On the eve of his speech, a friend told me that he did not understand well what is happening in Palestine, because geopolitical issues are very diffuse ciles.La geopolitics does fear a little, but in Palestine there are
foreign settlers occupying the Palestinian people and our lands. The occupying government is supported by the major international powers for their economic and political interests in the Middle East. There is a busy people who have never landed and who have been fighting for 100 years. They have not managed to eliminate us or destroy us because we are becoming more and more. Hence Israel’s fear of demography. Golda Meir, Zionist Prime Minister who signed the creation of the State of Israel, said in 1948 [Palestinian] that “the elderly will die and the young will forget”. But today, young people are more resistant to the struggle than parents or grandparents.
When we talk about Palestinians, the gaze, of course, goes to Palestine. But most of the Palestinian people live in the diaspora, you witness it.
In 1948, two thirds of the Palestinians were expelled from their villages. Right now, more than half of the Palestinians live in the diaspora.
Everyone looks at the two authorities. On the one hand, in Hamas Gaza, nobody has talked to them. Moreover, the Palestinian Power of Mahmoud Abbas, an interlocutor of the international community in the West Bank, accepts any request. That is what the world recognizes as Palestine. In this equation, we who are outside don't exist. We have no voice, and its origin lies in the Oslo agreements. There they decided to reject the Palestinians from the diaspora. These agreements broke with the organizations of the Palestinian people abroad: Union of workers, students, women -- who were in the Palestine Liberation Organization -- was an organization as a state, dealing with the problems of all Palestinians, both in historic Palestine and abroad. All this has been destroyed.
So is it organizing?
Yes, we have created the Massar Badil movement, the Alternative Revolutionary Route. We want to get our voice back. The Palestinian diaspora, especially youth, is being reorganized. A youth born outside of Palestine, who does not know Palestine, who does not speak Arabic, each has its language, but is organized to defend Palestine, especially in the “heart of the beast”, in the West. Right here in the Spanish state, there is a Palestinian youth movement: To the yudasun.
It talks about the Oslo Accords, led by Jassir Arafat. It was a world symbol of Palestinian resistance, but today there are many who say that their party, Al-Fatah, “is the guardian of Israel in the West Bank.” For us it was also an icon,
representative of the struggle of the Palestinian people. It was very charismatic, it connected with people and it was very media. But for many Palestinians Arafat betrayed us when he began to negotiate with Israel, when the situation of the Palestinians was weak. And so, they stopped the First Intifada, they cheated people and they gave them crumbs in return. Reading the Oslo agreements, you will soon realise that there is nothing in favour of the Palestinians. After the agreements they said that “later on we will be negotiating the points”, but on paper there was nothing, not even the end of the colonies. What is more, these agreements say that 20% of the land is for the Palestinians and that everything else has to be handed over to the Zionists. Of course, the majority do not agree. We have not forgotten the right of return of the refugees, nor the Palestinians living in the lands of 1948, nor Jerusalem ...
For many Arafat was wrong, the ego got in the head. I didn't listen to others. Later, when he returned to the West Bank and agreed that the resistance would resume the struggle, Israel locked him in his headquarters, besieged him and died or was killed shortly afterwards. It has not yet been demonstrated, but there are signs of murder.
Perhaps little is said about the class struggle in Palestine.
Of course. Beyond what has been said about Arafat, as throughout the world, there are also elites and the bourgeoisie in Palestine. These agents of capitalism just want peace of mind to do business and keep making money. This model comes from far away. The leaders of Palestine paralysed the 1936 rebellion, a six-month general strike, because the Palestinian elites reached an agreement with the authorities of the Arab countries, because they began to lose money. And half a century later, by signing the Oslo Accords, the same thing. Since then this model has been in force.
Of course, there is still an authority that speaks of “economic peace”. While people live in ghettos, some West Bank companies continue to sell, buy, win... besides, many of them do business with whom and with the occupant. One of the members of the Abbas government is Hussein Al-Sheikh. This man usually goes to Tel Aviv to negotiate with the Israelis on work permits so that the Palestinians in the West Bank can work in colonies. It does so in exchange for money, because those permits are sold to the families of the workers who need it.
