Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) (Al-Jabhah al-Dimuqratiyya li-Tahrir Falasti)
Origins
The Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) is a splinter group from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), another Palestinian movement. Following his participation in the creation of the PFLP in December 1967 with George Habash, Ahman Jibril, and Waddi Haddad, Nayef Hawatmeh decided to create his own movement, the DFLP, in February 1969. The two main reasons for the split were Hawatmeh’s call for a revolution in all Arab states and his desire for a more leftist path for his new movement.
Location / Main area of operation
DFLP is located in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, Syria, and Lebanon. However, the group's armed operations against Israel are currently carried out solely from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
In Lebanon, the DFLP's main bases are located in Palestinian refugee camps, in which the members are reportedly involved in political, logistic, organizational, and propaganda activities. Previously, the DFLP also had bases in the Biqa valley in Lebanon. According to some sources, DFLP has logistical, political, and propaganda offices, as well as training camps in Syria, but Syrian authorities have refuted this allegation.
Objectives
DFLP’s original objective was to replace Israel by a democratic and secular State, comprising all of historical Palestine, i.e. Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. However, this initial objective evolved during the 1970s; specifically, in 1973 DFLP accepted, as a temporary solution, the idea of a Jewish state along with a Palestinian one.
The current aims of the DFLP, as expressed in a resolution of its 5th National Congress held in August 2007, are the following:
• To continue the struggle against Israel.
• The creation of an independent Palestinian state established on those Palestinian territories occupied in 1967, with Jerusalem as its capital.
• To protect the rights of refugees who wishto return to their homes and properties.
• To find a solution to the intra-Palestinian factions' struggle in Gaza through dialogue. The basis of the arrangement should, according to the DFLP, be “the formation of a transitional government made up of figures distant from the current polarizing factors, the modification of the law of general elections through the approval of the law of percentage representation, and the reactivation and development of PLO institutions based on the Cairo Declaration and the Document of National Reconciliation.”
Number of Members
The total number of the DFLP’s members in Syria, Lebanon, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip is estimated to be between 400 and 600. In this respect, it is worth noting that specific reports regarding the political situation in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip do not give any estimation of current DFLP’s numbers in those territories.
Type : Transnational
DFLP is a transnational non-state armed group because its armed operations occur in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and Israel.
Conflict Status : Active
DFLP is formally still committed to the November 2006 lull between all Palestinian groups and Israel concerning the Gaza Strip. Subsequent to this, the National Resistance Brigades, the military wing of the DFLP, has claimed responsibility for several armed actions against Israeli targets, arguing that they were in retaliation for the Israeli attacks against Palestinians.
Structure of the organization
The DFLP is made up of the central leadership, which sets the policies of the movement; and the bases, composed of three levels: local cells, and branch and regional organisations.
DFLP’s central leadership is made up of the following :
• The General National Congress: It is the supreme governing body and is elected by regional and local organizations (cells). It has met only 5 times with its last congress being held in 2007.
• The Central Committee: It adopts the DFLP’s policies between the National Congress sessions and elects the group’s Secretary General and the members of the political bureau.
• The General National Conference: It has the same authority as the General Congress, but within the limits of its brief agenda. It has met only 3 times.
• The Political Bureau: It is the highest Executive Body and acts when the central committee is not in session.
• The Committees of Party Supervision: They have the task of verifying the correct application of internal statutes, as well as guaranteeing the rights of members and organizational structures at different levels, including that of the central leadership.
• Military wing: Kata’ib al-Muqawama al-Wataniya (National Resistance Brigades).
Leadership
The DFLP’s founder, Nayef Hawatmeh, is still the Secretary-General of the group. He is a Marxist Christian and currently lives in Syria.
