To the Palestinian people:
The end of the first year of Al-Aqsa Intifada is fast approaching. This year has been filled with tremendous sacrifice that you have borne so selflessly -- over 700 people have been killed and over 16,500 injured. You have chosen the path of resistance and steadfastness because it is you who are longing for freedom and independence.
Our people have already taught an important lesson to the Zionist enemy. The Palestinian people will persevere in their active resistance and continue to inflict severe losses on the Zionists. We have declared loudly and clearly: the rockets and the tanks will not lead us to surrender. The struggle for freedom and independence has begun and there is no turning back until victory is won.
Despite the international circumstances that followed the tragic incidents in New York and Washington, and despite the US attempt to exploit the tremendous loss of civilians and property, the US is trying to mobilize the international community to increase its hegemony and its aggressive role against the peoples of the world, especially those who are fighting for freedom, democracy, and national liberation. The same atmosphere has been exploited by the Zionist government in order to ensure that it continue its denial of the national rights of the Palestinian people and continue its brutal occupation of Palestinian land. The Zionists have done their best to deceive the world into believing that the legitimate Palestinian resistance movement is a terrorist movement. Israel has increased its military actions against the Palestinian people. It invaded the city of Jenin and followed with the systematic invasion of many other Palestinian cities and towns. It is clear that Israel has used this opportunity, as the world¹s attention is diverted toward New York and Washington, to commit more and more atrocities against the Palestinian people. Our steadfastness and readiness to defend our homeland, however, will never waver, even as we know that the Zionist occupation will continue in its futile efforts to humiliate us and force us to surrender. Considering this reality, and recognizing the planned response of the international community and its implications for the Arab World in general, and the Palestinian cause, in particular, the PFLP declares the following: 1. The events in New York and Washington, DC, are a product of the universal inconsistencies that were summarized by the Durban Conference against Racism and Discrimination in particular, the policy of discrimination that increased during the era of globalization and to the hostile policy of the USA toward the peoples and their rights. The international response should be based on drafting policies that would bring peoples closer together and lead to the abolition of all forms of hegemony and slavery and racial discrimination. This international response should lead back to using the international conventions as tools to approve and realize these new policies outside a uni-polar system that determines the fate of the people. 2. At the time when the world is asking for counter-terrorism, we call on all countries, especially those with permanent status in the Security Council, to take immediate measures to implement an international protection plan for our people who are being subjected to a vicious cycle of killing, destruction of homes and infrastructure, uprooting of trees, and bulldozing of lands. This is part of a systematic policy of state terrorism that Sharon and his government are implementing. 3. We call on the Arab Nation not to participate in international alliances under the American slogan of ³counter-terrorism² which do not differentiate between terrorism and the legitimate right of the people for self-determination. This is of critical importance so that such policies are not used to subdue popular movements for freedom and independence and ultimately lead to a complete imperialist hegemony over the fate of entire nations. 4. We call on the Palestinian people to unite behind the continuous resistance movement and the Intifada until we gain our legitimate rights. We are aware that the present circumstances are not on our side and will consequently delay our struggle, but it will not stop us as long as we strengthen our will and our readiness and our determination to gain our national rights. 5. We call on the Palestinian Liberation Organization and the National Authority to hasten their response to the call of the Palestinian national forces. This is a call to ensure a wide-based democracy where the masses can participate more actively in political decision-making. We warn the PLO and the PA not to go back to partial and interim negotiations but to demand an end to the occupation in all its forms. We call on the Palestinian Authority and the PLO to reorganize the internal Palestinian agenda and redraw the administrative, financial, and political priorities in accordance with the option of the Intifada and the resistance movement. We call on the PLO and the Authority to aid in strengthening popular steadfastness, to enhance the role of the emergency committees, and to make available all resources to thwart the Zionist program of brutality.
The Palestinian resistance movement and the Intifada should continue until the occupation is brought to an end and the rights of our people freedom, independence and the return of refugees are realized.
------------------------------------------- Macdonald Stainsby Rad-Green List: Radical anti-capitalist environmental discussion. http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/rad-green ---- Leninist-International: Building bridges in the tradition of V.I. Lenin. http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international ---- In the contradiction lies the hope.
--Bertholt Brecht