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<h1><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=3><b>The Assassination of
Sheikh Ahmed
Yassin</b></font></h1><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=3><b>Position
and Analysis<br><br>
<br><br>
</b><i>The Free Palestine Alliance-USA<br><br>
March 23, 2004<br><br>
</i> <br><br>
The Free Palestine Alliance – USAA (FPA) joins the profound
indignation and anger of the entirety of our people in Palestine and in
exile at the colossal loss of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, founder and spiritual
leader of the Islamic Resistance Movement in Palestine. We stand
with the Palestinian and Arab people, the Muslim world, and all in deep
mourning as we extend heartfelt condolences to the families of all who
have fallen, and to our Palestinian and Arab national
collective.<br><br>
<br><br>
On Sunday, March 22, following daybreak prayer, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin was
shelled with 3 missiles by an US-made and funded Apache helicopter, the
sound of which was deliberately masked by a thundering F16 jet piercing
the skies of Gaza. The elderly and quadriplegic Palestinian was
shredded into pieces while being pushed in his wheelchair from his
neighborhood mosque back to his home located approximately 100 meters
away. Also viciously killed were his two aids, his son-in-law, and
several neighbors, a total of nine. Ten others were wounded,
including two of his sons.<br><br>
<br><br>
We condemn this latest criminal and illegal act by the Zionist State,
which has made colonial destruction and obliteration against the
Palestinian people a normalized daily habit. We recognize that the
prevailing racist anti-Arab and anti-Muslim demonizing sentiments within
the West have given credence to such brutal and vicious state-sponsored
terror.<br><br>
<br><br>
We echo the call for unity by all sectors of the Palestinian people
across all spectrums in the determination to complete the thorny journey
for liberation and return. Like Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, and all those
who fell with him and before, we well recognize that this journey of
inevitable pain is of existential nature, along which many will pave with
the dearest of all – their lives – a bridge for a certain free
Palestine.<br><br>
<br><br>
Born in 1936, the year of the six-month General Strike in Palestine,
Sheikh Ahmed Yassin was expelled in 1948 from his village, Al-Jura, near
Al-Majdal at the Mediterranean coast of Palestine. Al-Jura, like
nearly 500 other villages and towns were obliterated following the
establishment of Israel on 78% of Palestine and the expulsion of at least
75% of the Palestinian people. A dispossessed and impoverished
refugee, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin rose from the wretchedness of the camps to
the stature of a highly regarded leader. <br><br>
<br><br>
<b>The Project to End Palestine:<br><br>
</b> <br><br>
Our immeasurable indignation and insistence on our people's national
unity and collective march forward are neither polemics nor
hyperbole. They are a manifestation of the material consensus that
is prevailing amongst all Palestinian sectors and movements.
Despite variation in political discourse, organizational, philosophical
and ideological constructs, the colonial displacing nature of the Zionist
project imposed on the Palestinian people has catalyzed the emergence of
an inextricable unity of national resistance. <br><br>
<br><br>
The shear brutality of the ongoing and escalating Israeli assault has
amplified the need to direct all attention to the primary contradiction
with Israeli colonial designs. The most essential task today for
our people is to defeat the expanding project to terminally end Palestine
as a movement for liberation.<br><br>
<br><br>
In fact, the assassination of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin is part of systematic
measures to eliminate all primary anchors for Palestinian
liberation. The cumulative material effect of such measures poses a
grave danger on the very existence of the Palestinian people. These
measures include:<br><br>
<br>
The elimination of top political leadership through targeted
assassinations, imprisonment, and exile to evacuate the Palestinian
movement from its cumulative organizational, political, and historical
experience. Since the early seventies when the Israeli policy of
assassination was normalized on a large scale, a great many of the most
highly regarded Palestinian political leaders and intellectuals have been
murdered. The assassinations of Ghassan Kanafani in 1972, Khalil
Al-Wazir in 1988, Abu-Ali Mustafa in 2001, and now Sheikh Ahmed Yassin,
along with great many other exceptional leaders, span the entire
political spectrum of the Palestinian movement, and is an indication that
the target is indeed the cumulative political reservoir of the
Palestinian people.<br><br>
The elimination of union, community and regional leadership to break
grassroots and popular mechanisms of organizing, cohesion and political
discourse. The killing, expulsion and jailing of many thousands of
leaders for the past fifty-six years, with at least 7,000 remaining in
jail today, are but some examples. Trade and professional union
