Interview with Commander Ahmed Saadat
Translated by Resistance News NetworkA newly-conducted interview with PFLP-Secretary General Ahmed Saadat has been released today. You may find the original interview here.
Commander Ahmed Saadat: The situation in the occupied lands is a prelude to the explosion of the third intifada.
Al-Khabar newspaper was able to conduct a written interview with the Secretary-General of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Ahmed Saadat, who is in the "israeli" "Ramon" prison. In this interview, the third Secretary-General of the Popular Front discussed his daily life, how he carries out his responsibilities as the Secretary-General of the Front from prison, and touched on the developments in the situation in the occupied lands, the escalation of resistance, and the conditions for the outbreak of the third intifada.
The Secretary-General of the Popular Front delved deeply into the merits of the Palestinian unity project and the challenges of its achievement, emphasizing the importance of adhering to the Algiers Agreement and praising Algeria's role in this process. He also discussed the internal crisis that is ravaging the zionist entity and indicators of its disintegration.
He touched on the situation in the region and the importance of normalizing relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran and its implications, as well as the transformations that the international system is experiencing as it moves from unipolarism to multipolarism and the new balances expected. He concluded his interview by addressing messages to the Palestinian people, Palestinian factions, and the Palestinian Authority.
The interview is below:
On March 14, 2023, it will be 17 years since your arrest by the zionist occupation. Has imprisonment affected the struggle of Mr. Ahmed Saadat?
Firstly, I thank you for giving me the opportunity to participate in writing on your platform, and I feel that my revolutionary character has been shaped in all its intellectual, political, and organizational aspects inside prison. More than half of my revolutionary life has been spent between the walls and in successive periods, the longest of which is the latest arrest that began on January 15, 2002, when I and my four comrades were arrested by the Palestinian Authority at the request of the occupation government. We were subjected to detention under American and British international supervision according to an agreement signed between the zionist government and the Palestinian Authority. Therefore, my arrest in March 2006 was merely a forced transfer from the Areeha prison to the zionist prisons. Historically, the prisoners' national movement has been a leading site of struggle against the occupation and a place to foster determination, mobilization, and cadre-building and qualification to work within the national movement. We notice this when we read the proportion of detainees in the composition of the leadership bodies of all national action factions, and in the framework of all detention stations, my conviction and trust in the inevitability of our people's victory in their national and national battle against the zionist project have deepened, as has my confidence and conviction in the correctness of the Front's political vision in its strategic and tactical dimensions.
How do you exercise the responsibility of the Secretary-General of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine from prison? Don't you feel a double responsibility for taking on this responsibility from prison?
Your question is valid and important, as leading an organizational institution is not easy under the complex prison conditions and the occupation's security measures. I would have preferred to be exempted from this task for two reasons: first, my respect for the internal regulations of the Front, which do not allow any comrade to hold the position of Secretary-General for more than two terms; and second, the better and more practical option is to assign this task to a free comrade who is directly involved in the work. However, I respected the decision of the comrades who are members of the Eighth National Conference to continue bearing this responsibility, which requires me to redouble my efforts within the maximum possible limit to fulfill the basic requirements expected of me in this sensitive position. To be fair, the one who actually fulfills the requirements of this task and leads the Front with perseverance, sincerity, and competence is Comrade Jamil Mezher, the Deputy Secretary-General, and the Political Bureau as a collective democratic leadership institution.
How do you spend your days in prison during all this time? And what books do you read?
The life of a prisoner is governed by a routine that repeats itself every day due to the jailer's control over the prisoners' place and time. Therefore, my time is divided between reading, walking, social interaction, and fulfilling my duty to participate in daily cultural sessions, managing some of them, and following news TV programs specifically. The books I focus on in reading are historical books, Palestinian and Arab history, old and new, research and studies addressing the zionist entity, its contradictions, and its settler-colonial nature in general, as well as novels, particularly from the Arab Maghreb literature.
Has the prison period provided you with the opportunity to conduct reviews, whether intellectual or related to your activism work?
Yes, when the need arises for a review in a group setting with comrades outside of captivity, the Front conducts this process periodically, especially in conferences and evaluation sessions. The Front has updated its theoretical document to accommodate some developments in contemporary capitalism contradictions and the theoretical vision of the global revolution, as well as adjusting the relationship between tactical and strategic dimensions in the Front's political discourse and focusing on the comprehensive liberation process to achieve the necessary balance between them.
