FRFI 165 February / March 2002
In FRFI 164 we wrote that the Palestinian settlement proposed by US Secretary of State Colin Powell had been accompanied by a declaration of war against those leading the Palestinian liberation struggle. Two months later, we can see how total that war has become, and how desperate imperialism is to crush the Intifada once and for all. Robert Clough reports.
Imperialism’s most faithful ally in this process has been Palestinian Authority (PA) chair Yasser Arafat. He has shown himself willing to sink to any depths in order to regain the few favours he had enjoyed from US imperialism. For two months the Zionists have effectively imprisoned him in Ramallah. PA infrastructure has been systematically pounded and smashed by F-16 bombers, Apache attack helicopters, tanks and armoured bulldozers. In the four weeks following Arafat’s unilateral ceasefire on 16 December, Israeli army invasions of PA territory continued unabated whilst 22 Palestinians were murdered, including 11 children. And still the Israeli war machine continues its siege of the Occupied Territories. On 14 January, all sections of the liberation movement declared Arafat’s ceasefire at an end when the Israelis assassinated Tulkarm Fatah leader Raid Karmi. On 21 January, troops backed by 100 tanks and armoured vehicles stormed into Tulkarm, imposed a curfew and detained dozens of people. The next day, four members of Hamas were shot down in cold blood in Nablus by Zionist troops; another man died after hundreds stormed the local prison to free jailed militants. Sharon’s strategy is to break the Palestinian Authority and seal off the Palestinian people into dozens of little enclaves, each of which will become effectively free-fire zones.
In FRFI 164, we reported that in the six weeks following the 17 October assassination of Israeli Tourist Minister Rehavem Ze’evi, the Israeli army and airforce had exacted a terrible revenge, invading six cities on the West Bank and murdering 50 Palestinians in the first two weeks alone. At the end of November, the Zionist army still occupied two of the six main cities on the West Bank (Jenin and Tulkarm), and were keeping the remaining four under siege – Ramallah, Qalqilya, Bethlehem and Nablus. Yet despite this, the Zionists could not capture the three PFLP militants who had carried out the assassination. They needed a pretext to intensify their operations, and sought to provoke the liberation movement into providing one. The death of seven boys aged between six and 15 in the Khan Yunis refugee camp in the space of 11 days in November was a start. Then on 23 November, Zionist forces assassinated Hamas leader Mahmoud Abu Hanoud. Retaliation was inevitable: over the weekend of 1-2 December two suicide bombs and a car bomb killed 25 people in Jerusalem and Haifa.
Once more the Israeli war machine went into action, but its main target was the Palestinian Authority rather than Hamas. Two Palestinians were killed in an F16 rocket attack on a security compound in a residential district of Gaza City, and more than 100 were injured, many of them schoolchildren. Apache helicopters hit targets in Khan Yunis and other attacks hit Arafat’s compound in Ramallah. Gaza airport was singled out for attack and three helicopters belonging to the PA were blown up leaving Arafat marooned in Ramallah. The Bush administration made it clear that it would not seek to restrain Sharon as he declared that ‘just as the US is conducting its war against international terror, using all its might against terror, so will we’, adding: ‘Arafat has made his strategic choices: a strategy of terrorism. In choosing to try and win political accomplishments through murder and in choosing to allow the ruthless killing of innocent civilians, Arafat has chosen the path of terrorism.’ The strategy was simple: isolate Arafat, destroy the PA, carve up the Occupied Territories into innumerable cantons and then do deals with local ‘warlords’ to police the Palestinian people on behalf of the Zionists. The problem for the Zionists is that the unity of the Intifada and the liberation struggle means that these ‘warlords’ do not exist. Far from it: on 6 December, hundreds of Hamas supporters clashed with PA riot police as they prevented the arrest of one of their leaders.
