Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine

[Anarchocommunaltoad]

I'm new here but i assume you guys are anti- Zionist. I know it's unreasonable to assume they're going anywhere, but why don't more leftists support or even know about this kind of group instead of verbally aligning with Hamas and Fatah?

[Mr. Natural]

Anarchocommunaltoad, You're brand new and cannot start a thread yet, but do so on the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine when you become able if the Popular Front is a continuing interest of yours.

Yes, RevLefters tend to be strongly anti-Zionist. We tend to be appalled at the holocaust perpetrated on the Jews (and others), and appalled by the holocaust the Zionists are perpetrating on the Palestinians.

The human species needs to get out of the capitalist/imperialist/racist/holocaust business. My red-green best.

[Sasha]

and appalled by the holocaust the Zionists are perpetrating on the Palestinians.

i guess i could wonder whether you either have no idea what the holocaust was or that you have no idea of the actual situation in Palestine is but I think i wonder whether you are an idiot or an asshole instead.

no wonder the self-proclaimed anti-zionist "movement" has such a bad rep.

[Mr. Natural]

Psycho, What an appallingly inaccurrate view you must have of what is going on in Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza. I challenge you to defend your apparent position that the Israelis are not with deliberation and malice slowly but surely perpetrating a holocaust/genocide of the Palestinian people.

I was ready to go to war against the destruction of the Jews, and I'm ready to go to war against the Israeli destruction of the Palestinians. I always oppose the destruction of a people.

[Sasha]

Psycho, What an appallingly inaccurrate view you must have of what is going on in Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza. I challenge you to defend your apparent position that the Israelis are not with deliberation and malice slowly but surely perpetrating a holocaust/genocide of the Palestinian people.

I was ready to go to war against the destruction of the Jews, and I'm ready to go to war against the Israeli destruction of the Palestinians. I always oppose the destruction of a people.


really, shut the fuck up, the occupation of palestine and the defacto apartheid in israel is abhorrent and undefendable but its not a fucking genocide. the total civilian death toll on all sides since 1948 (!) is by most accounts still well under the 20.000, on a current est population of 11 million palestinian-arabs thats not a fucking genocide.
its a occupation, its apartheid, its displacement, its colonialism but its not a fucking genocide and its not a new holocaust. My family went though the holocaust and your statements are both insulting to them and all others that went through a real genocide and it doesn't help the Palestinian plight one fucking bit either.
but please go to war against your windmills, anything as long as you dont open your bloody mouth anymore and embarrass us any further.

[Rafiq]

I always found it so bizarre, it makes we wonder if, (especially among the german youth) this overwhelming "Anti-Zionism" is really an unconscious expression of anti semitism (We can recall the RZ hijacking of that one plane, in which they separated the Jews from the rest of the passengers). I don't see much leftists talking about, for example, the ongoing oppression of the Kurds in Turkey which is quite comparable, or situations which are a thousand times worse for certain peoples in other third world nations. Yes there should be no hierarchy of oppression, but this strong focus and explicit emphasis on the situation in Palestine makes you wonder..

[bricolage]

I don't see much leftists talking about, for example, the ongoing oppression of the Kurds in Turkey which is quite comparable
Turkish treatment is Kurds is a good comparions and quite telling of the one-dimensional nature of mainstream anti-Zionism that Turkey is given great support when it makes statements opposed to Israel and promises to support Western aid flotillas, despite the fact it has engaged in, and does engage in, ethnic cleansing (which was a feature in early Israeli policies towards Palestinians, even if I agree with the above posters on the ridiculous nature of terming it a genocide) and national oppression on a similar scale (or greater if you play the numbers game) to Israel.

[Mr. Natural]

So the calculated Israeli campaign to take the Palestinians' land and future and many of their lives is not a form of genocide and a holocaust?

The Israelis aren't confining the Palestinians to open air concentration camps?

And don't get on a high horse about your family going through Hitler's holocaust. That was horrific, of course, and I would have fought the rise of fascism from its beginnings. I also belong to two groups the Nazis tried to exterminate in their holocaust.

