Democratic Palestine : 17 (ص 15)
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- Democratic Palestine : 17 (ص 15)
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No words can completely describe what occurred at that time
and what was growing in the minds of the people, but this is the
least of what can be said of the period following 1948, regarding
the Palestinian people.
How much of a factor was that personal experience
on the West Bank in your decision to take up armed
struggle?
As I mentioned in answering the preceding question, among
the most important issues we thought of at that time was res-
ponding to the armed Zionist terror with armed Palestinian
national struggle. I remember the extent of popular enthusiasm
when I would contact Palestinian villages on the frontlines and
ask people to join the Arab Nationalist Movement and partici-
pate in armed struggle against the occupation. Armed struggle
was number one on the agenda of methods, but there were two
main obstacles that kept it from expanding to the degree that it
reached after 1967. These two obstacles were:
1. The continuous clashes with the Jordanian regime’s
patrols. The regime acted like a security guard for the Zionist
enemy. It pursued and harassed our men politically, psycholo-
gically and security-wise. The Jordanian regime prevented any
national political action directed against ‘Israel’. It prevented
the patriotic parties and forces from engaging in democratic
work among the masses. Moreover, the regime arrested or exe-
cuted anyone suspected of acting against the occupation. It was
to the extent that anyone caught with a sharp knife outside his
house, or with an empty bullet cartridge, was sentenced to as
much as six months in jail and banished to the desert.
2. The lack of means for obtaining or buying weapons. The
people’s bad economic situation made them unable to donate
money for buying arms. The intense surveillance of the Jorda-
nian intelligence service made it difficult to get weapons.
These difficulties, and other less important factors, hindered
the development of armed struggle. Yet they did not prevent the
Palestinian people, or we in the Arab Nationalist Movement,
from adopting armed struggle and continuing to consider it a
primary option for responding to the Zionist invasion of Pales-
tine and the resultant banishment of our people.
More than ever before, we are seeing the state of ‘Israel’ as an
advanced aggressive base for imperialism. This is what the
Zionist movement’s leaders expressed and put into practice
when they established their state on our land. How else could we
view the participation of the state of ‘Israel’ alongside Britain
and France, in the 1956 aggression against Egypt when Nasser
nationalized the Suez Canal? Our understanding of the state of
‘Israel’ and its role gave our armed struggle its pan-Arab and
international dimension, in addition to its Palestinian dimen-
sion. Palestinian armed struggle has become an integral part of
the struggle of the Arab and international liberation movement
against colonialism, imperialism and all forms of racism.
How do you judge Israeli policy in the occupied ter-
ritories since 1967? To what extent have the Israelis
been able to subjugate the people who live there?
The least that can be said about this policy is that it is an
occupation policy. Every person must imagine how a state
behaves towards a people when it is occupying their land and
attempting to subordinate them by force and violence.
Moreover, the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land has no
match in recent human history... Successive Israeli governments
have applied specific plans to uproot the Palestinian people
from their land, bringing new Zionist immigrants to replace
them, whereas the Palestinian people are the ones with the
natural and historic right to the land of Palestine.
Before the founding of the state of ‘Israel’, Jews owned only
6% of the land of Palestine, despite all the methods employed
by the Zionist movement to attain land... But what is the current
reality and how did it come about? The March 2, 1986 edition of
the Jerusalem Post published a detailed article on a report by the
Hagana’s military intelligence department, dated June 30,
1948, that was discovered in the private papers of the historian
Aharon Cohen, a leading member of Mapam. The report con-
firmed that the Zionist organizations - Hagana, Irgun Zvai
Leumi (Etzel) and Lohamei Herut Yisrael (Lehi) had staged
military operations against the Palestinian Arabs that resulted
in forcing the inhabitants of more than 250 cities and villages to
flee from their homes and land, from April 21, 1948, until the
end of the same year. This means that one million Palestinians
were forced to leave their land.
We are always hearing voices from inside the Israeli govern-
ment and Knesset, calling for expelling the Palestinians... but
‘Israel’ will not implement the goal of uprooting the Palestinian
people from their land in one phase, for several reasons, mainly:
(1) ‘Israel’ needs to use the Palestinian Arab citizens as cheap
labor, to fill a significant portion of jobs in industry, agriculture
and the service sector, that are considered degrading in the Zio-
nist society. This gives ‘Israel’ the opportunity to send the
Jewish working force - that is freed from this labor by Palesti-
nian workers - to the war front against neighboring Arab coun-
tries, in order to achieve the Israelis rulers’ aims of expansion
and occupying new Arab land. (2) The gradual expulsion of the
Palestinians enables ‘Israel’ to avoid the political problems and
negative publicity that could be raised by public opinion if it
were to expell them all at once. (3) The gradual expulsion of the
Palestinians lessens the intensity of the Arab response to this
criminal action. This enables the Israeli government to absorb
the results, as they think.
There is consensus among the Zionists on the policy of gra-
dually expelling the Palestinians from their homeland, but there
are differences among the Zionist groups in ‘Israel’ as to the
method that should be used. On this particular issue the Zionists
are divided into two main categories: (1) One section that calls
for massive expulsion all at once, regardless of the conse-
quences. One of those who expresses this view most clearly is the
extreme racist Rabbi Meir Kahane, who enjoys support from
11% of the Jewish electorate according to Israeli opinion polls.
Another is Ariel Sharon, former defense minister, war criminal
and architect of the Sabra-Shatila massacre. (2) The other sec-
tion calls for gradual expulsion in order to avoid the negative
consequences of immediate mass expulsion. This group argues
that the goal of a pure Jewish state can wait for some time
before being fully achieved. Most known for expressing this
opinion clearly is the Labor Alignment, led by the Labor Party.
Nevertheless, the Zionist leadership did not refrain from using
the most repulsive methods for pressuring Palestinian citizens to
leave their homes. Most prominent among the methods used by
the Zionists to achieve this goal are the following:
1. The policy of land confiscation and settlement: The Zionist
enemy has confiscated over 40% of the Palestinian land occu-
pied in 1967. This is according to the most optimistic figures;
some reports indicate that 50% of this land has been confis-
cated. The Zionist enemy has established approximately 200
settlements on this land under various military and non-military
pretexts.
2. The use of oppressive and terrorist methods: From the day
the West Bank and Gaza Strip were occupied, the occupation
authorities have acted in flagrant disregard of all international
and humanitarian laws. They have practiced the harshest mass
oppression and terror against our people. From the first day of
the occupation, they initiated arrest campaigns whereby, to
date, approximately 30% of the population under occupation
has been detained at least once. This figure includes 1200
‘women and girls. In addition, the occupation authorities prac-
tice collective punishment, assembling citizens, including
women, children and elderly, and holding them in one spot for
long hours, under the worst conditions.
I would like to give an example of the way the Zionists treat
our people under occupation, as was reported on January 10,
1986, by Hadashot newspaper. The judge of Peta Tikvah was
looking into the case of one Palestinian Arab citizen who
refused to sell his land to an Israeli. The judge said: «We can kill
this Arab, and then there will be no one to oppose.» This is how
the Zionists think, and these are the Zionist men of «law and
justice»...
But did ‘Israel’ succeed? The answer to this question can be
found immediately by anyone who is interested in knowing. The
brave resistance of our people against the Zionist hangmen has
gained the respect and recognition of the world. Our masses
have confronted all the schemes and policies of the Zionist
enemy. In many struggles, our masses were able to achieve tan-
gible victories, despite the occupation’s arrogance and bruta-
lity. In confronting the policy of land confiscation and
15
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