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<h1 id="reader-title">Interview with Khaled Barakat: Palestinian
struggle, unity and liberation</h1>
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<p><strong>August 2, 2015<br>
The following interview was translated from <a
target="_blank"
href="http://pflp.ps/ar/post/11077/%D8%AD%D9%88%D8%A7%D8%B1-%D8%B4%D8%A7%D9%85%D9%84-%D9%85%D8%B9-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B1%D9%81%D9%8A%D9%82-%D8%AE%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AF-%D8%A8%D8%B1%D9%83%D8%A7%D8%AA-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%82%D9%8A%D8%A7%D8%AF%D9%8A-%D9%81%D9%8A-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AC%D8%A8%D9%87%D8%A9-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B4%D8%B9%D8%A8%D9%8A%D8%A9-%D9%88%D9%85%D9%86%D8%B3%D9%82-%D8%AD%D9%85%D9%84%D8%A9-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AA%D8%B6%D8%A7%D9%85%D9%86-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AF%D9%88%D9%84%D9%8A%D8%A9-%D9%85%D8%B9-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B1%D9%81%D9%8A%D9%82-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%82%D8%A7%D8%A6%D8%AF-%D8%A3%D8%AD%D9%85%D8%AF-%D8%B3%D8%B9%D8%AF%D8%A7%D8%AA">the
original Arabic</a> by the Campaign to Free Ahmad
Sa’adat:</strong></p>
<p>The Central Information Department of the Popular Front
for the Liberation of Palestine conducted this
comprehensive political interview with the writer,
Comrade Khaled Barakat, coordinator of the international
<a target="_blank" href="http://freeahmadsaadat.org">Campaign
to Free Ahmad Sa’adat</a>. The interview addressed a
number of issues, including the current situation of the
Palestinian political struggle and developments in
Palestine and in the Palestinian diaspora. Today, we
publish the first part of the interview with Comrade
Khaled Barakat:</p>
<p><span>Q1. There is a heightened state of tension in the
occupied West Bank and throughout the homeland after
the burning and martyrdom of the Palestinian baby Ali
Dawabsheh (18 months). We see continuous Israeli
crimes, but also continuing political and security
meetings between the Palestinian Authority and the
enemy, the most recent being that between Saeb Erekat
and Silvan Shalom in Amman. How should we assess the
enemy’s behavior both politically and on the ground,
and the performance of the PA leadership? What is
required of the Palestinian national forces?</span></p>
<p>A: What is needed today Is what was needed yesterday:
to leave aside the fragmentation and tampering with the
Palestinian cause and work immediately to achieve
operational and political unity on the ground to
confront the enemy and thwart its plans and policies.
The crime of the burning of the child martyr Ali
Dawabsheh at dawn on 31 July was preceded by the
assassination of the martyr Mohammed Abu Latifa in
Qalandia refugee camp and the near-daily bombing of the
Gaza Strip targeting fishers and farmers, the imposition
of collective punishment on prisoners, the storming of
Muslim and Christian holy sites, particularly the
Al-Aqsa Mosque, and other crimes, reaching Lebanon and
Syria. This reflects the nature of these crimes,
inherent in the nature of the Zionist enemy as a settler
colonial invader. This entity, this state can only be
and always has been, a criminal and a murderer. And it
requires a united political response to live up to the
level of the sacrifices of our people.</p>
<p>And I say that knowing that the PLO and Palestinian
Authority leadership has sought to exploit such events
not to fight for our people but to improve their
negotiating position and maintain their privileges.
