The Press Office of the PFLP
January 16, 2009

Comrade General Secretary Ahmad Sa’adat of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine issued a statement from behind the bars of the occupier’s prison on January 14, 2009, calling for full unity of all national and Islamic forces as the immediate task of our people in resistance to the occupier, noting that it has continued to fail to achieve its political objectives.

Comrade Sa’adat stated that the war crimes of the occupier against our steadfast Palestinian people have only continued, yet have also continued to run up against and be confronted by the steadfastness of our people, the valiant resistance, and Arab and international solidarity with our people’s struggle. He called for:

I. Concerted and unified efforts of all of our political and social forces and unity in resistance against the occupation. He demanded that the Palestinian security forces in the West Bank release all of their political detainees and end the practice of imprisoning those who resist the occupation, calling upon all to upgrade the response and the resistance to stop this cowardly aggression, defeat the occupation and achieve our national goals.

II. To accelerate the formation of a unified national leadership of all national and Islamic political factions at this critical phase of the struggle of our people, establishing unity and a comprehensive dialogue after the end of aggression to set our Palestinian house in order to continue to confront the occupier and his crimes.

III. For the Arab official position to rise at least to that of the position of Venezuela and people’s leader Hugo Chavez, demanding that Arab regimes stop using Palestinian internal division to justify the failure of the regimes to perform their duty to support the Palestinian resistance and our steadfast people, and to break the Arab and international silence and complicity with the occupation’s war crimes.

IV. Any international or Arab initiative to address the brutal aggression against our people must be based on prosecuting the occupier for war crimes, the withdrawal of occupation forces, the immediate lifting of the siege and the full and complete opening of all border crossings, especially the Rafah crossing. Any smaller issues can be discussed later in the context of achieving the national interest of our people and ending the political goals of the aggression.

V. Any talk of long-term truce must be discussed only in the context of protecting our people and achieving the national rights of our people— return, self-determination and independence and sovereignty with Jerusalem as our capital.


Comrade Taher: The road of “negotiations” is closed, the road that is open is unity based on resistance and rights

Comrade Maher Taher, member of the Political Bureau of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and leader of its branch in exile, stated in an interview with Al-Jazeera on January 15, 2009, that “Israel can assassinate the martyrs of Gaza, kill women and children and destroy our buildings stone by stone with American airplanes and bombs, but it cannot and will not be able to destroy our will to fight, our resistance and our life.”

Comrade Taher continued, “I say to the martyrs that what the occupier wanted from this battle is to march us down the road to surrender for our people—to accept the Road Map, Annapolis and the decisions of the Quartet, to force the Palestinian people in this way into political concessions. Our response is Palestinian national unity on a real and solid basis, not on the basis of Oslo, Annapolis, and America and the Bush administration as a reference. This road is closed. The road that is open is of national unity on the basis of resistance, steadfastness and adherence to the full rights of our people.”

He called on behalf of the PFLP for a unified national command comprising all Palestinian factions, to be built on the strength of Hamas, Fateh, the PFLP, Islamic Jihad and all of the factions of our people, saying that those who relied on political settlements with Zionist murderers and criminals must reexamine their policies. He said that the Palestinian people will no longer accept this following these massacres and crimes.

Comrade Taher warned that security cooperation with the occupier must be ended immediately and that political arrests and detentions must also end immediately. He called for an immediate end to the arrests of the sons of the resistance in the West Bank, saying that such security cooperation with the enemy is completely unacceptable.

Instead, he said, unified national leadership and a clear political program can consolidate the energy of our people who have not and will not raise the flags of surrender even after 20 days of massacre in Gaza.

Comrade Taher said further that the assassination of Said Siyam will not achieve the criminal occupier’s objective, saying that his blood is alongside the blood of Yasser Arafat, Abu Ali Mustafa, Ahmad Yassin, Ghassan Kanafani, Fathi Shikaki, Khalil al-Wazir and many other martyrs of our people and all of our brave martyrs - children, men, women, and elders, who have made the ultimate sacrifice for the freedom of our people. He reiterated that our response to massacres and assassination is resistance and steadfastness, and that the blood of the martyrs will not be spilled for nothing.