You referred to my anti-Zionism, and it is real. Your apologies for Zionism are also real, and they are showing.

[Rugged Collectivist]

Anarchocommunaltoad, You're brand new and cannot start a thread yet

But... he did.

[Tim Cornelis]

So the calculated Israeli campaign to take the Palestinians' land and future and many of their lives is not a form of genocide and a holocaust?

No, it's at worst ethnic cleansing, in which the land is ethnically cleansed of Palestinians, and those who resist murdered in the process (where murder is a means, but not an end in itself). But there is no systematic attempt to murder all or most Palestinians as an end in itself. Should the latter have been true, millions of Palestinians would have died in a systematic manner (not in armed conflict, but through deportation and extermination).


The Israelis aren't confining the Palestinians to open air concentration camps?

A concentration camp implies forced labour for the Israeli government within a confined area. Palestinian workers are employed by Palestinian capitalists, not the Israeli government.


And don't get on a high horse about your family going through Hitler's holocaust. That was horrific, of course, and I would have fought the rise of fascism from its beginnings. I also belong to two groups the Nazis tried to exterminate in their holocaust.

Indeed, referring to his family member's experience with the Holocaust is an appeal to emotion. But that doesn't change the fact that calling the Israeli occupation "the Holocaust" trivialises the actual Holocaust.

If the Israeli government wanted to perpetrate a "Holocaust" (which exclusively refers to the murder of 6 million Jews, but continue to ignore that fact)/genocide then there would be no Palestinian left by now. 20% of the Israeli population (thus excluding the Palestinian territories) is Arab, you would thus have to do wicked mental gymnastics to quantify the 20,000 death toll (which apparently includes both Israelis and Palestinians) in 65 years as "genocide."


You referred to my anti-Zionism, and it is real. Your apologies for Zionism are also real, and they are showing.

Refusing to use the hyperbolic and demonstrably false term "genocide" or worse, "Holocaust" to describe the Israeli occupation is not apologetic for Zionism.]

On topic:

The PFLP is a Marxist-Leninist organisation, which makes it dubious in itself to me. Nevertheless, I extend my critical support even to Marxist-Leninists. Additionally, the PFLP has used suicide bombings (last in 2002), which is a terrible tactic, especially if directed at civilians as they did. So obviously I favour the PFLP over Hamas, but I'm very critical of the PFLP.

[Mr. Natural]

Further attempts to denounce my position that the Israeli treatment of the Palestinians amounts to genocide (synonomously a holocaust) will address the following definition of genocide if they are responsible posters.

From Wikipedia: "Genocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group .... While a precise definition varies among genocide scholars, a legal definition is found in the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPGB). Article 2 of this convention defines genocide as 'any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deiberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part ..."

This is a very broad definition to be sure, but it is also sure that the Israeli's determination to take the Palestinians' land and destroy any attempts at a viable Palestinian state fits this definition.

As for the Kurds and Turks, I am aware of Turkey's brutal suppression of the Kurds and have long supported the establishment of a Kurdish state of some sort somewhere. This will soon happen, it appears, in Iraq. But are you aware, Rafiq, that Kurdish tribes aided the Turks in their genocide of the Armenians?

Genocide must be opposed wherever and in whatever form it appears. I don't have any untouchable nations on this topic; it appears others do.

