Raise the issue of the prisoners in all international arenas

Raise the issue of the prisoners in all international arenas

To the masses of our struggling people, in the streets and squares of Palestine, in the camps and in exile and diaspora, from behind bars and high walls,

Your imprisoned children and comrades greet you in the struggle for our homeland and our cause. We bow our heads before the martyrs whose blood has been shed every day in the struggle for Palestine, our people, our rights, our land and holy sites. We salute the mothers of the martyrs and the prisoners, and applaud and embrace our resisting Palestinian people and their strugglers, and we salute proud Jerusalem whose people stand day and night in defense of their freedom, dignity and identity. 

Our valiant Palestinian people renew their struggle and continue the march of revolution and resistance to free our land of the occupation and achieve freedom, liberation and return.

We stand with you today to mark Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, in which our people stand every year and every day, united in support of the prisoners and their just cause. Let us also take this opportunity to salute the martyrs of the prisoners’ movement whose lives were taken by Zionist torturers and in the miserable prison clinics as a result of deliberate medical neglect.

And we salute the brothers and comrades struggling in Ramle prison clinic, the sisters and comrades in Hasharon and Damon prisons, the elderly prisoners and our imprisoned children and youth.

On this occasion, we in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine branch in the prisons of the occupation, led by Comrade leader Ahmad Sa’adat, General Secretary of our Front, and the struggling Comrade Khalida Jarrar, we salute the struggling masses of our people everywhere with greatest pride and appreciation. Your spirit of struggle is authentic, passionate and determined, with a precious spirit of sacrifice, and you struggle and suffer along with your children, your brothers and sisters, the prisoners.

Palestinian Prisoners’ Day is the day of the Palestinian people who have struggled for nearly a century, defying oppression and tyranny and confronting the occupier, seeking freedom and liberation. It is the day of our people who have created a bright and honorable history that challenges the arrogance of the jailer, turning the cells into spaces of struggle, where prisoners and their families struggle together, in one struggle with all of our people in every village, town, refugee camp, and city, in every street and square and field.

On this day, we emphasize the importance of strengthening national unity and forming a unified national leadership to support our people and their steadfastness, and to support the intifada on the road to defeating the occupation and liberating the land and people of Palestine.

As part of the events of support, we underline the need to focus on the issue of prisoners who are sick and ill and exposed to the worst practices that demonstrate the racist, hateful nature of the occupation institutions, the elderly and the children prisoners, and those who are subject to harassment daily at the hands of the jailers.

We renew our call to internationalize the issue of Palestinian prisoners and to raise the issue everywhere in all international arenas: in the International Criminal Court, in the Human Rights Council of the United Nations and elsewhere, demanding investigation and accountability for the practices and abuses of the Zionist state against the prisoners over the past decades, and the ongoing crimes committed against the prisoners.

The issue of Palestinian prisoners should be a major concern of international public opinion, as a moral, human and political issue that addresses the conscience of humanity.

Glory to the martyrs of the Palestinian people and the Palestinian revolution. Freedom for the prisoners of freedom. Victory for our resisting people!

PFLP congratulates Abu Ali Mustafa Bloc on elections at the Palestine National University

PFLP congratulates Abu Ali Mustafa Bloc on elections at the Palestine National University

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine extends its sincere congratulations to the students at Palestine National University in Bethlehem on the democratic elections for the Student Union, marked by honest competition between the student blocs.

In particular, the PFLP congratulates the comrades of the Martyr Abu Ali Mustafa Bloc for winning 10 seats in the election; this compares to 20 seats won by the Martyr Yasser Arafat Alliance Bloc, which includes the Fateh students and supporters of the DFLP and the Peoples Party. This is one more seat than the Abu Ali Mustafa Bloc won last year. In addition, the bloc of the National Initiative won three seats. 

The progress of the Abu Ali Mustafa Bloc demonstrates their successful campaign and programs and their commitment to express the convictions of the students and their vision of a liberated Palestine, and their work to protect the rights of the students and support their campaign for free education.

The PFLP salutes all of the comrades of the Bloc who contributed to this progress.

”Khaleds motståndskamp är inte terrorism”

”Khaleds motståndskamp är inte terrorism”

TERRORISM · ”Siewert Öholm försöker dra paralleller mellan PFLP och de terrororganisationer som härjar i Mellanöstern och även har utfört fasansfulla attacker i Europa. Det är djupt oärligt”, skriver Patrik Paulov.

Den palestinska befrielsekämpen Leila Khaleds besök i Göteborg har blivit brett uppmärksammat. 

Att Palestinasolidariteten är stark i Göteborg visste vi sedan tidigare.

Att intresset för Leila Khaled var stort visst vi också.