Particularly, the Fateh movement must bear its national
responsibility and not trade on the national struggle
and its historic role. Popular armed resistance alone
has the potential to defeat the occupation and the
settlers, not anything else.</p>
<p>The protection of Palestinian land and holy sites and
the advancement of Palestinian rights advocated by
Palestinian factions in separate statements requires
first the unity of all patriotic forces to uphold their
responsibility and duty. Confronting the occupation and
the crimes of the settler colonists and responding to
them must be part of a plan of action and a unified
strategy.</p>
<p><span>Q2: Comrade General Secretary Ahmad Sa’adat
threatened an open hunger strike if the Prison
Administration did not repeal its order prohibiting
him from family visits, and the PFLP Prison Branch
expressed its willingness to join in such a strike
along with its leader. Later, he was transferred to
Nafha prison and there is now a boiling state of
tension in Nafha prison and throughout the prisons,
the General Secretary and his fellow prisoners were
beaten and abused. How do we follow up on these
developments – what are the steps that can be taken,
particularly outside occupied Palestine?</span></p>
<p>A: Comrade Sa’adat threw a stone into still water, as
he has done on multiple occasions in the past, with an
idea that is known and intuitive, shedding light on what
is happening – the confiscation of the most basic rights
of the prisoners, who are confronting brutal attacks by
Zionist prison authorities. The hunger strike is an
ultimate weapon to which a captive resorts after
exhausting all means to achieve their goal. What is
important is to achieve the demands of the prisoners
collectively, of the national prisoners’ movement, its
leadership and solid core. The issue here is a simple
right; family visits are a basic right of a prisoner.
There is no human conscience that can justify the
collective punishment of Palestinian families,
prisoners’ parents, spouses, children and grandchildren.</p>
<p>It is required of us to do our duty and uphold our
responsibility to pressure the occupation, its
institutions and organizations at the Palestinian, Arab
and international levels to advance the demands of the
Palestinian prisoners’ movement. Everyone is needed to
uphold their responsibilities. The final word in
determining the demands is that of the comrades and
brothers in Israeli jails, who are best able to identify
and determine the nature of the battle, the details and
the timing, as they are the most knowledgeable and
intimately acquainted with the situation.</p>
<p><span>Q3: Gaza is still a massive wound. The dust still
settles after the battle; the crossings are
continuously closed, there is a constant siege, and
the reconstruction process is non-operational. There
are also fears of political deals to cut Gaza off from
the struggle against the occupation of our entire
people, to liquidate the resistance over a long-term
calm, or to use blackmail and threats over the
suffering of our people. How do you see these
positions and what do you advise to our people in the
Strip to confront such plots?</span></p>
<p>A: Our people in the Gaza Strip do not need advice from
us as much as they need us to act to provide a positive
climate at the national level to protect the struggle
and accomplishments that were made through their blood
and suffering. You should not accept the transfer of the
call for “reconstruction” to a political blackmail
project that seeks to benefit the enemy and hostile
forces to impose their will through cement, medicine,
and food, after they failed to impose their will with
bombs and massacres. Again, Palestinian elites,
political parties and political forces must elevate
their role to the level of the sacrifices and commitment
of the people, and bear their national responsibility by
implementing the popular demand for the achievement of
national unity without hesitation or delay. The road to
national unity is known to those who want to achieve it,
and not to reproduce empty and false slogans with no
political will behind them.</p>
<p>What is needed is perpetuation of the status of
confrontation with the enemy as required by the stage,
nature and conditions of our people in each area. It is
required to strengthen the resilience of the popular
classes and the poor, to protect and amplify their voice
and their achievements in the refugee camps, both inside
and outside the homeland. What is required is to demand
of the official Arab regimes, and first the Egyptian
state: act now to end the siege on our people. What is
needed is a unified Palestinian political stance that
opens the way for a new political stage. All of our
people know what is necessary.</p>
<p>In the final analysis, we must say the following: The
Palestinian popular classes who pay almost the entire
price in the conflict with the enemy do not wish to see
their blood, their sacrifices and their struggle wasted
or dissipated, their achievements traded or auctioned in
the market of policies, or lost between the forces and
countries that vie and contend in the region for their
own private economic and political interests. The siege
must be broken without political concessions. This is a
critical Palestinian, Arab and international
responsibility that is not limited to the resistance and
our people in the Gaza Strip.</p>
<p>To the extent that over a century of militancy,
struggle and permanent readiness for sacrifice has
assured us of the leading role of the impoverished and
oppressed classes as stakeholders in progress, change,
and liberation, we are equally assured through
experience of the permanent readiness for compromise and
trading on our rights by the traditional reactionary
forces who sit on the throne of the Palestinian
political decision which they have monopolized and
confiscated for themselves.</p>
<p>The reality is that our people are aware of and
understand, almost instinctively, the meaning and
requirements of the stage of national liberation.