As for the methods of struggle, they are tied to the movement of conflict with the occupation. The Palestinian reality leaves our people with no choice but comprehensive resistance, with the main method of struggle being determined around which all methods of resistance revolve in each stage.
You plan to go on an open-ended [hunger] strike; why this strike? And what messages are you directing through it to the occupation, Palestinians, and the international community?
In practice, the prisoner movement has not reached the open-ended strike stage. On the eve of the strike, the prison service backed down from implementing its new repressive measures aimed at returning the conditions of prisoners' lives decades back. The declared goal of the strike was to stop the new assault based on the recommendations of the terrorist Minister of Internal Security, Ben Gvir, and to preserve the prisoners' achievements. The prisoner movement succeeded in achieving its goals by mobilizing their energy and strength under the leadership of the National General Emergency Committee representing all colors of the political spectrum that make up the prisoner movement.
This is on one hand. And on the other hand, contradictions within the zionist government institutions "the prison service, the Ministry of Internal Security, and the new government in general" have intensified. The zionist government fears the repercussions of this on the unstable security conditions in the occupied lands in Gaza, the West Bank, Al-Quds, and the occupied part of Palestine in 1948.
In the years 2018-2019, Netanyahu's government tried to tighten the lives of prisoners and strip them of their material and moral life struggle gains, following the plan of the Minister of Internal Security, Gilad Erdan. This plan included confiscating many of the prisoners' rights, such as the right to education, regulating books, affecting their social and residential stability, canceling general representation in detention, reducing the duration of visits, implementing transfers between prisons (especially for those with high sentences), and reducing canteen supplies. This ignited tensions in prisons, leading to a state of general rebellion, setting fire to an entire section in "Ramon Prison," numerous clashes in other prisons, and preparations for an open hunger strike. The zionist government was therefore forced to freeze this plan, install public telephones in several sections, and approve their installation in all prisons. The terrorist minister Ben Gvir's plan was an extension of the terrorist minister Gilad Erdan's plan, with some superficial recommendations, such as closing some bakeries in prisons that provide daily bread for prisoners, reducing the daily shower time for prisoners to four minutes, stopping surgeries for sick prisoners, and requiring prisoners to cover their expenses in case of necessity. Despite these recommendations, the living conditions of the prisoners are not ideal and are below the Geneva agreements, especially the Third Geneva Convention, which clearly states the rights of prisoners of war, as well as the Rome Annex in 1977.
The strike plan carried several messages: first, a contribution from the prisoner movement to revive the national struggle; second, a call to internationalize the cause of prisoners as prisoners of a legitimate struggle and a just national war; and third, to reaffirm the legitimacy of the general national struggle, with the prisoners being the most prominent symbols of the legitimacy of the Palestinian national liberation struggle.
Have the conditions inside the prison changed after the arrival of the extremist Netanyahu government?
In essence, the situation of the prisoners did not change with the arrival of the Netanyahu government, but the situation remains tense despite the cessation of the zionist attack. Thus, the fingers of the prisoner movement will remain on the trigger.
How do you follow the developments in the occupied lands? Are you allowed access to media, television, radio? Or is your only means of communication with the outside world your lawyers and family members?
The national prisoner movement has achieved the right for prisoners to have access to televisions, radios, newspapers, and books. The reality of the prisoner movement allows its members to follow political developments and transformations outside the walls. Today, they follow zionist news channels, as well as Russian RT, Palestine Station, and Arabic entertainment channels such as MBC Drama, MTV, and MBC. Most importantly, they have the right to bring in books through visits, with two books per month for each prisoner.
The Palestinian lands are undergoing major transformations in the resistance path, with the emergence of armed organizations not affiliated with factions, such as the Lions’ Den and Jenin Brigade. How do you interpret these transformations? And what addition will they bring to the Palestinian resistance path?
The conversation can be about the qualitative progress in Palestinian popular and armed resistance methods, but this progress has not yet reached the level of causing a qualitative breakthrough in the balance of power that governs the conflict with the occupation. This issue requires the convergence of national, pan-Arab, and international struggle dimensions. However, the occupied land conceals within it a volcano that may erupt at any moment. What we are witnessing today in confrontations is a prelude to this comprehensive explosion. The current Palestinian situation resembles the conditions that preceded the first intifada in 1987, as well as the prelude to the second intifada in 2000. The objective conditions are ripe, and all that is missing is the subjective condition or the achievement of national unity and its unified national tools to lead our people's struggle.
