Why were Palestinian militants so fond of the Red Army Faction?

[Rafiq]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_massacre#Black_September.27s_demands

Also, when the PFLP hijacked a plane they demanded the release of Andreas Baader and his friends.

I didn't know they were in contact with each other. Why did the Palestinian militants care about Baader and the RAF anyway?

[Sasha]

They (raf & black September) trained together and did several actions together. Palestine was a big thing in the anti-imp scene in Germany at the time. Sadly some RAF/revolutionary cells (RZ) crossed the line into anti-semitism so now thanks to them we are stuck with the anti-germans and horst mahler became a neo-nazi

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Horst Mahler is a fucking idiot.

But yeah, the RAF and associates trained in the Middle East (was it Jordan? I don't know!) and I imagine established contacts in that way.

[Susurrus]

From wikipedia:

Baader and others then spent some time in a Fatah military training camp in Jordan before being expelled due to "differences in attitudes". For example, when their trainers insisted their German guests attend training with the rest of the students, they protested by going nude sunbathing on the roof of their barracks. They seemed only interested in firing off weapons and detonating explosive devices and repeatedly ignored safety instructions. In one example, Ulrike Meinhof almost blew herself up with an anti-tank grenade during one field exercise

[Rafiq]

The mid east is a big place.... There must have been something the RAF did that appealed to the militants...

[Sasha]

The plo trained dozens of different western urban guerillas at that time; ira, eta, rz, RAF, 17 november and many more. From the Netherlands they trained the total failures of the rode jeugd but since they where all arrested or put under heavy surveillance upon return all they had ever to show for it where some serious scars on their arse from after a handgrenade exercise went wrong.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

I love the scene in The Baader-Meinhof Complex when they all protest the training by sunbathing nude on the roof.:lol:

[thälmann]

They (raf & black September) trained together and did several actions together. Palestine was a big thing in the anti-imp scene in Germany at the time. Sadly some RAF/revolutionary cells (RZ) crossed the line into anti-semitism so now thanks to them we are stuck with the anti-germans and horst mahler became a neo-nazi

a lot of left militants from all around the world were trained in palestine. you can see that by the fact that during the lebanese civil war, the reactionary armys captured revolutionarys from over 40 countries. palestine was a big issue in germany as in every other country in europe.
that raf and rz had anything to do with antisemitism isnt true, and there is no excuse for the turn parts of the german left took after 1990, the most reactionary one are the anti germans. Antisemitism was just as an justification. of course there was antisemitism in the german left, like sexism, racism and so on...

[Sasha]

a lot of left militants from all around the world were trained in palestine. you can see that by the fact that during the lebanese civil war, the reactionary armys captured revolutionarys from over 40 countries. palestine was a big issue in germany as in every other country in europe.
that raf and rz had anything to do with antisemitism isnt true, and there is no excuse for the turn parts of the german left took after 1990, the most reactionary one are the anti germans. Antisemitism was just as an justification. of course there was antisemitism in the german left, like sexism, racism and so on...

Sorry but bombing german synagogues on the night of the kristal nacht remembrance is anti-semitism, separating Jews (not only Israeli) during an hostage taking and shooting them first is anti-semitism, and while the occupants of the touringcar busses on their way to auswitch where indeed mostly Israeli I still would think there would have been a lot more justified targets.
And not only people outside the movements thought so, bommi bauman devotes a whole chapter to it.

[thälmann]

??? the bomb in the synagogue has nothing to do with raf/ rz

there were also several non jewish people seperated, and also jews who were released during the hostage, when they had no israeli papers. there are several writings about this from members of the rz...

http://www.freilassung.de/div/texte/rz/ai92.htm
http://www.freilassung.de/div/texte/rz/zorn/Zorn07.htm
http://www.freilassung.de/div/texte/rz/gif.htm
http://www.freilassung.de/div/texte/rz/ak338.htm

somebody should not believe those who are justifiing what they do know. bommi baumann, peter-jürgen Boock and other camera addicted " comrades"

touringcar to ausschwitz?? i dont know what incident you mean.

ps.: i think the politics of rz and raf where wrong, in almost every aspect. but i dont like the fact, that inernationalism has almost dissappeared in tthe german left because of this, mostly wrong, talking about antisemitism.

[Devrim]

a lot of left militants from all around the world were trained in palestine.

I think that very few of them would have been trained in Palestine. Many were trained in Lebanon and some in Jordan before 'Black September', but I don't imagine many were trained in Palestine.


The plo trained dozens of different western urban guerillas at that time; ira, eta, rz, RAF, 17 november and many more.

You can add to that list people such as the UDA, and the Turkish Grey Wolves.


you can see that by the fact that during the lebanese civil war, the reactionary armys captured revolutionarys from over 40 countries.

