rejected dialogue (and so are known as the ‘Rejectionists’). Al-Fatah helped to organize the 1987-93 Palestinian Intifada in the Israeli-occupied territories, but also supported Arafat's peace initiatives from the early 1990s. In the second Intifada in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, which started in September 2000, al-Fatah's tanzim (field organization) sought to lead Palestinian resistance, but al-Fatah increasingly lost popular support among Palestinians to the more radical Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which launched suicide bomb attacks on Israeli targets.