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American Political Science Review Vol. 107, No. 3 August 2013

doi:10.1017/S0003055413000208 c© American Political Science Association 2013

Organizing Rebellion: Rethinking High-Risk Mobilization and SocialNetworks in WarSARAH ELIZABETH PARKINSON University of Minnesota

Research on violent mobilization broadly emphasizes who joins rebellions and why, but neglects toexplain the timing or nature of participation. Support and logistical apparatuses play critical rolesin sustaining armed conflict, but scholars have not explained role differentiation within militant

organizations or accounted for the structures, processes, and practices that produce discrete categories offighters, soldiers, and staff. Extant theories consequently conflate mobilization and participation in rebelorganizations with frontline combat. This article argues that, to understand wartime mobilization andorganizational resilience, scholars must situate militants in their organizational and social context. Bytracing the emergence and evolution of female-dominated clandestine supply, financial, and informationnetworks in 1980s Lebanon, it demonstrates that mobilization pathways and organizational subdivisionsemerge from the systematic overlap between formal militant hierarchies and quotidian social networks. Indoing so, this article elucidates the nuanced relationship between social structure, militant organizations,and sustained rebellion.

How is rebellion sustained? This question ismore complex than it appears. Scholarshipon individual and group mobilization has

demonstrated how relative deprivation (Gurr 1971),group identification (Gould 1995; Horowitz 2000, 2001;Wickham-Crowley 1992), moral and emotional moti-vations (Petersen 2001, 2002; Wood 2003), and friend-ship (McAdam 1986; Verkaaik 2004) may influenceactors’ decisions to participate in collective violenceand other high-risk behaviors. Research on organizedrebellion, for its part, has focused on determinants ofexplicitly violent behavior (Humphreys and Weinstein2006; Kalyvas 1999, 2006; Lawrence 2010; Pearlman2011; Weinstein 2007) or on patterns of participation inor support for rebellion (Gould 1995, 1996; Humphreysand Weinstein 2008; Petersen 2001; Viterna 2006;Wood 2003). Yet sustaining a militant organization1 re-quires not only foot soldiers but also the development

Sarah Elizabeth Parkinson is Assistant Professor, Humphrey Schoolof Public Affairs, University of Minnesota, 300 Humphrey School,301 19th Ave. South, Minneapolis, MN 55455 ([email protected]).

I am immensely grateful to my Palestinian and Lebanese inter-locutors for their generosity, trust, and hospitality. Evgeny Finkel,Chris Graziul, Janet Lewis, Jonathan Obert, Dan Slater, Paul Stani-land, Lisa Wedeen, Steven Wilkinson, Elizabeth Jean Wood, SherryZaks, three anonymous reviewers, and the editors of the Ameri-can Political Science Review provided very thoughtful feedback andadvice regarding this project. My special appreciation goes to EricHundman, Amaney Jamal, John Padgett, and Jillian Schwedler fortheir extensive critiques, suggestions, and insights. I am indebted toAmal al-Khatib and to Salah Hamzeh for their assistance and friend-ship in the field. Financial support from the Social Science ResearchCouncil’s International Dissertation Research Fellowship, the So-cial Science Research Council’s Dissertation Proposal DevelopmentFellowship, the National Science Foundation’s Graduate ResearchFellowship, and the Palestinian American Research Center madeextended fieldwork possible. This article was previously presentedat the Political Networks in International Politics panel at the 2011Midwest Political Science Association Annual Conference and at theJournal of Middle East Women’s Studies 2012 Research Workshop.Any mistakes are my own.1 A militant or rebel organization is a collective, institutionalized,nonstate armed entity that uses violence alongside other tactics suchas social service provision to compete for political power.

and upkeep of politically, financially, and logisticallyfocused subdivisions. Without a logistical and supportapparatus, organized armed rebellion reduces to vio-lent protest.

Not all rebels fight on the frontlines, but current the-ories ignore differences in how foot soldiers, publicrelations flaks, and smugglers join and participate inmilitant organizations. These actors inhabit differentroles and are embedded within distinct suborganiza-tional divisions. Moreover, the accountants who man-age a group’s funding sources, the intelligence opera-tives who report enemy activities, and the diplomatswho handle alliances may play an equal or even largerrole than individual fighters in assuring a militant orga-nization’s ability to sustain operations, manage crises,and survive in the long run. This reality raises a se-ries of crucial and under-researched questions: Howdo militant organizations cope with acute repression,displacement, or fragmentation? How do they deployfamily, friendship, and community ties and leveragefactors such as gender during crises? In other words,what explains rebel groups’ resilience? To answer thesequestions, scholars must situate militants in their orga-nizational and social context.

Using the case of Palestinian militant organizationsin wartime Lebanon (between 1982 and 1988), this ar-ticle argues that patterns of overlap between formalmilitant hierarchies and quotidian social networks—that is, everyday kinship, marriage, friendship, andcommunity-based relationships (Petersen 2001, 16–17)—determine the availability and nature of militants’mobilization pathways. I contend that a resilient infor-mation, finance, and supply apparatus built on rebels’quotidian ties was central to Palestinian militant orga-nizations’ reemergence in Lebanon. Due to the prewarcompartmentalization of social, military, and politicaloffices within the Palestine Liberation Organization(PLO) and guerrilla organizations, a predominantlyfemale network of co-members mobilized after mostmale cadres were deported, imprisoned, confined totheir homes, or forced deep underground. Individu-als’ personal networks frequently spanned geographic,

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substantive, and political subdivisions across the PLO,different guerrilla organizations, and the Lebanese–Palestinian national divide. For example, a 16-year-oldboy in the military scouts may have had a mother inthe General Union of Palestinian Women (GUPW). APopular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP)official may have had brothers in two other guerrillaorganizations and a husband in the PFLP with her.Strong, trust-based quotidian relationships formed par-tially redundant social networks that linked militantorganizations’ subdivisions after formal chains of com-mand were severed. Over time, these networks by-passed established organizational hierarchies, linkingan increasing number of organizational subdivisions.

By tracing the emergence and development of theseclandestine logistics networks, this article demonstrateshow quotidian relationships served as informal bridgesbetween the Palestinian militant organizations’ pre-dominantly male fighting units and more gender-mixed or female-dominated support, logistics, and so-cial divisions within formal organizational apparatuses.Quotidian social structures channeled women andLebanese sympathizers (both male and female) intobrokerage roles as couriers, intelligence agents, andsmugglers. Previous participation in militant groups’social organizations and the overlap of kinship andfriendship ties with formal organizational hierarchiesmade these categories of participants “structurallyavailable” and gave them prior activist histories, twokey determinants of high-risk action (McAdam 1986,65, 69–71). Put broadly, these intersections betweenmilitant and quotidian networks became sites of orga-nizational innovation (Burt 2005, Padgett and McLean2006, Padgett and Powell 2012).

SIGNIFICANCE OF THIS ANALYSIS

Analyzing the supply lines rather than the frontlinesreorients discussions of rebellion away from initial mo-bilization and toward the processes and relationshipsthat sustain it over time (Petersen 2001). Concentrat-ing on understudied “back-end” processes of armedrebellion clarifies the role that they play in everydaymilitant decision making and long-term survival, inparticular because these processes strongly influencestrategic choices and affect military effectiveness (VanCreveld 1977). Problematizing the diverse roles that“behind the scenes” actors play within rebel organi-zations challenges current scholarly understandings ofparticipation in political violence by underscoring thesimple fact that sustained, violent rebellion requiressome militants to keep their hands (or records) clean.This seemingly paradoxical point provides an opportu-nity for scholars to move beyond the standing assump-tion that everyone participates for the same reasons; in-stead, maintaining a rebel organization requires manydifferent types of militants, who not only mobilize alongdifferent trajectories (Viterna 2006) and accept varyinglevels of risk (Petersen 2001) but also serve in diverseroles. Rather than relying on imprecise terminologysuch as “participation” or “fighting” to describe all

rebel mobilization trajectories, analyzing logistics andsupport networks highlights the different ways in whichpeople apply their skills, backgrounds, and connectionsto their understandings of what it means to “resist,”“struggle,” or “rebel.”