I don't think that they were 'revolutionaries', and I think that both sides were as reactionary as each other.

Devrim

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

I think that very few of them would have been trained in Palestine. Many were trained in Lebanon
I know members of the Irish National Liberation Army trained in Lebanon with the PFLP in the late 1970s.

[Devrim]

I know members of the Irish National Liberation Army trained in Lebanon with the PFLP in the late 1970s.

Yes, they were in a camp just down the road from where the UDA were training.

Devrim

[Sasha]

??? the bomb in the synagogue has nothing to do with raf/ rz


it was done by the "Tupumaros-west berlin" who later became members of "movement 2 june" and the "RAF" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupamaros_West-Berlin)

[freepalestine]

I think that very few of them would have been trained in Palestine. Many were trained in Lebanon and some in Jordan before 'Black September', but I don't imagine many were trained in Palestine.



You can add to that list people such as the UDA, and the Turkish Grey Wolves.



I don't think that they were 'revolutionaries', and I think that both sides were as reactionary as each other.

Devrimwhy, were you there?.give sources.
ive never heard of any of those groups training or fighting alongside the PLO in lebanon... except japanese redarmy ,eta, and more so pkk,asala,

[Devrim]

why, were you there?.give sources.


Yes, I was actually, and I met a UDA man in Lebanon, and also had the camp where they were trained pointed out to me. I never met Grey Wolves, but Mehmet Ali Ağca, and other Grey Wolves have attested to being trained in Lebanon, Ağca by the PLFP.

Devrim

[thälmann]

it was done by the "Tupumaros-west berlin" who later became members of "movement 2 june" and the "RAF" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupamaros_West-Berlin)


so, the fact that a little pot smoking freak group full of VS agents made an antisemitic action proofs that rz and raf were antisemites? i think that it proofs more that some of them made a certain develpoment and went to the raf.
the raf by the way never attacked israeli targets because of the german history.

regarding those training stories: i know an incident were german fascists started training in palestine, i think it was one of the left guerillas. german comrades informed the palestinians who they are training, and the fascists had to go out very fast. so i dont believe that the pflp trained reactionary forces. but with the plo, hezbollah amal and so on it possible. but also strange, because uda and mhp are pro zionist...

[fionntan]

Yes, I was actually, and I met a UDA man in Lebanon, and also had the camp where they were trained pointed out to me. I never met Grey Wolves, but Mehmet Ali Ağca, and other Grey Wolves have attested to being trained in Lebanon, Ağca by the PLFP.

Devrim


I dont know about that me thinks the irishman was pulling your leg. The uda was formed in 1971 and right of the mark were getting armed by Isreal. And is well documented but ive never read or heard at any time that they were trained in the Lebanon.

[Sasha]

a uda man,and 3 grey wolfs ?
trained by who? the PLO.. ?
must be true then.doesnt exactly make sense considering the asala,pkk and other armenianlebanese groups were there fighting in the 'civil war.
who did the kataib and Goc train?
pointless thread in the 1st place


so, the fact that a little pot smoking freak group full of VS agents made an antisemitic action proofs that rz and raf were antisemites? i think that it proofs more that some of them made a certain develpoment and went to the raf.
the raf by the way never attacked israeli targets because of the german history.

regarding those training stories: i know an incident were german fascists started training in palestine, i think it was one of the left guerillas. german comrades informed the palestinians who they are training, and the fascists had to go out very fast. so i dont believe that the pflp trained reactionary forces. but with the plo, hezbollah amal and so on it possible. but also strange, because uda and mhp are pro zionist...


the "rode jeugd" militant also describe witnessing german neo-nazi's being trained in one of the Fatah camps in lebanon.
in fact this actually led to some minor internal fighting in the neo-nazi scene at the time as some other nazi's joined the side of the israeli backed christian militias during the lebanese civil war.

[Devrim]

regarding those training stories: i know an incident were german fascists started training in palestine,

I really don't think that anyone was trained in Palestine. Unless by Palestine you mean the pre-1967 West Bank, which was at the time part of the Kingdom of Jordan. Certainly nobody was after the 1967 war. The PLO had to infiltrate its own guerrillas, which sort of implies that they didn't have any training camps there.


pointless thread in the 1st place

I think that the original question was pretty pointless, but what went on in the camps of Lebanon, and what it reflects about the politics of these groups is, I think, interesting.


a uda man

What I said was that I met a UDA man. I would certainly imagine that there were many more.


and 3 grey wolfs

I don't know how many Grey Wolves were trained there, but I would imagine that it was more than three.


trained by who? the PLO.. ?