Men det är klart att vi även har journalisten Siewert Öholm att tacka för en och annan besökare.

Vad sades då på mötet?

Till kritikernas besvikelse kan jag meddela att flygkapningarna inte nämndes en enda gång.

Det som skedde för snart ett halvt sekel sedan, det som var ett desperat försök att uppmärksamma världen på att det finns ett palestinskt folk som fördrivits från sitt hemland, som lever under ockupation eller i flyktingläger, utgör en mycket liten del av Leila Khaleds och hennes parti PFLP:s historia.

När det gäller terrorismen så var den palestinska befrielsekämpen oerhört tydlig. Hon fördömde den - om och om igen.

Leila Khaled vittnade om terrorn mot och fördrivningen av palestinierna vid staten Israels bildande.

Hon vittnade om ockupationsmaktens brutala övergrepp på Västbanken, om de israeliska bosättarnas markstölder, om den israeliska krigsmaktens bombningar och utsvältningen av invånarna i Gaza.

Khaled vittnade om terrorn mot palestinierna i Syrien, om flyktingläger som invaderats av fundamentalistiska grupper som IS och Jabhat al-Nusra.

Naturligtvis talade Leila Khaled också om motståndskamp. Om motstånd mot en folkrättsvidrig ockupation.

Det har inget med terrorism att göra.

Varje ockuperat folk har i enlighet med FN-stadgan rätt göra att motstånd till dess att ockupationen upphör. Det är lika giltigt idag som under andra världskriget.

Att kräva att palestinierna, som dagligen utsätts för brutalt våld av en av världens mest välbeväpnade krigsmakter, är den part som ska ta avstånd från våld är absurt.

Vad kan vi i Sverige göra för att stödja palestiniernas kamp för uppfyllandet av FN:s resolutioner om ett slut på ockupationen och för flyktingarnas rätt att återvända?

I svaret på den frågan var Leila Khaled tydlig. Det handlar om opinionsarbete.

Om att uppmärksamma palestiniernas situation. Om att stödja BDS-rörelsen som verkar för bojkott, desinvesteringar och sanktioner mot Israel.

Siewert Öholm försöker dra paralleller mellan PFLP och de terrororganisationer som härjar i Mellanöstern och även har utfört fasansfulla attacker i Europa.

Det är djupt oärligt.

För det första är PFLP en socialistisk organisation, vars vision är ett enat sekulärt och demokratiskt Palestina med lika rättigheter för alla invånare, oavsett etnisk eller religiös tillhörighet.

För det andra är det inte PFLP och palestinierna som berett vägen för IS, al-Qaida och andra extremister.

Det är snarare så att västvärlden och dess vänner i Mellanöstern bär stor skuld till terrorismens framväxt genom ockupationen av Irak, och genom leveranserna av vapen, pengar och annat stöd till extremistgrupperna i Syrien.

Att Natoländer och deras diktaturvänner i Gulfen bär stor skuld till terrorismen i Mellanöstern, var också något Leila Khaled tydligt påpekade under sitt uppskattade besök i Göteborg.

Kommunisterna välkomnar gärna Leila Khaled till ett nytt möte nästa gång hon är i Sverige.

Following rape claims, MKs push to cancel state honors for slain minister

Following rape claims, MKs push to cancel state honors for slain minister

Several Israeli politicians called for the cancellation of state-organized commemorations for slain cabinet minister Rehavam Ze’evi, following the publication of rape and intimidation allegations against him. 

The allegations appeared Thursday in Channel 2’s investigative journalism television program “Uvda” (Fact). It included an anonymous testimony by a female soldier who said she was raped by Ze’evi, a right-wing politician and retired general whom Palestinian terrorists murdered in a Jerusalem hotel in 2001.

According to “Uvda,” Ze’evi also conspired with a crime boss, Tuvia Oshri, to set off an explosive device in 1974 outside the home of Sylvie Keshet, an investigative journalist who wrote critically about Ze’evi. No one was convicted of the crime.

Following the airing of the documentary, the chairperson of the left-wing Meretz party, Zehava Galon said her party will work to cancel the annual memorial day that the Knesset inaugurated in Ze’evi’s memory in 2005.

Shelly Yachimovich, a Zionist Union lawmaker and former head of the Labor Party, supported the initiative on social media. Ze’evi, she wrote, “is dead but his victims live on, scarred, as their daughters and granddaughter study his horrific legacy.”

Eitan Haber, a close associate of the late prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, said Ze’evi once pointed a handgun at his head during an argument. Ze’evi, known by the nickname Gandhi, fought during Israel’s War of Independence in 1948, and was a senior member of the general staff of the Israel Defense Forces during the 1967 Six Day War. Rabin, who was chief of staff, promoted him to brigadier general after the war.

