kamouflage.net camouflage data

Uncover your potential', indeed! Once you stop ogling the girl, though, you might notice that this Australian Special Air Service (SAS) recruiting poster shows Australian Disruptive Pattern Camouflage to very good effect. [Image courtesy Brad Turner collection.]

Palestinian lizard pattern
State of Palestine

This Palestinian lizard pattern camouflage, a three-colour design of earth brown and medium green brush-strokes, vertically-aligned on a pinkish-tan background, is frequently mistaken for the contemporaneous Syrian lizard pattern camouflage. It is possible that it was inspired by Syrian lizard; it is, however, significantly more dense than the Syrian camouflage. Given the early links between Al-Fatah and Syria, the pattern has been identified as belonging to the Al-Fatah faction of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), although additional evidence suggests that the pattern was also worn by Lebanese Christian Phalangist soldiers.

Al-Fatah is a secular, Palestinian nationalist organisation that has played and continues to play a pivotal role in Palestinian politics. Founded in 1957 by five Palestinian activists — Yasser Arafat, Khalil El-Wazir, Salah Khalaf, Khalid al-Hasan and Faruk Qaddumi — operating out of Kuwait, Al-Fatah was committed to full independence for palestinians. Their aim was direct military confrontation with Israel, with the intent to regain lost territories.

Initially linked to Syria, Al-Fatah aligned itself with the PLO. The organisation came into its own after the 1967 War, when the West Bank and the Gaza Strip fell under Israeli control. By 1969, Al-Fatah was the dominant faction within the PLO, which began to launch guerrilla raids against Israel from its virtually autonomous enclaves within Jordan.

In 1970–71, when the PLO refused demands from King Hussein that it cease operations, Jordan forcibly expelled Al-Fatah and the PLO. Thereafter, Al-Fatah and the PLO operated out of Lebanon, where they adopted a more formal military structure.

Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon eventually forced Al-Fatah and the PLO to disperse throughout the Middle East and North Africa.

kamouflage.net is grateful to Mike Coleman and Eric H. Larson, for their invaluable contributions to this article.

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