When Palestinian student activists in Kuwait decided that they needed to take matters into their own hands to liberate Palestine, they chose Lebanon as the country that they wanted to launch the first armed attack against the “Zionists” on the first day of 1965.
Those planning for and supporting the attack issued their first press release in Kuwait. They weren’t sure how to sign it. They called their movement Harakat al-Taharur al-Watania al-Falastinia — the Palestinian National Liberation Movement. They wanted a shorter name and tried to figure out the movement’s acronym as a guide. The Arabic acronym, spelled HATF (doom), was unappealing. So the young leaders reversed the letters to come up with Fatah.