Hailing from a socialist Zionist home, Ze’evi gradually became more hawkish. During the 1990s, he was an advocate of the concept of having Arab Israelis transferred outside the borders of the State of Israel.

Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel of the Jewish Home party said he would oppose attempts to stop commemorations and criticized the airing of documentary, citing Ze’evi’s inability to respond to the claims. Ze’evi was the founder of the Moledet party, which later became part of the National Union, which itself is today amalgamated into Jewish Home.

“General Rehavam Ze’vi devoted his life to safeguarding Israel’s security. It is inappropriate to destroy his reputation when he is unable to comment,” Ariel wrote.

Ayman Odeh, leader of the Joint (Arab) List party, linked the sexual offenses attributed to Ze’evi to his political views.

“It is unsurprising to discover that a person who supported the transfer of a civilian population also assaulted women and persecuted journalists,” he wrote on Twitter. “Those who saw no shame in commemorating him earlier should not find it anymore shameful to do so now.”

Palestinian internal politics deteriorating on all fronts

Palestinian internal politics deteriorating on all fronts

Disagreements in the Palestinian leadership have started affecting the factions within the ruling Palestinian Liberation Organization. Tensions between PLO’s leading faction, Fatah, and especially President Mahmoud Abbas, and the second-largest PLO faction, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), are now in the open. 

The PFLP, a left-wing movement, has for years been a thorn in the side of Fatah, both under late PLO leader Yasser Arafat and Abbas. However, the two factions have tolerated each other and shared common ground — until now.

Following the recent tensions, Abbas has ordered the suspension of the movement's monthly stipend, due to its leaders' much harsher than usual anti-Abbas positions. In response, anti-Abbas demonstrations were held April 12 by PFLP supporters in the Gaza Strip, during which the photo of the Palestinian president was burned.

The conflict between Abbas and the PFLP is a result of a series of decisions and statements by Abbas, which included the Palestinian participation in the funeral of a senior Israeli civil administration official March 25 and an interview on Israel TV that was seen as an appeasement to the Israelis. On Feb. 26, there was the mysterious death of Omar Nayef Zayed, a PFLP operative who died inside the Palestinian Embassy in Bulgaria.

PFLP officials held talks and issued a statement April 3, saying that Abbas had crossed red lines. PFLP politburo member Rabah Muhana called on Abbas to resign for deviating from “what is acceptable” for a national leader.

Kayed al-Ghul, a Gaza-based PFLP leader, told Al-Monitor that the Palestinian National Fund has stopped paying the monthly stipend to the movement. He said, “The February and March fund transfers have not been made, apparently following a verbal request by Abbas to Ramzi Khoury, the head of the Palestinian National Fund.”

Ghul said that while it is not the first time that this has happened, it does reflect a retraction in relations. “This is a sign by Abbas to dominate all decision-making even though the fund transfer issue was mandated by the Palestinian National Council [PNC].”

The funds, which are said to be around $80,000 a month, are to cover the salaries of the movement’s cadres and other administrative costs such as rent for offices, publications and transportation expenses.

Ghul said that the Palestinian national and Islamic factions issued a statement April 11 in support of the PFLP’s position. He told Al-Monitor by phone from Gaza, “In addition to the monopoly over financial decisions, we have been seeing similar attempts by the president to make national decisions such as the Arab League’s labeling Hezbollah ‘a terrorist organization’ and an approval without consultation of the French plans.”

Hamdeh Faraneh, a member of the PNC, told Al-Monitor that suspending the funds is not acceptable. He said, “It is not acceptable to cut off financial support to well-respected national factions such as the [PFLP].”

For his part, a senior PFLP official in Amman told Al-Monitor that the transfer of funds to the movement has varied between $80,000 and $120,000 per month over the years, and that it had been $85,000 recently. The source, who preferred not to be identified for security reasons, said that it was not the first time that the chairman of the PLO’s Executive Committee had resorted to financial pressures.

He said, “Both Abbas and before him Arafat have tried this method many times. Yet they must know that the PFLP will not yield to this kind of pressure.” The source explained that his faction has put some funds aside for emergencies, and that the issue will be raised in the next meeting of the PLO Executive Committee, of which the organization is a permanent member.

Abdel Rahim Mallouh, who was the acting director of the PLO and who resigned as a representative of the PFLP in 2010, has only nominally represented the organization, since a replacement has not yet been elected. Yet, Omar Shehadeh often represents the organization at the meetings of the Executive Committee.