leaders along with nearly the entire Palestinian student leadership at
university and high school levels have been particularly targeted for
elimination, with the hope to unravel the very fabric that holds the
Palestinian society together.<br><br>
The destruction of civil society institutions and the banning of
political organizations on an international scale to gut out the social,
political and economic engine of the Palestinian people, leaving them
dependent as wage laborers or mere junior functionaries. All in an
effort to transform the Palestinian people from a cohesive and efficient
movement for liberation to a dependent and colonized fragmented
population without political strategy. The attempted dismantling of
community based institutions - including health care clinics,
pre-schools, orphanages, union halls, sport and social clubs, vocational
training centers, illiteracy schools, literary and scientific societies,
and all universities and grade schools – are measures that intend to cut
off the veins that connect together the Palestinian people in total,
spanning the past, the present, and looking into a future. In fact,
during the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, most Palestinian libraries and
archives were either burned or robbed, and nearly all institutions were
destroyed, precipitating the vicious massacre of Sabra and Shatila, also
under the immediate direction of the butcher Ariel Sharon
himself.<br><br>
The expropriation of land and the destruction of homes in favor of
expanding the building of colonial settlements to create the intended de
facto presumed reality that an Apartheid-style Bantustan is the only
option remaining for the Palestinian people. The current
construction of the racist Apartheid Wall is perhaps the most vivid
example of such policies. Without land, and with a brutalized
Palestinian Arab population, the Zionist state hopes to actualize even
more its founding slogan that Palestine is a “land without a people for
a people without a land.ť Through a total material transformation
of land and demography, Zionism hopes to permanently cement the
establishment of its settler colonial project and the effective exclusion
of the indigenous people.<br><br>
The imposition of extreme social, economic and political pressure, with
the goal of fracturing the well-known cohesive union of the Palestinian
movement. In this measure, Israel hopes to minimize the priority of
the national struggle in favor of securing individual and family economic
sustenance. In fact, great many Palestinians today depend on their
wage labor from Israeli economic facilities as the only means to secure
one meal per day for their children. The crossing from Gaza at Beit
Hanoun to Israeli factories and farms within 1948 Palestine is a painful
reminder of the effect of the Israeli colonial economic
strangulation. Thousands of workers are herded like cattle between
the hours of 2 AM and 5 AM into Israeli busses and vans, and are returned
fully spent at the end of the day, only to come back several hours later
for a repeat of the same exploitation. Recognizing the importance
of this factor, the Palestinians instituted an alternative popular
economic structure during the previous Intifada that lasted from 1987 to
1993. A developed economic model also existed in Lebanon up to the
invasion of 1982, and to a lesser degree in Jordan in the various
camps. It was this economic power that Israel also targeted during
the seventies and eighties.<br><br>
The imposition of political formulations that amount to utilizing extreme
pressure to secure significant compromises on issues of existential
nature, namely: (a) the abandonment of the right to return; (b) the
acceptance of enclaves and Bantustans as the only possible outcome; (c)
the fractionation of the Palestinian people into multiple disjointed
units void of national continuity and identity; (d) the abandoning of
Jerusalem; and (e) de-linking the Palestinian people from the Arab people
in preparation for normalizing the Israeli polity with Arab
regimes. The Camp David Accords, the Madrid Conference, the Oslo
Agreement, and all other formulations and sub-agreements that followed,
including the latest Geneva Accords, are examples of such imposed
formulations. All are geared towards transforming the Palestinian
anti-colonial movement for liberation into a state-building functionary
apparatus that would settle for a truncated Bantustan. This process
began in the early seventies as the Palestinian movement was coerced into
accepting partial rights with the promise of statehood. That was
the beginning of a slippery slope of imposed models that finally led to
the Oslo Agreement, and to placing the entire Palestinian people either
in captivity within actual walls or nationless in exile.<br><br>
As previously mentioned, a primary target for termination by the Zionist
state is the individual and collective right to return of the Palestinian
people. The elimination of this inalienable right secures the
maintenance of an exclusive theocratic polity. Upon its founding,
the State of Israel materialized its Zionist vision by enacting several
laws that denied the Palestinians from returning, expropriated their
land, and granted the right to return only to conquering colonists.
