Khalil al-Wazir "Abu Jihad": Secular Leader or Islamist at Heart?

Introduction

The question of whether Khalil al-Wazir ("Abu Jihad") was secular or a Muslim is often oversimplified. Ronen Bergman, in Rise and Kill First, narrates a story corroborated by PLO official Yezid Sayigh in Armed Struggle and the Search for State, about the PLO military chief as late as 1985. While making motivational speeches to young Fedayeen, Abu Jihad would tell them to "have faith in Allah and He will reward you with victory or martyrdom is His path, which is the greater victory." While this could be dismissed as a rhetorical device by a secular commander appealing to the religious sentiments of his fighters, a deeper examination of his biography reveals a more complex picture. This article will demonstrate that Abu Jihad was not only a member of the Muslim Brotherhood in his youth during the 1950s but also, as Fatah's second-in-command, played a crucial role in three pivotal events that were instrumental in the formation of both Hamas and Hezbollah.

The Formative Years: Muslim Brotherhood Foundations in Gaza

Abu Jihad's ideological roots were firmly planted in political Islam during his teens as a refugee in Gaza. He later explained to historian Yezid Sayigh:

"After 1949, as a group of youths we sought out the mujahidin who had participated in the Palestine War, to learn from their personal experiences in combat ... Most of them told us that they had fought in the ranks of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is in reality what deepened the ties between youth in the [Gaza] Strip and the mujahidin 'brethren' ... The experience of the Brotherhood attracted us as a group of youths, especially as there were no political forces in the Strip besides the Muslim Brotherhood and the communists. But the communists were few and had a special view of matters that did not match the feelings of people, because at that time they were calling for coexistence [with Israel] ... so they were limited to clandestine activity ... [Whereas] the Brotherhood took the path of preparing and educating for armed struggle."

Significantly, the famous nucleus of teenage Fedayeen who conducted the first-ever Palestinian cross-border raid from Gaza into Israel on the night of 25 February 1955—a group that would later form the core leadership of Fatah, including Abu Jihad, Abu Iyad, Abdullah Najjar, Kamal Adwan, Kamal Nasser, and Abdullah Siyam—were all members of the Muslim Brotherhood at the time. This shared origin within the Brotherhood provided a common ideological and experiential foundation for Fatah's early commanders.

The Strategic Pivot: Fostering Islamist Fedayeen in Jordan

Later, as is widely known, these figures gravitated towards Arab nationalism and joined Yasser Arafat in building Fatah into a broad nationalist movement. Abu Jihad, as its military chief, engaged with communist states throughout the 1960s, undergoing guerrilla training and establishing Fatah's relations with the global anti-imperialist front. However, his Islamist background resurfaced strategically in 1968 while the PLO was based in Jordan.

During this period, he was instrumental in establishing "the Shaikhs' camps" in Irbid. These were the first uniquely Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood Fedayeen units, and their ranks included seminal figures like Shaikh Abdullah Azzam, the future "emir of the Afghan Jihad," and Marwan Hadid al-Muhandis, a future martyr of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood. This 1968-1970 episode is explicitly praised in Hamas' 1988 charter, and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh has repeatedly referred to it as a direct precursor to the movement's Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades. This demonstrates Abu Jihad's role as a critical bridge between secular nationalism and resurgent Islamist militancy.

The Lebanese Theater: Arsenal and Cadres for a Future Hezbollah

In the 1970s, Abu Jihad's operations shifted to Lebanon, where he led the elite "Unit 17." In this capacity, he recruited and trained a new generation of militants, including Imad Mughniyah, Mustafa Badruddin, Anis Naqqash, and Samir Kuntar. All these men would later become central figures in Hezbollah after the Israeli invasion of 1982. Crucially, Abu Jihad, as the only senior Fatah commander to remain in Lebanon rather than relocate to Tunisia after 1982, played a vital logistical role. He was instrumental in transferring part of Fatah's remaining arsenal through secret warehouses to his former protégé, Imad Mughniyah, who incorporated these weapons into the nascent Hezbollah—an organization that at the time lacked a permanent arms pipeline. This critical transfer of resources is attested by both Mughniyah's official Iranian-state-sanctioned biography (2018) and Israeli General Shimon Shapira.

Institutional Legacy: Nurturing the Cradle of Hamas

Finally, Abu Jihad's influence extended into the intellectual and institutional sphere. Alongside the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood leader Khairy al-Agha—a lifelong personal friend—he was instrumental in raising funds for the establishment of the Islamic University of Gaza in 1978. The university was chaired by Musa Abu Marzouk, a future co-founder of Hamas, and has since played an indispensable role in nurturing Hamas cadres, including leaders like Ismail Haniyeh, Yahya Sinwar, Khalil al-Hayya, Yahya Ayyash, Marwan Issa, and Mohammad Deif. By helping to create this institution, Abu Jihad helped build the very infrastructure that would later sustain his political rivals.

Conclusion: A Complex Legacy Beyond Secular-Religious Binaries

Therefore, people who ask what Abu Jihad would think of Hamas today—citing his opposition to the movement in its early, more fractious incarnation in 1987—are posing a historically narrow question. The Hamas of that period, which sometimes attacked PLO figures, was a fundamentally different entity from the consolidated resistance movement it later became, especially after Hamas and Fatah members were imprisoned together in the early 1990s and figures like Mahmoud al-Zahar urged a cessation of internal attacks. A more indicative answer may lie in the trajectory of Abu Jihad's closest disciple, Marwan Barghouti.

Though secular, Barghouti regards Hamas as a legitimate liberation movement and diverges from the official Palestinian Authority line on this matter. Given that Abu Jihad himself was a former Ikhwani who in 1968 helped establish Sheikh Abdullah Azzam's Islamist Fedayeen camps, it is a reasoned inference that his primary criterion was always liberation. He would likely not be opposed to Hamas today, provided it remains steadfast in its struggle against occupation. His legacy is not one of a strictly secular nationalist, but of a pragmatic strategist whose Islamist foundations consistently informed his efforts to build Palestinian resistance capacity by any means necessary.

• This article is written by Abu Dhar al-Bosni (lokiloptr154668 on X) and does not necessarily reflect the views of A.E.P. (the owner of the website), nor does it necessarily represent an agreement with these perspectives.