Since the resignation in 2000 of PFLP's founder George Habash, who passed away in 2008, the movement has witnessed various leadership challenges. Abu Ali Mustafa, Habash's successor, was assassinated by Israel in August 2001. Mustafa’s deputy Ahmed Sadaat took over the leadership position, but he was accused of having planned the revenge for the killing of Mustafa, by ordering the killing of Israeli Minister Rehavam Ze’evi in 2001. Sadaat is currently serving a 30-year sentence in Israel.

Khalida Jarrar, a senior PFLP supporter and an elected member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, was sentenced in December 2015 to 15 months in prison on charges that included attending public forums. Its Central Council rather than an individual leader leads the organization, which is under constant threat from the Israelis.

Palestinian internal politics appears to be deteriorating on all fronts. However, Fatah and its leader Abbas can’t afford to alienate a secular national movement such as the PFLP. This attempt to influence the movement through economic pressure is unlikely to produce any major changes in its political posturing. The sooner that this issue is resolved, the better it is for Abbas to solve his much more intractable problems within his own movement and with Hamas, his main political adversary.

Sa'adat on Omar Nayef Zayed: One betrayal, from Jericho to Bulgaria

Ahmad Sa’adat, imprisoned Palestinian leader and General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, issued a statement along with his fellow imprisoned PFLP comrades, on the killing of freed prisoner, and Sa’adat’s comrade, Omar Nayef Zayed in the Palestinian embassy in Bulgaria on Friday morning.

Sa’adat said that Nayef Zayed struggled until his last breath for Palestine, saying that the Mossad – the Israeli intelligence service – the Bulgarian authorities, and the Palestinian Authority, represented by its President Mahmoud Abbas, Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki and Ambassador Ahmad al-Madhbouh all have a direct responsibility for this crime.

Sa’adat said that such a crime, in which the Zionist intelligence and the role of the Palestinian Authority come together directly, is reminiscent of a series of events and practices of the Authority, particularly the imprisonment of Sa’adat and his comrades in Jericho prison and then their kidnapping by the occupation and the attack on the prison, leading up to this ugly event inside the Palestinian embassy in Bulgaria. “The collusion of the Palestinian Authority and the Zionist intelligence through security coordination leads to serious crimes and results to which the Authority is not immune. It is part and parcel of the continuation of security coordination and reliance on a settlement with this criminal enemy,” said Sa’adat.

He called for a popular trial of Palestinian officials responsible for the events leading to this crime, sayingthat it was “premeditated.”

“The assasination of Nayef Zayed carries with it many questions and suspicions which must be investigated and exposed: particularly, the lack of formal protection for the comrade martyr and the absence of the security and intelligence services of the Authority from the embassy at the moment that his life was taken. This is particularly true in light of what we learned from the comrade directly through his family, that he was under constant pressure from the embassy staff and the ambassador, and that the ambassador frequently warned him that the Mossad could attack him at any moment,” said Sa’adat.

He also said that this incident raises questions about the discussion of the issue of Nayef Zayed between Palestinian officials and the Prime Minister of Bulgaria, who met with the leadership of the PA and Abbas on Wednesday of this week, whether it was not raised, or what discussions took place on his case at that time. Sa’adat concluded by extending his and his comrades sincere condolences to the family of Omar Nayef Zayed, who have given many martyrs, prisoners, and wounded in the struggle for the liberation of Palestine.

Marches in Bureij and Deir al-Balah, Gaza, demand action on killing of Comrade Omar Nayef Zayed

Marches in Bureij and Deir al-Balah, Gaza, demand action on killing of Comrade Omar Nayef Zayed

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in al-Bureij refugee camp in the Gaza Strip organized a symbolic funeral for Comrade Omar Nayef Zayed, killed in the Palestinian embssy in Bulgaria on February 26. 

People marched through the streets of the camp, with participants from all Palestinian factions as well as leaders, cadres and members of the Front, led by a group of Palestinian fighters carrying the banners of the Front and the symbolic coffin of the martyr. 

Comrade Hani Thawabteh, member of the Central Committee, spoke on behalf of the Front, saying that the Front will not allow the comrade’s death to go unpassed and will pursue those responsible by all means.

He reviewed the comrade’s life and history of struggle from his boyhood and his consistent commitment to the liberation of Palestine, saying that the PFLP will not allow the lives of freedom fighters like Omar Nayrf Zayed to be taken.

On March 8, the Progressive Student Labor Front also held a mock funeral and rally to memorialize Comrade Nayef, marching from the center of Deir al-Balah refugee camp and chanting against the complicity of the Palestinian embassy, including its ambassador Ahmad al-Madhbouh.

The students carried the symbolic coffin of the martyr with Palestinian flags and PFLP banners, calling for accountability of all those who colluded in the crime.