Moreover, co-analyzing militant and quotidian so-cial network structures in the context of rebel logisticsprovides direct insight into the social processes of civilwar; that is, “the transformation of social actors, struc-tures, norms, and practices at the local level—that some-times leave profound social changes in their wake”(Wood 2008, 540). Although many scholars have iden-tified social network structure as being a fundamentalcomponent of high-risk mobilization and organized vi-olence (Barkey and Van Rossem 1997; Centola andMacy 2007; Gould 1993, 1995, 1996; Marwell, Oliver,and Prahl 1988; McAdam 1986; Petersen 2001; Siegel2009; Wickham-Crowley 1992), few researchers, as JeffGoodwin (1997, 53) notes, have paid attention to theinfluence that rebels’ quotidian kinship, romantic, andfriendship ties have within militant organizations.2 Thisperspective is even more important because militant or-ganizations are often active, strategic agents in wartimesocial change; they may, for example, regulate datingand marriage, restructure health care, or remake landtenure agreements (Mampilly 2011; Peteet 1991; Pool2001; Wood 2003).

Studying clandestine supply networks also highlightsthe frequently gendered nature of high-risk mobiliza-tion and collective violence and opens new avenuesfor inquiry into this phenomenon. Women have beencentrally involved in logistics and support work in,for example, Irish (Alison 2004a; 2004b; Ryan 1999),Algerian (Amrane-Minne 1992, 1999, 2004), Salvado-ran (Viterna 2006; Wood 2003), Eritrean (Bernal 2001;Pool 2001, chap. 3; Wilson 1991), Zimbabwean (Lyons2004), Sri Lankan (Alison 2003), and Sierra Leonean(Coulter 2009, 135–36) rebel organizations, as wellas serving as ground troops. Evidence indicates thatthe same pattern may hold for recent uprisings inLibya and Syria (“Heroes of the Tripoli Underground”2011; Holmes 2012; “The Country Formerly Known asSyria” 2013). Female militants are disproportionatelyrepresented in logistics and support work relative totheir overall participation in militant organizations;for example, only 3.1% of the roughly 10,949 Alge-rian women who fought the French served as groundtroops (2,000 women joined the maquis, or rural guer-rilla rebellion, with many serving as nurses), whereasapproximately two-thirds of women in the Algeriancivil resistance “were either in charge of refuges orsupplies” (Amrane-Minne 1999, 62–65). In 1979, 30%of the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front’s (EPLF)members were female, but women represented 35%of the administrative staff, 55% of the health care staff,and only 13% of ground troops (this number officiallyrose to 23% by 1989) (Pool 2001, 95–96). Louise Ryanargues that Irish women’s “invisibility”—due to their

2 Petersen (2001) focuses on community-based relationships but noton kinship or marriage.

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participation specifically in covert operations and clan-destine logistical work during the 1916 uprising—“mayhave contributed to their omission from accounts of thewar” (Ryan 1999, 264); her observation suggests thatwomen are most likely to participate in the kind of rev-olutionary work that is generally hard to observe fromoutside and less likely to be recorded due to its secretivenature. This tendency contributes both to a systematicunderestimation of logistic sub-units’ importance anda biased representation of female rebels.

RESEARCH DESIGN

Studying the emergence of Palestinian clandestine sup-ply networks in 1980s Lebanon provides a unique op-portunity to evaluate the complex mechanisms throughwhich rebels create, join, and participate in logisticsunits. Analyzing this single, multifaceted case allowsme to exploit three factors: the preexisting overlap be-tween Palestinian militant groups and quotidian kin-ship, marriage, and friendship ties (Peteet 1991; R.Sayigh 1979, 1998); the similar institutionalization ofPalestinian communities across Lebanon before 1982(Rubenberg 1983; Team International Engineering andManagement Consultants 1981); and variation in thewartime social context across time (see Fig. 1). Specif-ically, because the Israeli occupation effectively parti-tioned Beirut from Saida and Sour between 1982 and1985, and due to local distinctions in violent tacticsbetween 1985–88, I am able to nest regional substudieswithin the broader case.3 Leveraging sources of varia-tion within a single case allows me both to parse howlocal contexts produced different network interactionsacross similar communities and to endogenize the ef-fects of regionally specific wartime violence on orga-nizational development (George and Bennett 2005).Moreover, this approach controls for such factors asgroups’ ideologies, ethnic makeup, social bases, andtraining regimes. By examining a single case, I thus priv-ilege the capture of micro- and meso-level dynamics inorder to theoretically inform future research, ratherthan seeking to test hypotheses via a cross-national de-sign (George and Bennett 2005, 19–22; Gerring 2004).

An ethno-historical approach to studying militantorganizations has several advantages in comparison toother methodologies. In contrast to survey-based re-search, such as, for example, Macartan Humphreys andJeremy Weinstein’s (2006) study of militants in SierraLeone, ethnographic methods allow researchers to pro-gressively build trust with their informants—therebygaining access to insider perspectives, experiences,and meaning-making practices rather than taking for

3 I selected these research sites because Palestinian communitiesand militant organizations were heavily and similarly concentratedin and around Beirut, Saida, and Sour before the 1982 invasion (Cen-tral Bureau of Statistics 1981; Sa‘id Ibrahim 1983; TIEMC 1981).Palestinian communities in these cities were directly affected by the1982 withdrawal of the PLO and guerrilla organizations (PLO andguerrilla personnel did not evacuate eastern or northern Lebanon),the Israeli occupation, Lebanese government campaigns, and theWar of the Camps.

granted external categories of participation or behav-ior (Bayard de Volo and Schatz 2004; Gerring 2001;Pachirat 2009, 143–144; Wedeen 2009, 2010). Trust andanalytic insight are crucial to accessing and situatingrestricted information that is unlikely to be gatheredin a one-shot interaction and that is not captured indocuments or other accessible historical material. Sec-ond, the “present-day” relationships and knowledgethat ethnographers develop allow them to probe in-terlocutors’ past experiences for points of continuityand rupture. Immersion in an organization permits re-searchers to observe its members, spaces, and everydaypractices and to probe the ways in which that organi-zation and the roles within it change over time (Yanow2012, 3). Ethnographic approaches are thus particu-larly suited to capturing the structures, dynamics, andpractices of organizational divisions that were never“put to paper.” Third, ethnography gives researchersthe context necessary to identify and analyze what LeeAnn Fujii terms “meta-data”—the “informants’ spo-ken and unspoken thoughts and feelings which theydo not always articulate in their stories or interviewresponses, but which emerge in other ways”—ratherthan taking interlocutors’ responses at face value oras given “truth” (Fujii 2010, 231). When dealing withpotentially sensitive topics, it thus has a marked ad-vantage over work based solely on formal interviews.Fourth, an ethnographic perspective, particularly wheninformed by social network theory, avoids making theindividualist assumptions that have dominated recentpolitical science scholarship (Wedeen 2009, 81; 2010,260). Rather than adopting the premise of maximiz-ing actors driven by known, ordered preferences and“divorced, for the sake of general propositions, fromactual historical processes” (Wedeen 2010, 260), theseperspectives treat actors as inherently socially embed-ded (Granovetter 1985; Wedeen 2002) and allow re-searchers to problematize the relationship betweenindividual agency, social context, and organizationalstructure.

This article is based on 19 months of fieldwork car-ried out in the cities of Beirut, Saida, and Sour be-tween 2007 and 2012.4 I conducted interviews with106 current and former members of Palestinian mili-tant organizations, social and humanitarian aid work-ers, and long-time United Nations Relief and WorksAgency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East

4 Research for this article was conducted under IRB protocolH10075. I conducted interviews predominantly in Levantine Arabicwithout a translator present. For security and methodological rea-sons, interviews were never recorded; I was concerned that introduc-ing a recording device into my interactions would make intervieweesuncomfortable and, given the ongoing surveillance of Palestiniangroups, introduce unacceptable risk into the project. It is commonpractice not to tape or digitally record politically oriented interviewsin the Middle East. For example, scholars such as Amaney Jamal(2009), Jillian Schwedler (2007), and Lisa Wedeen (1999, 2008) didnot record their interviews. Because of the confidentiality proceduresthat were implemented to protect human subjects, interviewees arecited without attribution. Interviewees were given pseudonyms, andtheir identifying details have been altered.