I don't make any claims about this. Ağca claimed that he was trained by the PLFP. I would imagine though that after the Syrians entry into East Lebanon in 1976, it was all overseen if not directly controlled by them.


doesnt exactly make sense considering the asala,pkk and other armenianlebanese groups were there fighting in the 'civil war.

To me it makes complete sense if you look beyond stated ideological purposes and look at the power politics that went on in the background.

Syria, which backed the PKK for years, is in no way committed to some vague ideas of Kurdish nationalism. A quick look at the way Syria treats Kurds in its own country is enough to show that. What Syria wanted was a weapon that it could use against Turkey, which is why they funded the PKK. When the Turkish_Syrian detent finally came about, the PKK were kicked out of the Bekka valley, Apo was forced to go on the run, and eventually ended up in a Turkish prison. What is important here is Syrias's geo-political interests. If you go back to the period after the Syrian invasion at the start of the civil war, there was a period where both the Syrians and the Israelis were supporting the same Maronite faction. There are no principles involved here at all, just realpolitik. If Syria thought that it could use the Grey Wolves in some way to its advantage, it would have had no problem in overseeing their training.

The involvement with the grey Wolves then comes through Bulgaria. At the time Syria was allied with the Soviet camp, of which Bulgaria was a part. It is well documented that the Bulgarian secret service was running both arms and heroin through Turkey and Bulgaria into Europe in partnership with the Grey Wolves. Is it so unbelievable that the Syrians could have been asked to supervise some training by their friends in Bulgaria. Personally I think not.


who did the kataib and Goc train?

I have no idea. Certainly the South Lebanese Army was equipped and trained by the IDF. It wouldn't have been surprising if members of those organisations were involved in it.


because uda and mhp are pro zionist...

The MHP are pragmatists. There have been times when they have been quite friendly to Israel. Nowadays, given the massive anti-Israel sentiment in Turkey, they are moving away from it. There have also been times in the past when Turkish ultra-nationalism has been virulently anti-semitic.

Then again Israel has had relations the PKK. Indeed even in the last few weeks support for the PKK has been expressed by Avigdor Lieberman, the Israeli foreign minister has talked about arranging meetings with the PKK in order to discuss ways of co-operating against Turkey.

Certainly Israel funded other Kurdish nationalist groups, and financed and trained the KDP in Mulla Mustafa Barzani's time. The reason for this is pretty clear. They were a tool that could be used against Iraq.

If you think the alleged ideological lines of these groups are the driving force, non of this would make sense. However, if you realise that these groups really exist in a murky world of power politics where more often than not they end up being used as the tools of local and even international powers, it all falls into place.

Devrim

[Devrim]

I dont know about that me thinks the irishman was pulling your leg. The uda was formed in 1971 and right of the mark were getting armed by Isreal. And is well documented but ive never read or heard at any time that they were trained in the Lebanon.

No, I don't think that he was pulling my leg. The camp where they were trained was also pointed out to me my both Palestinians and Lebanese.

That weapons were imported from Lebanon in the late 1980s is a well known fact, and loyalists even went to prison for it when one cache was discovered.

Devrim

[fionntan]

I wonder why this has never came out before? And by coming out i mean the uda exposing it?Thanks for the info any how.

[Devrim]

I wonder why this has never came out before?

The bit about the guns I think is common knowledge. See the Wiki page on Davy Payne (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_Payne).

Devrim

[fionntan]

I knew about the guns from the Lebonon for ulster resistance and there cohorts. It was the training of them over there i wasnt aware of. Its common knowledge they were trained in British army camps all over the north but as for overseas i wasnt aware.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Horst Mahler wrote a manifest whilst in Stammheim, but apparently this was when (the cause of!) he was kicked out the group by Baader et al.

Does anybody have a copy of the manifesto? I'm interested to know if he displayed nazi sympathies as earlier as this.

[freepalestine]

regarding those training stories: i know an incident were german fascists started training in palestine, i think it was one of the left guerillas. german comrades informed the palestinians who they are training, and the fascists had to go out very fast. so i dont believe that the pflp trained reactionary forces. but with the plo, hezbollah amal and so on it possible. ...
i dont know of that.
there was a group who were run by westgerman intelligence, neonazis called 'military sport group' headed by karl heinz hoffman.
who gave military equipment to various groups especially the western and isreali backed kataib and the rightists in lebanon.hoffman and 3 others were later kidnapped by the PLO.
fateh not pflp..
this info from pitythenation by r.fisk p171-172.not wikipedia

[Rafiq]

I think that the original question was pretty pointless, but what went on in the camps of Lebanon, and what it reflects about the politics of these groups is, I think, interesting.

Why? Because it doesn't stink of sectarian opportunism? I was reading on the Red Army faction and a google search didn't do the trick, and as I am not surrounded by people who have a good understanding of the Red Army Faction Rev Left was the only place I could go to ask.

