احمد
سعدات
Ahmad Sa’adat
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Ahmad Sa’adat
(Ahmad Sa'adat Yusuf 'Abd al-Rasul, Abu Ghassan): Secretary General of the Popular Front for the Liberation of
Palestine (PFLP), the second largest faction in the PLO and the leading
Palestinian party of the left. Sa’adat
has been held without trial in Jericho jail under U.S./U.K. monitoring since
May 2002, accused by Israel of ordering the assassination of former Israeli
Minister of Tourism Rehavam Zeevi. He
was nominated by the PFLP to run as a Parliamentary candidate in the PLC
elections scheduled for January 2006, as a means of publicizing his continued
detention and bringing pressure to bear for his release.
Sa’adat is a
veteran of the first Palestinian intifada, and has spent a total of 10 years in
Israeli jails for PFLP activism. He
rose to prominence within the PFLP for his activities as an organizer and
leader of Palestinian prisoners. Although not well-known internationally or in
the media, Sa’adat - a PFLP “insider”
who has always stayed in the West Bank and Gaza rather than going into exile
- >is highly regarded in the Occupied
Territories as a charismatic leader who remains in touch with the grassroots.
A math teacher by training, Sa’adat is married (to Abla) and has four children. He lives in al-Bira, near Ramallah.
THE PFLP
The PFLP is the
largest party on the Palestinian left, with an ideology that combines Arab
nationalism with Marxist-Leninism. It
was founded in 1967 by George Habash, a Palestinian Christian (and Palestinian
Orthodox Christians have historically been prominently represented in the
movement). The PFLP does not recognise
the existence of Israel as a Jewish state, and rejects the Oslo process. It reserves the right to use all means,
including armed intifada, in pursuit of a single, secular democratic state of
Arabs and Jews on all of Mandate Palestine.
It sees the Palestinians’ struggle as an integral part of the wider
struggle against U.S. imperialism and its client regimes in the Middle East. With the fall of the Soviet Union and the
rise of political Islam, the PFLP has been eclipsed as Palestine’s second
political party by Hamas. (It polled
about 7% in the Palestinian local elections in the fall/winter of 2005). One of Ahmad’s Sa’adat’s declared aims as
party leader is to re-establish the popular base of the PFLP and establish it
as a
third pole in Palestinian politics, alongside Fatah and Hamas.
Some historical background on the PFLP from Lawrence
Joffe: Said to be the second largest faction within the PLO apparatus
after Yasser Arafat's own Fatah, the Popular Front was officially created in
the wake of the Six Day war, in December 1967. Since 1948, Palestinians had
felt grievously let down by other Arab leaders. Fatah chose the path of
galvanising the West Bank and Gaza masses to throw off the yoke of their new
Israeli rulers. When this proved a failure, Fatah effectively took over the discredited
PLO, and over time sought friends and money in the Arab world.
The PFLP, by contrast,
interpreted the Palestine problem as merely the worst symptom of a general
Middle Eastern malaise. They eschewed support from Gulf potentates, turning
instead to the patronage of Russia and China. The PFLP saw the elimination of
Israel as a means towards the ultimate goal, of ridding the Middle East of
dictators who kow-towed to Western capitalism. Under the rule of Habash, they
fused together a heady brew of Maoism and Arab nationalism. Soon the group
gained international notoriety for hijackings and terrorist attacks. In Amman,
Jordan, the belligerency of their cadres was blamed for the onset of the Black
September crackdown of 1970, which crushed the PLO and forced its flight to
safer climes in southern Lebanon.
But with the decline of
the Soviet economy, the onset of detente and eventual collapse of the USSR, the
PFLP lost ground to the distinctly unsecular radicals of Hamas. [Habash’s
successor, Abu Ali] Mustafa was prominent in promulgating the 1987 intifada
through radio broadcasts, but in time the group showed signs of schism, as
"insiders" on the West Bank, like Riad al-Malki, forged links with
Fatah and even Israeli left-wingers.
Attempting to regain
the initiative after the supposed PLO-Israeli breakthrough of Oslo in 1993, the
PFLP joined forces with a 10-member rejection front, based in Damascus. It
forbade members to participate in the Palestinian elections in 1996, but three
years later, Mustafa, accepting the Palestine Authority as a fait accompli,
rushed to Cairo to negotiate better terms with Yasser Arafat.
