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<div class="header reader-header reader-show-element"> <font
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href="https://samidoun.net/2018/12/ahmad-saadat-palestine-will-be-freed-by-the-people-not-the-elites/">https://samidoun.net/2018/12/ahmad-saadat-palestine-will-be-freed-by-the-people-not-the-elites/</a></font>
<h1 class="reader-title">Ahmad Sa'adat: Palestine will be freed
by the people, not the elites</h1>
December 11, 2018</div>
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<p>The following interview with imprisoned Palestinian
leftist leader, <a
href="https://samidoun.net/2018/10/ahmad-saadat-prisons-the-black-liberation-movement-and-the-struggle-for-palestine/">Ahmad
Sa’adat</a>, the <a
href="https://samidoun.net/2017/12/campaign-to-free-ahmad-saadat-statement-on-the-ninth-anniversary-of-his-sentencing-take-action-for-palestine/">General
Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of
Palestine</a>, was published first in the <a
href="https://ilmanifesto.it/ahmed-saadat-la-palestina-sara-liberata-dal-popolo-escluso-dalle-elite/">Italian
newspaper <em>Il Manifesto</em></a> on November 9,
2018. Sa’adat has been imprisoned in Israeli prison
since 2006, when he was seized along with several
comrades in a violent Israeli attack on the Palestinian
Authority’s Jericho prison. </p>
<p>Prior to the Israeli attack, he had been imprisoned
since 2002 by the Palestinian Authority under U.S. and
British guard. The imprisonment of prominent
Palestinians like Sa’adat played a role in the 2006
Palestinian Legislative Council elections in which the
legislative party associated with Hamas, the Change and
Reform Bloc, prevailed. Less than a week before the new
PA officials were to be sworn in, Israeli armed forces
attacked the Jericho prison, killing two Palestinians. </p>
<p>Since that time, Sa’adat was sentenced to 30 years in
Israeli prison, even though he was not charged in the
assassination of Rehavam Ze’evi. The notoriously
far-right Israeli tourism minister was assassinated by
PFLP fighters after the Israeli army assassinated PFLP
General Secretary <a
href="https://samidoun.net/2017/08/berlin-demonstration-urges-boycott-of-hewlett-packard-palestinian-community-commemorates-abu-ali-mustafa/">Abu
Ali Mustafa</a> in his Ramallah office, using a
U.S.-made and –provided helicopter-fired missile on
August 29, 2001. Several of Sa’adat’s comrades were
sentenced to life imprisonment after the raid.</p>
<p>Israeli officials have repeatedly demonstrated their
fear of Sa’adat’s political influence. He was held under
isolation for three years, an isolation that ended as
part of the 2012 Karameh mass hunger strike. He writes
and issues statements from prison, thanks to the
creative work of fellow prisoners and their comrades in
making sure that the writing and analysis of Palestinian
prisoners are not isolated from the world. The interview
follows below:</p>
<p><strong>Q: How would you assess the current situation
in Palestine and the attitude of the U.S.
administration under Donald Trump?</strong> </p>
<p>First of all, I would like to thank you for this
interview. It is absolutely crucial to communicate with
Italian readers and explain the Palestinian left vision
for the current situation in Palestine and in the
region. We view the United States, under the Trump
administration, as an extremely dangerous power, not
only for the Palestinian people and for our region, but
for all of the people of the world. It is often said
that the only difference between Trump and previous
administrations is that Trump reveals the true, ugly
face of capitalism and imperialism, taking the use of
plunder, hegemony and exploitation to an extreme level.
</p>
<p>Trump’s declaration on recognizing Jerusalem as the
capital of the Israeli state and the transfer of the
U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem is the natural
continuation of 100 years of colonization in Palestine
and the 1917 Balfour Declaration. It is part and parcel
of the ongoing attempt to liquidate Palestinian rights
and to accelerate the ethnic cleansing of our people,
especially in Jerusalem. Palestinians across the board
politically reject Trump’s attempt to eliminate the
Palestinian cause. Our people are resisting and
rejecting this attempt not only with words, but with
action: the launch of a true, heroic popular uprising in
Gaza – the Great March of Return, in the spirit of the
first Intifada and with the participation of the PFLP
and a broad range of Palestinian political forces. </p>
<p><strong>2) What current strategy would allow for the
rebuilding of a strong Palestinian liberation
movement?</strong> </p>
<p>The main task facing us today is the project of
rebuilding and reconstructing the Palestinian national
liberation movement. The primary Palestinian national
objective today is to place Palestine, once again, on
the road of liberation by restating and reaffirming the
essence of the Palestinian struggle. That is, the return
of the refugees and building the liberated, democratic
secular society in Palestine – not the “Palestinian
state on 1967 borders alongside Israel.” </p>
<p>A historic and devastating rupture has taken place in
the Palestinian movement after the signing of the Oslo
accords in 1993. This has distorted the true meaning of
our struggle and the essence of the conflict. An entire
Palestinian generation has been born and grown up since
the signing of that catastrophic document on 13
September 1993 in Washington, D.C. Since then, the
Palestinian movement has been shattered, splintered and
chaotic. </p>
<p>As for the immediate tasks, it is critical to
reestablish the Palestinian national liberation front,
the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization) if you will,
in order to provide the necessary conditions for a
renaissance of the Palestinian movement and the
Palestinian revolution. We come from a different
perspective than both Fateh and Hamas, and we are
committed to a real national unity that includes our
progressive framework and which must be based on popular
representation and participation. All Palestinian
classes must be a part of this process, and the popular
classes must not be excluded from the leadership of the
movement as they have been for the past 40 years. The