The Abbas government imposes "tranquillity" on the West Bank. It arrests and punishes young people who organize and manifest themselves politically in universities. Journalists who talk about the corruption of the Palestinian National Power (PAN) are also imprisoned, tortured and some murdered. Let us remember the case of Nizar Banat. It was Youtuber, talking about the PAN corruption network. He was incarcerated several times and eventually killed in his own house. 25 PAN security officers beat him and killed him.
Some believe that it is better not to talk about their own misery and contradictions, on behalf of the union, because the “main objective” is the liberation of Palestine. In other words, to talk about what is happening among the Palestinians does the cause favour?
Yes, of course! Failure to do so has led us to the bad situation we are in. PAN silences the voices of resistance, hears the Palestinians. The case of Berbara, Basel activist Al-Araj Zisjordan. He wrote, gave lectures and took tours of his city to spread the history of Palestine. He was first arrested by PAN and was held for a long time. Subsequently, the Zionist army was persecuted and finally murdered in the West Bank by the Israelis. Some countries claim to recognize the Palestinian state. But what state? The Israeli army enters and leaves the West Bank, imprisons, kills and torture the Palestinians. It does what it wants, as it wants.
Oslo agreements, corruption and collaboration. Are they keys to understanding the hegemony of Sixteen today?
What people are going to do when they see that the Palestinian left is missing, that it does not affect, and that the Palestinian Power of Fatah, right and liberal, is corrupt, that they are stepping their own and collaborating with the Zionist enemy. For many Hamas it is synonymous with resistance, it is they who defend our rights. That is why it has the support of so many people. Young people join Hamas and Islamic Jihad to fight for the liberation of Palestine. Because those on the other side not only do nothing but damage the Palestinian cause.
Let's talk about the internationalist
left palestina.La maintained a strong relationship with the Palestinian left in the 1970s, but over the years it has decreased to the same extent that the left's strength has decreased internationally. I would like to be the left the head of the struggle of my people, but that is not the case. The struggle of the Palestinian people is a struggle for national liberation and we should not try to impose models of anyone. When Palestine is free, I want socialist Palestine. But those who are now fighting, those who are better organised, those who are giving everything and those who are gaining the support of the people are the Islamic parties. And they don't come from Mars. They are part of the Palestinian people. I cannot be against them. Al-Fatah, when he fought in the 1970s, had all the protection of the people, more protection than the Palestinian Left, which also fought. The leadership of the leftist parties is decadent, which prevents the emancipation of their young militants.
The rise of Islam is evident throughout the region.
Everything that happens around us affects us, and of course the rise of Islam. Islamist parties have been gaining support and power with the help of the Islamist parties in neighbouring countries. The Left has no support for anyone, and even if nothing is being done. Hezbollah and Iran protect Palestinian resistance, beyond religious differences, which are Xiites and Palestinians are Sunni. They also protect the Popular Front (PAHF, or PFLP), but the PAHF is not organized to have a broad base that adds to the struggle.
However, the Abu Ali Mustafa brigades, the armed arm of the Popular Front, are involved in the struggle in Gaza, as they always do in all confrontations with the Zionists. Some elements of Fatah are also involved. These are people who want to fight.
It's the "Islamic dictatorship," it suppresses women, it's like Isis ... Hence the general framework used by the West to justify genocide: War between Israel and Hamas.
Of course. That is not new. As a result of this defamatory machinery, Islamophobia has grown year after year, especially in the West. And so everything that has to do with Islam is dangerous and reminds us of September 11, March 11 ...
The people of Sixteen or Islamic Jihad are no longer the ones at the beginning. They're much more open. I was in Gaza two years ago, and you don't see all the women wearing the veil anymore. The kids sit together in the coffee shops, they talk, they go together ... From the West, the government of an Islamic party has more freedom than people believe.
On the one hand, if you get Hamas, Islamists and demons into the public imagination, and on the other hand, if you have an Israel that has built a European-style image, from the West you see that some are "our" and others are the antithesis of our society. Who will the people of the West empathize with? This is one of the bases for justifying genocide. That is why they say the means that the Palestinians die and the Israelis murder. The Palestinians are apparently not murdered, and in Israel there are no armed settlers to the teeth.
