This summer in Lebanon, FRFI supporters met Marwan Abdel-Al, a member of the Political Bureau of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) at the organisation’s centre in Mar Elias refugee camp, Beirut. As PFLP leader for culture, comrade Marwan had recently returned from events held in Damascus to commemorate the 8 July 1972 assassination of Palestinian leader and writer Ghassan Kanafani by Zionist agents. In this interview, conducted before the latest developments in Palestine, Marwan spoke about the historic experiences of the PFLP in Lebanon and the challenges facing the movement in a country rocked by war, economic crisis and protest.
FRFI: Can you describe the inception of the PFLP and the context of the organisation’s early years in Lebanon?
MA: The PFLP was born as a successor to the Arab Nationalist Movement (ANM), which had come into being among young intellectuals at the American University of Beirut in the early 1950s. The ANM took on the strong influence of pan-Arabist ideas but, because of the direct experiences of the Nakba defeat in 1948, it saw the necessity of building a response to the presence of the Israeli state and to fight US interests the region. But after 1967 there were new questions: the ANM had been a response to 1948; the PFLP was the response to 1967.[1]
The nationalist trend had been the introduction to raising the questions of how to free the Arab nation, for which the Arabist movement paid a high price. We were now dealing with a period of transformation, organisationally and politically, from nationalism to Marxism-Leninism. Of course, this is no easy question, and the Front was subject to splits and new trends. But what emerged during this period was a strategy on the nature of the confrontation with Zionism, imperialism and Arab reaction; identifying the enemies and friends of the Palestinian people; and the idea that there was no other path to liberate Palestine than the path of revolutionary struggle. All of this meant that the PFLP came to play an essential role during this period in the process by which the Palestinian nation confronted Zionism, taking every opportunity to escalate the resistance.
After 1967, the focus of this confrontation took place from within Jordan, which represented the closest route to Palestine and the location of the largest concentration [of refugees]. The movement suffered from its repression by the Jordanian regime, which attacked it with the purpose of liquidating the Palestinian revolution. But there were other fronts too, which shaped the history of the PFLP, including the movements in Gaza led by ‘Guevara’[2] and others, with some crossover in the Nasserist nurturing of resistance… until the point where it became necessary to shift the focus to Lebanon [in late 1970]. The PFLP had come to play a leading role… Beirut became the centre of all political trends and movements, and the capital of revolution.
FRFI: What were the specific consequences of the wartime period in Lebanon for the Palestinians? Can you also describe its aftermath and the ongoing lack of rights for Palestinians in the country?
MA: The problems of Lebanon itself were, of course, complex. Wars were waged against the Palestinian revolution in Lebanon, as well as against the progressive Lebanese nationalist movement. And at the centre of Lebanon’s sectarian framework and violent opposition to Palestinians, socialists, communists, nationalists and progressives stood forces allied to Zionism… Zionist intervention in Lebanon dealt an extremely painful wound to the Palestinian body. I myself, for example, began my teenage years in the heart of what was called the civil war, thinking how to defend my very existence as a human being. During this Israeli war, entire refugee camps were erased [between 1974 and 1976], such as Tel al-Za’tar, Jisr al-Basha and al-Nabatiyyeh. In this war, there was no Palestinian family without a martyred, injured or missing member.
The Lebanese state now says that there are 117,000 Palestinians: we say that there may be up to 250,000, since so many are unregistered. This is a result of the negligence and restrictions of this long-term residency and underlines the lack of basic human and civil rights for Palestinians in Lebanon. A future of extreme anxiety is imposed on all the youth wishing to work. If they find the money, Palestinians can go and study anything they want in any university in the country. But they are not allowed to work here. This is a question on which we have failed to lobby politicians and parties – you know how Lebanon is divided on sectarian lines, even though some of them take pro-Palestine positions. This is one of the questions confronting the PFLP in Lebanon.
FRFI: In today’s Lebanese context, what are the priorities and goals of the PFLP?
MA: The priorities of the PFLP are, firstly, to preserve the Palestinian presence in Lebanon on the human level, which still occupies an important position in the confrontation. Israel would love to rid itself of the Palestinians in Lebanon and with them the threat to its existence. The camps are a living reminder of what it created with the Nakba. The second issue is the dignity of the people. UNRWA, the PLO, the Lebanese state are all responsible. We often find that they shirk this responsibility: the state can’t even feed its own people and tells UNRWA that the issue of water sanitation in the camps is its problem. The PFLP sees it as our duty to unify the Palestinian people, alongside those fighting in the West Bank, for example. Of course, there are social splits and all kinds of contradictions but this is part of the responsibility. Our youth pay huge sums to migrate or drown on boats, or become addicted to drugs, or see religious sectarianism as the solution. In fighting for human rights, the right of return remains the red line as far as we are concerned.
