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Politically, the early fedayeen were relatively moderate and undivided. Inevitably, however, as the guerrillas grew more numerous and more prosperous, schisms began to appear. Syria barred the Palestinian guerrillas and organized its own fedayeen, known as Al-Saiqa (the thunderbolt), with "retired" army officers at their head. Iraq did the same with a smaller organization known as the Arab Liberation Front.
The most disruptive influence on the guerrilla movement was the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, organized in Beirut by a Palestine-born Christian physician named George Habash. Habash s P.F.L.P. has recently become the fastest-growing guerrilla organization because of the group's well-executed and widely publicized raids on airlines, culminating in the quadruple skyjack two weeks ago. Among Arabs, Habash is equally notable for having made ideology a paramount concern among the fedayeen for the first time. Rooted in Marxist dogma strongly tinctured with Maoism, the P.F.L.P. wants not only to attack Israel but also to topple what it considers backward, corrupt and conservative Arab governments. "We do not want peace," Habash told the West German magazine Stern recently. "Peace would be the end of all our hopes. We shall sabotage any peace negotiations in the future." Nor would Habash mind, he said, if the Middle East crisis triggered World War III. "If this should be the only possibility to destroy Israel, Zionism and Arab reactionism, then we wish for it. The entire world except us has something to lose."
Habash's intensely doctrinaire movement has spawned several offshoots. Two splinter groups, the Popular Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, General Command, are more rabidly Maoist than Habash is; both have seats on Arafat's central committee. They and similar splinters badly disrupt the coordination of the group and sap the effectiveness of the guerrilla movement.
As the fedayeen fragmented, fought among themselves and began menacing the governments of Jordan and Lebanon in particular, Arab rulers began to squirm. Hussein once declared, "We are all fedayeen," but he finally mustered his army to chastise the movement. Egypt's Nasser in other days hailed the fedayeen as "the vanguard of the Arab revolution." Now, worried that the guerrillas' romantic image may be undercutting his own, Nasser ventures fewer and fewer encouraging words.
Monitoring the civil war in Jordan last week, Cairo radio was unusually severe: "Egypt will not allow a Palestine maverick group to jeopardize the peace-seeking efforts of the Arabs." Moscow, too, scolded the guerrillas and warned Syria and Iraq, both Peking-leaning regimes, to keep hands off. As far as Jordan is concerned, the Soviets presumably would prefer even a monarchy to guerrillas who might wind up in Peking's corner.
The withdrawal of Nasser's support will not wither the fedayeen. Despite differences and setbacks, the guerrillas will continue as a potent force in the Middle East—an intruding hand capable of ruining any settlement. Ultimately, as even Hussein knows, the only way to defuse this threat is not by force of arms but by fulfilling the fundamental fedayeen demand for a Palestinian homeland.