PFLP leader Leila Khaled blasts Palestinian Authority

May 5, 2010

Fight Back News Service is circulating the following statement from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

(Also available from Fight Back New Service – an interview with Leila Khaled on the Israeli attack on Gaza, conducted in Beirut, Lebanon Jan. 1, 2009 by Fight Back! editor Mick Kelly. http://www.fightbacknews.org/2009/02/leila-khaled-speaks.htm )

Comrade Leila Khaled calls for dismantling the Authority that undermines the Palestinian national cause

Comrade Leila Khaled, member of the Political Bureau of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine called for dismantling the Palestinian Authority if that body is the cause of Palestinian division, speaking in Damascus on April 27, 2010.

Comrade Khaled said that the internal division among Palestinians “is threatening the Palestinian national project.” She said Palestinians “have not struggled throughout their history for an Authority, but for a homeland for a displaced people and people under occupation.”

Comrade Khaled questioned the usefulness of an Authority that turned the Palestinian people into a people begging at the gates of the donor countries and the International Monetary Fund, emphasizing that the Authority does not represent our people because it are the product of Oslo and those who promote the division, which only benefits the occupation.

Comrade Khaled spoke at an event held in solidarity with Palestinian political prisoners, commemorating Prisoners' Day, in Jermana refugee camp, and attended by leaders of the PFLP and other Palestinian factions.

“In the light of the division, no one has the right to appoint himself as an authority of the homeland and the people,” Khaled explained, saying “the Authority does not represent our people, because it is the product of the Oslo Accords, and anyone behind the division is behind the occupation, which only propagates our geographic separation.

“What is obstructing the restoration of unity is sitting in Ramallah and Gaza,” she said. Comrade Khaled called upon the masses of our people in the camps to express their positions against the division to the Palestinian leadership and protest that any continuation of division only emphasizes that they do not represent our people.

She stressed the utter failure of the Authority and its repeated chasing after “negotiations” with the racist Zionist Netanyahu regime, despite his refusal to stop settlement activity and his insistence upon affirming that Jerusalem is the eternal capital of the State of “Israel,” noting that Israel does not want negotiations without these conditions, which should end any reliance on the so-called “peace process.”

She condemned the leadership's abandonment, persecution and repression of all forms of struggle and resistance and affirmed that all forms of struggle, including the leading role of the armed struggle, are necessary to achieve our return and the restoration of Palestinian rights. She demanded that the Palestinian leadership rise to the level of our people's sacrifices and correct its path in order to confront the enemy and all of its schemes of walls, settlements and oppression.

Comrade Khaled expressed her pleasure to meet with the people of Jaramana camp, and paid tribute to the prisoners, headed by imprisoned PFLP General Secretary Comrade Ahmad Sa'adat and all of the heroes of the prisoners' movement. She emphasized the determination to liberate them, emphasizing their daily role in confronting the occupation and their own sacrifices and the sacrifices of their families. She stressed the achievements of the prisoners' movement and its consistent role in unifying Palestinian ranks and rejecting occupation plans to split and divide the prisoners.

In conclusion, Comrade Leila Khaled greeted the women of the camp, the mothers of martyrs and prisoners, the Palestinian mother who is raising her children in an environment of patriotism and sacrifice, pledging to continue the resistance as long as children hold stones in their hands and men and women hold guns in their hands and dream of return and independence.