FRFI: It is a huge contradiction, of course, that the face of Mahmoud Abbas appears on the gates to the camp. What role does the Palestinian Authority play? And what influence does the PFLP have in the camps more generally across Lebanon?
MA: In general, people are unstable in their very existence in Lebanon and have real worries over their futures, their children etc. Their main concern is how to become secure in their living conditions. Politically, it becomes a competition over who is the bigger chief. The Islamists operate an economy of zakat via a donation box, which they bring every month; instead of offering the people a solution, factories or work, they create dependence on them, which is a power relation. The PFLP is a different organisation in this situation because it takes a clear and well-known responsibility towards the Palestinian people, with a character, identity and viewpoint on the confrontation, with no possibility that it will retreat from its beliefs.
The organisation has faced every war and survived. It doesn’t have an income from outside. In the present we are marching against the tide but, historically in Lebanon, the Front was one of the first Palestinian organisations and has earned its reputation. There is a discussion between parties tomorrow, for example, called by Hizbullah, on the question of how we see the battle for Jenin. Of only six organisations represented, one is the PFLP. For the last 10 years, there has been a campaign to address the destruction of Nahr al-Bared refugee camp,[3] which remains home to over 35,000 people. The PLO and Hamas are absent and there is no support from the Lebanese state but the PFLP has led the reconstruction. We take responsibility, not by sitting in hotels or by living in comfortable districts, but by being alongside the people throughout these difficult times.
FRFI: Can you describe the position taken by the PFLP regarding the revolutionary movement which emerged in Lebanon in October 2019, particularly in light of the economic crisis facing the working class?
MA: Lebanon suffers from corruption, negligence and defects at the governmental level that have not just sprung up in the last few years, or occurred because of the existence of Hizbullah weaponry or the Palestinian struggle and its relationship to Israel. No, these problems originate with the founding with Lebanon as a sectarian state. [Lebanese Marxist] Mahdi Amel wrote that sectarianism is actually the reflection of class: there is a comprador class who are always looking to deepen their interests through a relationship with the West. Or to transform the class struggle into a sectarian conflict. This is what happened in the civil war and others before it.
Many of us take the view that, if Syria fell [after 2011], Lebanon would fall after. This was the analysis. But Syria did not fall – and the Lebanese role in Syria was one of the reasons, the fact that the resistance opened a front in Syria. But whatever happened in Syria, Lebanon was heading for extreme economic pressure. It is a rentier economy, as has been clear since the Hariri family entered the scene, and the banks seek to make whatever profit they can off of this land. This reached such an extent that the people of the country began to drown…
Lebanon has fallen economically and people here have every right to protest about it. In 2017, the movement was united against the state and against the sectarian system. The protesters said ‘We are Lebanese’. Many people believed that the movement really did transcend views on religious identity. Some Lebanese communists began to describe 2017 as another October 1917. But another force entered the picture, benefitting from this type of movement, and raising a totally different banner. The Phalange came on board, using some of the same slogans, but adding their own: that the crisis in the country is related to the arms of Hizbullah. This view was essentially a Lebanese expression of the US viewpoint. Then there were elections and things died down. There are many who viewed the movement as revolutionary who do not take the same view now. There were protests against the US embassy, and they were correct.
Hizbullah and Amal were afraid of this revolution and stood against it. Firstly, because the movement claimed to represent all of the people. This was untrue, of course: generality really means opacity. If you want to say ‘all against corruption,’ and so on, without distinction, it is in reality a limitation. It is untrue – and this is one of the falsehoods spread by [French Zionist] Bernard-Henri Lévy: that it is possible to have a leaderless revolution. Without a vanguard to lead the expression of this anger, the revolution has no direction. If we speak of a national front, for example – with whom are you going to enter into this alliance?
If Israel or the US invades Lebanon, we become fighters alongside the Lebanese. We are against any outside intervention in Lebanon. But, in terms of the internal problems of Lebanon, we maintain our independence. People in Lebanon who support Palestine should allow us to live in the country on equal terms to any other people: this is the condition we place on everyone.
[1] 1948-49: the bloody expulsion of Palestinians from 78% of historical Palestine by Zionism. 1967: Israel absorbed the whole of historical Palestine, as well as additional territory from Egypt and Syria.
[2] Muhammad al-Aswad became known as the Guevara of Gaza, from where he led an armed resistance cell until his murder by Zionist forces in March 1973.
[3] Many buildings in the camp were destroyed in the confrontation between the Lebanese state and fundamentalist Fatah al-Islam in 2007.