By the time the EU had demanded on 10 December that Arafat dismantle the ‘terrorist networks’ of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, ‘arrest and prosecute all suspects’ and declare ‘in Arabic’ an end to the armed Intifada, the isolation of the PA chair was complete. No matter that his forces had arrested over 100 militants: neither the Zionists nor the imperialists would be satisfied until the Intifada had been completely crushed. The targeting of PA installations by Apache helicopters continued. The day before the EU statement, Israeli tanks swept into a village near Tulkarm executing five PA policemen and kidnapping 50 people. There was no international protest; nor was there the following day when two children aged three and 13 were killed in a botched attack on Jihad activist Mohammed Sidr. But on 12 December, Palestinian militants attacked a busload of settlers, killing 10 of them, and both imperialism and Zionism rediscovered their sense of outrage. ‘The Arafat era has ended. There is no more Arafat. There is no such man’ declared Sharon. The next day, tanks in Ramallah trained their guns on Arafat’s compound in an open threat. In the following few days the Israeli army:
• Reoccupied Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza; three stone-throwing youths were killed resisting the tanks as well as a PA policeman;
• Destroyed 35 houses in Khan Yunis making 250 people homeless;
• Executed six PA policemen in four incidents that recalled the activities of Latin American death squads; the bodies of two of them were dumped in an olive grove, whilst two others were disarmed and shot in the head after alerting local villagers to the army presence.
Under the pressure, Arafat crumbled once again. On 16 December he announced ‘I today reiterate the complete and immediate cessation of all military activities, especially suicide attacks, which we have always condemned’, and outlawed all militias that ‘carry out terrorist activities’. This ceasefire was completely one-sided: the following day, the Israelis assassinated a Hamas activist in Hebron, killed a policeman in Nablus and a 13-year-old boy in Gaza. ‘Chairman Arafat spoke constructive words’ said a White House spokesperson, ‘but what is important is that they be followed up by concrete action. That’s what will be measured and that’s what the president will wait and see.’ Sharon reiterated the conditions for reopening talks: a week of absolute calm, and the arrest and extradition of those responsible for Ze’evi’s assassination.
Reluctantly, by 1 January, all sections of the liberation movement complied with the ceasefire. To do otherwise would have been to provoke a civil war amongst Palestinians, something which the movement reasoned would lead to disaster. There was however no let-up from the Zionists: invasions of PA towns and cities continued, as did the kidnapping of individuals. At the end of December, hundreds of troops went into Azzun on the West Bank, seizing 18 people and destroying some houses. The previous day troops detained another 30 in raids on Nablus and Ramallah, whilst settlers murdered a farmer. Israeli soldiers reportedly tattooed numbers on the arms of detainees ‘to better identify’ them. Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres let it be known that Sharon and the right-wing in the Israeli cabinet were considering the mass expulsion of Palestinians from the Occupied Territories as a possible strategy. On 30 December troops shot dead six young men they claimed were trying to infiltrate the Eli Seinai settlement in Gaza. Later this claim was revised: they had been merely seen walking in the general direction of the settlement. In truth, they had been summarily executed. The same day, three Palestinian boys aged 15 and 16 were shot. When their bodies were later returned, torture marks were found on all of them. The Israeli death certificates were dated 2 January, three days after the boys had disappeared. Furthermore, Israeli doctors had removed organs from the bodies; one was without a skull, brain or eyes.
In an effort to ensure continuing US support for this war, the Zionists very publicly seized a small freighter, the Karine A, on 3 January. The ship was sailing in international waters in the Red Sea some 300 miles from Israel. Its cargo included 50 tons of arms including Katyusha and anti-tank rockets allegedly destined for the PA. Sharon claimed that the PA both owned and crewed the vessel with Iran supplying the arms. Subsequent independent investigation demonstrated that it was owned by an Iraqi businessman. 50 tons of arms, however, is insignificant when compared to Zionism’s enormous arsenal: it is less than the weight of one of the battle tanks routinely used against the Palestinian people. The story that the arms had been purchased by any section of the movement is a fabrication: it would not be possible to unload the weapons without the Zionists being aware of it, let alone transport them to a point where they could be used. However, President Bush has seized on this to apply even more pressure on Arafat with veiled threats to break off diplomatic relations.
