The hijacking unintentionally healed the FLN’s threatened internal split.

Evidence

From France’s point of view, in retrospect, much more might have been achieved by leaving Ben Bella well alone. For if there was any satisfaction gained from the whole episode, paradoxically it lay in the ranks of the F.L.N. leaders themselves. Overtly expressing outrage at the hijacking, privately Abane and the “interior” were delighted. The major split within the F.L.N., threatened as a consequence of Soummam, had been miraculously avoided; unity had been restored and all argument about the primacy of the “interior” resolved — because now the “exterior” had simply ceased to exist. — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 489

Categorization

• XREF: Pays off Soummam tensions from earlier chapters about interior-exterior rivalry. — connects to: The FLN was riven by nested internal conflicts beyond the fight against France; The hijacking saved the F.L.N. from an interior-exterior split

Related

• The hijacking saved the F.L.N. from an interior-exterior split (similarity 0.97)
• The Algiers defeat exposed a fatal interior-exterior rift in F.L.N. leadership (similarity 0.86)
• The Ben Bella hijacking backfired by pushing Tunisia and Morocco firmly behind the FLN. (similarity 0.81)
• The F.L.N.’s Algiers urban operations failed almost entirely on the opening night (similarity 0.80)
• The 1956 airplane hijacking imprisoned the F.L.N. exterior leadership for the war’s duration (similarity 0.80)
• The Ben Bella hijacking sealed off any negotiated end to the war. (similarity 0.79)
• Interior-exterior rivalry among leaders threatened the F.L.N. as much as French pressure. (similarity 0.78)
• F.L.N. leadership regrouped in Tunis after losing Algiers to the French. (similarity 0.78)