On October 17th, seven years ago, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine assassinated Rehavam Zeevi, the Israeli minister of tourism. The assassination was carried out in response to Israel’s killing of Palestinian leaders, among them Abu Ali Mostafa, the head of the PFLP. Zeevi was the head of the Moledet Party that was advocating the expulsion of all Palestinians from occupied Palestine to Arab nations. This could happen, Zeevi argued, by offering Palestinians money or making their lives unbearable. Zeevi was also known for his racist remarks calling Palestinians who were working “illegally” in occupied Palestine lice and cancers. Although being a secular Jew, Zeevi did not see any contradiction in calling settlers on Palestinian land “pioneers” in the reclamation of the “Land of Israel”. He advocated for the occupation of Jordan for the same reason.

In 2006, Israel defied the authority of the Palestinian government and invaded a jail that was under Palestinian jurisdiction where members of the PFLP who carried the military attack against Zeevi were held. After being sentenced by an Israeli court for two life sentences, Qur'an, the fighter who carried out the attack, said "I am being tried because I carried out my basic right to defend my nation against the Israeli occupation - the same right that you grant yourselves daily, to kill us, the Palestinians……I blame you for activities against all of humanity."

On the anniversary of the military attack against a representative of the Israeli government, the PFLP published an interview with Khalil Maqdes, a leader in PFLP. In the interview Maqdes called on Palestinians to end their divisions and unite. In regard to the assassination of Zeevi, Maqdes said that “the Front responded by killing the one who represented the naked and ugly face of Zionist racism - the school and the trend of the occupier.” Read More

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