National unity does not mean uniformity and conformity
in all situations; in fact, consistency means diversity
in the context of our battle for return and liberation
in a broader and larger national movement than simply
“factions,” although these are supposed to serve as a
revolutionary vanguard. Our people understand this
equation well and have always preceded far beyond their
“leadership,” and we have always faced the curse of a
layer of “pashas,” “leaders,” “sheikhs” and traditional
leadership at the head.</p>
<p>Reliance on the so-called “long-term truce” or
“negotiations” and similar deals with the enemy and
dealing unilaterally with all of these “initiatives,”
are all miserable options that have only benefitted the
enemy. Not one such similar initiative has succeeded or
benefited our people since 1948, so why would it be
different today? This is particularly true in light of
the political fragmentation on the Palestinian scene.</p>
<p>Engaging in such behavior is always rationalized with
the goal of alleviating the suffering of our people. In
reality, however, such “initiatives” only prolong the
suffering and torment, whether intentionally or through
erroneous understandings of the nature of the enemy, its
positions and the political conditions. Relying on
illusions necessarily leads to equally disastrous
results.</p>
<p><span>Q4: But what about reconciliation between Fateh
and Hamas? How do we understand this in light of this
analysis, particularly when we are discussing the
largest Palestinian movements?</span></p>
<p>A: What prevents Fateh and Hamas from ending the
so-called “division” are political options, negative
positions, and considerations of regional and
international sponsors and authorities that each
movement takes as a source of legitimacy, as well as
their insistence on a political role as a partner in the
Palestinian Authority. Any who accepts to be a follower
or a tool in service of regional and international
forces, or even a junior partner, must bear the
consequences before history and our people.</p>
<p>Our people is the reference above all references. And
when we say that “no voice is louder than the voice of
the Palestinian people,” this slogan must not be emptied
of its democratic essence and content by minimizing it
into a call to “resolve the issue of elections” and
divide the roles and functions of the Authority between
Fateh and Hamas, diminishing the Palestinian cause. It
is required of all national forces, and specifically the
radical left and the Popular Front, to embark on a
broader program of mass popular organization inside
Palestine and in all countries of exile to impose a new
reality to achieve national unity and to raise awareness
and hope. The situation of our cause is absurd and
condemns us all; it must not last long, this is a time
of historical responsibility, of suffering and of blood.</p>
<p><span>Q5: Popular resistance, especially in the West
Bank, is facing major threats, there is little support
for the “youth movement” in Jerusalem, the national
liberation project is being undermined because of the
continued policy of the Palestinian Authority in
relying on negotiations, its continued security
coordination with the occupier, its political arrests.
The Palestinian political system is confiscated, our
case is divided into files of humiliating negotiations
and agreements. What is the alternative?</span></p>
<p>A: If we follow the movements of the enemy and read the
proceedings of the Herzliya strategy conference and the
visions presented by Zionist forces, we easily realize
that the Zionist enemy does not want to give anything to
the Palestinian Authority, not even illusions. It views
the West Bank and Jerusalem as an integral part of the
“Land of Israel;” for them, this is “Judea and Samaria.”
The leaders of “Israel” view peace today as the
development of joint industrial zones in Bethlehem,
Ramallah, Nablus and other cities, and strengthening its
relations with a Palestinian capitalist comprador layer.
And thus the Palestinian resistance has a double task:
to deter the enemy and its settlers on the one hand and
to deter the Palestinian class cooperating on security
and economic levels with the Zionist enemy. These
struggles are important and interrelated – and this is
not a new issue for our people in the occupied homeland.</p>
<p>The popular movement in occupied Jerusalem and in areas
that are not controlled by the Palestinian Authority
needs to develop self-sufficiently from inside and do
not need to be contained or directed by the factions.
