When news reports alleged that the two cousins behind the Jerusalem synagogue attack on 18 November were affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a level of confusion reigned. Why the PFLP? Why now?
The attack killed five Israelis and wounded others. It was, to a degree, an expected addition to a violent episode caused by police-sanctioned right-wing violence and abuse targeting the Palestinian population of the illegally occupied East Jerusalem. Much of the violence targeting Palestinians is systematic, involving severe restrictions on Palestinian movement, targeting houses of worship, and nightly attacks by Jewish mobs assailing Arabs, or anyone who may be suspected of being one. It also included the hanging, lynching and burning alive of Jerusalem's Arab residents.
Palestinians responded in kind. But most of their violent responses seemed to be confined to individual acts, compelled by despair, perhaps, but certainly removed from the organized nature of armed-resistance.
Then, Ghassa and Odai Abu Jamal attacked the synagogue. The initial assumption was that the attack was also the work of individuals, before reports began linking them to the PFLP.
Suddenly, the discussion shifted, from the relevance of the attack to the difficult situation in Jerusalem (both cousins were Jerusalemites) to something entirely different pertaining to the Marxist group’s current standing between two dominant forces: a Fatah-led government in Ramallah, whose leadership has long-abandoned armed struggle, and an Islamic-dominated resistance groups led by Hamas in Gaza. Is the PFLP carving a new place for itself in anticipation of a third intifada? Or was the attack an anomaly? Was it ordered by the group’s core leadership? And where is the PFLP heading anyway?
To begin with, there can be no easy answers...
...adhering to the fighting spirit of a socialist, militant and radical movement, the PFLP is also forced to co-exist within a corrupt political structure; opposing it, while benefiting from it at the same time. Many NGOs are loosely affiliated with PFLP members, which gives the group a degree of physical presence, but deprives it from the chance to openly confront Mahmoud Abbas operated political apparatus in Ramallah.
It matters little whether the cousins who attacked the synagogue in Jerusalem were affiliated with the PFLP or not; the repeated muddled statements by the group - justifying the attack, explaining it, owning it and disowning it all at once - matters more. This confusion is becoming symbiotic of the PFLP following the signing of Oslo. And while there are those who employ clever language to maintain the group’s radical status, NGO perks and socialist prestige, others expect a more serious discussion of what the PFLP is and what it stands for after two decades of political failure, of which the PFLP, like Fatah and Hamas, should also be held accountable.
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