May 14, 2024

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) Deputy Secretary-General Jamil Mezher delivered the following speech May 10 at the opening session of the Palestine session of the Maghreb-Mashreq Social Forum in Tunis, Tunisia. The event was organized by Tunisian organizations, featuring leaders from Hamas, PFLP and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. (Bold in original)

The Palestinian resistance in Gaza, with its various military wings, is engaging in the greatest epic of this modern era. Despite its modest means, its joint operations in the field and surprise tactics have managed to defeat the strongest military force in the region, heavily armed with all types of American-made weapons, and permanently undermine its deterrence and military superiority.

The zionist entity has failed in marketing its colonial project and its claim as the only democratic state in the East, revealing its racist identity and ugly face to the entire world during the eight months of the Al-Aqsa Flood battle. We witnessed the victory of the Palestinian rights, the historical narrative and the legitimacy of our resistance.

The events of the battle of Al-Aqsa Flood expanded the circle of supporters for the Palestinian cause globally. Who would have expected the world to rise up, even from within the regions most controlled by the zionist lobby, especially in Western countries and particularly in America?

The university intifada in America has struck a nerve with the zionist lobby there. Now, the world is aligning with our people’s cause in ongoing advocacy campaigns and isolating the aggression of the occupation.

The achievements of the international popular boycott movement on economic, cultural, academic and political levels have been notable with the university uprisings being a significant highlight.

The expanding isolation of the enemy, even among Jewish organizations in the United States, which have started to denounce the occupation’s crimes and disavow their relationship with the zionist entity, is notable. For the first time, the occupation’s crimes are being prosecuted in the International Court of Justice, with occupation leaders facing arrest and trial as war criminals.

The Al-Aqsa Flood battle revealed the retreat of the American project in the region and its inability to justify its presence or protect the zionist entity.

The battle of Al-Aqsa Flood witnessed the emergence of significant regional powers such as Iran, playing a pivotal and main role as the spearhead of the Axis of Resistance, and Yemen’s emergence as a new Arab military and political power worthy of pride, along with the successful resistance in Lebanon which inflicted heavy military blows on the enemy in the north.

These transformations in public opinion that have taken place and are taking place are a result of our people’s resilient resistance and the support of the free people of the world for our just national cause. The resistance, especially in the Al-Aqsa Flood battle, has been a primary lever for these changes, broadening the extent of official and public international support for our national struggle and rights.

The zionist project is a colonial, religiously and ideologically racist, expansionist, settler-colonial project based on uprooting and massacres, dominated by a group of myths and imagined superstitions based on biblical ideas that were the pivot of the zionist project and a justification for committing massacres and controlling all of Palestine.

Today’s devastating zionist war on the Palestinian people is a true embodiment of the zionist strategy based on displacing the original inhabitants and emptying the land of its people through massacres, destruction and forced displacement. On this basis, the occupation has practiced policies of geographic, political and economic separation and deprivation of infrastructure and imposed a scorched earth policy.

The true face of the zionist entity’s racism and its false democratic facade have been exposed, as well as the ugly face of the criminal imperialism that partners in aggression, supporting the zionist entity with all types of weapons and even political protection. This U.S. administration has used its veto power four times to block any cessation of the aggression.

There is a need to Arabize the Palestinian issue through the revival of the Arab nationalist project according to a progressive revolutionary Arab national program in a modern revolutionary form, shedding old ideas, freeing it from the calcification in its organizational and administrative structures. This would restore the role of the progressive Arab national liberation movement, based on a progressive revolutionary Arab national program of resistance and building its strong organizational tool, through which young blood is injected into its body.

All participants in this forum must contribute to the efforts to internationalize the Palestinian cause with new and effective ideas based on the achievements made on the ground during the Al-Aqsa Flood battle and the exposure of the zionist project.

There is a need to build a strong will to confront normalization and the Abraham Accords, through a robust Arab plan aimed at overthrowing this dangerous, treacherous project that seeks to integrate this entity into the Arab region, to continue the schemes of fragmenting the Arab nation and any attempts at resurgence.

There is a need to restore the national dimension to the Palestinian struggle and provide a strong Arab popular support for our people’s resistance. This is a shared responsibility that rests primarily on the national and Arab popular forces, to not  succumb to the pressures exerted by the reactionary forces influential in the decision-making institutions of the Arab world.

The Arab masses must continue to pressure through mass public demonstrations in capitals, cities and squares of the world in support of the Palestinian cause, supporting our resistance and condemning the ongoing aggression.

The university intifada in America and their expansion to universities in Western countries should be a model to be emulated in order to triumph for Palestine and its people.

The Arab masses must not leave the squares, and the Arab universities and all cells of Arab society should rise up for Palestine.

There is also a need to lead dialogue and build relations with Iran as an integral part of the geography and history of this region and to counter any attempts to make Iran a central enemy in order to build an Arab-zionist alliance under an American umbrella to confront it. The Al-Aqsa Flood battle has revealed who is the central enemy of the Arab nation and who is the friend.

We call for Arab progressive and popular forces to contribute to breaking the siege imposed on the Gaza Strip during and after the aggression on Gaza. This includes pressing for the opening of the Rafah crossing, rejecting its custodianship, increasing the capacity for departures and allowing the entry of relief supplies, eventually leading to a practical plan to allow the entry of Arab volunteer delegations in various specialties such as health, engineering, services and civil defense teams to help alleviate our people’s suffering, assist in retrieving bodies of martyrs and clear the rubble, among other actions, especially after the end of the aggression.

We are completely confident in the inevitable, imminent and decisive victory … and that we are in the final square of liberation. This is a firm reality that is now evident before us.