[hatzel]

Eh Natural here's an idea why don't you read Zygmunt Bauman's Modernity and the Holocaust, almost the first page of which points out that "the Holocaust is cast inside the most awesome and sinister - yet still theoretically assimilable category - of genocide; or else simply dissolved in the broad, all-too-familiar class of ethnic, cultural or racial oppression and persecution" in order to "belittle, misjudge, or shrug off [its] significance." I mean I know he's kind of talking about something else, but still it's a great book for dispelling the idea that the Holocaust is easily comparable to all other expressions of discrimination or genocides, past or present, without analysing the underlying features and processes that distinguish it and made it so remarkable. (Oh and before anybody gets all "b-b-but Bauman compared Israel and the Nazis! That proves you're saying it's fair!" as if that means anything: yes, yes he did. He compared the separation wall to the wall around the Warsaw ghetto, inasmuch as it functions to contain a stranger considered somehow threatening, thereby serving to dissipate the fears of a population who has decided that this stranger is for some reason a threat. I know this. And this is an acceptable use of analogy, because it's actually based on some kind of analysis of the situation on the ground, considering a particular aspect of it, rather than some crude herp-a-derp I'm-a say this knee-jerk bullshit sweeping over everything with some stupid generalisation...)

[Tim Cornelis]

Further attempts to denounce my position that the Israeli treatment of the Palestinians amounts to genocide (synonomously a holocaust) will address the following definition of genocide if they are responsible posters.

From Wikipedia: "Genocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group .... While a precise definition varies among genocide scholars, a legal definition is found in the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPGB). Article 2 of this convention defines genocide as 'any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deiberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part ..."

This is a very broad definition to be sure, but it is also sure that the Israeli's determination to take the Palestinians' land and destroy any attempts at a viable Palestinian state fits this definition.

As for the Kurds and Turks, I am aware of Turkey's brutal suppression of the Kurds and have long supported the establishment of a Kurdish state of some sort somewhere. This will soon happen, it appears, in Iraq. But are you aware, Rafiq, that Kurdish tribes aided the Turks in their genocide of the Armenians?

Genocide must be opposed wherever and in whatever form it appears. I don't have any untouchable nations on this topic; it appears others do.

That definition of genocide (which is not synonymous with Holocaust, which refers exclusively to the murder of 6 million Jews in the 1940s) does not describe the Israeli occupation. There is no systematic campaign to murder Palestinians. Removing Palestinians from land is not genocide, it's ethnic cleansing.

[Mr. Natural]

Tim Cornelis, Well, you didn't call me an "idiot" or an "asshole," and on this thread, at least, that's a good start.

However, ethnic cleansing is a form of genocide. Please read the UN definition of genocide I supplied. Ethnic cleansing is a form of genocide, and the Israelis have been on a long campaign that required ethnic cleansing in order to grab land.

And please, don't resort to calling me a "UN liberal."

There are important topics it appears we cannot discuss at RevLeft, topics that evoke emotions and not radical thought. I'll add "Israel and the Palestinians" to my informal list.

[Leo]

I sympathize with the difficulty of drawing a line between sufferings, and with the rejection an hierarchy of oppression...

...this being said, 20,000 people murdered since 1948 clearly does fall behind any sort of criteria which can be used to categorize a genocide.

Perhaps it would be a good idea to make a linguistic distinction between the terms genocide and massacre. A massacre is a one time slaughtering of a certain population en masse, a genocide is a systematic series of massacres carried out in a small period of time, with the aim of ethnic cleansing to varying degrees.

The situation in Palestine, is that of a very oppressive, disgustingly racist, violent and murderous in fact, although not genocidal but segregationist regime, committing a number of massacres over decades but quite evidently not with an aim of wiping out the Palestinian population, partially or completely.

The situation of the Kurds are a good contrast from the region. The al-Anfal campaign of the Iraqi government, which claimed the lives of 200,000 Kurds in 1988 alone can also be described as such. The Turkish treatment of the Kurds has been on a level which can easily be described as a genocide, with 250,000 Kurds murdered between 1925 and 1928 and 80,000 murdered in 1937 and 1938.

However, it can't be said, for example, that the treatment of the Kurds by the Turkish state has been genocidal ever since. It was brutally repressive and assimilationist and there has been a fair amount of massacres especially following the rise of the PKK insurgency in the eighties, as well as systemic assassinations of prominent Kurdish dissidents. Yet all this wasn't, when it comes to the numbers, even remotely close to the genocidal campaigns of 1925-28, 1937-38 or 1988.

