DEMOCRATIC FRONT FOR THE LIBERATION OF PALESTINE

(DFLP) Arabic Al-Jabha al-Dimuqratiyah li-Tahrir Filastin one of several organizations associated with the Palestine Liberation Organization (q.v.); it has engaged in terrorist attacks and has maintained a Marxist-Leninist orientation that asserts that the peasants and working classes should be educated in socialism in order to bring about a democratic state of Jews and Arabs free of Zionism and imperialism. Originating in the leftist swing of the 1960s and founded by a Jordanian Orthodox Christian, Na'if Hawatmeh, in 1969, the Popular Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (as it was originally named) was envisioned as a political movement distinct from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (q.v.; PFLP), which had been founded to provide a front for diverse militant Palestinian groups. The DFLP stood ideologically to the left of the PFLP and claimed that its enemies were Zionist upper-class imperialists, although in 1974 it took responsibility for the terrorist attacks in Ma'alot and Bet She'an. The DFLP was also wary of Arab governments and critical of other pro-Palestine groups for ignoring reactionary forces within the Arab world.