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FIGURE 1.

(UNRWA) employees.5 Of these interviews, 24 wereoral histories with current or former militants who hadpersonal involvement with clandestine operations dur-ing the 1980s; however, many other interviewees dis-cussed underground activities. Additionally, my partic-ipant observation among current and former membersof militant organizations included thousands of infor-mal conversations and interactions that I recorded in

5 Operational since 1950, UNRWA provides schooling and healthcare services, and it maintains some infrastructure in the camps.

my field notes. To account for local and national-levelprocesses, including regional variations in the belliger-ent parties and the violent tactics used between 1982and 1988, I interviewed people who worked locallyin Beirut, Saida, and Sour, in addition to those whoworked across regions. This approach allowed me toseparately examine the nascent communications andsupply networks under Lebanese government rule inWest Beirut from 1982–84 and the Israeli occupationof Saida and Sour from 1982–85, and then to evaluatethese separate systems’ consolidation into a national

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supply and communications apparatus during the Warof the Camps (1985–88).

The reconstruction of this network, which has beenonly peripherally mentioned in existing studies, illus-trates the value of ethnographic methods in sensitiveresearch. My repeated interactions with interlocutorsyielded longitudinal, egocentric network data for keyclandestine actors who operated in each camp, each re-gion, and across regions. Interested in the range of po-sitions available, the practices that accompanied them,and the reasons that people remembered for partici-pating in them, I catalogued each interviewee’s orga-nizational and social roles over time and the activitiesof any close family and friends. Rather than treatingrebellion as a dichotomous variable by listing peopleas “fighters” or “nonfighters,” I sought to tease outthe ways in which people vacillated between fightingand logistics jobs over time and how clandestine orga-nizations evolved around and shaped their members’careers. Combined with relevant historical texts (suchas official documents, battlefront video footage, andparty publications), fighters’ and aid workers’ memoirs,surveys (published by political factions, aid organiza-tions, and the United Nations), and Arabic newspaperreports, this data allowed me to evaluate interactionsbetween formal organizational hierarchies and quo-tidian systems of affiliation. Secondary case and the-oretical literature provided further perspective. Takentogether with sustained ethnographic work, these datareveal a rich picture of mass mobilization, organiza-tional evolution, and social change.

THEORIZING CLANDESTINE MOBILIZATION

Why and how do individuals join clandestine logisticsnetworks? Participation in underground political ac-tivity under occupation or during civil war is not onlyprofoundly risky but it also often lacks the public statusrewards that are associated with high-risk collectiveaction. Former participants in clandestine operationsfrequently noted that most of their family and friendswere unaware of their activities. Some interviewees hidtheir activities for safety reasons—Palestinian activists’family members were frequently arrested or abusedif they could not be found (R. Sayigh 1979, 151).6Others worried that their parents would try to stopthem. In contrast, individuals who openly participatedin military operations were publicly revered as heroesor martyrs. For example, many interlocutors remem-bered “Dalal’s operation” in 1978; women in particularsaw the female fighter as an inspiration.7 This evidencesuggests that more nuanced factors than status rewardsand public pressure played a large role in mobilizingmilitants into logistical and support roles.

Roger Gould argues that formal organizations arecritical to expanding the scale at which group identities

6 Interviews with Abu Hassan and Sami, Beirut, Summer 2012. Alsosee Abourahme’s (2010) interview with Abla, a member of the PFLPwho was arrested in lieu of her husband.7 Dalal al-Mughrabi was a female Fateh cadre from Sabra whohelped lead a 12-person incursion into Israel in March 1978.

are considered salient, but that “their impact on socialinteraction tends to go unnoticed” (Gould 1995, 21–22). That is to say, membership in formal organizationsfeeds back into individuals’ relationships, shaping theirsocial worlds. In this world, A meets B outside of herdaily social interactions (e.g., family, friends, neighbors)because of the ideological and organizational ties thatplace them in each other’s spheres for the first time. Bbecomes part of A’s regular circle; perhaps they get toknow each other’s families and friends, establishing anentirely new set of social network ties. Thus “an unin-tended consequence of formal organizations, in otherwords, is the creation of social ties that encourage therecognition of commonalities on a scale considerablybroader than would be expected on the basis of socialnetworks alone” (Gould 1995, 22). However, Gouldnever notes how diverse affiliations within families orfriend groups may change the ways in which relatives orfriends engage politically within the context of externalorganizations, nor how these relationships may havelarger consequences for the organizations in which theyare members.

In a similar vein, Mark Granovetter argues that indi-viduals bound by strong ties should be part of overlap-ping networks; that is, individuals who have long-term,intense, intimate, reciprocal relationships should havesimilar relationships with each others’ friends (Gra-novetter 1973, 1361). Thus, if A and B meet throughan organization and form a friendship, they shouldeventually start becoming friends with each other’sfriends as well. This claim is founded on the conceptof structural balance: The central idea is that “friends”evaluate others in similar ways (i.e., they both “like”or “dislike” the same people). Thus, if two people, Aand B, have positive feelings about each other, andperson B has positive feelings about person C, thenperson A will also know and have positive feelingsabout person C (Wasserman and Faust 1994, 221).However, because these networks tend to produce ex-tensive overlap in relationships, weaker ties—thoughtof as “acquaintances”—are necessary to diffuse infor-mation across larger networks of individuals (Centolaand Macy 2007; Granovetter 1973, 1365–1366). Other-wise, all information would remain within overlappingcliques bound by strong ties, unable to jump betweentight-knit groups. In line with this theory, Granovettercontends that, “except under unlikely conditions, nostrong tie is a bridge” (emphasis in original) (Granovet-ter 1973, 1364).

I argue that clandestine supply networks emergefrom formal militant hierarchies because strong, quo-tidian ties serve bridging functions. The configurationof the overlap between rebel organizational structuresand militants’ quotidian relationships—rather than thereplication of ties across these networks alone—pro-duces these brokering positions. For example, A andB, the two close female friends, may work in a particu-lar organizational sub-unit, whereas C—A’s husband—works in another division. Certain organizational struc-tures may thus allow for strong ties—in particular kin-ship, marriage, and community ties—to act as bridgesbetween organizational subdivisions. Particularly in

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socially segregated societies, Granovetter’s bridgingrule may consequently be violated. For example, ina more gender-stratified society, B may not be ac-quainted with C because she does not socialize withmarried men; thus, A is a bridge between B and C.When this triad is present within a rebel organization,the bridge between A and C allows for the secure trans-mission of information, money, military orders, or evenweapons across an organizational divide, reaching Band others who share unit membership with A. Strongties in bridging positions allow for trust between other-wise isolated cliques of individuals, a critical buildingblock of underground networks.

Quotidian relational bridges may become active asviolent conflict progresses, rather than being preemp-tively designated for organizational tasks. In otherwords, when A and C are initially recruited, the tiebetween them may only represent a latent source ofstructural power, rather than a deliberate effort toprovide a communication redundancy. As a militantorganization seeks to adapt to new circumstances orto manage crises, bridges such as the one between Aand C offer means through which to resolve informa-tion or supply problems by bypassing inflexible orga-nizational hierarchies (Burt 2005). The activation ofA and C’s quotidian relationship as an organizationalasset introduces a new mode of participation for A andC, altering their organizational roles. In other words,these informal, latent social structures present alter-nate pathways of mobilization within rebel organiza-tions. Yet the changing nature of their organizationalrelationship will also feed back into their “private” re-lationship, driving social change (Padgett and McLean2006; Padgett and Powell 2012).