Anyone who has followed the stages of the Palestinian national struggle realizes that comprehensive national unity formed the main lever for qualitative advancement in the national struggle and the establishment of national achievements. The best example of this is the first intifada in 1987. All the signs and preludes of this intifada would not have caused this transformation without the restoration of the unity of the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization) with the Palestinian National Council session held in Algeria just a few months before the intifada's outbreak.
However, there is still a rift between Palestinian factions. In your opinion, why does this rift exist when the goal is the same? And what is the way to end this division?
First of all, it should be clarified that the current scope of the Palestinian national consensus is theoretically confined to the minimum program of the Palestinian national struggle, i.e., around the phased objective expressed in the right of return, the right to self-determination, and the establishment of the Palestinian state with Al-Quds as its capital. While the Fatah leadership and some participating organizations with the PLO leadership believe that this goal constitutes their highest ceiling, they formalized it by signing the Oslo Accords and promoting the two-state solution. The Popular Front sees that achieving this goal should be part of the comprehensive liberation process for historical Palestine, both land and people. Nevertheless, the current common denominators are sufficient to achieve national reconciliation and end the division on the path to national unity and rebuilding its leadership tools and institutions on a national and democratic basis. This is what all reconciliation documents and agreements have stipulated, the most recent of which is the agreement in Algeria.
The crux of the problem is the continued insistence of the dominant leadership within the organization on the Oslo Accords and its security, political, and economic commitments, as well as its monopoly on national decision-making and the holding back of the development and rebuilding process of the PLO on national and democratic foundations. This is from one side, and on the other side, the dominance of factional conflict over leadership and power between Fatah and Hamas.
Signing the Oslo Accords outside the national consensus practically established the transfer of our contradictions with the occupation to the internal Palestinian sphere, producing the current division and dismantling the unity of the Palestinian people - the unity of land, people, cause, and identity - after conceding 78% of the historical Palestine area and officially recognizing the zionist entity's sovereignty over this occupied part of Palestine in 1948 by the PLO leadership. This subjected the remainder of Palestine and the Palestinian thawabet to unequal negotiations with the zionist enemy, without any guarantees or timelines to ensure the end of the occupation and the implementation of the right of return, which also led to the dismantling of the elements of the national program as a fait accompli. Despite the dissipation of illusions built on this agreement and the actual death of the Oslo Accords, the PLO leadership is still clinging, forcedly or willingly, to the commitments of this agreement, especially the security ones.
Thus, to exit the current Palestinian crisis, it is necessary to end the division and achieve national unity, which requires the PLO leadership to abandon the Oslo framework and its commitments, and to discard illusions of reaching a settlement with the zionist entity. It also requires restoring unity to the Palestinian people and the components of their national program, and reclaiming the essence of the Arab-Palestinian national conflict as a struggle between the nationalist and liberationist project, and the zionist colonialist, settlement, and racist project.
At the present and direct level, it requires implementing all decisions of the successive National and Central Councils, as well as the outcomes of the meeting of the general secretaries of the national factions, which called for the necessity of paving the way to break ties with the Oslo accords and end all its political, security, and economic commitments. This includes withdrawing recognition of the zionist entity, ending security coordination, and implementing all national agreements to achieve reconciliation, end the division, and restore national unity within the framework of the PLO by rebuilding it on national and democratic foundations to strengthen its position. It also requires restoring its status as a political entity for the unity of our people in all its political and social spectra. All these demands are emphasized and clearly stated in the Algiers Agreement for Palestinian National Reconciliation. We have missed many opportunities, the latest being the democratic path to rebuild the internal Palestinian house and hold comprehensive elections for the National and Legislative Councils and the presidency based on the texts of the decree issued by President Mahmoud Abbas at the beginning of 2021. Today, we must seize this opportunity by committing to implementing the Algiers Agreement, which includes all these entitlements as a step forward on the path of liberation towards achieving our national and historical goals.
Algeria has made significant efforts to bring together Palestinian factions in Algeria, culminating in the signing of the reconciliation agreement. What is the importance of this step, and what is your message to the factions to implement the agreement on the ground?
The fundamental importance of the Algiers Agreement for national reconciliation lies in the Algerian sponsorship, in all that it represents in its political and moral standing to our Palestinian people and our Arab nation. The victory of the Algerian Revolution served as a model and a motivating factor for the launch of the contemporary Palestinian revolution, as well as for a number of Arab revolutions, such as the revolution of the Yemeni people in the occupied southern part of Yemen led by the National Front at that time, which managed to liberate it and end the British occupation. Its impact and influence extended to the entire African continent.
