Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

144 • DEMOCRATIC FRONT FOR THE LIBERATION OF PALESTINEDFLP support was essential for al Fatah to rally the votes needed tohave the PNC accept UN resolutions 242 and 338, contingent on creationof a Palestinian state in the occupied territories, in the 19th PNCmeeting held during 12–15 November 1988. The deputy head of theDFLP, Yasir Abdul Rabbo, led the first PLO delegation to meet officiallywith U.S. diplomats following President Ronald Reagan’sauthorization of direct U.S.-PLO talks on 14 December 1988. In1991 the DFLP split into two factions, with the original leader, NayefHawatmeh, leading a faction opposed to Yasir Arafat and AbdulRabbo leading the pro-Arafat faction. This split reflected the generaldissatisfaction within the PLO over the slowness and indirection ofefforts on the diplomatic front.On 24 September 1995 the DFLP denounced the agreements reachedbetween Israel and the Palestinian Authority on expanding Palestinianself-rule. Hawatmeh boycotted the 22 April 1996 meeting of the PNCconvened in Gaza to reconsider Article 15 of the PLO Covenant, whichdeclares it a duty “to purge the Zionist presence from Palestine.” Nonetheless,on 8 February 1999, at the funeral of King Hussein of Jordanin Amman, Israeli President Ezer Weizmann shook hands with Hawatmeh,and on 22 April 1999 Yasir Arafat met with Hawatmeh in Cairofor the first time since the Oslo Accords were signed in 1993 to begintalks aimed at reuniting the DPLF with the rest of the PLO.The DFLP had about 1,000 followers in the early 1970s and perhapsas many as 2,000 on the eve of Israel’s invasion of Lebanon inthe summer of 1982. Currently its two factions together may haveabout 500 followers. In 1999 the U.S. State Department removed theDFLP from the Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs) list due to itslack of activities during the preceding two years. Although no longerdesignated as an FTO, the DFLP remains subject to restrictions onfund-raising activities and to freezing/sesquestration of its assets inthe United States due to an executive order signed by President BillClinton in January 1995 aimed at groups that threaten to disrupt theMiddle East peace process.From the September 2000 outbreak of the second intifada untillate 2005, the DFLP confined its military activities to those territoriesstill occupied by Israel. The influence of the DFLP within Palestiniansociety was weakened due to Yasser Abd Rabbo splitting from themain organization to form the Palestine Democratic Union, whichseeks a negotiated political settlement with Israel.