Statement of the PFLP on the 49th anniversary of its founding

Statement of the PFLP on the 49th anniversary of its founding
Dec 11 2016

Today, we mark the 49th anniversary of the founding of the Popular Front for the Liberation, founded on December 11, 1967 out of the impact of the defeat of June 5. The founding of the Front was an injection of a new hope out of the rubble of defeat, on an intellectual, political, and struggling level, to carry forward and raise the banner of the revolution, struggle, and national liberation movement against the Zionist project. On this path, tens of thousands of martyrs, prisoners, wounded, and strugglers, among the martyrs, the prisoners, and the wounded and strugglers of the Palestinian people, the Arab nation, and the international movements, have come forward. We salute them today with the highest regard and pride in them and their legendary sacrifices and heroism that have formed a historic and distinguished legacy and history of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and the Palestinian national movement overall.

In light of the ongoing international, regional and Arab situation and the negative repercussions, and amid ongoing weakness and division in the Palestinian internal situation, the Palestinian cause is at risk of liquidation, perhaps more now than ever before. Therefore, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine emphasizes and calls for the following:

First, the need for a serious, comprehensive national dialogue to review the entire Palestinian experience and develop a unified strategy for our national liberation movement. This includes the rebuilding of representative institutions and popular unions, especially the Palestine Liberation Organization, and the creation of the environment and infrastructure of internal democracy that is necessary to build and promote the values of collective national struggle. It is critical to support the steadfastness of the people with viable material support and concrete action, to affirm their roots in their land and attachment to national identity, and unity inside and outside Palestine, in the homeland and in exile and diaspora.

Second, the critical urgency to completely abandon the Oslo agreement and its unfair obligations and catastrophic consequences for Palestinian rights, struggles, national goals, and the overall liberation project. This requires an end to reliance on the path of negotiations and rejection of the pressure to return to that path. Instead, we must affirm the need for full implementation of the rights of the Palestinian people recognized by the United Nations. We reject any political initiatives aimed at imposing an alternative international reference to detract from the rights of the Palestinian people.
Third, the need to end Palestinian internal division and restore national unity without delay or procrastination, and without continuing to rely on international or regional powers whose interests are not in favor of our cause, our people, or our rights.

Fourth, the need to hold a unified Palestinian National Council under preparation by the preliminary leadership commission agreed upon in Cairo, and to reject any monopolistic call to convene the PNC in Ramallah. That path is only the further development of the intellectual, organizational and political methodology that has caused so much damage to the Palestinian movement and led it to the current dangerous impasse.

Fifth, the need to use all forms and methods of struggle in the context of the existential battle with the Zionist enemy. No form of struggle is a replacement for another.

Sixth, the necessity to support all acts of struggle and the mass movements which have become known as the Jerusalem intifada, and for all forces to provide an organizational and political incubator for the development of the popular struggle.

Seventh, the development of a comprehensive national plan to support the prisoners and their struggles in official and popular efforts in order to seek their freedom and raise their struggle for liberation at an international level. The PFLP raises its highest salutes and appreciation to all of the heroic prisoners who fought the battle of empty stomachs, including our comrade, the leader Bilal Kayed, and the two imprisoned brothers currently on hunger strike, Anas Shadid and Ahmad Abu Fara.

Eighth, we call on the forces of Arab liberation to recapture the vision of their project and role, based on the seriousness of the current situation in the Arab region, to be free of internal conflicts, proxy wars, and sectarian divisions. This comes amid the accelerating normalization with the enemy by some Arab regimes as other Arab states disintegrate. The Palestinian struggle is at the heart of the Arab cause.

Ninth, we stand with our Arab peoples in Syria, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Egypt, and throughout the Arab world, to confront sectarianism and sectarian divisions and reactionary violence under the guise of religion, and we stand with the resistance to such forces.

Tenth, we urge the expansion of the international struggle alongside all forces for peace, justice, and liberation in the world, and all who stand with the struggle of the Arab and Palestinian peoples for freedom and liberation. In particular, we salute all of those involved in the campaigns for the boycott of the Zionist entity.

As it enters its fiftieth year, the PFLP will continue to struggle based on a clear vision and the premises upon which it was founded, on the Palestinian, Arab and international levels. We are marching toward victory on the path of revolution, in our national liberation struggle for justice and freedom.

Glory to the martyrs of the Palestinian people and the Front, and salutes to the founder George Habash and the leader Abu Ali Mustafa!

Freedom for the brave prisoners, for our imprisoned General Secretary Ahmad Sa’adat and all of the leaders of the prisoners’ movement!

Victory for the Palestinian People!

Political Bureau, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
 December 11, 2016