Whoever wants to struggle, they stand before an open and
empty field. Maintaining our struggle and an open
conflict with the enemy requires removing the shackles
of the security, economic and political role of the
Palestinian Authority which stands as a barrier between
the masses and the enemy – usually in favor of the
enemy. On the ground, where there is no Palestinian
Authority control, the Palestinian resistance is more
able to organize, to act, and to move.</p>
<p>In this respect it should be noted that there is a
renewal of creative forms of resistance, of studies and
articles produced by today’s new generation of young
Palestinians, addressing forms of popular resistance and
current challenges. There is no political project of
liberation without the attendant intellectual and
cultural project of liberation.</p>
<p><span>Q6: To return to the question, what is the
revolutionary democratic alternative to what exists
today?</span></p>
<p>A: The answer is that the revolutionary democratic
alternative is born in the squares and the streets, the
universities, factories, trade unions and prisons; it
must be advanced from a matter of wishful thinking and
dreams to a practical question. This means that we must
resurrect a revolutionary renewal, cut the Oslo path and
establish a new phase in which the Palestinian national
liberation movement can regain its role and the prestige
it lost in favor of NGOs, with the leadership and
initiative of the refugee camps and the popular classes,
workers and the poor.</p>
<p>The conflict with the enemy is long and difficult. It
will continue for decades to come, and the task of the
new generation includes communication with previous
generations, reading and learning about their experience
and in turn establishing new mechanisms of struggle to
advance the movement. The question of the revolutionary
democratic alternative is a collective question that
requires a collective answer. This revolutionary
democratic alternative cannot be born through a
decision, statement or appeal of any faction, no matter
how hard we try to perfect the language.</p>
<p><span>Q7: What is the reality of the Palestine
Liberation Organization today and its challenges? Is
it possible to repair and restore its role and status?</span></p>
<p>A: Today, the PLO’s leadership does not reflect the
aspirations and dreams of our people. The actions and
attitudes of this leadership is a source only of despair
for the masses of our people. The PLO was a great
historical achievement of the early Fedayeen (freedom
fighters), and the organization must be restored and its
decision-making process and institutions freed from the
monopolizing grip of this “leadership.” It must include
in its ranks all of the national forces of resistance
from different intellectual and political trends,
without exception. The PLO that we want is a national
united front fighting to achieve our full national
rights, for return, the liberation of Palestine and the
establishment of a democratic Palestine on the entire
land of Palestine with Jerusalem as its capital. And in
this arena, let us compete with one another to achieve
these goals.</p>
<p><span>Q8: The occupation abducted leader, activist and
Palestinian Legislative Council member Khalida Jarrar,
and before that dozens of MPs, in disregard of the
international community and flagrant violation of
international law. There has been broad solidarity
from progressive international forces, but on an
official level there has been very little action from
the international community, particularly the United
Nations, regarding the imprisonment of members of the
PLC. How can we build pressure around this issue?</span></p>
<p>A: The enemy failed to forcibly displace the leader,
Khalida Jarrar, from Ramallah to Jericho, due to her
struggle and the wide support she found. If they had
been successful, they would have created a dangerous
political precedent. There was clear popular and
international solidarity with her as a Palestinian
leader confronting occupation and injustice. And she
achieved a victory, forcing them to cancel the order for
forced displacement. There were efforts throughout
occupied Palestine, the Popular Front held a strong
political position, there were dozens of meetings with
parliamentarians around the world, visits from
solidarity delegations, and Khalida Jarrar’s protest
tent turned into a daily space of organizing solidarity.
All of this forced the occupation within a month to turn
back as it failed to implement its order. In other
words, the occupation’s order was defeated.</p>
<p>Khalida Jarrar’s detention, her imprisonment, comes in
this context, to cover up the failure of the occupation
in achieving its goal of forced displacement. If we look
at the list of charges against Jarrar, we can see how
much the occupation has failed. The international press
and even the Israeli press have published articles
exposing the fraudulent nature of the “Jarrar case.”