Therefore, Algeria's role in sponsoring this agreement is a historical extension of its support and backing for our national liberation struggle at all historical stages. We hope and call for the continuation and persistence of its role, as it enjoys respect and appreciation from all Palestinian national factions. We also hope that this role will be followed by its national contribution to resolving and dismantling the many crises faced by the peoples of our nation. At the same time, we value and appreciate its responsible national role, alongside its influential role in the African continent and the African Union.
Do you agree with the opinion that the zionist entity is starting to erode and is heading toward disintegration?
This diagnosis is accurate, as all settler-colonial experiences that failed to exterminate or eradicate the indigenous populations or dissipate their identity ultimately met this fate, as was the case in Zimbabwe and South Africa. International consensus against apartheid systems, and primarily the struggle of the people in these two countries, played a role in dismantling these systems.
The Palestinian reality is no exception, although it has its own unique circumstances compared to Zimbabwe and South Africa. The Western world, led by the United States, supports the zionist entity and considers any challenge to it a red line that cannot be crossed. Palestine's geopolitical location in the heart of the Arab world and the Middle East has created an intersection of interests regarding the defense and support of the zionist entity, regardless of its size and Europe's or America's vision. This makes the issue of the zionist entity's demise more difficult compared to other settler-colonial experiences and requires a combination of national, regional, and international efforts to isolate this entity and strip it of legitimacy, exacerbating the structural internal crisis of the zionist entity and eroding its deterrence capability. Additionally, Palestinian efforts to exploit the contradictions of the zionist entity, the identity struggle, and the class struggle within the context of expanding anti-zionist Jewish currents and strengthening relations with them, however weak their current influence may be.
These contradictions and their threat to the entity's future were mentioned by former zionist entity president "Rivlin" in his 2015 speech to the Knesset, where he noted that the entity's situation since its inception reflected a Jewish majority facing an Arab minority. Today, we see a society divided into four "tribes" in Hebrew: a Haredi "religious" tribe, a zionist Jewish tribe, a secular tribe, and an Arab tribe, reflecting the depth of the contradictions in zionist society. What we see today confirms Rivlin's concerns and points towards the inevitability of the zionist entity's disintegration and demise, in addition to the collapse of the zionist narrative based on biblical myths due to archaeological discoveries that have debunked the notion of the "chosen people of God" and the "historical right to Palestine." Many research studies based on archaeological facts and discoveries through excavations in Palestine to confirm the biblical narrative have yielded results that differ from the biblical texts and the dates and locations mentioned therein. This relatively large academic elite no longer speaks of biblical myths but rather the colonial nature of the zionist state. All of this, in addition to exposing the nature of the zionist entity and its imperialist function, and the growing international support for the Palestinian national struggle, will practically lead to the disintegration and disappearance of this racist imperialist entity that emerged outside the context of geography and history.
The occupied lands are witnessing a significant escalation, which has intensified with the arrival of the extremist government led by Netanyahu versus the rising level of anger among the Palestinian street. Where do you think this escalation will lead?
The current situation in the occupied lands is a precursor to the explosion of the third intifada, which is deeper, stronger, and more influential than the first and second intifadas. This requires the Palestinian side to end the division, achieve democratic national unity, and build its leading struggle tools based on a unified national strategy that relies on resistance and the abandonment of illusory settlements and compromises with the zionist entity that are impossible in reality. Thirty years of negotiations built on the Madrid-Oslo track have failed and established the current crisis faced by our people and our national cause.
What is your position on the normalization of relations between some Arab countries and the zionist entity? And do the reasons presented by these countries justify their actions?
Arab normalization with the zionist entity is a stab in the back of the Palestinian people and the heart of the Arab nation. The zionist entity not only poses a threat to the Palestinian people but also to the entire Arab nation, African peoples, and countries in the Middle East. Its establishment aimed to thwart any attempt at progressive Arab national revival and to use it as a striking imperial tool to protect the interests of global imperialism in the Arab region. The excuses provided by some Arab countries are uglier than the sin and mistake of normalization. At a time when the Palestinian people are being slaughtered by the zionist war machine and international support for Palestinian rights is growing, and the circles and attempts of international boycott of the zionist entity are expanding, as we see through the achievements of the BDS, the economic boycott campaign against "Israel" and the withdrawal of investments, at the same time, these countries rush to normalize with the zionist enemy to strengthen its power and beautify its ugly face. What benefits will some wealthy Arab Gulf states gain from normalization? What interest does Morocco, which chairs the Al-Quds Conference, have in this normalization? Is the Sahrawi people the central enemy of Morocco? This problem can be solved by implementing the United Nations resolution to hold a referendum to determine its fate. Therefore, the establishment of the Arab popular rejection of normalization with the zionist entity must be at the top of the agenda of all progressive Arab nationalist and national forces.