Though exile is a reality for the majority of the Palestinian people, the
demand to return remained central and inseparable from their identity as
the indigenous people of the land. Remaining unachieved by Zionism,
therefore, was the goal of legally sanctioning the colonial displacement
and permanently removing the right of return from the Palestinian
political discourse. To that end, the Zionist project is attempting
to extract such a goal from Palestinian functionaries under the threat of
total dissolution.<br><br>
The normalizing of Israeli relations with Arab states, and advancing
Zionism as an acceptable ideology of liberation, all while destroying the
anchors of Palestinian resistance and movement for liberation.
These are simultaneous tasks that have made headways with corrupt Arab
regimes seeking the blessings of the US. In the upcoming Arab
Summit in Tunisia, it was expected that Arab regimes would introduce yet
another peace proposal that would bring the Israeli polity into a
normalized fold while giving way to an official establishment of a
Bantustan. A normalized Israel would dominate technologically,
economically, and politically, securing an ideal and sustained bridgehead
for imperial designs.<br><br>
The introduction of alternative narratives and the transformation of
liberation language and vocabulary. These are also tasks that are
underway to normalize acceptance of defeat. As examples, the
reference to Palestine at present time is related to a truncated
Bantustan. Palestinians within 1948 areas are called Israeli Arabs, and
colonial settlements are called neighborhoods. The conflict is no
longer referred to as an Arab-Zionist conflict, but as an
Israeli-Palestinian border dispute. Jerusalem has been replaced by
East Jerusalem, and speaking of Zionism as racism is considered too
radical. What is also worth noting is that although Israel has
created itself as a Zionist entity, and proudly proclaims itself as such,
and although it has forcibly formulated its laws and demographic make-up
to reflect a Jewish only state; any reference to the Zionist entity is
considered unacceptable old school. This is because normalizing the
state of Israel as a nation-state is an imperative of high priority for
the Zionist movement and western colonialism simply because such process
simultaneously undercuts any national Palestinian claims, and cements
into reality a colonial outpost.<br><br>
A significant measure attempted today by the Israeli polity is to extract
and exclude the paradigm of Palestinian liberation from the accepted
international discourse for justice. This process also entails the
isolation of the Palestinian movement on an international level to allow
for accepting any measures taken by Israel as measures needed to protect
the “civilized world” from “terrorism”. Hence the
assassination of prominent leaders such as Sheikh Ahmed Yassin would be
regarded as necessary actions. <br><br>
<b>The Role of the United States:<br><br>
</b> <br><br>
There is no doubt that the US regards the Palestinian liberation movement
as a hurdle to its globalization program and political-economic imperial
dominance on an international scale. Simultaneously, the US
recognizes the vital proxy role Israel plays in securing its interests in
Northern Africa and Central and Western Asia. In that regard, the
US has been complicit directly and indirectly in providing military,
economic, and diplomatic support to Israel for many decades. At the
very least, Israel receives 15 million dollars every day in the form of
support from the US. Any time a challenge to the Israeli polity
emerges, the US provides a cover and ensures protection. But the
symbiotic relationship between the two powers has not been limited to the
Arab region, as it has affected the African continent, South and Central
America, and much of Asia. It ranged from supporting the Apartheid
regime, to training and arming the Contras in Nicaragua, to supporting
death squads in Guatemala and El-Salvador.<br><br>
<br><br>
The US, therefore, sees its relationship with Israel as a long term
strategic interest needed to secure dominance through subjugating the
Arab states, and to play a proxy role in securing Pax-Americana globally.