As invasions and detentions continued throughout Christmas and into the New Year, it was clear that the liberation movement could no longer accept the ceasefire. On 9 January, two Hamas fighters stormed a military base in Rafah shooting dead four soldiers before they themselves were killed. At 1.30am the following morning tanks and armoured bulldozers invaded the refugee camp and knocked down 73 houses. ‘We have come to destroy your homes’ the troops’ commander announced; ‘You have 10 minutes to get out. Anybody who doesn’t will be crushed.’ The act left 500 homeless in the freezing winter including 300 children, all their belongings destroyed. Rafah has suffered severely in the course of the Intifada: 80 inhabitants have died at the hands of the Zionists, including 22 children; 1,125 have been wounded, 108 of them seriously. Before this latest attack, 200 homes and 69 shops had already been razed.
Arafat’s cravenness continues. Unwilling to challenge his effective imprisonment in Ramallah, he continues to direct the arrest of Palestinian freedom fighters. The detention of PFLP leader Abdul Saadat on 15 January was highly significant in that it allowed the movement once more to demonstrate its unity. Powerful condemnation of the act came from Hamas. A week later, the PFLP military wing threatened to attack PA security chiefs if they did not release Saadat, an unprecedented act for a constituent element of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation. Meanwhile Arafat’s impotence in the face of Israeli aggression has been demonstrated over and over again over the past few weeks. People will remember how he boasted that he would be in Bethlehem for midnight mass on Christmas Eve whatever the Israelis did. Once again, his bluff was called. However, these are dangerous times for the liberation movement. It will be challenged by the new movement of the middle class (see report opposite) who will seek to isolate those it dismisses as ‘Islamists’. History has shown how dangerous the middle class can be to the cause of the working class and oppressed in the struggle for national liberation – South Africa and Ireland are cases in point. Anti-imperialists must redouble their efforts to ensure that the imperialists do not isolate and defeat the Palestinian liberation struggle.
Edward Said attacks
the liberation movement
Edward Said has been an active and persuasive advocate for the Palestinian people for many decades. Those who seek to understand the position of the Palestinian people should read his many books on the subject. He condemned Arafat’s and the PLO’s capitulation at Oslo. He has been a biting critic of the Palestinian Authority (PA) and its regime of torture and oppression. He has attacked the corruption whereby a handful of people who run the PA pocket international aid whilst the impoverishment of the mass of the Palestinian people has deepened. He has constantly exposed the realities of Zionist repression to an international audience whilst lambasting Arafat for his spineless leadership. He has explained time and again how Israel is absolutely dependent on US and western support and military aid.
However, Said has never been an advocate of armed resistance. More recently he has gone a step further, and openly criticised armed resistance under the guise of attacking ‘Islamists’. The occasion was a collective statement issued by a number of Palestinian professional, intellectuals, teachers and doctors, including Said himself, which called for Palestinian unity and resistance against Israeli military occupation. The statement questioned the lack of democracy within the PA, and called for the ‘rectification’ of a decision-making process currently entirely in the hands of Arafat, for new parliamentary elections, and for measures to prevent the misuse of public funds. It also set out the need to ‘restore the law’s sovereignty and an independent judiciary’ and emphasised its secular character.
Said’s new movement is based on the professional middle class, a stratum that has gained nothing materially from Oslo – unlike the PLO officials tied to the PA – but which seeks to preserve its privileged economic and political status in relation to the masses. Because the stratum is so small in number, it relies on NGO and international support to amplify its significance, and appeals to those in the imperialist countries who also oppose violence ‘in principle’ – the middle class.