He warned that this is an effort to force people into political concessions in light of the balance of power, and to give up our national rights to independence, to return, to sovereignty, to self-determination, to a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, and that the opposite will happen - the unity of all factions on the basis of firm political convictions and upholding the rights of our people.

Discussing the nature of the Palestinian Authority, Comrade Taher pointed out that the members of the Legislative Council and the government cannot leave Palestine without the agreement of Israel and that the PA practice of “negotiations” has only damaged the Palestinian cause. He called instead for unity based on the prisoners’ document of national reconciliation that upholds the right of resistance, the Palestinian national principles and rebuilding the PLO with the participation of all national and Islamic forces.

Comrade Taher further said, speaking about the Egyptian initiative, “We want to stop the aggression and these massacres must end, and after the withdrawal from Gaza and the opening of the crossings and the lifting of the siege we can discuss any issues, but we will not and cannot give up our right to resistance.” The occupier believes, he notes, that through this terror and killing it can kill our resistance, but our people will not give up, noting that our people have been fighting for over 60 years and continue to hold fast to our resistance and will continue to do so until victory.

PFLP: So-called international forces in Gaza would only serve as a weapon against the Palestinian people and our resistance
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine rejected the presence of so-called international forces in the Gaza Strip on January 12, 2009, noting that the real objective of such a force under the hegemony of the United States is to protect the occupier and repress the resistance of the Palestinian people.

The statement continued to state that the issue of Palestine is not a security issue, that what is happening in Gaza is not a security issue, but is instead a cause of national liberation and a people struggling to regain its land and its national rights and the expulsion of the occupier by all means of resistance, including, foremost, armed resistance and armed struggle, that is our fundamental and legitimate national right. The statement continued to note that the occupier is determined to crush our resistance by brutality and by political mechanisms and that our people will not allow that under any guise or circumstances.

Furthermore, the PFLP said, it called upon those who are still relying on the destructive “solutions” of the United States of America that have proved their failure to radically alter their policies. The PFLP criticized the press remarks of Mahmoud Abbas about the resistance, stressing that the resistance is the way in which our people under occupation exercise our rights, our freedom and our dignity, maintaining the principles of all legitimacy in the world. It added that the resistance of the occupied people did not lead to the attacks of the occupier but instead is the main option to liberate our land and expel the invaders. This is the choice of the entire Palestinian people and all of its forces and factions.

Furthermore, the PFLP once more condemned the so-called negotiations, noting that they did nothing to stop the aggression, killing and terror of the occupation against our people, and that the so-called “peace process” especially after the Oslo accords, only served to divide and fragment the Palestinian cause and paralyze the Palestine Liberation Organization.

PFLP salutes the people of Bolivia for expelling the ambassador of occupation

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine saluted the position of Bolivia in cutting its diplomatic relations with the occupation state of Israel on January 14, 2009. The PFLP issued a statement calling upon Arab countries to follow the lead of the people of Venezuela and Bolivia in ejecting the presence of the occupation on their land.

Noting that the people of the Arab world have risen in fury and rejection of the occupier and its crimes, the PFLP called upon the regimes to implement the decision of the people to eject the occupier and its emissaries from Arab land.
Paying tribute to the people and the government of Bolivia, the PFLP saluted the courage, solidarity and strength of Bolivia, noting that in the face of U.S. imperialism and the crimes of the Zionist occupier, Bolivia is expressing a vital, critical and much-needed solidarity with the people of Palestine.

The PFLP also saluted Bolivian President Evo Morales, who has continuously struggled for justice and against oppression and for the rights of native people facing colonialism, from Bolivia to Palestine. President Evo Morales announced Wednesday he was breaking relations with Israel over its invasion of the Gaza Strip and said he will ask the International Criminal Court to bring genocide charges against top Israeli officials.

