[News] Palestine - An interview with Leila Khaled

[Anti-Imperialist News]

"Injustice every day": An interview with Leila Khaled
Interview, The Electronic Intifada, 7 January 2008
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9203.shtml


[]

Leila Khaled marching with other PFLP leaders in the Baddawi refugee 
camp in Lebanon during a demonstration marking the 40th anniversary 
of the PFLP, 9 December 2007. (<http://justimage.org>Matthew Cassel)

One of the most legendary figures of the Palestinian struggle for 
national liberation, Leila Khaled was recently in the Palestinian 
refugee camps of northern Lebanon. Visiting for the first time since 
last summer's battle between the non-Palestinian Islamist group Fatah 
al-Islam and the Lebanese army, during which the Nahr al-Bared camp 
was destroyed, Khaled sat down with EI editor Matthew Cassel to 
discuss Annapolis, Nahr al-Bared, and how the Palestinian movement 
must move forward.

A refugee herself, Khaled was forced to flee Haifa as a young girl in 
1948 and later became the first female member of the Popular Front 
for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) in 1967 and remains a member 
in the PFLP Leadership Council. Khaled put herself and Palestine in 
the front pages of newspapers by hijacking two passenger airplanes in 
the late '60s, under the PFLP motto "Going after the enemy everywhere."

Forty years later, Palestine is still not yet liberated and the 
situation of the refugees is as dire as ever. More than 30 civilian 
refugees were killed during last summer's camp battle, and thousands 
of refugees in Lebanon are wondering when they can return to their 
camp, let alone their homes and property in historic Palestine.


ELECTRONIC INTIFADA: Recently the US, Israel and the Palestinian 
Authority met in Annapolis, Maryland to try and advance the "peace 
process." However, the fate of Jerusalem, the occupation and the 
right of return of Palestinian refugees are no closer to being 
resolved. Do Palestinians, especially a refugee like yourself, 
believe that these types of negotiations will ever bring about a real 
solution to the conflict?

LEILA KHALED: What happened in Annapolis is a process only, a process 
that will [only] give the Israelis more time [to make] more 
settlements and at the same time normalize the relationship between 
Israel and the Arabs as a whole, not every country by itself, and to 
make a big distance between the Palestinian question and the Arabs.

By the way, the reference [point for a political settlement at] that 
conference [was] that [of] the United States ... and not the United 
Nations ... And while the meeting was going on the Israelis were 
making incursions into Gaza, [raiding] in the West Bank ... attacking 
and arresting people.

It's a game, and we know that very well and we are against 
negotiations with the Israelis because the balance of forces is not 
for us, neither on the Palestinian level or the Arab level or the 
international level. Negotiations could be efficient and of interest 
to us [only] when we are nearer to being on equal sides. In history 
negotiations were between the fighting parties when they became on 
the same level. But we are not on the same level. We are still under 
occupation, we are still refugees -- what [do] we [have] to negotiate?

They say it's a peace process but we don't see the peace, we see the 
process. It's just to make public relations, [nothing] more. That's 
why we are against it.

EI: Do you consider Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian 
Authority, a legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, 
especially the Palestinian refugees?

LK: Yes. He was elected by our people as the president of the 
[Palestinian] Authority. And in the executive committee and the 
legislative council he was elected as the chief of the PLO [the 
Palestinian Liberation Organization]. So he is legitimate. But let's 
think again, what is it to be legitimate? ... In the stage of 
national liberation to be legitimate [means] to fight our enemies.

EI: Now that Palestinians seem divided, especially with the recent 
fighting between Fatah and Hamas in Gaza, what do you see as the way 
forward for Palestinians to continue their struggle to bring about 
their rights?

LK: First of all, we [the PFLP] condemned the way that Hamas used 
[force] in solving the interior contradictions, because the main 
contradiction is with occupation, and that is not of the culture of 
the Palestinian struggle.

In all the revolutions in the world there were differences in ideas 
and differences in attitudes, but always people [resort] to national 
dialogue among factions [to solve them]. We [the PFLP] were against 
the Oslo agreements but still we are part of the PLO. What Hamas did 
is condemned by us and by others. So we are asking Hamas to retreat 
.. and come back to the larger revolution. ... On the other side, 
there are many problems in the Israeli society and in the government 
and in the Knesset, but they don't solve them with arms.

The [Palestinian] Authority has taken many measures against general 
liberties and these measures were expressed by decrees by the 
president ... To be democratic is to give more freedom to the people 
despite that they are under siege or being imprisoned in the West 
Bank and Gaza Strip. We don't accept that the PA goes to negotiations 
with the Israelis, meetings with the Israelis every two weeks 
according to what [US Secretary of State Condoleezza] Rice asks them 
[for the sake of] public relations, not solving any problem of our 
people, neither on the economical [level] or the security [level] or 
the political level ... Israel sees that only the whole issue is how 
to secure itself from us while we are the ones who are suffering from 
occupation.