ORGANIZATIONAL FRAGMENTATIONAFTER THE 1982 INVASION

On June 6, 1982, the PLO’s organizational apparatus,headquartered in Beirut since its 1971 expulsion fromJordan, experienced a massive shock when the IsraeliDefense Forces (IDF) invaded Lebanon. Promptedby the fringe group Fateh-Revolutionary Command’sJune 3, 1982, attack on the Israeli ambassador to theUnited Kingdom, the IDF bombed PLO offices inBeirut. In retaliation, the PLO launched missiles fromSouth Lebanon toward civilian settlements in north-ern Israel, triggering a long-planned invasion by theIDF aimed at destroying the PLO (Y. Sayigh 1997,505–21; Schiff and Ya’ari 1984, chaps. 1–6). The Is-raeli government had initially anticipated clearing alimited border zone to prevent further PLO missileattacks and guerrilla infiltrations, but instead directedthe IDF to continue north to Beirut as the Israeli AirForce bombarded it (Schiff and Ya’ari 1984, chaps. 7–11). Throughout the summer, Beirut remained undersiege as the PLO and leftist Lebanese militias battledthe IDF in the southern suburbs. Following negotia-tions, the PLO’s international bureaucracy and guer-rilla fighters from multiple parties (14,398 personneland soldiers total) evacuated Lebanon at the end ofAugust (Y. Sayigh 1997, 537). International peacekeep-

ing troops—dubbed the multinational forces (MNF)–deployed in Beirut and its southern suburbs to monitorthe ceasefire, evacuation, and IDF withdrawal.

In the fall of 1982, hundreds of thousands of Pales-tinian civilians and low-level party cadres who re-mained in Lebanon were still reeling from the invasion,which destroyed Palestinian refugee camps in SouthLebanon, left many Beirut neighborhoods in ruin, andfragmented Palestinian resistance organizations.8 TheIDF occupied South Lebanon, including refugee campsin Saida and Sour; more than ten thousand Palestinianand Lebanese men and many women from this regionbetween the ages of 15 and 60 were interned at facilitiessuch as the Ansar prison camp outside Nabatiyya or, ifthey were deemed high status, were sent to detentionfacilities in Israel (Abourahme 2010; Denkner 1983;Giannou 1982; Khalidi 1985; Khalili 2008; Schiff andYa’ari 1984, chap. 8; Yermiya 1984). Men from SouthLebanon who were not immediately arrested fled to theShouf Mountains, to the Beqa‘a Valley, or to Trablous.This series of events deprived most Palestinian familiesin South Lebanon of their male household members,leaving them both homeless and lacking income to re-build.

Assassinations and denunciations defined the post-evacuation environment in Saida, making political or-ganizing risky. By October 1982, there were clear signsof targeted killings by Christian militias in ‘Ayn al-Hilwa camp.9 The IDF also created a militia dubbed the“Palestinian National Guard” that policed the campsin South Lebanon and denounced political activists tothe Israelis. Assassination and attacks on political fig-ures in ‘Ayn al-Hilwa and Saida became increasinglycommon.10 Yousef, who alternately fought with Fateh,the PFLP, and the Democratic Front for the Liberationof Palestine (DFLP), noted that “the Lebanese Forces[in Saida] killed a lot of people, they used to kidnappeople, would later throw him dead on the road. . . . Itwas a way to show they could do it.”11 Almost ev-eryone whom I asked about Saida during this timecould remember people they knew being assassinated;one former fighter summarized, “There was a lot ofviolence because of revenge.”12 Mahmud, a formerguerrilla fighter from Sour, illustrated the pervasive-ness of collaboration by asking, “Do you know aboutthose manayık [fuckers] in the black hoods on thebeach, the ones who told the Israelis who were fida’ıyın[guerrillas]? Those guys were traitors, and they becamethe leadership in Ansar.”13 His question also elucidateswhy people became suspicious of released prisoners,wondering if they had supplied information to the Is-raelis that caused them to be freed when others were

8 In 1980, 227,554 United Nations-registered Palestinian refugeeslived in Lebanon, of whom 120,342 were in refugee camps (Sa‘idIbrahim 1983).9 As-Safir, October 3, 198210 See, for example, as-Safir, January 3, 1984, and May 11, 1984.Conversation with Abu Hussain, author’s field notes, June 2012.11 Interview with Yousef (2), Beirut, Summer 2010.12 Interview with Rima, Saida, Autumn 2010. For a theory of controland violence in civil war, see Kalyvas (1999, 2006).13 See Fisk (2002, 246) for a description of this practice.

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not. The Israelis’ and the Christian militias’ extensiverecruitment of collaborators created an environmentof deep suspicion and mistrust.

In Beirut, in contrast, the Lebanese government andChristian militias quickly deployed large-scale disar-mament campaigns against the Palestinian population,detaining hundreds of Palestinian men throughout theautumn of 1982 (Picard 2002, 127; Y. Sayigh 1997, 555;Schiff and Ya’ari 1984, chap. 13); the risk of physicalharm confined many Palestinian men to their homesand immediate neighborhoods.14 The September 1982massacre of thousands of civilians at the Sabra andShatila camps in South Beirut following President-elect Bachir Gemayel’s assassination only reinforcedfeelings of insecurity (Ang 1989; Fisk 2002, chap. 11;Picard 2002, 126; Y. Sayigh 1997, 539).15 After the mas-sacre, Palestinians living in other Beirut neighborhoodsfeared that the violence would spread. Aisha, a Fatehcadre from Burj al-Barajna, recalled that people cameto the camp saying that a massacre was happening, thatIsrael was killing people, and that the IDF would comeinto Burj al-Barajna next.16 For Palestinian refugeesremaining in Beirut, the events of autumn 1982 echoedthe fall 1976 massacres at Tel al-Za‘atar and Jisr al-Pasha refugee camps in East Beirut and convincedthem that they had to find ways to protect the camps.17

A FAMILY AFFAIR: WOMEN ASORGANIZATIONAL BROKERS

Given the fragmentation that Palestinian organizationsexperienced and the environments of deep insecurity inBeirut and South Lebanon, how did Palestinian rebelorganizations rebuild? The emergence of clandestinelogistics networks reflected a fundamental change inthe ways that the PLO and guerrilla organizations op-erated. Before the 1982 invasion, quotidian social con-nections played a central role in mobilization (Peteet1991, chap. 4; R. Sayigh 1979, chap. 4, 1998); whenasked how they were recruited, Fateh members, inparticular, tended to note family connections, whereasPFLP and DFLP members more often cited friend-ships. However, quotidian ties were not systematicallyused for critical “formal business”; recruits’ assignmentinto different subdivisions depended on many factors,including interest, skill, perceived social appropriate-ness, and need. Although some women participatedin combat units, they were largely placed in adminis-trative offices, social services (e.g., kindergartens, liter-acy programs, health services), or support units suchas information divisions (Kawar 1996, 70–73; Peteet1991, chap. 5).18 Post-invasion, this underlying lattice-

14 Interview with Abu Hassan, Beirut, Summer 2012.15 The precise casualty count is heavily disputed.16 Interview with Aisha (1), Summer 2010.17 Interviews with Zahra (1, 2), Summer 2010; Abu Omar, Beirut,Autumn 2010; Aisha (1,2) Beirut, Summer 2010; Abu Tariq (2),Spring 2011. Conversation with Umm Nader, author’s field notes,June 2012.18 Conversation with Umm Faris, former information officer inRashidiyya, author’s field notes May 2010.

work of quotidian affiliations provided the scaffold-ing onto which militants informally remapped militaryunits’ communications, finance, intelligence, and otheroperations, thereby changing the content of militants’quotidian relationships. This rearrangement allowedthe PLO and several of the guerrilla organizations tocontinue operations after extreme disruption. But un-der what conditions do individuals enter these specific,task-differentiated networks, and how do their rolesevolve? The following subsections address this ques-tion in detail, specifically focusing on regional differ-ences in mobilization related to the nature of wartimeviolence and repression.

