Khatib: The PA is attacking the Palestinian prisoners’ movement; the Abbas-Gantz meeting aims to target the resistance

Mohammed Khatib, Europe coordinator of Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network and a member of the Follow-Up Committee of the Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement (Masar Badil), said that the correct approach for the Palestinian national liberation movement in dealing with Mahmoud Abbas and his cohort can only be to hold them accountable and isolate this defeated group, on the path to overthrowing the project of the “self-rule” Palestinian Authority.

He pointed out that PA President Mahmoud Abbas acts as an agent selected by Zionist colonialism, and his recent meeting with the Zionist war minister Benny Gantz, which took place in Tel Aviv, is a new confirmation of the role of the puppet authority. We consider this a force hostile to the Palestinian people, a tool of liquidation of the Palestinian cause, and an integral part of the Israeli security and economic system.

Khatib said that the Abbas-Gantz meeting comes within the framework of the Zionist enemy and the United States to rescue the Oslo Authority, which has begun to crumble and crack due to the Palestinian popular rejection of the approach of exclusion, oppression and corruption on the one hand, and the escalation of the popular uprising and valiant resistance in the occupied West Bank of Palestine on the other hand, especially after the assassination of the struggler Nizar Banat.

He called upon the leadership of the Palestinian armed resistance forces to establish a unified national front rather than relying on so-called “reconciliation” with the Palestinian Authority, which we consider a waste of blood and time.

Khatib added that the escalating level of repression practiced by the occupation forces and their subordinates from the puppet PA against the strugglers in the West Bank, especially against the freed prisoners, has included the banning of mass gatherings celebrating prisoners’ liberation, the confiscation of resistance banners, a policy of political arrests, targeting of the student movement and other practices that prioritize the concerns and interests of the Zionist project, whose army recently deployed three battalions in the north and center of the occupied West Bank as it summoned Abbas to Tel Aviv.

Khatib emphasized that strengthening this cooperation between the “two parties” means that Gantz wants to facilitate the role of the security forces that play the role of a guard dog protecting the Zionist settlements, working day and night to target the forces and cadres of the resistance. In this context, the Zionist enemy also wants to perpetuate this useful relationship with the Oslo sector and give it some privileges and small bribes so that it can fulfill its role as an agent fully dependent on the decisions of the occupation.

He noted that the escalation of various forms of resistance inside and outside Palestine is a guarantee of achieving national unity in the field of action and popular struggle. This was achieved as a reality in the valiant popular uprising last May, when revolutionary and popular action was integrated throughout occupied Palestine and the diaspora.

Khatib called upon all forces and organizations participating in the Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement to redouble their role in the coming year. The mission and role of the Palestinian diaspora in isolating and boycotting the Oslo “Palestinian Authority” and confronting the approach of normalization and corruption cannot be separated from the growing struggle inside occupied Palestine, as our national responsibility requires confronting the Zionist movement and its agents inside and outside Palestine.

He called for wide participation in the Week of Action to free Ahmad Sa’adat and all Palestinian prisoners, which will begin on 15 January 2022. In its statement, Samidoun emphasizes the need to confront the path of “security coordination,” which has played a devastating role in the case of Sa’adat and his comrades and for hundreds of Palestinian strugglers.