The horrors list is big. For example, they burned a whole village. Huwara, on the West Bank, near Nablus. Or when they burned the Dawabha house in the village of Duma, when everyone was inside, saving only one child. Or in Al Halil, a wounded young man on the ground was shot and shot... These cases are not here unless the victim is Israeli. But then they tell us that these settlers are “civilian.”
Some are like Europeans and others, darker skinned, are Islamic terrorists. Despite being someone on the left, it does not matter, those on the secular left also regard us as terrorists. Everything gets in the same bag.
Beyond discrepancies, there is therefore coordination between the factions that constitute resistance.
Since the beginning of the blockade in Gaza and since the rule of Hamas, they have over the years created an organisational cabinet. The eleven parties represented in Gaza meet each month to discuss political and administrative issues. Of course, sixteen is heavier, because they have a majority. But Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front, the Liberation Front are also participating... And when there are military attacks, the armed arms come together to organize resistance. Of the political parties, five or six have an armed arm and, furthermore, militias are involved which have nothing to do with Sixteen.
More than once you will have been asked about the attack on 7 October and whether it rejects it. I will put it differently: Does the environment justify the objectives?
Thousands of tons of bombs are being thrown at hospitals, schools, an outdoor jail being under siege for 17 years, exterminating... What objectives do these means justify? “End sixteen militias”?
Over 6,000 people imprisoned in Israel, many of them ill. For example, Walid Daqqah, the leader of the Palestinian left, has terminal cancer and needs specialized medical care. Although the penalty is met, they deny it. They have children in prison, it is systematic torture, they continue to create colonies, attacks on the Al-Aqsa mosque, on Christians in Jerusalem ... Resistance has long warned that the situation was unsustainable and would have consequences. The result is an attack on colonies near Gaza on 7 October. And let's not forget that on these lands across the Gaza Barrier there are colonies, but they are refugee camps that are still alive in the Gaza Strip. These settlers live carefree, with two and a half million people being held in subhuman conditions.
It was a surprise to todos.El the
object of resistance in this attack was unexpectedly to enter and kidnap military and settlers to use them as a currency of exchange and free Palestinian prisoners. But the reaction of the Israeli military was much slower than they expected, and they led a lot of people. It should also be noted that many of those who died in this armed action of the colonies were killed by the Israeli army itself in everything that moved by shooting from the sky.
But beyond that particular case, a well-known UN resolution says that the occupied countries have the right to defence, including armed violence. This right goes beyond the possibility of defending itself against attacks by occupants: the occupied peoples can take initiatives and attack the occupier. That is what Palestinian resistance does.
In addition to Palestine, Israel has invaded three of the four neighbouring countries: Syria, Lebanon and Egypt. In the face of genocide, where are the countries and the Arabs and the surrounding areas?
Europe colonized the Arab-Muslim region of the eastern Mediterranean and North Africa. Following decolonization, the United Kingdom and France imposed on the authorities to which they owed loyalty to defend their mutual interests. The real families in Jordan and Saudi Arabia are a good example. Very rich people, with businesses in the West, who send their children to U.K. boarding schools since childhood to prepare for the reign of the future. The West involuntarily decolonized the area, but they weren't wrong. Fire channel, oil, gas... These interests are the cause of the creation of the State of Israel in the heart of the Middle East.
The peoples of our region have not been able to exercise the right of self-determination. The republics and those holding elections are also not transparent, reliable, or democratic, and even more so with the imprisoned opposition. In Egypt, President Al-Sisi presides over 60,000 Egyptians for political reasons.
The Jordanian authorities fear this issue, since 70% of the population is Palestinian. They always behave very moderately, with "politically correct" expressions.
The excuse for these countries is the Oslo Agreement and the "normalisation" of PAN relations with Israel. That is, "if they have, why not us? they say. China did not accept Israel until 1991, until the peace conference in Madrid. The consequences of the Oslo Accords have benefited Israel. It was an excellent agreement for them. For the Palestinians the result is obvious. Nothing good.
Faced with the possibility of Palestinians going to their lands, Jordan and Egypt say "you cannot enter".