South Lebanon

The first organized, post-evacuation smuggling activitybegan in 1982 in South Lebanon in direct response tothe IDF’s mass internment of Palestinian men. Dalal,a former member of Fateh’s zahrat (military scouts)19

and a Fateh cadre, described the June 1982 invasion’simpact on her immediate family: “First thing, they [theIDF] took my brother, he was 16, and my father, andmy grandfather.”20 Tala, a Burj al-Shemali residentwho had family members in Fateh, the PFLP, and thePFLP-GC, stayed in the camp’s ruins when the IDF im-prisoned her husband and brothers-in-law in Israel.21

Dalal told me that, at this juncture, “the role of womenbegan” as the women and children left behind strug-gled to build shelters, tend to the wounded, and securestable sources of food and water.22

Women who had preexisting ties to a militantorganization—“officially” through party membership,the zahrat, a social service job with the PLO, or theGUPW,23 or “unofficially” through a spouse, fiance, orfamily member—mobilized within a specifically orga-nizational context and through trust-based strong ties.Although there were shortages of food and buildingmaterials in the areas surrounding the camp, goodswere still available in occupied Saida and institutionssuch as banks were open. Under these circumstances,women started volunteering to “visit” PLO-affiliatedfamily members in the Beqa‘a Valley and Trablous,areas in which the Palestinian resistance still hada presence. These initial trips served two purposes.First, as Dalal told me, “there was no communica-tion, and people wanted news.” Second, families weredestitute and hungry; they needed income. Khadija,a courier from ‘Ayn al-Hilwa interviewed by Dana

19 Although all included basic military training, my interviewees dis-tinguished the Scouts (kashafa) from the male Lion Cubs (sing.: shibl,plur.: ashbal) and the female Flowers (sing.: zahra, plur.: zahrat);the Lion Cubs and the Flowers were expressly militarily oriented(TIEMC 1981; author interviews).20 Interview with Dalal, Saida, Spring 2011.21 Interview with Tala, Sour, Summer 2012.22 Interview with Dalal, Saida, Spring 2011.23 The GUPW is the PLO’s mass organization for women. Its goalsare to organize, mobilize, and represent Palestinian women while in-creasing their social status and supporting the Palestinian resistance(Rubenberg 1983, 73; TIEMC 1981, 79). In 1982, 21,000 women inLebanon were GUPW members (Rubenberg 1983, 73).

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Abourahme, emphasizes the role that the humanitar-ian crisis in the camp played in her decision to smugglecommunications and salaries: “My secret political workwas a response to our reality. We woke up from anightmare, and everything was different in 1982. I feltlike any small deed, like delivering a salary to a familyin need, was an accomplishment” (Abourahme 2010).Dalal explained how quotidian ties influenced whowent on trips to the Beqa‘a Valley and Trablous: “Ifthe woman had a son in the resistance, she would vol-unteer and go alone to get money.”24 When I asked ifit was just mother-and-son dyads that engaged in thesetransfers, she elaborated: “maybe her father, maybeher husband, maybe from her neighbors.”25 Womenwould visit a trusted personal connection, pick up cashor organize a bank transfer, and return through theShouf and occupied South Lebanon.

These trips assumed a third purpose as well. Mu-nadileh, a PFLP cadre with brothers and an uncle inother leftist organizations, noted, “For women, therewas a social role and a military role.”26 Military roles,by her definition, included gathering intelligence on theIDF, making food, sewing clothing, and smuggling all ofthe above to male guerrillas operating in the Shouf andaround the southern camps. Women like Munidilehwere particularly valuable in this context; as a nurse,she not only provided essential medical care but shewas also already well known and trusted by the gueril-las. This informal supply network allowed small bandsof male guerrillas to operate more consistently nearoccupied areas, thereby strengthening resistance to theIDF. However, its loose structure made it vulnerabledue to its lack of compartmentalization; for example,one of the high-level guerrillas operating around ‘Aynal-Hilwa was soon captured by the IDF. Following hisinterrogation, the IDF arrested 22 other guerrillas andsent them to an Israeli prison.27 Dalal and Khadija em-phasized that women were also well aware of the risks(Abourahme 2010). They could easily get caught in theever shifting network of Israeli and Christian militiacheckpoints, though their deaths were rarely confirmedor formally recognized by Palestinian organizations. AsDalal recalled, “they never came back. . .many of themare martyrs.”28

Organizational leadership in Lebanon and in ex-ile worked to co-opt these grassroots operations tomore systematized political and military ends. Theinitially uncomplicated bank transfer process conse-quently grew into the PLO’s and guerrilla organiza-tions’ official conduit for underground fighters’ salaries,which were routed through the Arab Bank in Saida.During this time, Yousef moved between combat the-aters in the South and Beirut via the Shouf, whichwas controlled by the Druze Progressive Socialist Party(PSP). As an officer, he was responsible for distribut-ing guerrilla fighters’ salaries. He highlighted how the

24 Interview with Dalal, Saida, Spring 2011.25 Ibid.26 Interview with Munadileh, Saida, Spring 2011.27 Interview with Yousef (4), Beirut, Autumn 2010.28 Interview with Dalal, Saida, Spring 2011.

strategy of using women in the supply chain eventuallyscaled up to the national level, in particular when thePLO started funneling salaries into Saida:

[Me: How did people get paid?] The money would go toSaida, to the bank from Tunis. Two, three, four people whowere leaders would go to the bank. They then distributed itdown to two or three guys each who maybe each controlledaround one hundred guys.

We used women to move the money. . . . It was like agrape, meaning everything is tied to everything, what is thegroup called? [Me: a bunch?] It was an ‘anqud—a bunch ofgrapes. . .like a cluster bomb! [Laughter]. . . . No one cantalk to the people below you. It protects people. . . . Wewere searching for security. [Me: How was it structured?]Like this. [At this point Yousef drew a diagram in mynotebook with a central stem and branches jutting off. Iasked where the women would be in the diagram, and heindicated the branches linking the grape/male nodes toeach other via the stems/female ties].29

The reorganized underground network containedthree- to five-person cells; in general a leader couldonly manage two or three cells.30 Yousef also notedthat the funding that initially arrived in the Arab Bankwas subsequently divided among the different guerrillaorganizations, each of which had its own segmentedcourier network. Female couriers moved informationbetween each level of the evolving hierarchy.

As the IDF, Lebanese militias, and the Syrian mili-tary built more checkpoints in response to increasedguerrilla activity, Palestinian militants further diver-sified their clandestine operations. For example, un-derground cadres established a special informationoffice that forged documentation. Dalal’s male uni-versity professor recruited her into this division; theintersection of her military training in the zahrat, herparty membership, and her personal connection to ahigh-ranking officer made her appropriately skilled,trustworthy, and dependable. Identifying and avoidingcollaborators were also necessarily high priorities; inaddition to tracking the IDF, local women prioritizedthe unmasking of infiltrators. One former activist re-membered an old woman from her locale who would“conveniently” drop papers or groceries whenever acollaborator walked past her in the street, revealingthe agent to her contacts in the underground.31 Whilethis activist’s age and gender acted as cover, the factthat she was personally connected to individuals in-volved in clandestine activity gave her the credibilityto serve in a sensitive position, especially when falsedenunciation was a known problem. By the summerof 1983, underground activists informed by clandestineintelligence agents were clashing with members of thePalestinian National Guard, bombing shops that pro-vided goods and services to the IDF, and assassinatingcollaborators.32

29 Interview with Yousef (4), Beirut, Autumn 2010.30 Interview with Kamal, Beirut, Summer 2012.31 Author’s field notes, July 2010.32 On the National Guard see As-Safir, June 15, 1983, June 16, 1983,March 10, 1984, May 6, 1984, May 8, 1984, May 17, 1984, October

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Clandestine activists also used family, friendship, andcross-national ties to develop strings of safe houses,which enabled them to move members of the Pales-tinian resistance deep into the cities. Houses owned byLebanese members of Palestinian groups, homes be-longing to imprisoned family and friends, and rooftops(which generally were not searched even if the housewas) all became prime hiding spaces.33 For example,Kamal, a Lebanese Fateh guerrilla, returned from ex-ile via Trablous, moving to South Lebanon through theBeqa‘a and the Shouf by leapfrogging between safehouses maintained by PLO sympathizers. His Christianheritage and kinship ties in South Lebanon affordedhim added mobility and protection in areas patrolledby right-wing militias, making him a valuable asset tohis majority Sunni Muslim organization.