A prime mover of the statement is Dr Mustafa Barghouti, president of the Palestinian Medical Relief Committee, who has launched a ‘non-violent’ international solidarity movement which organised a visit by some 500 European supporters to the Occupied Territories over the New Year. According to Said, ‘with them was a well-disciplined band of young Palestinians, who, while disrupting Israeli troop and settler movement along with the Europeans, prevented rock-throwing or firing from the Palestinian side. This effectively froze out the Authority and the Islamists, and set the agenda for making Israel’s occupation itself the focus of attention.’
Equating the armed struggle with the ‘Islamists’ and then condemning it, however, is dishonest: it excludes the secular organisations which are involved – DFLP, PFLP and Fatah itself. It ignores a fact of which the Palestinian people are well aware, that it was an ‘Islamist’ organisation, Hizbullah, which drove the Zionists out of Lebanon. It is also a very dangerous step in that its purpose must be to split the movement, and this can only play into the hands of the Zionists. There are always going to be disagreements about tactics, as the interviews with the DFLP and PFLP representatives in Cuba reveal. But such disagreements must be resolved by those involved in the struggle in a comradely way, and not in the manner that Said has chosen to adopt.
Robert Clough
Interviews with liberation fighters
The Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) are two secular national liberation organisations involved in the Intifada. During the meeting of the Sao Paulo Forum in Havana in early December 2001, comrades from FRFI interviewed representatives in Cuba of both organisations about their views on the struggle for the liberation of Palestine.
Interview with Ismail Bassel, PFLP representative in Cuba
FRFI: How do you see the present situation in your struggle to liberate Palestine?
PFLP: The situation in Palestine is very critical because our enemies, the Zionist Israelis, with their strategic alliance with the USA, are planning to convert the conflict between the Palestinian people and the Zionists into an internal conflict, a civil war between Palestinians. It is very, very dangerous for us. It is the red line we must not cross.
We in the PFLP are doing our best to control Hamas and Jihad on the one side and the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) on the other. We think the PNA has made so many mistakes; so many, from the time of the Madrid and Oslo Agreements. As for Hamas, we cannot condemn what they do because they are a part of our people. But they think in terms of only one kind of uncontrolled action, which sometimes has led to bloodshed and death among our people. We want to concentrate our attacks against the Israelis. However, we condemn the PNA for detaining Hamas and other activists.
We think the Intifada must not stop. For us the Intifada is our flag, our army. We cannot leave this army to go underground. We always have to be very careful. This army must be kept mobilised because we are in a situation of Israeli occupation struggling for the liberation of our land; for free liberation, not semi-autonomous liberation. We do not agree with semi-autonomy nor do we agree with US hegemony. We are not in agreement with this process of negotiation with the US.
We think the Intifada matters a great deal and we need to consider it very carefully. Let me explain. The Intifada for us is not to liberate Palestine today, next week or next year. It is a process of accumulation. This process of accumulation needs time but gradual construction day after day after day is not for the PNA. They want to resolve the problem very, very quickly. This is the tactic of the right. For their part Hamas want to liberate Palestine by one operation, which sometimes results in civilian deaths, women and children. We don’t want civilians to die like this, though we recognise we are in one war, a general war.
We are keen to organise a united army of struggle against Israel but against military or paramilitary positions and colonial bases which are not civilian. We are trying to get Hamas to think in this way.
How do you try to influence Hamas and the PNA and unite everyone in the same tactics and strategy?
We have not managed anything practical, not yet, but we try to preserve the unity of our people. We want everyone to agree a tactical peace programme. This is a limited, not a maximum programme. It is necessary to analyse all the factors, not just the immediate ones of this moment. I think Hamas will agree and understand why we believe operations should be against military targets.
We have just been talking to a comrade from the DFLP and he said you now agree on the medium-term objective of establishing a Palestinian state on the West Bank and in Gaza. Is that correct?