Yes, for your interests. They do not want the Palestinians to enter, which would jeopardise their control over their population. They fear the disturbance that would result from the entry of the Palestinians, because the people of Gaza are very rebellious, and they could lift the people and fall these governments. Authorizing a second Nakba is a danger to the opinion of its peoples. Uncomfortable questions can also arise. For example, if a small armed group of 1,300 people has beaten both Israeli armies and the all-powerful intelligence services, why can our armies do nothing, much more armed and prepared than the Palestinian resistance?
One of the reasons why the Palestinian resistance attacked on 7 October could be in recent years with Arab countries – Bahrain, Egypt, Morocco, Saudi Arabia… – Paralyse the standardisation process promoted by Israel.
It was the estimated date. First, the occupied Palestinian situation has deteriorated exponentially in recent years and the resistance had warned that it would respond if Israel did not remain. That has happened. Secondly, they wanted to put the blockade of Gaza on the table. The blockade has been going on for 17 years, and nobody was talking about it. Thirdly, as you say, they have succeeded in stopping the process of normalisation that Saudi Arabia was about to sign with Israel. Saudi Arabia is of great importance not only in the entire Arab region, but also in the Muslim world.
Look at the reaction of the Turkish Government. It is a country fully normalized by diplomatic and economic relations with the Zionist organization, which also performs joint military manoeuvres. It is a mere calculation and political interest, Erdogan knows that the majority of his population is totally against the massacre in Gaza. Bahrain has signed standardisation agreements with Israel, but has now withdrawn the ambassador. There are also mass demonstrations in Morocco. The only one who continues to work directly with Israel, and of course with the United States, is the Arab Emirates. Business is a priority there.
The attack on resistance and the subsequent Israeli massacre have revolutionized the process of these agreements.
USA, France, Germany, Britain ... The main promoters and justifications for the Israeli genocide are the same ones that repeatedly propose the solution of both States. Among the political parties in Euskal Herria is also the way.
Because it's the easiest position. One way to eliminate liability is: “Let Palestinians and Israelis speak and settle.” I was against that solution and I am.
They know it's not viable. We've been waiting for these two states for 30 years. They do not want to give up Israel being on Palestinian territory because Israel is part of the West and will continue to defend its interests. They don't even want to hear decolonization.
The colonization of Palestine was programmed and organized by the West. They did not worry about genocide against the Jews, they did not give them rights, support and facilities to return to their places of origin (Germany, France, England, Ukraine, Poland...). They brought the "problem" to Palestine, expelled Jewish people from Europe, to Palestine, and decided to divide the territory into the United Nations and facilitate the creation of a Jewish state. All this is the responsibility of the West. To refuse and justify themselves in some way, they talk about the state of Israel and the Palestinian state. If they were truly committed to compliance with international law and with United Nations resolutions, which have historically been unfair to the Palestinians, starting with separation, they should first implement article 194: the right to return. Then all Palestinian refugees should return to their countries of origin, but they know that that would be the end of the state of Israel. Similarly, by giving equal rights to all people, apartheid and the State of Israel, in the form we now know, would end. But no. They propose two states. For one 80 per cent of the stolen territory and for another 20 per cent for the Palestinians.
The solution of the two states is to say "adapt in some way" to the Palestinians. But that is what they really want, let them stop assembling, financing and helping Israel. Do not be partial. And when they do, then, calm down, we will adapt.
In this situation, beyond abstract solidarity with the Palestinian people, what can we do here and now?If genocide does
not stop, we should resort to civil disobedience. In this sense, in the Spanish State the Mordaza Law is still in force, and that is why we must ask the new government to repeal it once and for all.
If governments still do not hear people saying ‘enough!’, we will have to go where they are: the seats of the governments of the autonomous communities, the deputies, the seats of the political parties, the municipalities... We have to go to his door to ask for concrete measures, immediately.
In the case of the Spanish State, moreover, it seems that we have to be happy because they let us demonstrate, seeing what is happening in other European countries.
And break with Israel? Stop giving weapons? The
lack of arms is minimal and the Spanish State has a large arms trade with Israel.
Anti-Semitism is a wildcard in Europe and Israel to defend itself against all criticism of the Zionist organisation.
