Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine 2016-05-16

Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine

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• On Nakba anniversary, uphold national unity and resistance as the road to return and liberation
• PFLP: Palestinians confront ongoing Nakba, continue struggle for liberation of all of Palestine
• Attacks on BDS movement indicate growing strength of global boycott of the occupation
• Palestinians and solidarity groups protest around the world on Nakba Day, demand right of return
• PFLP to boycott central Ramallah Nakba festival, urges commemoration in the spirit of struggle
• PFLP representatives join Irish protest for the right to water
• PFLP salutes Comrade Maher al-Rai, released after 13 years of imprisonment
• PFLP demands end to PA security forces’ attacks and arrests of Palestinian students
• PFLP denounces normalization between reactionary Saudi regime and Zionist entity

On Nakba anniversary, uphold national unity and resistance as the road to return and liberation Posted: 16 May 2016 01:13 AM PDT On the occasion of the 68th anniversary of the Nakba of 1948, we greet the masses of the Palestinian people in Palestine and in diaspora. The Palestinian Nakba and its consequences for the Palestinian people have been ongoing now for 68 years under very complex local, regional, and global conditions. On a Palestinian level, our people’s uprising continues despite of the official Palestinian leadership’s position of adhering to the devastating path of Oslo with force, including the arresting and suppression of activists, in the continuation of security coordination with the Zionist occupation. This continues despite the decision of the Palestinian Central Council to halt security coordination. This leadership also continues to rely on the United States as well as the French government, especially in relation to the so-called “French initiative” as a means to pressure the Israeli occupation to the negotiating table. All of this has failed to inhibit in any way the Zionist terror against the Palestinian people. This year’s anniversary comes also amid continued division and fragmentation and siege imposed upon our people, which threatens disastrous results and exacerbates the suffering of our people, inhibiting their ability to survive and resist. The youth uprising has come as a material response to the state of political stalemate, the arrogance of the enemy and its tyranny and brutality, and has disrupted the occupation army’s forces and exposed this racist entity that executes Palestinian youth in the fields and the streets. Although the uprising of our people is centered in the West Bank and Gaza and the lands occupied in 1948, we emphasize the importance of cohesion, support and mutual struggle by the Palestinian people everywhere in exile and diaspora. We emphasize the unity and depth of the Palestinian people’s commitment to the unity of the land and people, who reject all attempts to divide and fragment Palestine. We have no option but to build meaningful national unity to achieve the goals of our people to self-determination and national liberation. Our people have suffered time and again from displacement, most recently from the camps who are witness to tragedy and misfortune, and yet remain on the road to struggle to return, and to liberate their land. The camps have faced the most difficult and painful circumstances throughout 68 years of Nakba, from the Gaza Strip to the camps of Lebanon, Iraq, and now Syria, with the goal of erasing the camps and their people and therefore the core of the national rights of the Palestinian people, the right of return. On this day, we affirm that the path of settlement and compromise does not fulfill the rights of the Palestinian people or safeguard their achievements. On this occasion, the Right of Return and Refugees department of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine emphasizes: First, the categorical rejection of the outcome of the Nakba; we uphold the right of the Palestinian people to return as the essence of the Palestinian national liberation program, and the urgency of protecting and supporting the steadfastness of the refugees. Second, the road of resistance and unity is the road of return and achieving our rights, with a unified goal. Third, the continuation of division endangers the national struggle in the face of campaigns for its liquidation. Fourth, we emphasize the responsibility of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and UN Relief Works Agency (UNRWA) to protect and support the camps amid conflicts in the region to protect our people and the compass of the struggle toward return to Palestine, the land of the grandparents, parents, children and grandchildren of the camps. Salute to the martyrs, freedom to the prisoners, and healing for the wounded. We salute the martyrs of return, torches of return and liberation. We salute the children of the refugee camps and their steadfast adherence to their rights. We will return! PFLP Right of Return and Refugees Department