Morales told the country’s diplomatic corps that the Israeli attack “seriously threatened world peace” and he called for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his Cabinet to face criminal charges.

Morales chided the United Nations’ “Insecurity Council” for its “lukewarm” response to the crisis and said the U.N. General Assembly should condemn the invasion. He also said Israeli President Shimon Peres should be stripped of his Nobel Peace Prize for failing to stop the invasion.

The PFLP paid tribute to the people of Latin America and their struggle for justice and liberation, noting that the Latin American nations of Venezuela and Bolivia - and Ecuador, where Parliament recently officially condemned Israel, and Cuba, which has repeatedly expressed its solidarity with our people - are leading the way in the international isolation of Israel for its crimes, massacres and genocide. The PFLP saluted the ongoing revolutionary and progressive process in Latin America that is casting off US imperialism and IMF dictates, and is presenting an alternative for the world that stands hand in hand with the Palestinian people and our resistance.

The PFLP statement concluded with saluting our sisters and brothers in Bolivia and calling upon all international progressive forces to repeat the actions by the Bolivian people and expel, boycott, sanction and isolate Israel diplomatically, militarily, economically, culturally and politically.

PFLP forces salute the martyred leader Said Siyam: Assassination will only strengthen our path of resistance

On January 15, 2009, the occupation army, as part of its ongoing crimes against our people, assassinated the leader Said Siyam, the Gaza Interior minister. “The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine salutes the martyred leader Siyam, who joins the constellation of martyrs and leaders of our people assassinated by the occupier and the enemy,” said Comrade Maher Taher, member of the PFLP and leader of its branch in exile. In fact, Taher said, this assassination will only fuel the flames of our resistance.

His brother, sister-in-law, niece, and six other Palestinians were murdered in the attack as well in a day of bloody assaults by the occupation forces against our people, who continue to respond with steadfastness, determination and resistance. The Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades, the armed wing of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, reported that they are actively engaged in battle with the occupation forces near Tal el-Hawa neighborhood on January 15, 2009, where AAMB along with the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades detonated a car bomb near Israeli invading tanks and special forces, causing casualties among the occupying forces. AAMB is actively participating in resistance in the area, where the occupier has bombarded and surrounded Al-Quds Hospital, directly targeting wounded civilians, their families, and health care workers. AAMB fighters are in the battles defending our people against this onslaught and will not allow these crimes to pass!

AAMB also destroyed a tank with explosive devices, completely destroying the tank and wounding its occupants as well, on January 15, and afterward escaped Israeli airstrikes intending to target the resistance.

In addition, AAMB reported on January 15 that it is continuing to target tanks and military vehicles with small missiles and explosive devices, seriously damaging many of the military vehicles as well as causing casualties among invading soldiers. Also on January 15, AAMB reported targeting Sderot, Asqelan and Bir Saba with Grad and Sumoud rockets.

AAMB also fired two Grad rockets at the settlement of Sderot and occupied Bir Saba on Wednesday, Januay 14, as well as shelling a convoy of Israeli tanks east of al-Zaytoun with mortars, and firing two Sumoud rockets at Nahal Oz. AAMB snipers have also targeted occupation soldier east of Rafah, who was injured. In addition, on January 14, AAMB reported that it bombed a trench with 5 explosive devices, hitting a number of tanks and special forces vehicles east of Jabalya and causing serious damage to a number of occupation military vehicles.

Abu Wadih, AAMB spokesperson, in an interview with Al-Jazeera, affirmed AAMB’s involvement with the ongoing coordinated Palestinian resistance, stating that the Palestinian factions are engaged in fierce and heroic battles, and that the occupation plans will fail in the face of the coordination of all Palestinian fighting forces. Abu Wadih lauded the strength and steadfastness of the Palestinian resistance, facing all forms of US weapons and a war machine - F-16s, Apache helicopters, advanced tanks, battleships and the use of banned weapons like white phosphorus - continuing to resist and defend the Palestinian people against this massive onslaught, and continuing to secure victories despite the severe disparities.

Al-Masakin News Agency
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