Beirut

The security situation in Beirut differed from thatin South Lebanon, originally producing a differentlogic of underground organization. Between Septem-ber 1982 and February 1984, Palestinian men were un-der virtual house arrest; the Lebanese army had dis-armed the population, and arrests, beatings, arson, andextrajudicial killings were everyday occurrences. Afterthe massacre at Sabra and Shatila, Nader, a Fateh of-ficer and former member of Fateh’s special operationsunit, Force 17, explained, “We wanted to start again,so we made very small, secret groups.” They recruitedsubtly, in his word “indirectly”; when he or other ac-tivists ran into potential recruits on the street, theywould chat with them for a while and look for signs thatthey wanted to be politically active. Nader or anothertrusted activist would then invite them to a small meet-ing to discuss the situation. Whenever they met, theywould have coffee, music, and food—to make it seem“normal” in the event that an enemy was nearby.34

Yet these small cells were geographically constrainedby the men’s lack of mobility and needed a com-munications system. Militants consequently recruitedwives, sisters, cousins, fiancees, and occasionally trustedneighbors as couriers. Nader’s mother explained thather niece became a courier and gunrunner between herson and his male cousins.35 Asked why women in partic-ular were recruited, Nader said that the fighters couldtrust women and that “they were with us.”36 Naderand his colleagues clearly saw an untapped resource,but also only exploited it through strong, reliable, and,if necessary, controllable relationships.

The small neighborhood-based cells, linked by fe-male couriers, created the organizational infrastructurethat allowed the PLO and Fateh to reinfiltrate Beirut.News of the system filtered back to the leadership,

20, 1984, and November 4, 1984; on targeting accused collaboratorssee, for example, As-Safir August 8, 1983, September 28, 1984, andJanuary 5, 1985.33 Interview with Dalal, Saida, Spring 2011.34 Interview with Nader, Beirut, Autumn 2010.35 Conversation with Umm Nader, author’s field notes, June 2012.36 Interview with Nader, Beirut, Autumn 2010.

which started transferring funds to Beirut through theArab Bank. Jamila, the daughter of a Fateh officer whohad trained with the Fateh zahrat alongside several ofher sisters, was one of the money smugglers. She wouldwithdraw cash at the bank, enter the restroom, andstrap the bills to her ankles or stomach to appear asthough she were pregnant. Jamila would then deliverthe money to male military officers. Abu Hassan, one ofthe accountants, explained that military officers wouldthen distribute the cash to men such as him, who used itto pay bribes and salaries.37 This compartmentalizationprovided a layer of security; a smuggler such as Jamila,who knew and was known by the leadership becauseof her father, did not interact with Abu Hassan, whoknew where the money was going.

As a direct consequence of the bank transfer sys-tem, the “bridge to Cyprus”—a sea route that thePLO and Fateh used to reinfiltrate fighters from Tu-nis into Lebanon—was put into limited use in Septem-ber 1983.38 Landing a small vessel carrying a Pales-tinian fighter on the Beirut coast cost approximatelyUS$50,000 per arrival, paid to the Lebanese Chris-tian militias who controlled the port. Abu Hassan un-derscored the idea that “women—organized womenin Fateh—transferred every letter” that undergroundcells in Beirut sent to each other to organize return-ing officers’ movements.39 Abu Omar, a PLO officialwho supervised these funding operations from exile inTunis, commented that, during the period, “there wasno difference between men and women in the PLO”:Women were literally at the core of the Palestinianorganizations’ resurgence in Lebanon.40

The initial success of this “bridge” system led to itsexpansion and to cooperation with various Lebaneseparties. In February 1984, Lebanese and Palestinianmilitias revolted in West Beirut, expelling right-wingmilitias and the army. According to Abu Hassan, thePLO established a sea route to Jounieh, a northernLebanese port town, and a second direct link to Beirutthrough the airport. With the help of connections inthe Lebanese PSP, DFLP, and the Lebanese PopularNasserite Organization (PNO), “a number of veteranofficers took advantage of the change of governmentto return illicitly. They set up ‘safe houses’, commu-nications networks, and weapons stores in Beirut andTripoli and revived dormant sections of the local or-ganization.” (Y. Sayigh 1997, 580–81). For example,Abu Nidal, a high-level intelligence officer in the PLO,entered through Jounieh in 1984 and relied on hismothers’ Lebanese friends and his personal contactsin Lebanese militias for hideouts. However, his casedemonstrates why people often depended solely onkinship and marriage ties; Abu Nidal was denounced

37 Interview with Abu Hassan, Beirut, Summer 2012.38 Heavy reinfiltration did not begin until February 1984, but inter-viewees insisted on the earlier date. Yezid Sayigh notes that, by themiddle of 1984, “Fateh had organized a regular flow of personnel andfunds to Lebanon, allowing it to establish a formal payroll, expandrecruitment, and purchase weapons and supplies” (Y. Sayigh 1997,581).39 Interview with Abu Hassan, Beirut, Summer 2012.40 Interview with Abu Omar, Beirut, Autumn 2010.

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by a Lebanese contact, imprisoned, and fled to the Gulfafter his release.41 But although Yezid Sayigh refersto the local divisions as “dormant,” small cells suchas those that Nader describes served a critical func-tion at this juncture by alerting reinfiltrating officers tothe considerable presence of both dissident Palestinianorganizations and Syrian intelligence and by keepingmembers in close communication with each other.

This system also helped rebuild the PLO’s social ap-paratus. After the 1982 evacuation, many of the PLO’ssocial organizations—more than 105 affiliated institu-tions such as kindergartens, clinics, sports clubs, andvocational training centers in Beirut alone and 279 intotal in Lebanon (TIEMC 1981)—had closed when em-ployees and funding disappeared. Each closure wouldhave represented a material and social blow to the or-ganization’s status and reach within the community.Several interviewees addressed this problem. Zahra,a Fateh guerrilla and member of the GUPW, workedwith her contacts within the GUPW in the mid-1980s toconstruct and administer a kindergarten in the Shatilacamp. Because she resided outside the camp and hadties to both male guerrilla officers and friends in theGUPW, Zahra was an ideal candidate to move moneyinto Shatila through the sensitive zones of West Beirut.

Introducing further redundancies into the clandes-tine networks’ infrastructure became critical afterthe Syrian-backed dissident faction Fateh al-Intifadaousted Fateh and the PLO from Trablous and theBeqa‘a between 1983 and 1984. Losing the Trablousfoothold to the dissidents not only ushered in a periodof violent contention between PLO-affiliated guerrillagroups and the Syria-allied Palestinian opposition butalso made it impossible for PLO affiliates to use theBeqa‘a and North Lebanon as bases for operationsinto South Lebanon and Beirut. When the IDF closedAnsar prison and subsequently withdrew from Saidaand Sour to a “security zone” on the Lebanese-Israeliborder in early 1985, the PLO and Fateh shifted theirinfiltration activities to Saida’s coastline. This movenot only helped infiltrate more officers into Lebanonbut also hedged against Syrian-allied Palestinian andLebanese militias’ growing power in Beirut, NorthLebanon, and the Beqa‘a.

Backbone of the Rebellion

Underlying quotidian social networks provided aresilient relational infrastructure on which Palestinianmilitant organizations rebuilt between 1982 and 1985.Even in the face of acute fragmentation, militantorganizations reemerged during this time. They es-tablished information, financial, and supply channels;reinitiated armed activity; and addressed the challengeof collaboration. They were able to achieve these aimsbecause militant structures were deeply embedded incommunities via social network redundancies. Existinganalyses of militant organizations (Humphreys andWeinstein 2006; Johnston 2008; Sinno 2010; Staniland

41 Conversations with Abu Nidal, author’s field notes, July 2010.

2012; Weinstein 2007) overlook this critical elementof militant organizations’ capacities, neglecting toexamine the social network processes that rebels useto cope with crisis. It is not the simple presence ofties between militant organizations and communitiesthat matters for outcomes such as sustained rebellionand organizational survival. Rather, the configurationof network overlap between militant hierarchiesand quotidian social structures and the existence oftrust-based brokers between militant subdivisionsproduce resilient rebel organizations.