freedom of Palestine will be won by the people, not the
elites.</p>
<p><strong>3) What alternative political direction does
the PFLP suggest?</strong></p>
<p>We think that the main premise of change is popular
participation that allows Palestinians to participate in
the struggle and in political decision-making, in a
manner that is effective and meaningful. This not only
requires struggle against occupation, but also struggle
to regain those Palestinian rights to participate in our
own movement. For example, in Jordan, there are over
four million Palestinians whose demands, needs and calls
to action may seem to be absent. However, they must be
heard. The same is true for Palestinians in Lebanon,
Syria and elsewhere, as well as those in Palestine. </p>
<p>Popular participation and leadership is necessary for
rebuilding the resistance movement against Zionist
colonization and implementing a strategy for the
liberation of Palestine. This must also take place in
the diaspora as well as in Palestine, in Europe and
elsewhere in the world where there are Palestinians. If
our communities are always threatened by all kinds of
criminalization, repressive laws and right-wing attacks,
then our tasks will be more difficult. The cornerstone
of our vision lies upon this – people’s right to
participate in developing their future. This is the most
advanced, democratic process of participation which we
are fighting for, unlike those who have imposed an elite
hegemony on the Palestinian people. </p>
<p><strong>4) The Popular Front for the Liberation of
Palestine has marked the fiftieth anniversary of its
founding. How do you evaluate the situation of the
Front today?</strong></p>
<p>The Front concluded its seventh convention in early
2014, and we are now approaching the eighth convention
of the Front. This will be an opportunity for all of our
comrades inside and outside Palestine to assess the
strengths and weaknesses of our Front and evaluate its
advances and retreats.</p>
<p>In the last five years, we can say that the Front has
faced tremendous difficulties and challenges that have
manifested political and financial siege: repression,
mass arrests of its cadres, the killing of cadres. Yet
we have advanced in our military capabilities in Gaza
because we do not face the same conditions that we do in
the West Bank under occupation and Palestinian Authority
security coordination. Several comrades – including
myself – are imprisoned precisely because of this
security coordination between the PA and the occupier,
but we are not alone in this regard. Hundreds of cadres
have been subject to oppression and arrests as well. </p>
<p>In terms of the Front organizationally, we also have
made progress in terms of youth participation and
renewal in various different aspects of our work. It is
always challenging to accumulate achievements due to our
circumstances, so we are always engaged in a process of
building and rebuilding.</p>
<p><strong>5) How has the PFLP changed since its
foundation until now?</strong></p>
<p>The Front has changed tremendously in that time – we
are talking about half of a century. There are four
stages in the life of our party. The first, which could
be identified as the “Jordan era,” from 1967 until 1972;
the second, the experience of the Palestinian Revolution
and the PFLP in Lebanon, from 1973 until 1982; the
third, the first great Palestinian popular uprising from
1987 until 1993; and, since then, we have been living
the stage of the so-called Oslo process. </p>
<p>Now, these changes have affected the Front on many
levels: political, theoretical, organizational. These
have affected us as they have others: the wars in the
region, the peace pacts between Arab regimes and Israel,
the fall of the Soviet Union and the larger socialist
bloc and the liquidation process (also labeled the
“peace process.”) All of these factors and many others
have affected the Front, its strength and its analysis.
</p>
<p>Certain positions which we took in a time of retreat
made the Front look more “realist,” but that was due to
internal contradictions in the Front. We discussed this
publicly in our documents from the Fifth, Sixth and
Seventh Conventions. The Front always engages in
self-criticism and we do not hesitate to point out our
shortcomings. But the conclusion to which we have
arrived, from 1992 until today, is that the party, like
our people, is living through a comprehensive crisis,
theoretically, politically, financially and otherwise,
and this crisis can only be overcome through resistance
and struggle at all levels. </p>
<p><strong>6) How do you see the role of the prisoners’
movement inside Israeli prisons?</strong></p>
<p>The prisoners’ movement inside Israeli jails has,
historically, played a major and central role in the
fight against Zionist oppression. This comes not only in
our daily confrontation of the occupier and prisoners’
responsibility as the first advanced rank of the
revolution but also in our role in the overall political
scene in Palestine. </p>
<p>We must remember that the national consensus agreement
for Palestinian national unity has been called the
Prisoners’ Document. It was drafted inside prisons and
formed the basis of all later discussions for the
Palestinian movement’s national unity. The prisoners’
movement has lived through various experiences of
campaigns, hunger strikes, and prisoners lives’ being
taken under torture. </p>
<p>We political prisoners have been called the vanguard
and the heart of the Palestinian revolution. This is
because Israel always targets the Palestinian movements
and their leaders for imprisonment – student movements,
women’s movements, labor movements, youth movements. In
essence, prisons have been a place where all of these
aspects of our movement meet and engage in thorough
discussions. That is why Palestinians often call prisons
“the schools of the revolution.” </p>
<p>We are not separated from the liberation movement
outside prison. Palestinian prisoners are from all of
Palestine – the West Bank, Gaza, Jerusalem, the
Triangle, the Naqab, Galilee, all of our land. We also
consider Palestinian political prisoners in American and
French jails as part of our movement, particularly
Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, imprisoned in France for over
34 years. </p>
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