And this is a pretty small genocide, not even totaling up to a million compared to other genocides organized by the Turkish state. A well known example, of course, is the Armenian genocide which took place between 1915 and 1918 and continued on a smaller scale following the Turkish victory in the Greco-Turkish were where 2 million Armenians were murdered. Though the Armenian genocide isn't the only one. It was accompanied by a Greek genocide, which claimed the lives of 900,000 Greeks and an Assyrian genocide, which claimed the lives of 750,000 Assyrians whose population was much smaller compared to the Armenians and the Greeks.

By a rough estimation, this puts the Turkish states death toll to near 4 million in a period of twenty five years. Of course afterwards, other means were continued to be used against these populations, such as forced population transfers and pogrom...

... and when compared to the Jewish genocide which took place between 1940 and 1945 and claimed 6 million lives, even the total toll of the Turkish government falls low. And of course, lets not forget that the Nazis managed to kill 2 to 3 million Russian war prisoners, 2 million Poles, 1 and a half million Gypsies and hundreds of thousands of others at the same time.

The current anti-Zionist attempts to compare Israel's treatment of Arabs with the Jewish genocide, though not as malevolent, can be compared to what the Turkish nationalists often say about the Armenian genocide in numerical terms. An old juridical basis of the Turkish rejection of the Armenian genocide, the argument is that what Turkey did wasn't genocide because the Armenian militias killed Turks too, so it was war... Except when we compare the numbers we see that to the 2 million Armenians murdered, the number of Turks who were killed by the Armenian militia is in the ten thousands but not really more.

The key point here for a communist is that, while as we are all aware, different bourgeois states have targeted, and still do target specific ethnic groups and organize systematic campaigns to wipe them out without differentiating, it is always our class, the proletariat who has suffered the most in these genocides, and we take them as crimes committed against our class brothers and sisters by our class enemies and their lackeys, no matter what the ethnicities involved were and it falls on our shoulders, the shoulders of the world proletariat, not those of the bourgeoisies of the nations subjected to genocides and massacres, to make our class enemies pay for their actions.

[hatzel]

There are important topics it appears we cannot discuss at RevLeft, topics that evoke emotions and not radical thought. I'll add "Israel and the Palestinians" to my informal list.

Or perhaps rather than being a great big baby throwing things out of your pram saying "aaaaargh, the only reason people don't like my opinion is because they just can't think clearly about the Middle East" you could entertain the possibility that maybe the problem isn't so much to do with the sensitivity of the Palestine/Israel-issue (remembering that criticism of Israel isn't even remotely controversial round here, as a peek in literally any thread on the matter should demonstrate) and more to do with the fact that you've taken up a truly ludicrous argument...the fact that even committed critics of all-things-Israel aren't 'on your side' here should set a few alarm bells ringing, don't you think?

I don't know about you, but when I notice that the consensus opinion seems to be gathering against me, I tend to step back and ask myself why that is exactly, and what I might have overlooked, where my analysis is lacking and how that could be remedied. Done an awful lot of learning that way. Haven't done very much learning your way, though, laughing off criticism is rarely a particularly enlightening experience for me...

[Ostrinski]

Isn't the PFLP a Marxist-Leninist organization? How popular are they in relation to Hamas and Fatah?

[Os Cangaceiros]

Yeah, I think that the PFLP is a Leninist organization. IIRC their solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict is a "one state solution", ie what's now known as Israel would become a secular democratic socialist republic.

[the Leftâ„¢]

Yeah, I think that the PFLP is a Leninist organization. IIRC their solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict is a "one state solution", ie what's now known as Israel would become a secular democratic socialist republic.

were the PFLP the parent organization of the black september radicals that killed the Israeli wrestlers in Munich? Not trying to flame or bait just genuinely curious

[Let's Get Free]

According to Wikepedia, their ideology is

Communism
Marxism–Leninism
Foco
Guevarism
Anarchist communism
Secularism
One-state solution
Anti-Zionism

[Os Cangaceiros]

hahahahaha "anarchist communism"?!