PFLP: Palestinians confront ongoing Nakba, continue struggle for liberation of all of Palestine Posted: 16 May 2016 01:12 AM PDT 68 years of the Palestinian catastrophe and the displacement of the Palestinian people, known as the Nakba, are marked today by the Palestinian people. Zionist militias, with the support and armament of colonial powers, particularly Britain and France at that time, carried out massacres and all types of terror in order to force out the indigenous population of the land from their homes, villages and towns. Over two-thirds of the Palestinian people were made refugees, displaced in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and the camps of the Arab states. The crime of the Nakba of 1948 cannot be separated from its historical precedents, in particular the division of the Arab world by the victorious colonial powers of World War I in their 1916 agreement known as the Sykes-Picot agreement, and the 1917 issuance of the Balfour Declaration, in wich the British state supported a “national homeland” for Jews in Palestine. This was not the limit of the support that the colonialist Zionist movement and the state that it created and imposed on the ruins of Palestinian villages received from the colonial and imperial power. To the contrary, these states provided all forms of logistical, political, economic, financial, technological and military support for its wars of aggression on the Palestinian people and the Arab nation, including the war of aggression of June 1967 that enabled the Zionist state to occupy the remainder of historical Palestine and other Arab lands. 68 years of Nakba have passed, and still the Zionist enemy imposes daily new facts upon the Palestinian land and against the Palestinian people, reasserting and confirming the aggressive and colonial settler nature of the Zionist project. This begins from the refusal to recognize the historical crime against our people and the denial of Palestinian rights in our homeland and the right of Palestinian refugees to return. It extends from there to the practice of all forms of racism and discrimination against the Palestinians remaining in occupied Palestine 1948; the continuation of settlement and invasion throughout the West Bank, including Jerusalem, subject to constant confiscation and annexation; the construction of the wall of annexation and apartheid; the imposition of hundreds of military and security checkpoints imprisoning the Palestinian people; home demolitions, mass arrests, and killings and murders of Palestinians. The ongoing Nakba does not end at theborder of the Gaza Strip, which is subject to continued siege and blockade and has suffered three wars of aggression in just the past eight years that have claimed the lives of thousands and left tens of thousands wounded, with destroyed homes. Despite this ongoing, aggressive, colonial Zionist policy, our people remain present in all areas inside and outside Palestine, adhering firmly to their rights in Palestine, and centrally to the right of Palestinians to return. From the first colonial schemes on Palestinian land, the Palestinian people have risen up with tireless national struggle and great sacrifices to defend their land, people, and rights. The devastating and ongoing consequences of the crime of the Nakba require us to provide all that is necessary to continue the flames of the struggle against the colonizer and invader, an existential struggle that forces us to raise our level of intensity and seriousness. This means raising the level of all Palestinian forces, with national responsibility, especially in light of the current reality for Palestinians and Arabs. We in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine urge the following: First, to maintain the clear memory of the Palestinian people and their collective consciousness, against all attempts to falsify, delete, or subdue their memory, and to keep the continuity of Palestinian generations, for one Palestine from the river to the sea, from the south to the north, which remains not only in the memory but as the goal of liberation, generation after generation. Second, to uphold the unity of the Palestinian people wherever they are located, inside and outside Palestine, and to reject all schemes that undermine the right to return to Palestine or that attempt to force them once more into displacement and dispossession, or to separate one part of Palestine from another. In order for there to be a unified Palestinian political force, this requires a unified vision and strategy for all of the efforts of the Palestinian people confronting the enemy with all of its political, military, financial and technical strength. This raises again the need to end division and turn the page on this part of our history, and build national unity. Third, the monopolistic Palestinian Authority and PLO leadership must retreat from its policy of settlement and negotiation which has damaged the cause of our people, their rights and their struggle. The failure of this approach and the negotiations and agreements that are part of it, especially the Oslo accords must be recognized and this path rejected, including all political, economic and security commitments with the occupier arising from these agreements. This requires an end to the approach of reliance on negotiations and the policy of subservience and begging practiced by the PA, following behind any initiative that arises, including the French initiative. This requires a clear position of rejecting the French initiative and all initiatives that do not recognize the rights of the Palestinian people to return, self-determination, and full sovereignty and independence. It has been proven that the approach of negotiations and settlement has led the Palestinian movement to very serious problems. In order to undo the causes that allow this to continue, the exclusivity and domination in Palestinian institutions must be uprooted, first and foremost in the PLO, which desperately needs to regain its role and function, through its rebuilding and restructuring on a correct, inclusive, national basis, in order to ensure the participation of all. Fourth, we emphasize that the Palestinian people and the Palestinian national liberation movement are an integral part of the Arab nation and its national movement, confronting all tendencies and impositions of division and the high rates of sectarian conflict throughout the Arab world. We confirm that the Palestinian struggle is the spearhead of the core issue, the Arab-Zionist/imperialist conflict. In this context we emphasize our strongest condemnation of all parties that stoke sectarian conflict in our region and provide support to reactionary and violent forces aimed at undermining and tearing apart the structure of Arab societies, dismantling the Arab nation. The priorities of reactionary states in the region are reflected in the classification of resistance forces like Hezbollah in Lebanon as “terrorist,” while strengthening and deepening cooperation with the Zionist entity. Fifth, there is growing public and institutional support in many countries around the world for the Palestinian people’s struggle for their rights, which is being expressed through economic, academic and cultural boycott of the Zionist state, building a popular movement to press for the implementation of the rights of the Palestinian people. This international movement rejects and condemns the occupation and its terror against our people, our land and our rights, and must be escalated. Glory to the martyrs, freedom to the prisoners, and victory for our people! PFLP Central Information Department