No one should be discriminated against by their beliefs, by their culture, by their ideology... but in many Western countries anti-Semitism is used to silence the voices defending the Palestinian cause. Let us not forget that Juduphobia was born in Europe, not in Palestine. In Palestine they have always been neighbours.
You work with the Jews yourself.
We work hand in hand with colleagues from the Jewish anti-Zionist movement. They also oppose the state of Israel and defend the liberation of Palestine. We are in the same struggle.
Is there a left in Israel?
Tagging is very simple. Is being on the left defending the rights of peoples and the right to self-determination, or is being on the left colonizing another people to create its own state? No, there is no Israeli left. The left cannot defend a state based on massacres. A person on the left cannot justify the invasion of a people on the basis of religion. The State of Israel was created on the grounds that the Jewish religion and its followers are entitled to a State in Palestine. It cannot be left-wing and argue that a state should only be for Jews. The Israeli left stands for democracy and rights, but only for the Israelis.
In other words, are there anti-colonialist settlers?
That's it. And let us not forget, for example, that when the massacres of Sabra and Shatila occurred, what Israel promised was a “left-wing” government.
If we look at the Palestinian political institutions and the representatives of their armed arms, we see corbatant men, armed men, diplomatic men ...
Women have always been part of the Palestinian resistance. It may surprise you, but Sixteen himself has more militant women than other parties on the Palestinian Left. They have deputies, they're in armed groups, in the Hamas Police...
I have had contact with many sixteen-year-old women, and I can say that they are women who are nicknamed and prepared. Jader Adnan, political prisoner of Islamic Jihad, died on hunger strike in May and the biggest defense of his case has been taken by his wife: she has manifested herself in the street, she has spoken in the media... and she is a fully covered woman. We have interviewed it. It's a kind of woman the Western world doesn't want to see. She doesn't want to see the woman covered, let alone empowered. The image must be of submissive woman.
But it is clear that men are the majority of those who move and speak publicly. Nobody is safe from patriarchy. Feminist women and left-wing women in Palestine are struggling to change this. We, from the diaspora, in the same founding letter of the Masar Badil movement have said that the movement should be led by women. We are not talking about quotas or measures to increase the participation of women. No. We say leadership must be female and also juvenile. Because most of those who speak for Palestine are men over 70. Where is the Palestinian youth, almost 70% of the population?
Western media do not talk to representatives of Palestinian resistance, interview Mahmoud Abbas and his lobby, but nobody talks about resistance. Interestingly, resistance participates much younger than in political parties such as Fatah, Popular Front or Democratic Front.
Beyond political differences, today most Palestinians combine positions of resistance. But the demands made in the West in solidarity with Palestine are fuller and many do not speak of resistance.
That is a Eurocentric white supremacism. From the West we want to impose our model. The Left should respect the will of the peoples and their liberation movements. The Palestinian resistance is a liberation movement, we may rather like it, but it is the one chosen by the people and that resistance has the majority support. In the resistance of Vietnam, movements on the left were surely predominant, but there were also people on the right. And of course, they had to be helped. Have the national liberation movements in Africa been left? No, but they must be helped.
The people on the left can help the Palestinian left to grow and to have more influence, but we cannot impose anything. To say, "Because you're Islamists and right, and we on the left, we can't support you," is to think we're better than everyone else.
Violence and armed struggle always generate debate.
All peoples of the world, whether they like it or not, have been freed by armed struggle. There is no liberated people who awaken the colonizer one day and discover that they have ethics and that the oppressed has decided to let him live in peace.
I wish we didn't have to fight, because a lot of people are dying. It is true that the price is high, but there was no other way, because the Palestinian cause was being forgotten, while the Zionists cleaned and normalized their image. Israel does what it does because it owns impunity and has unconditional protection of the political, media and economic power of the West. But the silence of the peoples has also ensured this. The massacre of the Palestinian people is ongoing and on slow fire. Day by day and year by year. When the settlers burned a 16-year-old boy in Jerusalem, Mohammed Abu Khdeir, when they made him drink gasoline and then fired him, people did not move. This case is typical of Israel, because he was a Palestinian, nothing happens. But internationally? Nothing was said.
It is not acceptable to ask the Palestinians not to fight armed because they kill us.
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