[Art Vandelay]

According to Wikepedia, their ideology is

Communism
Marxism–Leninism
Foco
Guevarism
Anarchist communism
Secularism
One-state solution
Anti-Zionism

:confused:

[Ostrinski]

Haha, they may have affiliated with some anarchists at one point or something. Either that or someone on wikipedia is a troll.

Should have called them anarcho-guevaro-posadist

[Prometeo liberado]

According to Wikepedia, their ideology is

Communism
Marxism–Leninism
Foco
Guevarism
Anarchist communism
Secularism
One-state solution
Anti-Zionism

Well I don't know how one can argue with that.:rolleyes:

The PFLP is made up of the same ilk that makes up any and all organizations, dirty filthy humans. If you insist on pulling out that lefty scorecard/litmus test to insure they meet your personal taste before relegating them to whatever place you people send the distasteful and repugnant, as you see them, then you'll be no further along than you are now. In front of the computer. Some people get up and into the game, PFLP, others throw zionist stones from the sidelines and cry foul.

I'll give the PFLP a A- for effort
B- for consistency
C for style
B for overall performance factoring in degree of difficulty

[Os Cangaceiros]

C for style?!? Style is their best aspect by far! Have you heard their music?

4EtKqh1vWjA

[Prometeo liberado]

C for style?!? Style is their best aspect by far! Have you heard their music?

4EtKqh1vWjA

It's got a good beat. You could dance and dodge bullets to it. Yet a wee bit played out. C.







goddamnit

[L.A.P.]

Isn't the PFLP a Marxist-Leninist organization? How popular are they in relation to Hamas and Fatah?

They're the second largest Palestinian militant organization, second only to Fatah

[Ostrinski]

Then why is Hamas able to win elections and remain a competent political force?

[Rafiq]

C for style?!? Style is their best aspect by far! Have you heard their music?

4EtKqh1vWjA

That's one thing about the PFLP, or other Palestinian militant groups / Western anti imp militants, was that, for what they were, they had style.

[Rafiq]

Then why is Hamas able to win elections and remain a competent political force?

Most likely due to the rise of Islamic fundamentalism and the collapse of the Middle Eastern left throughout the late 80's and 90's. To sustain itself, the PFLP has proven itself to be most cowardly, aligning itself with Hamas.

[cynicles]

I always found it so bizarre, it makes we wonder if, (especially among the german youth) this overwhelming "Anti-Zionism" is really an unconscious expression of anti semitism (We can recall the RZ hijacking of that one plane, in which they separated the Jews from the rest of the passengers). I don't see much leftists talking about, for example, the ongoing oppression of the Kurds in Turkey which is quite comparable, or situations which are a thousand times worse for certain peoples in other third world nations. Yes there should be no hierarchy of oppression, but this strong focus and explicit emphasis on the situation in Palestine makes you wonder..
Makes you wonder that maybe the left went through a phase of Arab racism until the late 60s when they finally stopped cutting Israel slack for it's colonialism and stopped ignoring the Palestinians? The success of the movement to work it's way into the mainstream and garner so much focus has just become an excuse for anti-germans and people so busily looking for anti-semitism under every corner to tar it from within. If people are so concerned about anti-semites then maybe they should spend more time looking at the types of people supporting zionism. From Balfour to Breivic the anti-semites have been a pillar of zionism. People shouldn't be forced to apologize because they don't write a screed to every bit of suffering in the world everytime they talk about Palestine. Israel continues to remain a major issue in the region and people rail as much against Saud and the US as they do against it.

[Tim Cornelis]

Then why is Hamas able to win elections and remain a competent political force?

Because they aren't the second most popular. They are the second most popular within the PLO (which Hamas is no part of).

[blake 3:17]

To the OP: You might want to google "Leila Khaled" -- she is one of the most intersting figures within the PFLP.