The PFLP’s election of
Ahmad Sa’adat in October 2001 to replace its assassinated Secretary-General,
was generally regarded as a sign that the movement was shifting moving away
from the more pragmatic positions of Abu Ali Mustafa, and reverting to the more
hardline rejectionism of its original founder.
More background on the PFLP from:
o
BBC
News
AHMAD SA’ADAT BIOGRAPHICAL TIMELINE:
1953 – Born in
al-Bira, to 1948 refugees from the destroyed village of Dayr Tarif (nr al-Ramleh).
1967 – Became a
student activist following the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza
Strip, in the PFLP-led Palestine Student Union.
1969 – Formally joined
the PFLP, attracted by its combination of Marxism-Leninism (which he felt most
suitable for the son of a refugee peasant family) with traditional pan-Arab
nationalism.
Feb 1969 – First arrested
by Israel for PFLP activities; 3 months detention. Arrested again in 1970 (28 months), 1973 (10 months), 1975 (45
days). Credits his early years in
prison with giving him the opportunity to advance his understanding of Marxist
theory and consolidating his commitment to the PFLP.
1975 – Graduated from
the UNRWA Teachers Training College in Ramallah, specializing in Mathematics.
1976
–
Rearrested by the Israelis (detained for four years).
Apr 1981 - Elected to
the Central Committee of the PFLP.
1989 – Arrested and
held in administrative detention for 9 months.
1992 - Arrested and held in administrative
detention for 13 months.
Mar 1993 - Elected to
the Politburo of the PFLP while still in administrative detention, reportedly
in recogition of his education and organizing activities with other detainees.
1993 – Released from
administrative detention, but declared a “wanted person” liable to re-arrest,
shortly after release.
1994 – Elected
leader of the PFLP in the West Bank.
1995 – Arrested by
the PA and briefly detained in a sweep of PFLP members, under Israeli pressure.
Mar 1996 – Briefly
detained without charge again by the PA in a sweep of known activists.
Dec 1996 – Arrested by the PA in a
roundup of PFLP members on the West Bank, following a PFLP attack on Israeli
settlers in Beit-El/Surda on 11 December.
Released without charge on 27 February 1997 after conducting a hunger strike, the PA
fearing the consequences if he should die in jail. (Collapsed hours after
release, and spent several days comatose and on a respirator in Ramallah
Hospital).
2000 – George Habash
steps down as General Secretary of the PFLP, at the party’s Sixth National
Conference. Replaced by Mustafa Zibri (Abu Ali Mustafa), a member of the
'old guard' of exiled leaders based in Damascus, and regarded as a pragmatist
in relations with Arafat and with Israel.
27 Aug 2001 - Abu Ali Mustafa
assassinated when an Israeli helicopter fired rockets at his office in the West
Bank town of Ramallah.
3 Oct 2001 – Ahmad Sa’adat
elected Secretary-General of the PFLP, regarded as a shift away from the
pragmatism of Abu Ali Mustafa and in line with the more hardline principles of
George Habash. Sa’adat declares at his
inaugural press conference that the goals of the Palestinian people are
"our right of return, and our independence, with Jerusalem as the capital”
He also vows to avenge the assassination of Abu Ali Mustafa.
17 Oct 2001 – Four
members of the PFLP assassinate the far-right Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam
Zeevi. (Zeevi is known as a
supporter of the forced expulsion of the Palestinians from the Occupied
Territories, and as a proponent of “targetted
assassinations”. His assassination
is a popular move among militants, and reinvigorates support for the PFLP in
the Occupied Territories). Israel accuses Sa’adat of having ordered the
assassination.
22 Oct 2001 – The PA condemns the killing of
Zeevi as contrary to wider Palestinian interests as it gives Israel an excuse
to take military action in the Occupied Territories. Jibril
Rajoub, head of the West Bank Preventative Security Service, outlaws the military wing of the
PFLP - the Martyr Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades - and issues an ultimatum to Ahmad Sa’adat to turn himself in or face arrest.
24 Oct 2001 – IDF attacks the
West Bank village of Beit
Rima, apparently in an unsuccessful attempt to capture Sa’adat,
shooting dead nine Palestinians including 5 local policemen
sleeping in an olive grove.