Attacks on BDS movement indicate growing strength of global boycott of the occupation Posted: 16 May 2016 01:10 AM PDT “The Zionist attack is continuing on the international boycott movement, known as the BDS movement, in the context of the disarray and failure of the occupation state in dealing with the breadth and spread of this movement internationally, particularly in European and US universities, trade unions and other institutions,” said Comrade Khaled Barakat in an interview with the PFLP website on recent attacks on the BDS movement. “Laws that are being passed and state actions taken in countries such as France, Canada and the United States in attempts to criminalize or formally stigmatize the boycott movement are an attempt to suppress the growth in the boycott movement which has been identified by the Israeli state and the Zionist movement as a significant threat,” said Barakat. The Israeli government has imposed a de facto travel ban on Palestinian activist Omar Barghouti, one of the most prominent spokespeple for the BDS movement and a co-founder of the Palestinian campaign for the academic and cultural boycott of Israel. Barakat spoke on Saturday, May 14 in Marseille, France, in an event organized by GUPS Aix-Marseille and Generation Palestine Marseille on the anniversary of the Nakba and Palestinian activism, including building the boycott campaign and confronting repression in France.

Palestinians and solidarity groups protest around the world on Nakba Day, demand right of return Posted: 16 May 2016 01:09 AM PDT Palestinian communities and solidarity organizations with the Palestinian people around the world are marking the 68th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba with events and protests in dozens of cities across Europe, North America, Latin America, Asia, Africa and Australia. These events include demonstrations, forums and cultural events organized to uphold the right of return of Palestinian refugees and to support the Palestinian struggle for liberation and self-determination. Events will take place in major cities across the globe, including Berlin, London, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Toronto, Montreal, Brussels and other cities, including cultural festivals in Oslo, Malmo, Turin, Milan, Madrid, Barcelona and elsewhere. On this anniversary of the Nakba, the growing role of the international boycott of the Zionist state and its political achievements around the world is a significant topic, as is the rights of refugees, including and centrally the right of Palestinian refugees to return. Despite the passage of 68 years from the expulsion of the bulk of the Palestinian people from their homeland, the Palestinian communities around the world and the children of the third and fourth generation continue to emphasize their rights and uphold their right to return and to Palestine. Palestinian popular participation in the diaspora is expected to only grow and increase in the next years, in movement, organization and communication, especially in the coming year marking the 100th anniversary of the Palestinian struggle against colonialism and Zionist occupation.

PFLP to boycott central Ramallah Nakba festival, urges commemoration in the spirit of struggle Posted: 16 May 2016 01:06 AM PDT The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine announced that it was boycotting the central festival being organized in Ramallah on May 17 in commemoration of the Nakba, because the program is being organized as a festive occasion without a program of struggle against the catastrophe committed against the Palestinian people. Instead, the Front said, the Nakba must be commemorated in an atmosphere of struggle consistent with the occasion, and urged people to participate in the commemoration in Jalazoun refugee camp on Sunday with the participation of the Khaled Bakir center, the Nabd youth forum, and other organizations, insisting on the right of return of the Palestinian people.