To the rest:

I would refrain from using the word "holocaust" as it becomes a kind of mystification. Though in the case of the Gazan war may be factually accurate.

I would disagree with posters above who refer to the genocide committed by the Nazis against the Jews as something that is some kind of Absolute or exception.

[hatzel]

If people are so concerned about anti-semites then maybe they should spend more time looking at the types of people supporting zionism.

An even better idea, however, would be to drop the whole suggestion that an individual's stance on (anti-)Zionism has any bearing whatsoever on the matter. Personally I'm sick and tired of people on all sides of the political spectrum turning a blind eye to anti-semitism (or even attempting to justify it, in some cases) whenever it comes from their 'team' e.g. anti-Zionists who conveniently forget to condemn vandalism of synagogues when the graffiti criticises Israel, or Zionists glossing over the fact that the likes of Herzl and Jabotinsky weren't so much saviours of the Jewish people as they were mouthpieces for the oppression of Jewry. Nope, doesn't matter to me who they are or what else they have to say about any other topic; an antisemite is an antisemite and should always be condemned as such. The one thing that shouldn't be done under any circumstances is to focus one's attention in any particular direction, so that antisemites are given free rein to frolic in the resulting blindspot.

With that in mind, here's a protip: anti-semitism can exist and manifest itself throughout society, including in and amongst the anti-Zionist (and, in fact, Zionist) movement. This is a possibility. In certain cases it has manifested itself, all too often (largely) unchallenged. Anybody who fails to recognise this is either intentionally looking the other way, or has no ability whatsoever to identify anti-semitism. Both of these options would bring the individual's suitability as an anti-racist activist into question, if they can't or wont see discrimination in front of them. With their suitability in doubt, their commitment too is challenged when their reaction to the merest suggestion that anti-semitism may play a part amongst some in their ranks (complete with a historical example as evidence) is not to acknowledge there may in fact be a problem which must be tackled, but to simply point elsewhere, saying 'don't look at us, look at them, at them!' Textbook deflection, complete failure to take the matter seriously, hardly fills Jews with confidence that you're willing and able to do anything to fight anti-semitism. I mean, if you can't even deal with it in your own organisations and movements, why on Earth would anybody trust you to eradicate it in society at large?

[blake 3:17]

Then why is Hamas able to win elections and remain a competent political force?

Three main factors:

1) A rise in religious dreams in face of disaster.

2) A very good record on providing basic aid and social solidarity which Fatah used to do.

3) The election forced by the US in which Hamas won as a protest vote against the corruption within Fatah/PLO.

I could not believe it when Hamas won that vote and neither could most of the voters. The polls done were 70/30 for Fatah/PA and then the vote happened and that was reversed. Under the international regulations Hamas won the election fair and square. It was the demonization of Islam, the loss of legitimacy of the PLO, and Israeli/US hawkishness which forced the divide between rule of the West Bank and Gaza.

Edited to add: On the election of Hamas: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_legislative_election,_2006

[Red Commissar]

I'm new here but i assume you guys are anti- Zionist. I know it's unreasonable to assume they're going anywhere, but why don't more leftists support or even know about this kind of group instead of verbally aligning with Hamas and Fatah?

I don't understand your snipe about leftists not caring about them an instead going for Fatah or Hamas (!). I know in the case of the latter there has been some groups taking the "anti-imperialist" stance but that doesn't necessarily translate into earnest support. I don't recall seeing anything of the sort, most people here are concerned about the Palestinian issue at large without really endorsing any political party one way or another.

PFLP has been discussed before here many times. I remember a thread here some time ago showing one of their rallies among Palestinians living in Egypt. So it's not that they are unknown, I'm not sure where you are getting this from in the first place.

[Hiero]

were the PFLP the parent organization of the black september radicals that killed the Israeli wrestlers in Munich? Not trying to flame or bait just genuinely curious

At some point in time, perhaps the 70s, the PFLP had a splinter group opperating under the same name. The splinter group led by Wadie Haddad operated out of South Yemen and focused on "external operations", that were operations in Europe. The PFLP back in Palestine/Lebanon under George Habash supposedly distanced itself from the external operations.