15 Jan 2002 – Sa’adat is arrested by Palestinian
special forces after being lured to a meeting in a Ramallah hotel with PA
Intelligence chief Tawfiq
Tirawi. The PFLP condemns
the PA for caving to U.S. and Israeli pressure, and putting its own survival
ahead of the national consensus by arresting the head of a PLO faction. Its military wing warns that it will kill Arafat
aides if Sa’adat is not released.
PFLP supporters protest the arrest in the streets of Ramallah, Gaza City
and Bethlehem.
2 Feb 2002 – The PFLP's
politburo announces that the movement will suspend its participation in the PLO
Executive
Committee until Sa’adat is released.
21 Feb 2002 – The PA’s General
Intelligence Services capture
in Nablus the cell of the Martyr
Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades believed responsible for the assassination of
Zeevi. They are held with Sa’adat at
Arafat’s Ramallah compound.
Mar-Apr 2002 – Sa’adat besieged with Arafat in the
Muqata by the IDF, beginning 29 Mar.
29 Apr 2002 - Under heavy U.S. pressure, Arafat accepts a deal
to end the siege of his compound. The
terms of the deal are not made public but it is apparent that Israel has agreed
to lift the siege on Arafat in return for the PA agreeing to imprison under
international supervision Ahmad Sa’adat, the four PFLP members accused of
killing Zeevi (Basel al-Asmar, 'Ahed Abu Ghalma, Majdi al-Rimawi and Hamdi Qar'an), and Fuad Shubaki -
the PA official accused of organising the Karine A weapons shipment. The four PFLP members are cursorily tried by
a military tribunal inside the Muqata, and sentenced to terms up to 18 years’
imprisonment for killing Zeevi. Arafat
rules that Sa’adat is a political leader, not a military leader, and so his
case must be decided by the Palestinian judiciary.
1 May 2002 – All six are
transferred to Jericho Prison on the evening of 1 May, where they are nominally
under the control of the P.A. but actually guarded by U.S. and British
monitors. Arafat is widely criticised
in the Occupied Territories for winning his own freedom at the expense of
Sa’adat’s.
2 May 2002 – IDF withdraws from the Muqata.
3 Jun 2002 – The Palestinian High Court of Justice in Gaza
rules that there is no
evidence linking Sa’adat to the assassination of Zeevi, and no legal grounds
for his continuing detention. It orders
his immediate release
from jail. Ra'anan
Gissin, an Israeli government spokesperson, implies that if the PA releases
Sa’adat, he will be assassinated (“if he is not brought to justice, we will bring
justice to him”…)
4 Jun 2002 - The Palestinian Cabinet declines
to implement the High Court ruling, ostensibly
because it fears that Sa’adat will be assassinated if released. (More
realistically, it is probably because releasing Sa’adat will contravene the
terms of the 29 Apr agreement that removed the Israelis from the Muqata).
13 Jun 2002 – Amnesty
International calls for the PA to respect the finding of the High Court and
release Sa’adat immediately, and for Israel to guarantee it will not take
extrajudicial measures against him.
Palestinian NGO’s
call upon Arafat to uphold the rule of law. Sa’adat remains in jail.
20 Aug 2002 – Israeli Special Forces troops
assassinate Sa’adat’s younger brother,
Mohammed, a low-ranking member
of the PFLP, at his home near Ramallah.
Muhammed Sa'adat (22) was assassinated in his house
in Al-Bireh by an Israeli special unit yesterday….
(al-Quds al-Arabi, 21 August 2002).
26 Aug 2002 – Sa’adat begins
a 72-hour hunger
strike to protest his continued detention.
14 Jan 2003 – In a letter from
prison, Sa’adat expresses his opposition to the Road Map, on the grounds that
it is designed solely to provide security for Israel’s occupation and
criminalize opposition to it as terrorism.
23 Jan 2003 – Sa’adat’s wife,
Abla, is arrested
by Israeli troops at the Allenby Bridge border crossing, and prevented from
addressing the World
Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil, where she was a scheduled speaker.
15 Mar 2005 – PA President Mahmoud Abbas suggests that
Sa’adat will be released
when the PA resumes security control of Jericho later that month. Other PA officials deny they have any such
intention, and Sa’adat himself doubts whether
the PA even has the power to release him.
23 Nov 2005 – The PFLP announces that Sa’adat will run
in the PLC
elections of Jan 2006, in the hope that this will raise awareness of his
imprisonment and bring pressure to bear for his release.
