In grad school one of the hardest parts in studying the Israel/Palestine issue was trying to understand who led the Palestinians. It reminds me of the scene from Monty Python’s The Life of Brian when members of the People’s Front of Judea talked about how much they despised Romans. Yet the people they hated even more were the Judean People’s Front, those splitters. Then one of the members jumped in to remind them how much they also hated the Judean Popular People’s Front and the People’s Front of Judea, that was until he was reminded that they were the People’s Front of Judea. One character’s reply was that he thought they were the Popular Front, but they were meeting at a different location.

While today this is no laughing matter, it is amazing that all the different groups in Palestine can keep themselves straight. This week instead of a historical comparison, I’d like to clear up and summarize some of the more important Palestinian groups operating in Israel.

First things first, there has never been a country called Palestine. The first time the name was used was by Greeks in the fifth century BC describing the region, but it was never an independent kingdom or nation.

In more modern times the region was part of the Ottoman Empire from 1285 AD until WWI. After WWI the British and French carved up the remains of the Ottoman Empire into five mandates – territories under control of European countries with the premise of eventual independence.

The French controlled the mandates of Syria and Lebanon while the British controlled the Iraq, Jordan and Palestine mandates.

Britain ruled Palestinian Mandate until 1946 when it was turned over to the United Nations due to developing conflict between Arabs and Jews.

In 1948, the Jews conquered the land and renamed it Israel. So, without ever being a nation, there never has been an actual ruler of the Palestinian people. Before 1923 it would have been impossible to have a Palestinian ruler because there were no such people, or for that matter no Syrians, Lebanese, Iraqis, or Jordanians. All those countries were created in 1923. Before that the people living there were Arabs who had tribes, but no political distinctions between them.

With the Ottomans gone, Arabs living in Palestine began to organize into multiple groups like the Palestinian People’s Party in 1919, the Palestinian Communist Party in 1922, but after Israeli control, the most significant group was Fatah in 1959.

Fatah was created by Yasser Arafat. An Egyptian-born to Palestinian parents, Arafat opposed Zionism and fought with Arab nationalists in the losing war against Israel in 1948. Back in Egypt, Arafat organized Fatah as a resistance group whose mission was the elimination of Israel and the creation of a Palestinian state.

In 1964, 14 Arab nations met in Egypt to discuss what to do about Israel. Not having an official leader, it was decided that an organization should be created to represent the Palestinian interest and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) was born with Ahmad al-Shuqayri as the first chairman.

Part of the charter for the PLO was to destroy Israel. The PLO acted as an umbrella organization overseeing the many political groups such as the Popular Front for Liberation of Palestine, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, but most importantly Fatah.

Think of the PLO as a parliament and all the different groups as parties. In 1967, after the Arab states lost to Israel in the Six-Day War, Arafat was elected PLO chairman as Fatah became the dominant party. With Arafat in charge, the PLO now operating out of Jordan, began attacks on Israel.

In 1971, Arafat tried to overthrow the king of Jordan but was defeated and the PLO was kicked out of the country and moved to Lebanon.

Once in Lebanon the PLO participated in the Lebanese Civil War fighting against the Christians, Syrians, and Lebanese forces. Yet while the PLO continued horrendous attacks against Israel, they added a new component of terrorist attacks around the world including the killing of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics in Munich.

Finally in 1982 Israel invaded southern Lebanon and pushed Arafat and the PLO to Tunisia. From there the PLO continued acts of terrorism in both Israel and abroad.

In the 1980s two new groups came on the scene. Neither working under the PLO but instead challenging it. Those two offshoots from the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, inspired by the Islamic Revolution in Iran of 1979, were the Islamic Jihad and Hamas.

Islamic Jihad which began in 1981, stated its mission as the elimination of Israel and rejected any plan for peace or a two-state solution. The other group that started in 1987 was Hamas who had the same goals.

A turning point in the Israel/Palestine conflict came in 1993 when President Bill Clinton brokered the Oslo Accords. After months of secret meetings, Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and Arafat joined Clinton at the White House and agreed to follow UN Resolution 242. Arafat agreed to remove the Israeli destruction from the PLO charter while Rabin agreed to a Palestinian state and pulled out of the West Bank and Gaza.

A new organization was formed, the Palestinian National Authority, commonly called Palestinian Authority, as the official government of the Palestinian people to be recognized by Israel. The next year Arafat returned to Palestine after 27 years and by 2002 was elected Chairman of the PA and Fatah became the leading party.

Over the next several years Hamas grew in power as they rejected the Oslo Accords and any solution that recognized Israel’s right to exist.

After the 2004 death of Arafat, Hamas was able to defeat Fatah in the 2006 election and gain control of the PA. Fatah and Hamas fought for the next year but most of Fatah was kicked out of Gaza while remaining in control of The West Bank. Most recently violence against Israel has come primarily from Hamas, but there is some still from Fatah, as not all agreed with Arafat were working for peace.

While this article focuses mainly on Suni Palestinian groups, I should note that the other organization you may hear about is Hezbollah, which came into being in 1982 after the Iranian Revolution and is made up of Shia Lebanese. Both Hezbollah and Hamas are supported by Iran, but the two groups do not really get along except for their animosity toward Israel. Lebanon and its role in this fight is too long and complicated but needs to be addressed at another time. Since 2006 Hamas and Fatah have tried working together and even discussed uniting the West Bank and Gaza under one national leadership, but each attempt has failed. The leadership of the two groups simply cannot get along.

I do not know how this recent war will affect the two, but I can’t imagine it will help. Israel wants Hamas removed once and for all.

James Finck, Ph.D. is a professor of history at the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma. He may be reached at HistoricallySpeaking1776@ gmail.com.