I am guessing that both groups had Black September radicals float through? But I don't think it was a parent group. The more research you do on these groups the more you find out money coming from everywhere for different reasons (Syria, Iraq, Libya, GDR, USSR) and being used to destablise other groups. Like the PFLP - External Operations planing operations with the purpose to destablish Fatah's peace talks with Israel for instance.

[LordAcheron]

oh look, another semantic clusterfuck.

Let's all argue about the definition of genocide rather than the actual issue at hand! yaaaaay!

I, for one, cannot STAND the Judean Peoples' Front!

[Anarchocommunaltoad]

were the PFLP the parent organization of the black september radicals that killed the Israeli wrestlers in Munich? Not trying to flame or bait just genuinely curious

I thought black september was composed of pissed off jordanians (yes i know about the whole conflict between the palestinian exiles and king bla bla bla)

And FYI the Popular Front of Judea is the ONE AND ONLY hope for a free and unified Greater Palestine.

[blake 3:17]

Personally I'm sick and tired of people on all sides of the political spectrum turning a blind eye to anti-semitism (or even attempting to justify it, in some cases) whenever it comes from their 'team' e.g. anti-Zionists who conveniently forget to condemn vandalism of synagogues when the graffiti criticises Israel, or Zionists glossing over the fact that the likes of Herzl and Jabotinsky weren't so much saviours of the Jewish people as they were mouthpieces for the oppression of Jewry. Nope, doesn't matter to me who they are or what else they have to say about any other topic; an antisemite is an antisemite and should always be condemned as such.

Within the Palestine solidarity movement, we take anti-semitism very seriously. I don't know anyone who condones anti-Jewish violence or vandalism.

Anti-Semites do appear in our movements and are excluded and named as bigots and racists.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

I'm new here but i assume you guys are anti- Zionist. I know it's unreasonable to assume they're going anywhere, but why don't more leftists support or even know about this kind of group instead of verbally aligning with Hamas and Fatah?
The IRSP has long supported the PFLP. At one point in the late '70s, members of the INLA trained with the PFLP in Lebanon.

[Amandla]

The PFLP were one of the founding organisations of the PLO. Their leader Ahmad Saadat has been in prison for six years. Having met members of the PFLP on my travels in the Levant I have to say they are a Populist socialist grouping. I found them quite politically sound.

My studies of the group, I had a quite a fascination for a while and still do. Led me to realise that Black September was pretty much funded wholesale by the KGB. It was there to destabilise the West and what better way to exploit the anger of the Palestinians than to strike directly at Western targets at the height of the Cold War through a puppet terror cell?

There was a reason that Wadie Haddad gained a taste for Belgian chocolates that poisoned him. He was corrupted by expensive tastes. Also consider that Carlos the Jackal joined the PFLP direct from his studies in Moscow. It points to that familiar axis of weapons, drugs and money that always
surrounds intelligence agency operations.

Also Black September was a PLO organisation and not purely PFLP so Fatah was involved but the PLO only cut ties after 1973.

Carlos was expelled from the PFLP for not shooting hostages at an OPEC conference in 1975. The Saudi oil minister and the Iranian finance minister. Some, including PFLP top man Bassam Abu Sharif, say he was offered a bribe.

This whole period fascinates me endlessly. I reccommend reading Best Of Enemies by Bassam Abu Sharif and Uzi Mahnaini and Green March Black September: Story of the Palestinian Arabs by Ken Cooley.

Going back to the PFLP today...there are corrupt elements and there is the on the ground political movement. The PFLP-GC (General Command) is pro Assad and Syrian sponsored. The PFLKP stil operates in syria and many refugees there are joining the FSA to fight Assad.

The main iconography is that of Guevara, of Arafat, of Leila Khaled and others in Black September.