Other
Biographical Information Online
o
Profile of Ahmad Sa’adat from BBC NEWS
o
Biographical notes from Glen Rangwala’s Middle
East Reference
o
And from the Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs
(PASSIA)
POLITICAL VIEWS
Sa’adat is
regarded as a "hardliner" within the PFLP, strongly opposing
compromise with Israel and less inclined to recognise the authority of the PA
than Abu Ali Mustafa. He regards the
right of return for Palestinian refugees as the central issue in the
Palestinian/Israeli conflict, which can be ultimately resolved only through a
non-sectarian single state solution.
Sa’adat regards
international law and U.N. resolutions as the basis for realising Palestinian
aspirations, and rejects the idea that U.S. mediation can ever take the place
of international law or lead to a just
solution, as it is U.S. imperialism in the Middle East (and Israel’s role in it
as a U.S. proxy) that lies at the heart of the conflict. He does not believe
that the PA can do anything to bring the occupation to as end, as it depends
for its survival on providing security for the Israeli occupier. Inasmuch as the PA opposes the armed
struggle and seeks to end it in favour of a negotiated solution, Sa’adat
regards it as a vehicle of the capitalist ruling classes and an obstacle to
Palestinian freedom rather than a means
of achieving it.
Sa’adat advocates
intifada by all means available, including education and mobilisation of the
masses alongside continuation of the armed struggle, and regards the
Palestinian intifada as an integral part of the wider international struggle of
the left against U.S. imperialism in its militaristic (e.g. the invasion of
Iraq) and economic (e.g. “globalization”) forms.
Comments by Sa’adat
On the right of return: The Right of Return is neither a
knee-jerk emotional reaction, nor an abstract legal right, nor right-wing
chauvinism. On the contrary, it is realistic, and constitutes the only basis
for a permanent and everlasting peace… Any solution that ignores the Right of
Return as a basis for a permanent peace between the Palestinians and the Jewish
settlers who forcibly expelled the indigenous people of Palestine and colonized
the land may produce short periods of quiet and calm, but will not eliminate
the objective conditions that produce the conflict between our people and the
Zionist movement.
Therefore, the implementation of international resolutions and international
law pertaining to the Right of Return, as a first step, may prepare the
foundation for a permanent peace and end the struggle in Palestine and around
Palestine. This right, as the essence of the Palestine question, represents the
bridge for a democratic and comprehensive solution of the conflict between the
Jewish settlers and the Palestinian people. (Source)
On the two state solution:
1. Some have argued
that the current reality is pushing towards a two-state solution - an Israeli
state next to a Palestinian state based on the pre-1967 borders. Of course,
this solution involves ignoring the Right of Return, or replacing it with
reparations. We in the PFLP argue that forcing such a solution on the
Palestinian people will not end the struggle, because the facts and reality
contradict such a solution. The two-state solution that is based on the racist
notion of 'a national, homogeneous Jewish state' totally disregards the fact
that over 1.3 million Palestinians - 20% of the entire population - live inside
'Israel.' This will continue to permit the causes of conflict to remain inside
Israel. Therefore, the solution based on two states is a myth (Source).
2. The two state solution is a starting point
which will create the necessary climate for a peaceful solution. Of course, the
fight for a single democratic state, without any kind of ethnic or religious
discrimination, should never end, because it is the only possible solution that
can solve the problem of the Palestinians of 1948 and of the right to
return. In this fight we need
international solidarity and unity from those who struggle along with us. As Palestinians and also as PFLP, we are
proud of all these actions of solidarity with the Palestinian people. (Source)
3. In the PFLP, we don’t
think that “two states for two peoples” is a viable solution. Even if we reach this goal, the problem will
be far from resolved, primarily because the state of Israel will continue to
exist exactly as it is. Above all, two
major questions would remain: What
about the refugees? For us, the
question of the right of return for refugees, who represent more than half of
all Palestinians, is a fundamental question inasmuch as the right of return is
an inalienable right. Now, the two state
solution leaves out the refugees. It is
out of the question that they can live in the West Bank or in Gaza… you see,
the main problem remains. And what
happens to the Palestinians of 1948?
This problem is equally important.
