The ISL, the section of the RCIT in Israel/Occupied Palestine, 06.12.2021
How Fatah and the PA became servants of the Zionist apartheid
Fatah (Arabic: “Conquest” or “Opening”), inverted acronym of Ḥarakat al-Taḥrīr al-Waṭanī al-Filasṭīnī (“Palestine National Liberation Movement”), was, founded in the late 1950s by Yassir Arafat and Khalīl al-Wazīr (Abū Jihād) aiming for the liberation of Palestine from Zionist control by waging guerrilla warfare. The Palestinian National Charter: Resolutions of the Palestine National Council July 1-17, 1968 stated among others:
“Article 1: Palestine is the homeland of the Arab Palestinian people; it is an indivisible part of the Arab homeland, and the Palestinian people are an integral part of the Arab nation.
Article 2: Palestine, with the boundaries it had during the British Mandate, is an indivisible territorial unit.
Article 3: The Palestinian Arab people possess the legal right to their homeland and have the right to determine their destiny after achieving the liberation of their country in accordance with their wishes and entirely of their own accord and will.
Article 4: The Palestinian identity is a genuine, essential, and inherent characteristic; it is transmitted from parents to children. The Zionist occupation and the dispersal of the Palestinian Arab people, through the disasters which befell them, do not make them lose their Palestinian identity and their membership in the Palestinian community, nor do they negate them.
Article 5: The Palestinians are those Arab nationals who, until 1947, normally resided in Palestine regardless of whether they were evicted from it or have stayed there. Anyone born, after that date, of a Palestinian father – whether inside Palestine or outside it – is also a Palestinian.
Article 6: The Jews who had normally resided in Palestine until the beginning of the Zionist invasion will be considered Palestinian.” [i]
Article 6 is not very clear as it does not specify when the beginning of the Zionist invasion began. Was it 1917 or before 1917 or 1948? In any case, this charter called for the liberation of the entire Palestine. At the same time, it did not offer the Jews living in Palestine a way to separate from the Zionist ruling class and join the Palestinians.
On November 13, 1974, addressing the UN General Assembly Yassir Arafat said among other things: “Zionist theology was utilized against our Palestinian people: the purpose was not only the establishment of Western-style settler colonialism but also the severing of Jews from their various homelands and subsequently their estrangement from their nations. Zionism is an ideology that is imperialist, colonialist, racist; it is profoundly reactionary and discriminatory; it is united with anti-Semitism in its retrograde tenets and is when all is said and done, another side of the same base coin. For when what is proposed is that adherents of the Jewish faith, regardless of their national residence, should neither owe allegiance to their national residence nor live on equal footing with its other, non-Jewish citizens — when that is proposed we hear anti-Semitism being proposed? When it is proposed that the only solution for the Jewish problem is that Jews must alienate themselves from communities or nations of which they have been a historical part when it is proposed that Jews solve the Jewish problem by immigrating to and forcibly settling the land of another people — when this occurs, exactly the same position is being advocated as the one urged by anti-Semites against Jews. The enemy we face has a long record of hostility even towards the Jews themselves, for there is within the Zionist entity built-in racism against Oriental Jews. While we were vociferously condemning the massacres of Jews under Nazi rule, Zionist leadership appeared more interested at that time in exploiting them as best it could in order to realize its goal of immigration into Palestine. If the immigration of Jews to Palestine had had as its objective the goal of enabling them to live side by side with us, enjoying the same rights and assuming the same duties, we would have opened our doors to them, as far as our homeland’s capacity for absorption permitted. Such was the case with the thousands of Armenians and Circassians who still live among us in equality as brethren and citizens. But that the goal of this immigration should be to usurp our homeland, disperse our people, and turn us into second-class citizens — this is what no one can conceivably demand that we acquiesce in or submit to. Therefore, since its inception, our evolution has not been motivated by racial or religious factors. Its target has never been the Jew, as a person, but racist Zionism and undisguised aggression. In this sense, ours is also a revolution for the Jew, as a human being, as well. We are struggling so that Jews, Christians, and Muslims may live in equality, enjoying the same rights and assuming the same duties, free from racial or religious discrimination. We do distinguish between Judaism and Zionism. While we maintain our opposition to the colonialist Zionist movement, we respect the Jewish faith. Today, almost one century after the rise of the Zionist movement, we wish to warn of its increasing danger to the Jews of the world, to our Arab people, and to world peace and security. For Zionism encourages the Jew to emigrate out of his homeland and grants him an artificially-created nationality. The Zionists proceed with their terrorist activities even though these have proved ineffective. The phenomenon of constant emigration from Israel, which is bound to grow as the bastions of colonialism and racism in the world fall, is an example of the inevitability of the failure of such activities. In my formal capacity as Chairman of the PLO and leader of the Palestinian revolution, I proclaim before you that when we speak of our common hopes for the Palestine of tomorrow, we include in our perspective all Jews now living in Palestine who choose to live with us there in peace and without discrimination” [ii]
It was a turning point for the PLO as it made it clear that the solution is one democratic state in the entire Palestine that includes the Jews who choose to live with the Palestinians in peace and without discrimination. It was a call for democratic bourgeois’ revolution.
However, after the collapse of Stalinist Russia, the PLO took the road leading to serving the imperialists including the Zionists. In 1993 the PLO signed the Oslo accord in Washington, the so-called two-state solution. It recognized Israel and in return the Zionists provided the PLO with weapons to repress the Palestinians who opposed this betrayal that turned Fatah into the police in the service of Israel. It has provided the Zionists with leeway to expand and build more and more settlements in area C that is 60% of the West Bank and to put Gaza under siege. This has been the political bankruptcy of the Palestinian authority opposed by a growing number of Palestinians who understand that the Palestinian Authority is another block against their liberation and it must be removed.