THE WAR OF THE CAMPS: ROUTINIZINGCLANDESTINE ACTIVITY AND INVOKINGINTERORGANIZATIONAL TIES

Fateh and the PLO’s expanding presence in Lebanonthreatened a volatile combination of Lebanese militias,the Syrian military, and Palestinian militias that werepart of the Syrian-allied, anti-Arafat (and thus anti-PLO and anti-Fateh) opposition Palestinian NationalSalvation Front (PNSF).42 The Syrian government sawFateh’s resurgence as an attempt to pull Lebanon backinto war, whereas its ally, the Lebanese Shi‘a militiaAmal, worried about renewed Palestinian-Israeli hos-tilities in South Lebanon again taking their toll oncivilians (Y. Sayigh 1997, 582). With Syrian support,Amal attacked Sabra and Shatila on May 19, 1985,starting the three-year War of the Camps. Throughoutthe following years, Shatila, Burj al-Barajna, and, later,Rashidiyya sustained heavy mortar and rocket shellingand infantry attacks, and they withstood sieges last-ing up to six months (Giannou 1990, 248–49). Duringsieges, Amal, bolstered by the Lebanese Armed Forces’predominantly Shi‘a Sixth Brigade, prohibited the en-try of food and medical supplies, forcing thousandsto the brink of starvation (Ang 1989; Giannou 1990).Even when Amal periodically lifted the siege, the mili-tia and its allies prohibited Palestinians from bringingfuel, batteries, building materials, or weaponry into thecamps. Starting in 1986, battles between Palestinianguerrillas and Amal took place in the hills surround-ing Magdousha above ‘Ayn al-Hilwa, a camp on theoutskirts of Saida.

Clandestine networks in Beirut, Saida, and Sourevolved to encompass a broader, more sophisticatedset of tasks during the War of the Camps. In response toAmal’s attacks on the Beirut camps, the PLO and Fatehheadquartered their infiltration and financial opera-tions in Saida. This move created two tiers of smugglerswithin the clandestine apparatus: women who workedbetween Saida and either Sour or Beirut (and thus hadto cross from relatively safe areas into combat zones)and women who worked locally within Beirut and,later, Sour (who had to cross from besieged camps intoterritory controlled by Amal). Within these zones, mil-itants’ roles frequently changed. For example, Zahra,

42 The PNSF included the PFLP, the PFLP-General Command,Fateh al-Intifada, the Palestinian Popular Struggle Front (PPSF),al-Sa‘iqa, and a faction of the Palestinian Liberation Front (PLF).

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the Fateh guerrilla who worked in a Shatila kinder-garten, smuggled Fateh salaries into the camp duringthe War of the Camps. However, her affiliation waspublic knowledge; in 1986 she was denounced by mem-bers of a PNSF organization and imprisoned by Syrianintelligence. On her release, Syrian-allied groups setup a checkpoint under her apartment in West Beirut,forcing her to sleep outside her family home and tocurtail her activities substantially. Rather than returnto clandestine work, Zahra then began working in a hu-manitarian aid division of the GUPW, providing foodand clothing to civilians.

From the beginning of the War of the Camps in May1985, violence against the Beirut camps assumed an ex-plicitly collective character. As such, it recalled recentcampaigns against Palestinians in Beirut and reacti-vated the community ties that undergirded emergentmilitias in the region. The decentralized local militiasthat female couriers linked from 1982–85 evolved intoshared military fronts in Shatila and Burj al-Barajna;Chris Giannou notes that, in Shatila, “Each politicalorganization had an allotted area of the battle-frontperiphery as its military responsibility”(Giannou 1990,33).43 Because of the restrictions on men’s movement,women became responsible for transferring all sup-plies into the two camps. Aisha noted the differencebetween women’s and men’s roles in the defense ofthe camps during this period, emphasizing that, be-cause of the stationary fronts, smuggling and logisticsroles became combat positions: “Women died goingto get food and water. . .women came face to face withAmal and the Syrians. They were searched, threatened,beaten. . .they were raped and killed while the men hidand shot at [Amal].”44 Rawan, also a former member ofthe logistics network, noted that she had to move underfire through the camp to deliver food, ammunition, andsandbags to the fronts while male fighters hunkered infortified positions.45

Similar practices evolved in Sour during the siege of1986. In spite of the PLO-PNSF rivalry, Tala pointedout that women in her politically divided family stillsmuggled money and food from Saida to Sour, usingkinship networks in multiple militant organizations ascover for their travel and political contacts. When Amalbesieged Rashidiyya in 1986, people in Burj al-Shemaliorganized secret nautical supply routes into the campusing fishing dinghies and small military boats.46 Tala,her husband, and her brothers-in-law described howincreasing attacks on Rashidiyya and al-Buss, and thusthe need for relief missions, inspired the creation of“[military] operations rooms” in the southern campsand the construction of underground emergency roomsto treat those injured during smuggling assignments.47

Clandestine operations thus acquired geographic foot-

43 Conversations with Ibrahim and Abu Hussain, author’s field notes,June 2012.44 Interview with Aisha (1), Beirut, Summer 2010.45 Conversation with Rawan, author’s field notes, June 2012.46 Interview with Tala, Sour, Summer 2012.47 Conversation with Tala, her husband, and her brothers-in-law,author’s field notes, June 2012.

prints within the camps that were not under siege, rep-resenting some routinization and institutionalization oftheir activities.

The GUPW played an increasingly central role incoordinating clandestine logistics and support activi-ties (Giannou 1990, 42–49; Khalili 2007, chap. 7): Itwas the hub through which female money smugglersconnected to families in the camps and, in some cases,to the male military leadership. Yousef noted that by1985 or 1986 “there was a woman’s office that managedall women’s activities,” including both smuggling andother support work. By the Battle of Magdousha in1986, the Women’s Union in ‘Ayn al-Hilwa was alsohelping coordinate support and medical services forfighters. Munadileh noted that serving in these func-tions “brought women together. There were peoplefrom all of the organizations together. It [the GUPW]shared the revolutionary work with the men.”48 As theLebanese and Syrians became aware of this system,the PLO also began using other organizations suchas the General Union of Palestinian Students andvarious humanitarian associations—frequently staffedby former female smugglers—to funnel money intoLebanon.49

Bridging Rival Organizations: Mixed-DescentMilitants and Schoolyard Friends

Due to the political dynamic introduced by the creationof the opposition PNSF and by Amal’s attacks on thecamps, quotidian relationships between members ofPLO-allied militant organizations, PNSF factions, andLebanese Shi‘a militias50 became particularly signifi-cant during the camp sieges in Beirut and Sour. Fateh-and DFLP-affiliated women with quotidian ties to thePNSF or to Lebanese Shi‘a became especially valuableto the clandestine apparatus. Aisha and her cousin,Ibtisam, also a Fateh cadre, explained that when Amalperiodically lifted the blockade, they would pick upweapons from male officers and strap them to theirinner thighs for the trip back into the camp.51 Theiruncle, a Lebanese Shi‘a, was an officer in Amal towhom they could appeal if they were caught.52 AbuHussain—a Fateh cadre, former underground guerrilla,and former Palestine Liberation Army (PLA) officerwith brothers in two leftist organizations—selected hiswife to smuggle arms through a network of tunnels andsewers under the camps; if she were to be caught, hiscontacts in PNSF could protect her.53

Militants’ quotidian ties also served as political coverfor low-level negotiations and prisoner releases. Gian-nou emphasizes that Shatila’s militants depended onthese relationships:

48 Interview with Munidileh, Saida, Spring 2011.49 Interview with Abu Omar, Beirut, Autumn 2010.50 The Lebanese militia Hizb Allah supported the PLO and Fatehduring the War of the Camps.51 Conversation with Aisha and Ibtisam, author’s field notes, May2010.52 Conversation with Ali, author’s field notes, June 2012.53 Conversation with Abu Hussain and Abu Jamal, author’s fieldnotes, June 2012.