And if you could explain why my question was pointless I'd be glad to hear why.

[Devrim]

Why? Because it doesn't stink of sectarian opportunism? I was reading on the Red Army faction and a google search didn't do the trick, and as I am not surrounded by people who have a good understanding of the Red Army Faction Rev Left was the only place I could go to ask.

And if you could explain why my question was pointless I'd be glad to hear why.

Apologies, 'my bad' as people say these days. It is a fair question. Maybe I just forgot for a moment that a lot of people on here are a bit younger than I am and can't remember the general atmosphere at the time.

To try to answer the question; back in those days there was a general feeling of solidarity between various leftist and nationalist guerilla groups. Many of them had trained together in Jordan and then Lebanon, and many of these groups had adopted 'Marxist' politics.

As far as I know there wasn't that much of a thing between the Palestinian groups and the RAF. Probably the main thing was the 'Mogadishu' hijacking where PLFP members demanded the release of a number of RAF members and a couple of Palestinians held in Turkey. At the time the PLO went wild (remember that the PLFP was a part of the PLO at the time though not on its EC), and tried to talk them into giving up in Cyprus.

That many of the 'Euro-terrorist' groups 'looked up to' the Palestinian movement is undoubted, but I don't think, this one incident aside it was that reciprocal.

Devrim

[Rafiq]

Ah, that was an answer I was looking for.

Thanks, and I apologize if I sounded confrontational

[Sasha]

Apologies, 'my bad' as people say these days. It is a fair question. Maybe I just forgot for a moment that a lot of people on here are a bit younger than I am and can't remember the general atmosphere at the time.

To try to answer the question; back in those days there was a general feeling of solidarity between various leftist and nationalist guerilla groups. Many of them had trained together in Jordan and then Lebanon, and many of these groups had adopted 'Marxist' politics.

As far as I know there wasn't that much of a thing between the Palestinian groups and the RAF. Probably the main thing was the 'Mogadishu' hijacking where PLFP members demanded the release of a number of RAF members and a couple of Palestinians held in Turkey. At the time the PLO went wild (remember that the PLFP was a part of the PLO at the time though not on its EC), and tried to talk them into giving up in Cyprus.

That many of the 'Euro-terrorist' groups 'looked up to' the Palestinian movement is undoubted, but I don't think, this one incident aside it was that reciprocal.

Devrim

the release of baader-meinhoff e.a. was also an demand of hostage takers the olympic munich attack and a host of other Palestinian actions...
so it seems that at least some in the palestinian camp thought it where usefull comrades/idiots

[Per Levy]

Horst Mahler wrote a manifest whilst in Stammheim, but apparently this was when (the cause of!) he was kicked out the group by Baader et al.

that is difficult, do you know wich year it was and does it has a title? i might be able to find it in german then, if that would help you. a quick look right now only gave me an info on "manifest" mahler wrote in 2009.

btw thanks to devrim for all the interesting info.

[Devrim]

the release of baader-meinhoff e.a. was also an demand of hostage takers the olympic munich attack and a host of other Palestinian actions...
so it seems that at least some in the palestinian camp thought it where usefull comrades/idiots

Yes, I'd forgotten about that one. It was actually in Germany though and they did demand the release of hundreds of people.


also what led up to the Ikrit and Biram attack

After the defeat of the Arab states in 1967, and then the defeat of the PLO in Jordan in 1970, there were many in the Palestinian national movement who were feeling increasingly disillusioned with the turn of events. I think the whole 'Black September' thing stems from a desire to strike back, and a feeling that the PLO as it existed could not effectively challenge the Israeli state. Thus elements within the PLO, and also other Palestinian groups embarked on a series of 'spectacular' actions, assassinations, and hijackings.


on the isreali team(all iof reservists) ..?

As all Israeli citizens are. Are you implying that any Israeli citizen is a legitimate target?

Devrim

[Devrim]

i asked if you were there,as in at the time of the civil war you werent.


No, I wasn't. I lived there in the 1990s. You quoted a huge lump of text and I presumed you were talking about being there in general.

Devrim

[thälmann]

for those who know german, here are all the papers and so on from the RAF

http://www.nadir.org/nadir/archiv/PolitischeStroemungen/Stadtguerilla+RAF/RAF/raf-texte+materialien.PDF

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

that is difficult, do you know wich year it was and does it has a title? i might be able to find it in german then, if that would help you. a quick look right now only gave me an info on "manifest" mahler wrote in 2009.

btw thanks to devrim for all the interesting info.

It would be whenever they were in Stammheim together, 1970s.

Don't know the name, but apparently it alienated Mahler from the rest of the B-M gang, so I was wondering whether it was a break with leftism altogether, or part of his 'Maoist' phase.