Fatah is a Palestinian nationalist and social democratic political party that was founded in the late 1950s by diaspora Palestinians after the 1948 Nakba – the ethnic cleansing of Palestine by the Zionist movement aiming to create a Jewish modern state in historic Palestine. The word "Fatah" means to conquer, and it is a reverse acronym for Harakat al-Tahrir al-Filistiniya or Palestinian National Liberation Movement in Arabic. Fatah is the largest faction of the confederated multi-party Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the second-largest party in the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC). Mahmoud Abbas, the President of the Palestinian Authority, is the chairman of Fatah. Fatah is generally considered to have had a strong involvement in revolutionary struggle in the past and has maintained a number of militant groups. The group’s armed struggle against Israeli occupation began in 1965, and most of its armed operations were carried out from Jordan and Lebanon. Fatah is primarily a secular, nationalist movement that focuses on liberating Palestine and establishing a Palestinian state. However, it lacks a coherent vision for post-independence governance and society, instead harboring diverse ideological currents. Fatah opposes the existence of Israel, and its 1989 political program emphasizes the barbarism of colonial Zionism, the success of the (first) intifada, and the centrality of the Palestinian Arab national rights within the Arab-Israeli conflict.