Fatah and the Politics of Violence The Institutionalization of a Popular Struggle

by Kurz, Anat K

• ISBN13: 9781845190323
• ISBN10: 1845190327
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-10-18
• Publisher: Liverpool University Press

Summary

The institutionalisation of Fatah mirrors the evolution of the PLO and the Palestinian national cause generally. Understanding the factors that have influenced Fatah's politics of violence, and its political path -- and the balance between the two -- help to explain the political history of the Middle East in recent decades. Fatah's institutionalisation is marked by alternating bases of the organisation's legitimacy: organisational, communal, and external. Transformations from one phase to another are distinguished by the shifts in relative importance assigned to the different sources of legitimacy, which in turn dictated different courses of action for the organisation.

Author Biography

Anat N. Kurz is a senior research associate at the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, Tel Aviv University, Israel, and head of the Center's Project on Low Intensity Conflict.

Table of Contents

Preface	vii
Abbreviations	ix
Introduction	1	(5)
The Institutional Analysis of Popular Struggles	6	(10)
Institutionalization and Legitimization	7	(3)
Organizations and Movements: An Institutional Distinction	10	(3)
Institutional Transformation	13	(3)
Fatah's Struggle for Institutionalization	16	(7)
The First Institutional Phase, 1959--1965: Regulative Formation	23	(12)
Blowing in the Wind: Palestinian Political Action in the 1950s	23	(4)
The Sinai Campaign of 1956	27	(2)
Establishing Regulative Legitimacy	29	(2)
Mobilization in Theory	31	(4)
The Second Institutional Phase, 1965--1967: Coming to the Surface	35	(9)
The Establishment of the PLO	35	(2)
Violent Mobilization in Practice	37	(2)
Regional Responses	39	(5)
The Third Institutional Phase, 1967--1968: Violent Mobilization in Action	44	(10)
The June 1967 War	44	(1)
Modes of Action	45	(2)
The First Stage: Struggle in the Territories	47	(4)
The Second Stage: A Stronghold in Jordan	51	(3)
The Fourth Institutional Phase, 1968--1970: Regulative Challenges, Political Opportunities	54	(10)
The Battle of Karamah and Regulative Reorganization	54	(3)
Taking Over the PLO	57	(2)
Losing the Jordanian Sanctuary	59	(5)
The Fifth Institutional Phase, 1971--1973: Reconstruction	64	(15)
Regulative Mobilization, Political Gains	65	(3)
Black September and Institutional Regression	68	(3)
Normative Compulsion	71	(1)
Politics of Violent Mobilization	72	(4)
The October 1973 War	76	(3)
The Sixth Institutional Phase, 1974--1982: Violent Lead, Political Backup	79	(25)
Institutional Pragmatism	79	(6)
Entrenchment in Lebanon	85	(6)
Political Backup	91	(6)
Further Entrenchment	97	(4)
The War of June--September 1982	101	(3)
The Seventh Institutional Phase, 1983--1987: Time Out	104	(11)
Political Maneuvers, Violent Backup	105	(5)
Back to the Territories	110	(5)
The Eighth Institutional Phase, 1988-1993: Political Lead, Violent Backup	115	(20)
Politics of Violent Mobilization	115	(5)
Sidelining ``the Inside'' I	120	(7)
Institutional Regression	127	(3)
Sidelining ``the Inside'' II	130	(5)
Epilogue: New Setting, Old Dilemmas	135	(17)
The Post-Oslo Years	135	(2)
The PA's Institutional Regression	137	(6)
Politics of Violent Mobilization	143	(4)
The Challenge of Disengagement	147	(5)
Conclusion	152	(5)
Notes	157	(51)
Bibliography	208	(10)
Index	218