Democratic Palestine : 37 (ص 10)
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- عنوان
- Democratic Palestine : 37 (ص 10)
- المحتوى
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First: it will be difficult to transform military operations
launched from across the border into a people’s war in the classi-
cal sense. This is due to the lacking demographic dimension
which is an important factor in the people’s war. A people’s war
means drowning the enemy’s army in the sea of the popular mas-
ses, and stripping the enemy of its ability to maneuver freely and
employ its advanced weaponry. The enemy will then be forced
to submit to the logic of the revolution in the battle. This same
process means simultaneously raising the efficiency of sim-
ple, popular means of struggle. In view of the lack of the demog-
raphic factor, military action will continue to be bound by many
objective conditions that are beyond the control of the Palesti-
nian revolution. Guerrilla warfare is based on fast attacks and
retreats. It requires adequate qualifications in order to inflict
the highest possible losses in the enemy’s ranks, meanwhile
minimizing the casualties in the ranks of the revolution.
Second: Launching military operations in the occupied West
Bank and Gaza Strip, i.e., reviving the experience of the Gaza
Strip in the late sixties and carly seventies, is conditional on sev-
eral reservations. One is the fear of harming the popular nature
of the uprising. Another is that the enemy will use military oper-
ations in the arcas of the intifada activity as justification for
bloody massacres.
Third: The geographic nature of the West Bank and Gaza
Strip mitigates against transforming the uprising into a classical
people’s war as was waged in Viet Nam, China and Cuba.
These reservations should be taken into consideration, lest
the armed struggle be at the expense of the intifada.
The uprising is a qualitative new mode of struggle. It is a vio-
lent political struggle that includes a form of armed struggle, in
addition to all the other forms - violent, non-violent, struggles
for specific demands and political struggles. All of these forms
are dialectically connected, which gives the uprising many of the
characteristics of people’s war:
1. It involves broad sectors of the popular masses in daily
resistance. This has partially stripped the enemy of its control
over the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In practice, the enemy is
now trying to reoccupy these territories captured over twenty
years ago.
2. It utilizes simple means which a broad range of the people
can master, while the enemy can’t employ its advanced war
technology.
3. It forces the enemy to fight according to the logic of the
uprising. The enemy leaders were obliged to invent new training
methods, unlike the methods traditionally used by regular
armics.
4. It highlights the concept of liberated areas, applying this
through relative liberation from the rule of the occupation
forces, military government and civil administration. A Palesti-
nian national authority has been built up alongside the occupa-
tion authority. This is clear in the masses’ adherence to the
directives of the United National Leadership.
The forms of popular struggle utilized by the uprising up till
now are, however, incapable of forcing the enemy to retreat,
although many achicvements have been realized. The intifada
has made the occupation costly for the enemy, but not to the
point of turning it into a losing enterprise. Much greater human
8
el
and economic losses will have to be inflicted on the enemy, in
order to bridge the gap between the former and the latter.
Inflicting human losses in the enemy’s ranks will push the
Zionist leaders to reevalute their political calculations. From
the beginning, the uprising has aimed at inflicting as many
economic losses as possible. On the other hand, the enemy is
waging a war of attrition against the Palestinians primarily in
human terms and secondarily in economic terms.
In order to continue this war for freedom and independence,
we must enter the battle with reversed priorities - human losses
first and economic ones second. This can only be done via reac-
tivating and escalating the armed struggle. Therefore, we must
broaden the confrontation front to include areas other than the
West Bank and Gaza ‘Strip. The experience of the past two years
has proven that in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the uprising is
the most proper form of struggle. The territories occupied in
1948 should be another front, complementing the West Bank
and Gaza Strip.
The popular resistance committees and strike forces of the
uprising have become firm and extensive structures, but their
activities have been limited to the cities, villages and camps of
the West Bank and Gaza Strip. They mainly function to protect
the inhabitants from the army and settlers’ attacks, and to
punish collaborators, though there have been some operations
against the Isracli army in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. We
feel that there is a possibility to expand the work of the popular
committees and strike forces to include areas besides the West
Bank and Gaza Strip. Some sections of these structures could be
transformed into popular guerrilla warfare groups, basing their
activities on armed action and sabotage in the Zionist state. We
have all witnessed the enemy’s confusion and distress when fires
were set on farms and forests. The enemy will be even more
alarmed, and their losses will be heavier, if such fires are also set
in factorics and other enterprises and there are operations
against military posts.
In order for the uprising and the military action to comple-
ment cach other, there should be well-planned, successful
attacks from outside, and escalated military and sabotage
actions in the 1948 occupied territories, along with the continua-
tion of the popular uprising. This alone will transform the occu-
pation into a losing enterprise in human and economic terms. It
necessitates an overall review of the experience of armed strug-
gle that responds to the new conditions. The mistakes of the past
should be corrected, and right and left extremism should be
eliminated. Organization has an important role in developing
and escalating the uprising and armed struggle, as does a realis-
tic revolutionary political line.
Internal Israeli contradictions
This section will examine the effects of the uprising on the
Zionist entity. We will not include a discussion of the essential
characteristics of the Zionist entity: aggression, expansionism,
colonialism and organic ties with imperialism. We feel that no
matter how developed and effective the uprising becomes, it will
not change all of these characteristics. Such a change necessi-
tates qualitatively different objective and subjective conditions.
Rather, we will focus on the Zionist entity as a body that can be
Democratic Palestine, February 1990 - هو جزء من
- Democratic Palestine : 37
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- فبراير ١٩٩٠
- المنشئ
- الجبهة الشعبية لتحرير فلسطين
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