There are more than a million of them, and they are first and foremost
Palestinians, and they too live under the oppression of the state of
Israel. I won’t spell it out but you
can see, the two state solution can only be at best a temporary solution.
A real solution to the conflict would have to meet three
fundamental needs: the end of the
occupation, the return of the refugees, and the creation of a truly democratic
government on all of historic Palestine.
When you look at history, this is the only legitimate solution. (Source)
On the Oslo agreement – These
agreements were a project – almost entirely economic in nature – drawn up
between the Palestinian bourgeoisie and the Israeli occupier. Through these accords, Israel succeeded in
making the PLO give up its platform and strategy, to the detriment of the
Palestinian population’s living conditions.
Remember that at that time, after the Gulf War, the PLO had enormous
financial difficulties. The Oslo Accords offered the possiblity of financial
recovery thanks to important commercial agreements. Oslo is not a political agreement that might have led to a
solution for the Palestinian people.
Instead it was a plan that involved only security and commercial issues, with Israeli security as
one of its goals.
There was with Oslo a passing of the baton
between the Israelis and the Authority in a number of regions, including in
those areas that the Authority did not completely control. The years passed, with the results that you
already know, and there was one fundamental rule contained in the Oslo
Accords: namely, it was forbidden to seek any “solution”
except through negotiation with the Israelis.
Then there was
the Camp David episode, and the scandalous proposals of Barak and Clinton. The PFLP was (and still is) in favour of
stopping all negotiations with the occupier, which would have meant that the
Palestinian Authority would have had to become a real resistance movement, in
touch with the people. But it didn’t
choose that route. And so today we have
reached this situation in which the only opposition that remains between
occupier and occupied is the opposition of the Palestinian people against the
state of Israel. Meanwhile the
Authority looks in from the outside, a spectator that wants only one thing,
which is to recover its power at any price.
(Source)
On the road map:
1. The Road Map seems
like a reward for the Palestinian people or, if you will, the carrot that has
to be given to the Arabs of Palestine in place of the stick that’s been used
against the Iraqis. In reality, it must
be said that the Road Map is above all an attempt to contain the Palestinians
and to stop the intifada: so completing what the Israelis have done with the
“stick” with America’s international backing.
The Road Map tries to skirt round UN resolutions, which recognise the
right of our people to have their own independent state. This plan has the aim of reshaping
Palestinian aspirations, so that their state will be designed according to the
needs and limits laid down by Israel. I
too wonder how the PNA can be so attached to it, and I can’t give any logical
explanation. Because the Road Map
doesn’t offer anything new, but leads to a return to negotiations under the
terms of the Oslo Accords, which led ultimately to the dead end called Camp
David. (Source)
2. The illusions of the
Palestinian Authority were offset by the reality contained in the Road Map. The
PA thought, or perhaps wished, that the Road Map would provide the pathway and
mechanisms towards an independent state on the Palestinian lands occupied in
1967, based on the address by George Bush in which he called for the formation
of a Palestinian leadership that would seriously fight terrorism (in other
words, the Palestinian Resistance).
It was clear that the
primary aim of this new-old security project was to contain the Palestinian
issue, to provide security for the Zionist occupier and its settlers, and to
transfer the entire crisis onto Palestinian society. … Too much has been said
about the Road Map. Suffice to say that the Road Map is a political initiative
that is based on the criminalization of the Palestinian people and condemnation
of the Palestinian resistance as terrorism. It is also a blatant intervention
in the Palestinian internal affairs. The Road Map can only serve as an American
political umbrella to manage and contain the crisis in Palestine, providing
more space for “Israel” to impose its logic on both our people and on the
Palestinian Authority.