PFLP representatives join Irish protest for the right to water Posted: 16 May 2016 12:59 AM PDT Representatives of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine joined a series of sit-ins in Ireland on Thursday, May 12, to demand the release of jailed leftists Sean Doyle and Eamonn McGrath, arrested for their role in the struggle against the imposition of water meters and water charges in Ireland. Protesters gathered in Dublin with the participation of members of the PFLP, demanding freedom for Sean and Eamonn and the right to water. For their part, Sean and Eamonn addressed a message to the protsters to continue the struggle for water justice. Their supporters participated in the March for Connally in Dublin on Saturday, May 14, organized by eirigi, the Irish republican socialist party to honor historical Irish leader James Connally and all those who struggled and died in the 1916 revolution.

PFLP salutes Comrade Maher al-Rai, released after 13 years of imprisonment Posted: 16 May 2016 12:58 AM PDT Comrade Maher al-Rai (“Abu Giap”) was released from occupation prisons on May 11 after 13 years imprisonment, during which he was transferred from one prison to another repeatedly. He was greeted by a large crowd of leaders and cadres of the Front, family members, and friends and supporters, who led a procession to the city of Qalqilya. The imprisoned General Secretary of the PFLP, Comrade Ahmad Sa’adat, and his comrades in the PFLP’s prison branch, alongside the cadres and members of the Front in occupied Qalqilya and throughout Occupied Palestine expressed their strongest congratulations to the comrade on his day of freedom. Comrade Al-Rai belonged since he was a boy to the PFLP and was arrested several times by occupation forces, the first time in 1985 on charges of membership in the Front. He was arrested again for six months in 1989 and then held in administrative detention for another six months, and again in 1991 held in administrative detention. He was imprisoned for 10 months in 1995 pending trial for membership in the Front and was released as part of the Oslo agreement process, without signing the agreement to withdraw from struggle. In the second Intifada, he struggled alongside his comrades in the Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades and other resistance groups against the Zionist invasion and was injured with three bullets to the hand and chest. He was chased down by occupation forces in 2003 and seized and sentenced to 13 years imprisonment. Throughout his time in prison he joined his comrades and fellow prisoners in protests and strikes of the prisoners’ movement and suffered several injuries as a result of repressive attacks on prisoners. Sa’adat and the PFLP Prison Branch emphasized that the sun of freedom will inevitably rise for all Palestinian prisoners with their determination, steadfastness and resistance as part of the liberation struggle of the Palestinian people.

PFLP demands end to PA security forces’ attacks and arrests of Palestinian students Posted: 16 May 2016 12:56 AM PDT Palestinian Authority intelligence agencies arrested Kifah Quzmar, a student at Bir Zeit University, on May 12 as he returned from the university; a few years prior, he was attacked along with others by PA security forces and hospitalized while protesting against PA meetings with leaders of the occupation state, and had been summoned for interrogation by PA intelligence. The PA security agencies in the West Bank carry out ongoing arrests of students and former prisoners and other Palestinians on political grounds or as part of security coordination with the occupation state. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine strongly condemned the PA security forces for arresting Quzmar, a member of the Progressive Democratic Student Pole at the university and demanded his immediate and unconditional release as well as that of all political detainees and prisoners of security coordination in PA jails. The Front also called for addressing the policy of the attacks on students by PA security services which have escalated in recent weeks amid campus elections. This method of police repression against Palestinian students not only widens Palestinian internal division but also endangers the lives of students and political detainees in light of the actions of the occupation in arresting former PA detainees in the context of shared intelligence and security coordination.

PFLP denounces normalization between reactionary Saudi regime and Zionist entity Posted: 16 May 2016 12:52 AM PDT The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine strongly condemned the meeting between Prince Turki al-Faisal, former director of Saudi intelligence and former Israeli national security advisor Gen. Yaakov Amidor in Washington, DC in a public forum hosted by Zionist lobby organization Washington Institute for Near East Policy. This meeting is clearly part of a Saudi process of normalization with the Zionist state with the full approval of the Saudi Royal Palace. These meetings and seminars are part of examining bilateral cooperation to manage the bloody wars on Yemen, Syria and Iraq, and in stoking sectarian conflict in these countries and the region. The Front also said that references to the so-called “Arab Peace Initiative” as a condition for normal relations with the occupation state are nothing but an attempt to obscure reality, especially as Saudi Arabia is well aware that the policies of the Netanyahu government – as those who preceded it – do not brook this initiative, and yet continues openly with cooperation and normalization. The Front urged the Arab peoples to unite to confront normalization with the occupier, noting that the Tel Aviv government has secret and semi-secret relations with numerous Arab states, especially the Gulf countries.