Palestine: Interview With Imprisoned Leader of the PFLP

Fight Back!, the newspaper of the midwest-based Freedom Road Socialist Organization, posted an interview with Ahmad Saadat, the imprisoned leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) from 2003. Sadaat is detained by the Palestinian Authority, despite the fact that the PFLP is a major coalition partner within the (moribund) PLO.

The Right of Return is poorly understood by many anti-imperialist activists, particularly in Europe and the United States, and this interview is posted in the interest of sharing some of the reasons that the masses of Arab people view this objective as non-negotiable. Read the entire interview

From the Fight Back synopsis (with added background link): Following the Israeli assassination of PFLP leader Abu Ali Mustafa in August 2001, the Central Committee of the PFLP elected Saadat as his successor. In retaliation for the murder of Mustafa, a special unit of the PFLP shot the racist Rehevam Ze'evi, the Israeli Minister of Tourism who openly promoted the killing and exile of Palestinians.

Acting under pressure from the United States and Israel, Saadat and four other members of the PFLP were arrested by the Palestinian Authority for the killing of Ze'evi in January 2002. In exchange for lifting the military siege on Palestinian president Yasser Arafat's compound, the Palestinian Authority gave in to Israel's demand that the five be transferred o a prison in Jericho under the supervision of the Palestinian Authority - with the oversight of U.S. and British military personnel.

FIGHT BACK: The PFLP's vision for all of Palestine includes living n a society free of the control of the capitalist ruling classes of Israel and the Palestinian Authority. You also stress that a comprehensive peace cannot be achieved without the implementation of the Right of Return for Palestinian refugees. Once the refugees return and the Israeli occupation has ended, what political system must be in place to uphold your vision for a Palestinian state? And what specific role must the PFLP and the oppressed classes of Palestinian society play in this state?

SAADAT: The Right of Return for the Palestinian refugees is a legitimate and central Palestinian right, and the most important part of the Palestinian liberation scheme. When the PFLP insists on its commitment to the Right of Return, it simply insists on its commitment to the Palestinian national agenda that was approved in numerous meetings of the Palestine National Council.

The Right of Return is neither a knee-jerk emotional reaction, nor an abstract legal right, nor right-wing chauvinism. On the contrary, it is realistic, and constitutes the only basis for a permanent and everlasting peace.

Upholding of the Right of Return is not, as some intellectuals and academics have argued, an impractical position, representing an inability to understand political realities and the composition of local, regional and international forces. On the contrary, this commitment to the Right of Return is the by-product of a scientific and objective assessment and reading of the historical struggle between the Palestinian national liberation movement and the Zionist colonial movement.

Any solution that ignores the Right of Return as a basis for a permanent peace between the Palestinians and the Jewish settlers who forcibly expelled the indigenous people of Palestine and colonized the land may produce short periods of quiet and calm, but will not eliminate the objective conditions that produce the conflict between our people and the Zionist movement.

Comments

[the burningman]

The PFLP has been profoundly weakened since the disasters of Lebanon in the 1970s and 80s. For many years, under the leadership of their founder George Habash, they moved into a tight orbit around the Soviet Bloc, with particular attention from the East Germans.

They then took up as a junior partner to Arafat's secular, bourgeois-nationalist Fatah, the leading faction of the Palestinian Liberation Organization.

Before this, the PFLP strongly rejected recognition of Israel, and openly advocated social revolution among the broader Arab masses against local autocrats and puppets as the way to not just defeat Zionism, but to liberate the masses.

With the loss of their Soviet sponsors (and handlers), the PFLP stopped obstructing PLO negotions with Israel, from a position of weakness and vascilation.

When the second intifada got going, and the PFLP made a move to the militant left, Israel launched a level of targetted assassinations against the PFLP's leadership unlike anything other factions immediately faced. Many of their top organizational and political leaders were killed in a short period of time.

The radical, secular and anti-imperialist position they represent has the possibility to be a much deeper threat than the kind of Islamic fundamentalists that Israel prefers to fight... as reactionary Islamists ultimately pose no threat to the world order (and are totally unsympathetic to non-muslims).

Despite the prevarications of the PFLP, they are among a handful of secular and socialist-inclined parties in Palestine, and they continue to have a base of support (largely among Palestinian Christians) drawn to what is good about them, rather than what is questionable.

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The PFLP was one of the parties that attempted to strike a "middle ground" when Mao Zedong exposed the restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union. This middle ground evaporated, with those parties such as the Vietnamese CP and the PFLP quickly moving directly into the Soviet orbit.

That didn't work out so well... THey were left ideologically and politically unprepared for the betrayals of Fatah, and the rise of Hamas as the militant alternative to secular confusion. The people have sought the uncompromising militants, not the horizon-limiting of "realpolitik."

Food for thought:

When revisionism has taken hold of the communist movement, and internationalist revolution based on the people themselves taken off the table, demogogues and opportunists have filled the void. Without the confusions within the Palestinian communist movement, the rise of Hamas would not have been so devestating. If communists won't lead the fight, someone else will... they just won't win.

[Random Name Generator]

Is there an up to date link for these people? Is it safe to go to their site?

[Takeleft]

The PFLP's Arabic-language website is www.pflp.net

They had an English-language site that I think was sabotaged; I don't know of a current English-language PFLP site.

[Security Czech]

I'd be real careful about casually visiting groups listed by the US State Dept. as "terrorists."

It is inconceivable that there are not 100% logs taken of everyone who visits such sites.

There is really no such thing as security on the internet. It draws neat lines from one place to the other... so take that as you will.

Just a friendly note.