We are asked to exchange the Intifada for the Road Map. Such exchange will not
be beneficial for our people and will only re-create the wheels of Oslo but in
a much worse version! It might have benefits, but only for specific layers in
the ruling class within the Palestinian Authority, which took advantage of Oslo
and the political negotiation to build its own private projects and to
partnerships with Zionist investors. (Source)
On the role of
the Palestinian Authority:
1. The Palestinian bourgeoisie has chosen
the path of negotiations and conciliation with the Zionist entity keeping the
struggle as a tactical option that it uses to improve its position every time
its negotiations with Israel reach an impasse that aggravates its internal
contradictions. Regardless of their intentions, the strategic path that they
have chosen for settling the struggle of the Palestinian people with the
Zionist enemy and for attempting to attain the components of the national
establishment - this chosen path, in light of the real balance of forces on the
ground locally, regionally, and internationally, leads objectively to
frittering away the national rights of our people. If, as a supposition, this
choice in the beginning was by way of an erroneous analysis, today after the
emergence of the Authority and the concentration of ruling class coalition
interests it represents, the chosen path has come to express a vital and
strategic interest in remaining in power. Abandoning the path of conciliation
would threaten to destroy the agreements that brought the bourgeoisie outside
and inside the homeland to the pinnacle of the self-rule government. (Source)
2. As
for the silence surrounding us, primary responsibility for that rests I think
with the PA itself and with the NGO’s associated with it. They have chosen to put the emphasis on
those held in Israel because for them our case is really embarrassing. As I said, they put us here because the
Americans insisted, and the fact that Palestinian leaders agreed to arrest
members of the Palestinian resistance looks very contradictory. This is why the
PA and its NGO’s have chosen to keep quiet about our case. It is an enormous admission of weakness.
We are here
because we did away with Zeevi, a racist minister of the extreme right, who
advocated the “transfer” of all Palestinians to Jordan, who was a member of the
Israeli cabinet and consistently supported every proposal to assassinate
leaders of the Palestinian resistance.
He was one of the people who asked for the assassination of Abu Ali
Mustafa [former secretary of the PFLP, killed in August 2001]. We have the right to respond in kind, i.e.
by killing one of their leaders. What
the Authority should have done and should do now, rather than submitting to
Israeli demands, is to do exactly what the Israelis do: demand that all the Israelis who order or
carry out the murder of Palestinians be handed over to them. Instead of that, it says nothing and just
avoids talking about us. All that it
has succeeded in doing is to help the Israelis, who have been demanding for
some time that the PFLP be included on the European Union’s list of terrorist
organisations. (Source)
3. The
Authority would like the resistance to end completely in order to negotiate
with the Israelis, but this is not how the general population or the political
parties feel. We want much more: after
the failure of Oslo, we want a real strategy of struggle that will make it
possible for Palestinian claims to be realised, and for us to build a truly
democratic Palestinian society at the same time. Fatah agrees with this. I
would go so far as to say that our political parties are collectively of one
mind today that we need a temporary leadership to direct the Palestinian
resistance. Obviously the PA doesn’t
want to discuss a temporary leadership that would take away some of its own
power.
It is clear that
today the Authority is an obstacle to the resistance, inasmuch as it represents
the interests of only the Palestinian bourgeoisie, interests which they share
with the Israelis but not with the Palestinian population. They have no interest in what the intifada
is trying to bring about. On the
contrary, what they want is to stop the
resistance; in other words, you could say that their interests go against the
interests of the people. You see, even
if we manage to create unity between the Palestinian political parties, an
obstacle will remain, and it is called the Palestinian Authority. (Source)
4. [I]n response to the whispers of those who
call for the end of the Intifada under the claim of protecting the national
interest of our people, I would like to state clearly that the continuation of
the Intifada might harm the interest of the Palestinian Authority. That is
logical and possible. However, the existence of the Authority, any authority,
is not a goal in itself, except for those who see it as a mean to
self-interested gain. The Palestinian Authority in our situation was supposed
to be, according to the defenders of Oslo, a mechanism for transition from the
occupation to a real Palestinian sovereignty in order to end the occupation.
Such a view could be understood. However, if the PA was no longer capable of
such a task, and responded to international pressure to justify its existence,
then the PA would be a tool of oppression against the Palestinian people, the
Intifada and the resistance.& nbsp; Therefore, in this case, what would
justify the PA existence and would it represent the highest national interest
of the Palestinian people…? (Source)
On the intifada: The uprising is a
popular initiative. It is a state of rebellion which is a response to the
failure of the political negotiations which reached a dead end in Camp David
2000, and a rejection of the attempts by Barak’s Zionist government to impose
its conditions on our people and marginalize the Palestinian national rights.
In other words, the uprising was a natural response to the Zionist political
escalation against our people. And the methods and weapons used by the
resistance were also a natural result to the Zionist military escalation
against our people. The weaknesses which accompanied the uprising stemmed from
the absence of a unified political decision and the absence of a unified
leadership, as well as from the state of political division that our people
have lived through since the birth of Madrid-Oslo path. In addition the lack of
harmony and balance between the armed struggle and the popular mass initiatives
also weakened the uprising. There are attempts to hold the uprising responsible
for the pain and the suffering of our people rather than holding the occupier
responsible. This is an unjust judgment which holds no objective understanding.
