Democratic Palestine : 31 (ص 38)
غرض
- عنوان
- Democratic Palestine : 31 (ص 38)
- المحتوى
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(Palestinian officials) and attempts to create a reactionary
leadership as an alternative to the PLO. In brief, they have
fought all the policies and attempts of the occupation to li-
quidate our national cause, whether through direct violent
methods or political schemes coordinated with the Jordanian
regime.
2. The second base is represented by the main body of the
revolution with its leadership, informational, socio-political
and military institutions and organizations, which after the
massacres of Amman and Jerash in 1970-71, were transfered to
Lebanon, and are now facing further problems after the 1982
exodus (of the PLO from Beirut). Throughout the last twenty
years, this second base faced different attempts to uproot and
liquidate it. Our people have paid dearly for defending this
base; thousands of martyrs fell in battles against both the
Zionists and those Arab forces who tried to put an end to the
Palestinian armed struggle.
In the course of the contemporary Palestinian revolution,
the dialectical relationship between the two bases has been
consolidated and developed. Each has affected the other both
positively and negatively; each has influenced the rise and
decline of the other. Each has tried to fill any relative gap left
by the temporary weakness of the other, enabling it to rise
again, so that our people, at home and in exile, could continue
their united struggle in all fields under the same banners and
for the same objectives, within the common framework of the
PLO. It is true that sometimes we have witnessed incidents
when the interior predominated through a broad popular
uprising. It is also true that at other timés, the exterior seemed
to monopolize the struggle, when armed struggle over the
borders was stepped up, or when there was intense confronta-
tion between the enemy’s external aggression and the armed
popular resistance, as in the case of the invasion and siege of
Beirut in 1982. Yet, it is also true that we constantly experience
this deep dialectical interaction, this solid association of the
exterior and interior. There is no other way as long as we area
single people with a single cause and a single leadership, i.e.,
the PLO.
This interconnection has affected not only the Palestinians,
but also their enemies who have waged regular, coordinated
attacks on both bases at the same time. Whenever the Palesti-
nian revolution outside the occupied territories was encroached
upon, the enemy’s attention concentrated on the territories
which are considered the path to the second stage of the Camp
David accords. Whenever the occupied territories were subject
to the iron fist and campaigns of repression and terror, the
enemy forces concentrated on undermining the prestige of the
PLO abroad, it being the main impediment to the US solution.
Thus the cause of our people is one-a cause of national libera-
tion, independence and self-determination.
These are the dialectics of the interior and exterior factors
which have been emphasized throughout years of experience,
without being diminished by moments of ascent and decline on
different occasions. No doubt at some stages of the Palestinian
struggle, the exterior factor was held to be more important
than the interior one, especially during the distinctive, broad,
legal presence of the PLO in Lebanon before 1982. We must
admit that the interior has, on many occasions, been accorded
insufficient attention by the different contingents of the
38
Palestinian revolution. Although this fault is due to well-
known circumstances and reasons, its dangers cannot be
underestimated. We must reject its continuation or repetition.
No matter how important the second base of the revolution
becomes, the occupied territories remain the main battlefield
where the result of the struggle will be decided, in close con-
nection with the exterior as well as the Arab and international
links. In these blessed days of the heroic uprising of our peo-
ple, which is entering its sixth month, we hear voices trying to
belittle the significance of the second base of the revolution,
claiming that Palestinian struggle outside is secondary. Such
views were expressed previously in 1982, and especially after
the camp war in Lebanon. Then some reached the erroneous
and dangerous conclusion that the second base had completely
collapsed and we had no choice but to depend exclusively on
the struggle inside the occupied territories.
Disregarding the ill intentions of liquidation which lie
behind some of these views, and assuming good faith on the
part of those who advocate them, we may say that we are fac-
ing a seriously mistaken view. The interior is considered an
essential and decisive base. Yet it cannot achieve our people’s
full legitimate national rights without being associated with the
struggle of the exterior, without deeper interconnection with
the struggle of the Arab masses and their patriotic forces, and
without close alliance with the struggle of the international
movement for peace, progress, liberation and socialism. While
admiring the epic heroism of the masses in the occupied ter-
ritories, we should consider the role that the Palestinian
revolution and masses in exile must play, in addition to the role
required of the Arab national liberation movement, and of our
allies and friends on the international level.
To sum up this condensed examination of the interior-
exterior dialectics, we would confirm that the Palestinian
revolution has from its very beginning had two essential bases.
It continues thanks to the interaction of the two bases. While
considering the first, i.e., the interior, to be the primary and
decisive base, we cannot for any reason underestimate or
cancel the significance of the second essential base of the
revolution which is outside Palestine.
While dealing with the interior and exterior, we have to
distinguish the particularities of each Palestinian community - هو جزء من
- Democratic Palestine : 31
- تاريخ
- ديسمبر ١٩٨٨
- المنشئ
- الجبهة الشعبية لتحرير فلسطين
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