[Secondly, we must] rebuild the PLO because the PLO has become 
marginalized. So we are also mobilizing our people so that the PLO is 
the sole representative and the legitimate representative of the 
Palestinians inside and outside Palestine. So really doing it will 
give us more strength that all factions can be part of it, including 
the Islamic groups.

Thirdly, on the international level, these meetings will reach 
nowhere -- but all the time we were calling for an international 
conference led by the United Nations based on [UN] resolutions 
beginning from 194 until now that give us our rights. This conference 
[should be about] how to implement the resolutions because resolution 
194 was [issued] in 1948, now it's 59 years [on]. It's not [about] 
having more resolutions but how to implement the resolutions that 
were taken by the international community [through] the United Nations.

This is the only way. But all this is based on our resistance. 
Without resistance we cannot get it.

EI: And what kind of resistance are you referring to?

LK: All kinds of resistance, resistance means everything. Beginning 
with the word "no" and ending with holding arms. And in between there 
are many ways, [including] a political struggle, a popular struggle. 
They want us to accept them as they are: racist, discriminating, an 
apartheid regime in Israel. This is what we don't want. We cannot 
coexist with such people. But we can coexist with people like us. 
This is the way we are looking for. And when we speak about an 
independent state it's not the [just] end result of the historic 
conflict between us and the Israelis and the Zionists. It's a step 
forward to have a democratic state in Palestine for all of us. But 
the key or the solution is the return of the Palestinians -- without 
that this conflict will continue.

EI: What do you think is the best way for internationals to support 
and do solidarity work with Palestine?

LK: I think we have received many means of solidarity with us as a 
people under occupation and in the Diaspora ... When we are speaking 
it is an act of supporting the Palestinians because you are spreading 
our word whether it's by Internet or newspapers or all kinds of 
media, just to spread the story of the Palestinians that there was 
and still is injustice against them. Now there are other means that 
people can extend treatment like dealing with health, making 
workshops with children, women, supporting some projects for the 
betterment of the lives of Palestinians. These are all kinds of 
solidarity. Im not here to say what means because the progressive 
forces in the world [have] extended their support and their 
solidarity by their own means and it was effective and is still effective.

EI: How does the destruction of Nahr al-Bared fit into the history of 
the Palestinian struggle?

LK: The camps [reflect] the historic crime that is inflicted by the 
Zionists and the imperialists against the Palestinians. [Since] the 
beginning of the armed struggle for revolution the camps are the 
target ... because they are the witness of the Nakba. It's not by 
coincidence that we had massacres in Palestine in the camps, and 
Jenin is one of those massacres that happened by the Israelis.

The camps in Lebanon which also faced massacres, Tel al-Zater, in 
Nabatiyeh camp that were totally destroyed by the Israelis ... this 
is the ... plan to end up the camps because ... in 1948 when our 
homeland was occupied and we were driven out by force but the 
witnesses [remained]. So now it's time to end the only witness 
itself: the camp. But every time it takes a different scenario; 
sometimes it's by the Israelis sometimes it's by other hands, Arab hands.

EI: Like the Lebanese army this time?

LK: This time and before. The Lebanese army faced us in 1973 and 
sieged our camps and it was obvious at that time that the resistance 
was still at its peak so they couldn't [come] near our camps in 
Beirut. Now it's time according to the Arab situation which is 
divided [because] the Palestinian situation [is divided], the PLO is 
now divided and what happened in Gaza added to the division, so it's 
easy to [destroy] another camp. But this time by having the excuse of 
Fatah al-Islam.

EI: You just returned from your first visit to the refugee camps in 
northern Lebanon since the summer war. Is there anything you would 
like to talk about?

LK: This is not the first destruction of one of our camps. We have to 
be careful ... to rebuild this camp and by ourselves. Those who want 
to support us have to support us directly, not through governments 
... We are not asking [the Lebanese or other governments] to come and 
build our camps. We build our camps, our people build [them].

And it's a real suffering for our people to find their houses like 
this, burnt and destroyed and so on. We have experience with that. 
But we are not used to it and we will never be used to it. My message 
to our people is that we can build more and we are patient enough, 
but this doesn't mean that it's an endless patience.

... This is a crime for all the world that look, because we are 
Palestinians our camps are destroyed in this savage way. Why [did the 
Lebanese army] burn the houses just to not let the people go back to 
their houses and to make it more difficult for them [to return]?

Shatila camp was destroyed too and now it's rebuilt, and it was built 
by our people ... First responsibility is the PLO and all other 
factions including us [the PFLP] and ... then the Palestinian 
community, the Arab community and then the international community 
are also called up to come and extend their help to our people. 
Because we are really [facing] injustice every day in our lives.




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