External aid/Third party involvement
Syria is the only foreign actor known to have ties with the DFLP. Following the 1993 Oslo Agreements, DFLP joined the Alliance of Palestinian Forces based in Damascus. Even though it was expelled in 1999 from this alliance after its contacts with Fatah and Yasser Arafat in Cairo, DFLP still has its political infrastructure and allegedly some training camps in Syria. Nevertheless, as mentioned above, Syrian authorities have denied the existence of these camps.
External effects of the NSAG's armed activities
No information is available on this matter.
Funding
Currently, DFLP’s main source of funding allegedly is Syria. However, the DFLP is known to have received funds from the former USSR and the PLO. However, following the Gulf War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the funding from these sources ceased to exist in the same fashion.
Relationship with the international community
The DFLP was formerly listed as a terrorist organization by the U.S. authorities, but it was removed from the list in 1999. Likewise, the DFLP is not listed as a terrorist organization by the European Union.
Books
• Baud, Jacques (2003), Encyclopédie des terrorismes et violences politiques (Paris: Lavauzelle).
• Cordesman, Anthony H. (2006), Arab-Israeli Military Forces in an Era of Asymmetric Wars (Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers) available at link.
• Cordesman, Anthony H. (2005), The Israeli-Palestinian War: Escalating to Nowhere (Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers), available at link.
• Sayigh, Yezid (1999), Armed Struggle and the Search for State: The Palestinian National Movement, 1949-1993 (New York: Oxford University Press).
Articles and Chapters
• Hawatimah, Nayif and Abu Ali Mustafa, “The Palestinian Secular Opposition at a Crossroads," 29.2 Journal of Palestine Studies (2000), at 78-94.
• Jarbawi, Ali, “Palestinian Politics at a Crossroads," 25.4 Journal of Palestine Studies (1996), at 29-39
• Strindberg, Anders, “The Damascus-Based Alliance of Palestinian Forces: A Primer," 29.3 Journal of Palestine Studies (2000), at 60-76.
• Suleiman, Jaber, “The Current Political, Organizational, and Security Situation in the Palestinian Refugee Camps of Lebanon," 29.1 Journal of Palestine Studies (1999), at 66-80
Reports and resolutions of intergovernmental organizations
• EU Council, Common Position 2006/380/CFSP of 29 May 2006, Official Journal of the European Communities L 144/25, 31.5.2006.
Governmental reports
• U.S. Department of State, Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs). Fact Sheet Office of Counterterrorism, Washington, DC, October 11, 2005, available at link.
Reports of think tanks and non-governmental organizations
• Council of Foreign Relations, “PFLP, DFLP, PFLP-GC, Palestinian leftists," 31 October 31 2005, available at link .
• The Democratic Control of Armed Force (DCAF) and the Graduate Institute for Development Studies (2006), Government Change and Security Sector Governance: Palestinian Public Perceptions, available at link .
Press Information (in chronological order)
• “Poided to Strike," The Jerusalem Report, 12 November 1993.
• “Israel’s 10 most wanted terrorists," The Jerusalem Report, 20 October 1994.
• “US and Syria in head-on clash," Scotland on Sunday, 12 October 2003.
• “DFLP leader says Palestinian Mecca deal ended “monopoly” of power," Al Quds website in BBC Monitoring Middle East, 24 February 2007.
• “Palestinian DFLP head interviewed on domestic situation, ties with Israel," Al-Sinnarah in BBC Monitoring Middle East, 14 May 2007.
• “Palestinian groups fire rockets in retaliation for “Israeli massacres”," Ma’an News Agency in BBC Monitoring Middle East, 23 May 2007.
• “Jordan invites Palestinian DFLP leader to reside in Jordan," Al Sabil in BBC Monitoring Middle East, 29 May 2007.
Interviews
Internet resources
• Global Security, Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), available at link.
• National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism, Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), available at link
• Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, available at link
Statements of the armed group
• Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine Concludes Its Fifth General Congress, 28 August 2007, availale at link
• Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Statement for Farouk, available at
link
• Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, The Organization and its key conferences, available at
link
Agreements involving armed groups