Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

DEMOCRATIC FRONT FOR THE LIBERATION OF PALESTINE • 143Popular Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The DFLPmembers are Marxist-Leninists who reject the chauvinistic Pan-Arabism of the PFLP in favor of socialist internationalism and whoalso reject the use of international terrorism. The DFLP believedterrorist or guerrilla actions should be conducted only within Israeland the occupied territories, a position that al Fatah adopted in 1974and that eventually was declared official PLO policy on 15 November1988 at the 19th Palestine National Council (PNC) meeting.The DFLP also preceded al Fatah in diplomatic initiatives, makingcontact with Israeli socialist internationalist counterparts such as theIsraeli Matzpen group in 1970, but later opposed any negotiationswith Likud-led governments in Israel. The DFLP pioneered in 1973the idea of the establishment of an independent Palestinian state onthe West Bank and Gaza Strip, which al Fatah also later adopted.During the 1970s the DFLP carried out several attacks within Israel,usually involving kidnapping of hostages or bombings. Theirmost notorious action was the 15 May 1974 assault on the Israelitown of Ma’alot in which three DFLP terrorists took 90 schoolchildrenhostage, to be released in exchange for freeing 23 Arab prisonersas well as Kozo Okamoto, the Japanese Red Army terroristwho had participated in the Lod airport massacre on 30 May 1972.When the negotiations broke down, the Israeli troops stormed thedormitory, but not before the terrorists machine-gunned the children,killing 16 outright and injuring 70 others, five of whom later died.Seven other Israelis, two of them Arabs, were also killed and 69 injuredin the course of this action. This massacre prompted Israeli airforce retaliatory strikes against Palestinian refugee camps in southernLebanon believed to have been the bases of the attackers. A similarattack took place in Beit Shean on 19 November 1974 in which allthree attackers were killed along with four Israelis. In July 1977and March 1979, the DFLP carried out several bombings in publicmarkets and on buses. In January 1979 a DFLP terrorist team tried torepeat a hostage taking at Ma’alot but was intercepted by a routineIsraeli military patrol. After 1982, DFLP actions within Israel consistedof grenade and small firebomb attacks throughout Israel, theWest Bank, and the Gaza Strip, but after 1988 DFLP actions werelimited to small border raids.The importance of the DFLP derives more from its swing voteswithin the PLO than from its declining record of terrorist activities.