The new Zionist war crime
Today in Jerusalem a Palestinian man 25-year-old Mohammed Shawkat Salima was shot dead by the Zionist police while lying wounded on the grounds after he stabbed a Haredi man who suffered a wound. The Prime Minister of Israel and other Zionist ministers hailed the police who killed in cold blood the incapacitated Palestinian The far-right PM of Israel Naftali Bennett said that the police acted quickly and with determination, as is expected of them. The police like in other cases of cold-blooded murder has said that the Palestinian man attempted to stab a policeman. A video from the scene showed Border Policemen firing at the suspected assailant several times as he lay incapacitated on the ground Even the Regional Cooperation Minister the Arab Issawi Frej had to say “Faced with attempted murder, assailants should be shot to save lives, not to take [the attackers’] lives when they no longer pose a threat.” So, what the hell is he doing in this government of war criminals?
Ofer Cassif of Hadash also called the shooting “an extrajudicial execution,” “Shooting an injured person lying on the ground when he is no longer a danger, regardless of his actions, is a war crime” [iii]
In our opinion in the liberation struggle Mohammed Shawkat Salima committed a terrorist act. Even it is a terrorist act we do not put on the same level a terrorist act committed by the oppressed and the oppressors. In their position of oppressors the Zionist police committed a war crime cheered by the Zionist Prime Minister who should be tried for encouraging war crimes. However, this is unlikely to happen under the International Criminal Court as this institution is controlled by the imperialists. It will happen when the Arab revolution will win.
The PA traitors
At the same time an intifada against the PA servant of Israel is taking place. Residents of Bethlehem’s three refugee camps have been launching daily protests against the Palestinian Authority. The protests began at Dheisheh refugee camp after the security forces arrested several young men who raised banners belonging to Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) during the funeral of Amjad Abu Sultan, 14, shot dead by IDF soldiers in October as he was preparing to throw a Molotov cocktail in a guerrilla action from West Bank Bet Jala at Israeli vehicles on Route 60, also known as the “Tunnels Road.”
Occupied people have the right to armed struggle even according to the bourgeois’ international law. As early as 1974, resolution 3314 of the UNGA prohibited states from “any military occupation, however temporary”. The resolution also affirms the right “to self-determination, freedom and independence of peoples under colonial and racist regimes or other forms of alien domination to armed struggle … and to seek and receive support in this struggle.”
Amjad Abu Sultan’ body was handed over to the Palestinians only two weeks ago. Israel keeps bodies of Palestinians it kills for weeks and months. It also has a cemetery where it buries Palestinians without mentioning their names known as the cemeteries of numbers. The PA so-called “security forces” arrested several young men from Dheisheh, Aida, and Jibrin camps who participated in the funeral, on the charges of assaulting several officers. They carried Hamas and PFLP flags. “Hamas and the PFLP are inciting the residents of the camps against the Palestinian Authority,” an official of the PA claimed. This is happening not only in the Bethlehem area but also in other camps, especially in the areas of Nablus and Jenin. On Friday, a fight erupted at Bir Zeit University between Fatah and PFLP students. The violence erupted after a number of student groups affiliated with Hamas and the PFLP issued a statement condemning the PA security forces for raiding and searching the university dormitories. Fatah-affiliated students who were unhappy with the statement reportedly beat some PFLP and Hamas supporters. On Saturday, a student was stabbed to death during a brawl at the Arab American University (AAU) near Jenin. The student was identified as Mahran Khaliliyeh, 21. His friends say that he was attacked by students affiliated with Fatah What is happening in Dheisheh and the other two refugee camps is a small intifada [uprising] against the Palestinian Authority,” said a Palestinian journalist from Bethlehem. “The residents of the camp are angry, because they feel intimidated by the Palestinian security forces. The clampdown is targeting supporters of the PFLP and Hamas.” [iv]
Abbas the so-called “president” has prevented a general election since 2005 knowing that in such a case, Fatah will lose. In the wake of the recent ten-day conflict between Israel and Hamas, which began after the Israeli Supreme Court suspended its anticipated ruling on the eviction of Palestinians from the Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah and clashes flared at the Al-Aqsa mosque, a June report from the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PCPSR) found that a “paradigm shift” had taken place in Palestinian public opinion: “There is now growing support for Hamas and armed struggle….the two-state solution, is no longer a popular position among Palestinians. Less than 40 percent of the Palestinian public—in the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem—supports it over one-state alternatives. Support for a two-state solution has declined steadily since 2018…a majority of them say they prefer to reclaim all of historic Palestine, including pre-1967 Israel. A one-state solution with Arabs and Jews holding equal rights comes in second…A majority of East Jerusalem respondents once supported a two-state solution. In contrast, throughout the six-year polling period, a plurality of respondents in the West Bank and Gaza have generally chosen “regaining all of historical Palestine from the river to the sea” as their preference…” [v]
Thus, the position of the RCIT of one Palestine free is supported by the majority of the Palestinians. However, this can be achieved only by the victory of the Arab revolution in the process of a socialist revolution. For this reason, we call for Palestine red and free from the river to the sea.
Down with the Zionist apartheid from the river to the sea!
Down with the PA traitors to the Palestinians!
For one Palestine red and free from the river to the sea!
For a socialist federation of the Middle East!
Endnotes:
[i] https://ecf.org.il/media_items/677
[ii] https://unispal.un.org/DPA/DPR/unispal.nsf/0/A238EC7A3E13EED18525624A007697EC
[iii] https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/killing-of-damascus-gate-terrorist-right-decision-or-war-crime-687842
[iv] https://www.jpost.com/arab-israeli-conflict/gaza-news/anti-pa-intifada-in-bethlehem-threatens-christmas-festivities-687818 [v] https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/what-do-palestinians-want