And the consensus amongst many is that Palestinian unity is the central part of the struggle. they are staunchly socialist and I know of one refugee camp in Syria that has been flattened because its residents were PFLP supporters unhappy with Bashar Al Assad.

When I was there the biggest political party was the PFLP in that camp, next came Fatah and Hamas. Thes guys love their music. They love to learn their instruments and they are strongly militant. The town was covered with stencils of PFLP badges and Arafat portraits and there was a memorial commemorating the Nakba which included a HUGE mural of Che Guevara.

I only hope those people are safe today.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Reading the PFLP's Wiki article, it doesn't seem like they're all that active anymore. There was a pretty big demo in Gaza back in 2009, but their last armed action (a suicide bombing in an Israeli market) was in 2004, almost a decade ago.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

Reading the PFLP's Wiki article, it doesn't seem like they're all that active anymore. There was a pretty big demo in Gaza back in 2009, but their last armed action (a suicide bombing in an Israeli market) was in 2004, almost a decade ago.
Their last armed action was a roadside bomb that injured a Zionist military officer last month.

[Anarchocommunaltoad]

So we're supposed to root for the guys whos last actions were killing civies and blowing up one truck in a convoy?

[Os Cangaceiros]

Someone needs to update that goddamn wiki article then.

Actually come to think of it I remember reading about some PFLP action in which they shot a RPG at a piece of Israeli heavy equipment on this website.

[Anarchocommunaltoad]

So they're known for potshots:crying:

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

Someone needs to update that goddamn wiki article then.
The Hamas Wiki article is out of date, too, I noticed.

[Skyhilist]

Why does it matter whether we call what's going on in Palestine "genocide" or not. Labeling it or not labeling it doesn't change the severity of the issue. The Israeli occupation and oppression of Palestine should be fought at all costs. Just because there are Jews causing these attacks and we oppose them, doesn't make us automatic anti-semites, which would be equally unjustifiable. I agree that the oppression of the Kurds is also an important issue. Both issues should be focused on though instead of trying to diminish (rational) support for Palestinian freedom by saying "oh well there's other issues so this one doesn't matter as much." How will the left ever get anything done if we can't even come together on a thread that is basically just asking our anti-zionist tendencies (which I hope the vast majority of us at least have)? C'mon guys.

[Anarchocommunaltoad]

Semantics matter buddy. Blaming things on "the jews" just doesn't sound right.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

Semantics matter buddy. Blaming things on "the jews" just doesn't sound right.
The problem is Zionists, not Jews as Jews.

[Geiseric]

I would compare the situation in Palestine to be much closer to apartheid or segregation than a genocide. I mean if they systematically rounded up and directly killed Palestinians by the thousands, it would be a genocide. At this point, Palestinians live in ghettoes that are constantly under siege by the Israeli state. Things could change for the worst and it might turn into a genocide by the fascist Israeli state if things keep going like they are.

[Skyhilist]

Semantics matter buddy. Blaming things on "the jews" just doesn't sound right.

Well no one is blaming Jews in general really. We're blaming zionists.

[Anarchocommunaltoad]

The problem is Zionists, not Jews as Jews.

Should have worded that better. What you said

[Geiseric]

The problem is U.S. and NATO imperialism which is responsible for Israel existing in the first place. Where do you think those Catepillar bulldozers came from? Or those advanced weapons they have? I mean they can't all be made inside Israel.

[MaximMK]

A page full of fighting over one guy calling the Israeli occupation holocaust is pointless. You say its not that serious cause less people were killed in Palestine. Peoples life are not just numbers. Even if only 100 people were killed it is serious because it is done by a state in the act of ethnically cleansing another nationality. You gonna wait until millions of Palestinians die so you can say ok now its holocaust now we can act? The Israeli state keeps shooting at innocent people killing even unarmed harmless children and i don't care if they killed 20, 200 or 2 million what matters is that they did kill someone out of imperialist, nationalist etc. motives and they are evil! Death to hate and nationalism! Down with Israel and their terrorism!