Sa’adat: The rule of law is meaningless if it flies in the face of our right to resist

Ahmad Saadat is the secretary-general of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and a former member of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC). He is the highest-ranking official of a Palestinian faction currently imprisoned by the Israeli occupation regime. Saadat’s imprisonment is not atypical for political leaders in Palestine, many of whom have been arrested and detained, with or without charge, by Israel. However, the circumstances surrounding both Saadat’s initial arrest and the first four years of his detention were unique...

How has prison changed you on a personal level? What is your life like? What do you read and how do you keep up with the political situation? Are you able to write?

My prison experience both forged and tempered my political outlook and my party affiliation, but my time in prison has also been enriched by my lived experience of the struggle on the outside. On and off, I’ve spent a total of twenty-four years in prison, and here I am, incarcerated once again with the rest of my comrades. I spend my time reading and engaging in activities related to our struggle as prisoners, which includes my comrades’ education and teaching a history course from the Al-Aqsa University curriculum. The bulk of my writing pertains to the needs of the PFLP prisoners’ organization and to issues of national interest. I also try to support the members of the PFLP leadership on the outside whenever I can. If I had to describe how my current detention has changed me, I would sum it up by saying that I observe political events with more detachment, as I am afforded the opportunity not to be immersed in the day-to-day details of political and organizing work on the outside. This perspective has only served to strengthen my belief in the soundness of the PFLP’s vision, whether ideologically, politically, or in terms of its praxis, including its positions on pressing/existential issues that are presently surrounded by controversy: the negotiations, [intra-Palestinian] reconciliation, and our prospects for emerging from the current crisis and impasse.