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As a rule, PNSF leaders did not meet with Fateh Arafattop leaders, but second-echelon officers, often childhoodclassmates and friends, did. Some served as intermedi-aries between the factions as during the Four-Day Bat-tle, to set up the work teams and co-ordinate the manyservices—water, electricity, distribution of building mate-rials, or food, building of fortifications—necessary to or-ganize life in the camp and resistance to Amal. (Giannou1990, 43)

Quotidian ties also protected individuals who wereunaffiliated with militant factions. Abu Zaki, a human-itarian worker from Rashidiyya, explained that, whenAmal kidnapped him, he had no organizational ap-paratus to intervene on his behalf. He was releasedwhen the Palestinian Shi‘a parents of a child he hadhelped intervened by invoking kinship ties with Amal’shead of security in the region, a Shi’a Palestinian.54 Theway in which the large family’s members belonged toboth Palestinian and Lebanese political organizationsprovided leverage for an under-the-table concession.

Power Couples: Engineering Brokeragethrough Marriage

Events that fundamentally altered the structureof activists’ quotidian social networks—especiallymarriage—opened new mobilization trajectories withinthe evolving clandestine apparatus that could acceler-ate a clandestine activist’s career. Nawal’s experience isparticularly instructive regarding the progressive feed-back between a woman’s political activity and herquotidian relationships. Now a regional-level officialin GUPW and a Fateh cadre, Nawal was encouragedby her family to join the zahrat in the late 1970s to“become strong.” Her father was a national-level Fatehofficer; her brother had joined the ashbal as a child andbecame a cadre during the war. At the beginning ofthe War of the Camps, the teenager Nawal and threeof her friends from the zahrat started sneaking sup-plies such as food and cigarettes into Shatila, tellingthe Amal militiamen that they were simply visitingchildren. Nawal and her friends had no contact withor direction from higher authorities at this time.55

Yassin, a regional officer in Fateh and former un-derground guerrilla in Beirut, explained that after henoticed the girls’ humanitarian operation, he took a lik-ing to Nawal and eventually asked her to marry him.56

Yassin then introduced Nawal to regional officers inSaida, leading to Nawal’s advancement within Fatehand the GUPW. As she recalled,

During the second siege, I got married; I was 16 years old.My husband wanted someone smart, someone who knowspolitics. He took me to his colleagues in the organization,and I began working in the Women’s Union. I learnedhow it worked, I met the officer for the area. I shared in

54 Interview with Abu Zaki, Saida, Summer 2010.55 Interview with Nawal, South Lebanon, Autumn 2010.56 Conversation with Yassin, author’s field notes, Autumn 2010.

activities. [Me: Like?] Opening a kindergarten. . .culturalactivities. . .bringing women to the Union.57

Yassin subsequently arranged for Nawal’s military,ideological, and emergency first aid training throughFateh. As a trusted cadre, Nawal began traveling asan emissary between Fateh’s Saida and Beirut offices,bridging regional and functional divisions using kin-ship (through her brother), marriage (through Yassin),and friendship (through old friends in Beirut) ties. Theinteraction between her quotidian relationships andorganizational role resulted in Nawal’s increasing cen-trality in both Fateh and the GUPW. Fateh promotedher as a military cadre in 1986, when she fought in thebattle of Magdousha against Amal in the hills above‘Ayn al-Hilwa.58 Nawal described her role in that battle:

The War of Magdousha happened in 1986. I brought foodto the soldiers. [Me: Did you share in the battle?] I was asoldier! I was with the guys! [Me: How was the relationshipbetween the guys and the women?] It was like we were sib-lings. [Me: How many women participated?] There were 20women above who brought supplies like food and clothingto a couple hundred men below [in the battle]. All thegirls were with their husbands. But if anything happened,we were soldiers! I was in battles!59

Nawal’s combat experience demonstrates how mar-riage ties filtered women into roles, creating new modesof militant organization such as the coed guerrilla frontat Magdousha. Many women gained access to new divi-sions of militant organizations due to the institutionalbridges that their quotidian network relationships cre-ated.

However, husbands also advanced as a direct resultof wives’ activism; Yassin was more likely to be selectedfor central roles because of Nawal’s reputation, skillset, and influence in the GUPW. Other women also de-scribed how their marriages served both organizationalends and advanced partners’ careers. Munadileh andher husband, who married in the mid-1980s, were alsoselected as an elite spousal team to fight at Magdousha;her previous experience in combat during the 1982 in-vasion made him an especially attractive candidate forfrontline roles.

Routinized Operations, InformalConnections?

Militants refined and routinized clandestine operationsduring the War of the Camps. In addition to simplymoving information, finances, and supplies, clandestinenetworks allowed organizational politics to assume anincreasingly informal character as militants used quo-tidian ties to bypass formal alliances. Militant organiza-tions increasingly sought to actively engineer quotidianbrokers into their structures to create redundancies.

57 Interview with Nawal, South Lebanon, Autumn 2010.58 This military campaign was expressly designed to pressure Amalto lift the sieges in Beirut and the Sour camps.59 Interview with Nawal, South Lebanon, Autumn 2010.

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In particular, marriages formed new bases for militantorganization and provided marked career advantagesfor both female and male Palestinian rebels. AlthoughGoodwin (1997) concluded that these types of ties dam-age rebel organizations, it is clear that quotidian rela-tionships contributed directly to Palestinian militants’military and political capacities during the War of theCamps.

CONCLUSION

The case of Palestinian organizations in Lebanonshould be used to inform broader scholarship on mil-itant organization, internal conflict, and high-risk mo-bilization. It reveals that, although back-end militarypractices such as resupply, logistics, and finance areunderstudied, these roles are central to sustaining re-bellion. In other words, these divisions are critical lo-cations of political practice and development in theirown right. More broadly, this case demonstrates thatmilitant organizations do not behave as closed systems,but are inextricably interwoven with quotidian socialrelationships. The magnitude of these networks’ inter-actions and the pace of social change that they produce,however, are deeply context specific.

In contrast to threshold-based models of mobiliza-tion (Granovetter 1978; Marwell, Oliver, and Prahl1988; McAdam 1986; Petersen 2001; Siegel 2009; Tar-row 1994, 33), this article illustrates how individuals’positions in social networks affect not only their likeli-hood of participation but also the organizational rolesthat they subsequently assume. Overlap between for-mal militant hierarchies and quotidian social networksinteract with conflict environments over time, creatingnew positions to fill, new risk calculations, and new mo-bilization trajectories over time. Using catch-all termssuch as “participation” or “fighting” to describe all or-ganized rebel activity thus obscures the ways in whichnew modes of involvement constantly emerge fromdynamic network interactions. Future research into in-ternal conflict should examine how rapid rebel rede-ployment and reorganization throughout armed con-flict affect conflict dynamics and duration, in particularbecause internal rebel structures have been linked tomilitary effectiveness and patterns of violence (Stani-land 2012, Johnston 2008, Pearlman 2011, Weinstein2007).

Dynamic social network interactions represent onesource of organizational resilience in the face of frag-mentation. Clearly, these processes are more likely tooccur in some cases than others; determining how dif-ferent degrees and configurations of organizational-quotidian overlap produce durable organizational ap-paratuses is an important line of future inquiry. Thisquestion is particularly salient because many mili-tant organizations actively seek to break down, ratherthan to exploit militants’ quotidian social network ties.Goodwin (1997), for example, points out that the Hukleadership saw affectual ties as impediments to militarydiscipline and solidarity. Are these organizations sys-tematically less resilient as a result? In a different vein,

it seems improbable that organizations with high pro-portions of foreign fighters—such as Jabhat al-Nusra inSyria—lean heavily on local quotidian ties for logisti-cal support in crises. Do these types of organizationsseek to develop these relationships over time by, forexample, marrying into local populations? Or do theyexploit geographically extended relations to insulatesupply and financial chains from the risks of the battle-field? Answering these questions would provide cru-cial insight into a growing number of armed conflictsthat feature organizationally complex and strategicallysophisticated militant organizations, shedding light ontheir likely social impact and sources of political influ-ence.

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