Dozens of parties, activists, parliamentarians,
delegations and trade union and party leaders have
denounced these charges and are defending Khalida Jarrar
against the occupation.</p>
<p><span>Q9: The Zionist occupation has confessed that the
boycott campaign is no less dangerous to its existence
than the strikes of the armed resistance. What are the
reasons for the escalation of these campaigns and the
growing results that have led to serious losses for
the occupation to the extent that it is investing
millions of dollars to suppress these campaigns?</span></p>
<p>A: Nothing hurts, frightens and impacts the occupation
and its interests more than armed resistance. However,
there are real blows being dealt to its image, public
relations, and economy by another weapon of struggle:
the economic, political, academic, and cultural
comprehensive boycott of the Zionist entity. The Zionist
state is afraid of isolation, and the boycott movement
is building international isolation and rejection of
normalization, in accordance with the logic of
accountability: a criminal state must be punished with
isolation.</p>
<p>In addition, the growing global boycott movement raises
many questions about the occupation state, its founding
and future, its nature and role. Herein lies the
greatest fear of the Zionist entity and its leaders,
whereby it sees the international boycott movement as a
strategic threat which must be confronted, and for which
it is willing to spend millions of dollars to stop what
the Zionist state itself has labeled the battle of the
“delegitimization of Israel.”</p>
<p>The occupation, with all of these efforts, has failed
to prevent the global boycott campaigns from making real
achievements in what might be seen as the “forbidden
triangle” for Palestinian organizing: universities,
trade unions and churches. These institutions have huge
social, political and economic investment in the
occupation; trade unions, for example, in the United
States, have poured efforts and funds into investment in
the Zionist entity, in particular “Israel bonds,” in
retirement accounts and pensions. These social
institutions have provided a cover to the Zionist state,
using the justification of reparations for the European
crimes and the Holocaust against Jews in Nazi Germany,
through alliances with US and Western states’
imperialism and colonialism, and with the strategic
imposition and threats of the Zionist movement.</p>
<p>Today, these institutions are divided, and some play a
major role in participating in the boycott campaigns.
There is a deep internal struggle, and in the corridors
and meetings, a constant debate and political battles
between “supporters of Palestine” and “supporters of
Israel,” particularly in general assemblies and
conferences. We may not win every vote, and every clash,
but the presence of Palestine on the agenda is becoming
a clear reality and is recognized by the enemy as a
major breakthrough which it cannot tolerate. Thus, it
regards the issue as a matter of strategic, and
existential, threat.</p>
<p>It is always important to remind ourselves that this
achievement is possible due to the blood of the martyrs,
the suffering and sacrifices of our people, and the
popular resistance in all of its forms, in the first
place, the armed resistance. There is no way to mobilize
a solidarity movement with a silenced or defeated
victim; silence for our people means death. The people,
the forces of justice in the world, will stand by the
side of those who fight, who scream, who rebel and
defend their rights.</p>
<p>The conscience of humanity cannot observe the images of
death and destruction and war crimes perpetrated by the
Zionist enemy in Palestine and stand by as an observer.
The United Nations have done so for seven decades, in
the exercise of a crime and the complicity of silence,
but the liberation movements, progressive forces, and
the democratic, popular, student, feminist movements,
labor organizations and popular movements do not stand
silent in the face of these crimes, and demand to hold
governments accountable. These forces have different
calculations than states.</p>
<p>Finally, the Zionist enemy has gone too far in the use
of its military arsenal against our people. It has used
all weapons with the exception of nuclear weapons,
targeting our people specifically.</p>
<p><span>Q10: France continues to imprison the Arab
struggler, Georges Ibrahim Abdallah. What do you think
needs to be done to build the campaign of solidarity
with him and pressure for his release?</span></p>
<p>A: Solidarity with Comrade Georges Ibrahim Abdallah is
an ongoing campaign, based in Beirut, with the family
and friends of Georges Abdallah and individual Lebanese
and Palestinian activists, but without any meaningful
support from the Lebanese state and major parties,
including, unfortunately, forces of both the Lebanese
and Palestinian resistance. But, particularly in the
cities of Toulouse, Marseille, Paris and elsewhere in
France, events and struggle is continuing, with a series
of events and rallies outside the prison where he is
held.</p>
<p>There is also a connection with the campaign of
solidarity with General Secretary Ahmad Sa’adat, which
since its inception in 2002 has sought to build
solidarity with Arab and other political prisoners in
the prisons of France, Canada, the United States, the
Philippines, Colombia and elsewhere, linking the
struggles of our peoples against imperialism, our common
enemy, as we work to raise the voice of indigenous
peoples, the true owners of the land, to confront the
forces of colonialism and settler colonialism, from
Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United States to
Mexico, South Africa and Palestine.</p>
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