PFLP: Return to negotiations is political suicide, endangers Palestinian cause

July 21, 2013

Fight Back News Service is circulating the following July 20 statement from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP)

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) said that any return to negotiations on the basis of the views and auspices of US Secretary of State John Kerry is committing “political suicide,” providing a cover for the government of occupation, ultra-extremism and settlements, in committing the most heinous crimes against the Palestinian people and their land.

The Front urged the Palestinian leadership to join all international organizations, including the International Criminal Court, without subjecting Palestinian rights, guaranteed by international law, to any bargains and futile bets on the US that have proved to be failures time and again.

The Front warned that the time to put the Palestinian house in order has come, saying that the Palestinian national movement is the basis for cohesion, unity, and solidarity against the occupation and forces hostile to our people and our nation, and the source of strength to protect our people, their rights and national steadfastness, and build global solidarity with the support of the free people of the world.

Comrade Jamil Mizher, member of the Central Committee of the PFLP, said in an interview that the resumption of direct negotiations “causes severe harm to the Palestinian cause. The PFLP completely rejects the resumption of the absurd negotiations, which do not achieve the minimum national demands of the Palestinian People,” said Mizher, adding that “20 years of absurd negotiations achieved a big zero, and only helped the Occupation to execute its plans of expansion.”

Mizher said that the agreement of Palestinian leadership to resume negotiations under Zionist conditions and American auspices is a great sin and a deep threat to the Palestinian national project, while encouraging occupation terrorism, land grabs and confiscation, and crimes against the Palestinian people.

Mizher said that the Palestinian people are struggling for their full rights, including self-determination, the right of return and independence and are not fighting for “economic improvements here or there, financial bribery offered by the US administration, or the establishment of an airport.”

He said that the president should give priority and importance to restoring national unity and building a national strategy based on adherence to fundamental Palestinian principles, instead of going to these negotiations, “he should be demanding that the International Criminal Court prosecute the occupation for their crimes against the Palestinian people, our brave prisoners, Palestinian land and holy sites.”

Mizher said that any bet on the US administration is a losing bet and that Kerry provided nothing from the Zionist occupation but only comes to pressure Palestinian leadership to make concessions undermining the rights of the Palestinian people, promoting discussions of “territory exchange,” the return of only a handful of refugees, and Palestinian refugees’ mass resettlement in other countries.

Comrade Dr. Rabah Muhanna, member of the Political Bureau of the PFLP, said that the Palestine Liberation Organization Central Council should hold Abu Mazen and the Executive Committee of the PLO accountable for this dangerous decision to return to negotiations. Muhanna said that the masses of the Palestinian people in the West Bank, Gaza, occupied Palestine ’48, and exile and diaspora are overwhelmingly against these harmful and destructive negotiations and must exercise real pressure on the Palestinian leadership equivalent to that exercised by the US and some Arab regimes.

Muhanna said that a return to negotiations means abandoning Palestinian national rights, and that these negotiations always begin from lower and lower points and only undermine Palestinian interests.