<br><br>
<br><br>
The support of successive US administrations for the Zionist project has
made the people in the US directly vested in securing justice for the
Palestinian people rather than continuing this course of destruction and
colonial subjugation.<br><br>
<br><br>
The complicity of the United States is a responsibility of the American
people. It is a complicity that must be ended.<br><br>
<br><br>
<b>The Movement to Defend Palestine:<br><br>
</b> <br><br>
Facing all odds, are the Palestinian people. Unrelenting in their
defiance against successive brutal measures in a near lone stance, the
Palestinian people have secured an unprecedented unbreakable national
unity. The killing of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin is an attempt to disrupt
this unity, and to dry out the historical reservoir of resistance.
<br><br>
<br><br>
During the past few decades, the Zionist state has attempted to create a
rift between the Islamic movement and the secular nationalist and
democratic nationalists trends. What the Zionist polity failed to
recognize is that the contradictions imposed by colonial designs and
programs far outweighed any intra-Palestinian disagreements on tactics,
or even on strategic vision, no matter how vast the gap is. By
threatening the very existence of the Palestinian people as a whole, all
contradictions took a secondary role leaving amplified the contradiction
with Zionism and its material manifestation.<br><br>
<br><br>
All in all, the Palestinian people have identified their tasks to secure
their liberation:<br><br>
<br><br>
1. All attempts to normalize with and
give cover to the Israeli Zionist state must not be allowed to
materialize<br><br>
2. All attempts at finding
formulations to construct a truncated Bantustan must be defeated,
including the current manifestations of the Oslo Agreement and the
proposed Geneva Accords.<br><br>
3. The Palestinian right to return
and full self-determination must be protected as indispensable anchors of
justice for the Palestinian people.<br><br>
4. All entities, individuals, or
groups attempting to abrogate the national consensus of the Palestinian
people and to weaken their united stance for return and
self-determination should be isolated and exposed.<br><br>
5. All aid in all forms by all
entities, private and governmental, to the State of Israel must be
ended.<br><br>
6. Securing the national rights of
the Palestinian people must reflect all sectors of our people, within
1967 and 1948 borders and in exile.<br><br>
<br><br>
<b>The US Peace and Justice Movement:<br><br>
</b> <br><br>
Given the grave situation facing the Palestinian people, our community in
the United States can no longer accept any abrogation of our rights in
any form. The US peace and justice movement, therefore, has the
obligation to stand in solidarity with the Palestinian demand for return
and self-determination. Any attempt to impose on the Palestinian
people and on our community in the United States, directly, indirectly,
or through proxy individuals or entities, the acceptance of partial
rights or a compromise on our fundamental anchoring principles should be
and will be rejected in full.<br><br>
<br><br>
Along with our community and people, we stand together with the hundreds
of organizations, networks, and coalitions and all the many thousands of
people who have insisted on the centrality of Palestine in the anti-war
and global justice movement. We are gratified by their principled
support. With them, a corner has been turned, and there is no going
back to the days when Palestine would be placed on the back burner of the
movement and the rear of the bus. <br><br>
<br><br>
We salute members of the solidarity movement who have also fallen along
side the Palestinian people. While saddened that these cherished
lives were lost to blind colonial brutality, we are certain that it is a
loss with monumental meaning to our people. In our reciprocal
international solidarity that has spanned decades and that has joined the
camaraderie struggle of people from all continents, the movement for
justice for all is certain to triumph.<br><br>
<br><br>
The assassination of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin is not likely to be the last, as
Israeli officials have announced their intent to continue this policy of
targeted assassinations to reach all leaders. When seen in the
context of the cumulative effect of all other measures, the clear overall
Zionist policy is to terminate the presence of Palestine as a movement
for national liberation. <br><br>
<br><br>
The Sharon government recognizes that it has placed the Palestinian
people and the Islamic Resistance Movement in a full-scale
confrontation. By escalating the assassination policy to reach the
likes of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, and by announcing its intent to carry out
the same policy on all other leaders, the Israeli government is eliciting
a response of similar magnitude. The only logical implication is
that the Israeli government headed by Sharon is planning an all out
assault similar to that carried out against the Palestinian resistance
movement in Lebanon in 1982. There can be no other outcome.
The Palestinians cannot watch a process of political annihilation take
over without significant resistance, and by repeatedly striking at the
very top of the Palestinian movement and at its national pride, the
Israeli government is certain to continue unabated.<br><br>
<br><br>
- End -<br><br>
<br><br>
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