Yes. When I was talking about the limited programme this is what I was referring to. We are struggling to liberate the whole of these two parts. The agreements in Madrid and Oslo were a step backwards, not what we are talking about in this plan.
How do you see the present role of British imperialism and the British labour government in the Palestinian struggle?
Our people think that whatever the US does the British government agrees with it. The official policy of Britain always justifies the actions of the Israelis. M
Interview with Walid Ahmed, DFLP representative in Cuba.
FRFI: How do you see the present state of the struggle to free Palestine?
DFLP: Israel is supported by the United States. They call us terrorists but really the crimes Israel committed against the Palestinian people are terrorist. The United States declare that Ariel Sharon has their permission to attack the Palestinian people. The Palestinian people did not begin the aggression. We did not attack Israel. It was Israel that attacked the Palestinian people. We have the right to wage armed struggle because of the occupation. You know Israel didn’t recognise our right to independence but we always hope that Israel and Palestine can live as two states with peace, without conflict, without problems.
Since the Intifada began a year ago, Israel has tried to kill Palestinian people, tried to destroy the economy in the occupied territories, tried to close all the schools, tried to attack all the hospitals and health centres. They have closed the frontier passing points and tried to blockade the Palestinian people and isolate and divide all the cities and zones in Palestine.
We don’t agree with the Oslo agreement and we don’t agree with the arrest of Palestinian activists who fight against Israel by the Palestinian Authority. We consider that all Palestinian people have a reason to fight Israel. The kind of fighting depends on the organisation. Our organisation fights against Israeli soldiers and the colonists. Hamas has its own way of fighting Israel. I don’t criticise Hamas because Hamas has suffered a lot of attacks from Israel and they have the right to respond to this aggression.
What is the relationship now between the leadership of Fatah and other elements in the PLO such as DFLP and PFLP?
We have a close relation with Fatah. We join together to fight against Israel. We disagree with some of Arafat’s positions but not with Fatah because Fatah works with us.
You say that DFLP recognises Hamas as a legitimate part of the Intifada. Do you think Arafat’s actions in arresting Hamas and other activists will cause a split in Fatah, between the soldiers on the ground and the leadership?
We don’t agree with the arrest of Palestinian activists from Hamas. It is not good. Arafat arrested members of DFLP several times. Yesterday he arrested a group from Hamas and from Jihad and another organisation. DFLP and PFLP issued a declaration opposing these arrests today. They declared that they don’t accept this policy from Arafat. We tell Arafat to be careful of Israeli policy because they want to make divisions among the Palestinian people. I hear that Hamas and Jihad have declared that they will not allow Arafat to arrest members of their organisations. This means they will defend their members and their territory. This means Arafat puts Palestine in a dangerous situation and this is what Israel wants.
We consider Hamas works with the Intifada. We started the Intifada, Fatah, DFLP, PFLP. Hamas didn’t participate from the beginning but were incorporated later. We hope Hamas can work with us, fighting Israel in the Intifada and solve all the internal problems within the organisations. We are afraid that arresting some members of Hamas creates internal problems for the Palestinian people. Some people in Fatah who hear what Arafat wants will not use arms against Hamas. Our enemy is at the centre of all this.
DFLP and PFLP try to solve all the problems and reject what Arafat does. We try to get Hamas to understand what we want and avoid a confrontation with the Palestinian Authority. Arafat tries to use Fatah for the arrests, but for a long time Fatah has declared against internal confrontation and against the attitude of Arafat in the Palestinian territory.
Maybe we can avoid these problems and arrive at an agreement that is OK, to work together, fight Israel, no detention, no arresting, no discrimination, with a programme for all the Palestinian people, a programme to achieve our hopes and independence. Our force is the Intifada not negotiations. Arafat stopped the first Intifada and after that they fooled us. They fooled the Palestinian people and fooled Arafat in the negotiations. So we continue fighting Israel and with the Intifada. Without the Intifada we are nothing.