How have you followed the normalization of Saudi-Iranian relations, and how will this affect the Palestinian cause?
The Popular Front welcomed this initiative, expressing satisfaction with it and appreciating China's responsible and expanding political role. The Front also appreciates China's sympathy at the international level in various fields and its efforts to achieve security and stability in the Arab region and the world. It also aims to curb American imperialism, which creates an atmosphere of tension and war, threatens international peace, and pushes the world to the brink of global war. As a result, it is hoped that this initiative will reduce the severity of the American sword imposed on the Arab Gulf states and the Arab region in general, and contribute to finding Arab solutions to regional crises, particularly the war in Yemen, the ongoing isolation of Syria from its Arab environment, resolving the current Lebanese crisis, and removing the country from the circle of international imperialist siege and blackmail. It also aims to restore the role of independent Arab institutions and close the door to all forms of international intervention in Arab affairs and the internationalization of its crises, as is happening in Yemen and Libya. It is also hoped that this position will remain constant and not be subject to change in the American administration and the return of the Republican Party to power. Saudi-Iranian reconciliation can contribute to accelerating the completion of the international agreement on the Iranian nuclear issue and curbing the American-zionist attempts to employ the role of Gulf countries in besieging Iran and leaning towards the military option to solve this fabricated crisis around this issue, an option that would have negative repercussions and severe consequences for the security of the Arab Gulf states in particular and the Arab region in general.
In your opinion, how will the changes in the international system with the emergence of new powers such as China and Russia and the transition of the world from unipolarity to multipolarity affect the Palestinian cause?
The birth of a multipolar world would restore balance to the international community and its leading international institutions, opening up greater opportunities for poorer countries in the Global South to choose their path of independent economic development and liberate themselves from the domination of imperialist economic globalization institutions (World Bank, International Monetary Fund, US Treasury) and the conditions of Washington agreements for financial loans, which have effectively plundered these countries' resources and impoverished them by seizing the cash surpluses produced by branches of giant corporations operating in them and transferring them to Western markets, leaving these countries struggling to repay international loan interests, in addition to repaying the loans themselves.
It is true that the pole expected to be consolidated globally, led by China and Russia, will not be socialist or represent a return to the world to the stage before the collapse of the international socialist camp led by the Soviet Union. The ongoing conflict is not governed or directed by ideological motives but is a struggle for spheres of influence, power, wealth, energy sources, and economic interests in general. However, in reality, it will be less arbitrary in dealing with people than the unipolar system led by American imperialism and Western capitalism. It is also true that the new pole has not yet completed its birth, but the transitional phase that the world system is going through today will inevitably lead to its establishment and the consolidation of its role, as nature abhors a vacuum and the power and dominance of the international imperialist system have been eroding and declining for two decades. Most importantly, this multipolar world will accelerate the struggle of oppressed peoples and poor classes emotionally and in completing it to establish a new global international system based on a fair division of international wealth, parity between peoples, and the rejection of all forms of oppression and discrimination on the basis of ethnicity, nationality, color, or gender.
Finally, what is your message to the Palestinian people, Palestinian factions, and the Palestinian Authority?
My message to our Palestinian people is to have faith in the inevitability of the triumph of our just national struggle against the zionist colonialist settler racist project. We have come a long way on this path, and we must continue it by deepening and expanding our resistance in all forms and methods required by the current stage our national cause is going through. In addition, it is necessary to achieve popular unity and perform its democratic role in the Palestinian street to pressure the parties of division to end it and achieve national unity. The national dialogue is no longer enough, and the source of legitimacy for any Palestinian party or entity is the popular masses who pay the blood toll in the battle with the occupation.
As for the national forces and the national factions in general, with all their political colors, they must possess the political will to end the division and achieve national unity. The most important condition for unifying our people and leading their national struggle and putting it on the path to achieve their national and historical goals is for the current leadership of the Palestine Liberation Organization, which has the decision to implement all national reconciliation agreements, to stop holding back the rebuilding of the PLO on a national democratic basis, and to restore its status and recognition, as well as its role as a unifying political struggle leadership for the unity of our people and its political forces and the supreme reference for our people's struggle and its sole legitimate representative in all places where they are present. Time is of blood, and history will not be merciful to those who do not fulfill their duty and obligations towards our cause and our national liberation project.