It is only natural that the losses of the occupied are larger than those of the
occupier, especially when the occupying power posses a superior military
machine. (Source)
On the international context of the I/P conflict –
1. [W]e should never forget that our struggle must be seen in an
international context, i.e. within the imperialist world order. Israel is a state whose fundamental role is
to protect the interests of imperialism in our region. That has strong resonances with the
situation of South Africa in the time of Apartheid. Our fight is basically
anti-imperialist. The Palestinian
question is today at the heart of world problems, which is why we must build a
resistance that is linked to the anti-imperialist movements of the whole
world. The solidarity that we need is
an anti-imperialist solidarity. I’m
thinking here particularly of the anti-globalisation movement which has
developed over the last few years. If we want to succeed, we must certainly
build a popular resistance, but we must also never separate the local from the
global and take care to ensure that our struggle is integrated more fully into
the struggles against imperialism and capitalist globalisation, both of which
we must address. (Source)
2. This leads us to stake out a position that condemns the form of terrorism exported by Americans as globalism, the latest form of their imperialism ; to use this position to forge alliances between the Arab regimes and the Arab popular forces that are opposed to the latest war of aggression against the peoples ; and to strive to form the broadest possible world front to stand in the face of the new imperialism. Of overarching importance is that this three-fold tactic be applied in tandem with an escalation of the intifada and the resistance. Otherewise, if the intifada and the resistance decline while more moderate parallel activities are being pursued, the self-interest of our Palestinian people will be forfeited.
One may choose to avoid confronting a bull while it is stampeding
around him, but avoiding confrontation at such a moment does not allevieate the
eventual or present danger of falling under its hooves. Avoiding confrontation
might appear "wise" and "logical" to one who draws up his
policies in the coffee houses, offices, and parlors of diplomatic activity. But
this approach appears impotent to one who builds his political position on the
results of battles in the field. The contrast likens that between a slave who
sees his master angry and breaks his strike out of fear of punishment and the
free man who works as a slave, confronts his master, and starts a slave revolt
that sweeps away his master’s authority, liberating all slaves and returning
bread, humanity, and dignity to each one of them. The point of departure in
this situation is in defining the goals of the mad bull. We all agree that
these goals are evident in America’s efforts to achieve total world hegemony.
This hegemony means that even if the bull does not trample us today, it will
trample us under its hooves and finish us off tomorrow. So which is the more
useful policy, then, to resist this bull, or to throw ourselves under its
hooves? (Source)
INTERVIEWS AND
WRITINGS ONLINE
o
Interview with Ahmed Sa’adat, on his
election as Secretary General of the PFLP – published by al
Hadaf magazine, reproduced
here with easier formatting.
o
An interview with Ahmed Saadat - by Julien Salingue for Agence Presse
Association, 9 Sept 2002.
Translations in
English, and in
Italian.
o
A letter from
Ahmad Sa'adat, rejecting the road map - 14 Jan 2003.
o
An interview with imprisoned PFLP
General Secretary Ahmad Saadat – published by Fight Back News,
20 May 2003.
o
Saadat: The Road Map, an
attempt to reshape Palestinian aspirations - an interview with Arcipelago online
magazine, 25 May 2003; and in English
translation.
o
The Popular Palestinian Intifada … Where
is it heading? - Reflections on the third anniversary of the Intifada; al Hadaf magazine, 28
September 2003.
o
Arafat and Abu Ala have abandoned not
only me, but all Palestinians - interview with Diario
Español ABC, 4 February 2004, and in English
translation.
o
On The Strategic
Level, We Want To Create A Pole Of The Democratic Left - interview by Mireille
Court and Chris Den Hond,
August 2004; and in English
translation.
o
The struggle for a single, democratic
state, without any kind of ethnic or religious discrimination, should never end
– Interview by Mireille Terrin & Chris
den Hond for the France Palestine Solidarity
Association, 5 Jan 2005; also in
Italian and in
English.
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Last Update: 20
December 2005
Ahmed Ahmad Sa’adat Saadat biography