Georges Abdallah’s statement for 2 April day of action

Georges Abdallah is part and parcel of the Palestinian prisoners’ movement. Palestinian prisoners, like imprisoned PFLP leader Ahmad Sa’adat, have issued letters and statements of solidarity with Abdallah, who has joined in collective hunger strikes from his cell in Lannemezan prison in France.

The film “Fedayin: Georges Abdallah’s Fight” addresses the life and struggle of the longest-held political prisoner in Europe. It is available with appropriate subtitles in French, Arabic, English, German, Turkish, Italian, Catalan and Castilian Spanish. If you want to show Fedayin in your area, email us at samidoun@samidoun.net and contact the directors at vacarmesfilms@gmail.com. We will help you to get your screening organized, and the directors are available to attend your events in person or to join your in-person events via video link.

Read Georges Abdallah’s statement below (translated from the original French)

Dear Comrades, Dear Friends,

In this time of multifaceted crisis, impoverishment and great struggles, wars and devastation, your solidarity mobilization here and elsewhere, provides a lot of strength and warms the heart too…

Insofar as this mobilization is part of the overall dynamics of the ongoing struggle, it allows your incarcerated comrades to stand up and somehow transcend their conditions as prisoners, despite the long years of captivity, and thus to participate in the action of the really existing revolutionary protagonists.

As you know, Comrades, the Palestinian people commemorate “Land Day” every year; it is a true national day where the Palestinian people affirms its unity despite their dispersion in various camps and communities in Palestine and in the neighboring countries, and where they affirm above all the unity of the land of Palestine. This day affirms the indestructible attachment to historical principles, namely: the categorical rejection of the Zionist entity on Palestinian land, and the Right of Return, which implies the liberation of Palestine, all of Palestine.

The commemoration of “Land Day” is therefore not only or mainly in remembrance of a general strike in 1976 against the confiscation of land. This strike aroused at the time a significant mobilization of solidarity, both in the West Bank and in Gaza and in the various Palestinian camps in neighboring countries. The fact remains that the acquisition of the land of Palestine by all means did not begin on January 19, 1976 with the decision of the Israeli government to confiscate 25 km 2in the Galilee. The expropriation of all of the property of the Palestinian people, with a view to their destruction, and in particular the confiscation of a large part of their land, is part and parcel of the very existence of the Zionist entity. It has never stopped and it will only stop with the dissolution/destruction of this entity which, in reality, is only an organic extension of Western imperialism.

By celebrating “Land Day,” the Palestinian people today also commemorate both the beginning of the 2002 Jenin siege and massacre and the heroic resistance that developed throughout that criminal siege.

By celebrating “Land Day” today, the Palestinian people affirm by the blood of their martyrs in Jenin, Hdayrat, Yaaboud and Bethlehem that Palestine, its land and people, is more united than ever. With the blood of the martyrs, the Palestinian people crushes not only the “deal of the century” but also and above all the Oslo agreements, and signifies to all these delegations gathered at “Sharm el-Sheikh” the refusal and the condemnation of the Palestinian people of all those steps aimed at the “normalization” of relations between the Arab countries and the Zionist entity. This day thus affirms the unshakeable will of the Palestinian popular masses to send to the dustbins of history the normalization between the Zionist entity and all these lackeys, emirs and agents…

By celebrating “Land Day” today on the eve of this month of Ramadan, the Palestinian popular masses are preparing for a mobilization commensurate with the current challenges; as in Sheikh Jarrah, in Gaza, and in all the cities and localities of the West Bank and the 48 territories, Palestinians of all generations, know better than anyone that nothing and no one will be able to eradicate this popular intifada, rooted in the collective consciousness and necessary to end the occupation. The intifada is, more than ever, the embodiment of all dignity and all hopes…

Quite naturally, this popular Intifada of a particular type has never really died out… Today it is called upon to structure itself better and to gain momentum, in order to right the balance of power and not allow the management of Oslo to come back again as if nothing has happened. It is clear, Comrades, that lately, not a single day has gone by without new martyrs, young or not so young…

How else can we see this popular resistance in “Beita,” this locality south of Nablus, or in Jenin and its surroundings in the North, or in al-Khalil, not to mention everything that is happening in al-Quds and in the territories of occupied Palestine ’48 and the ongoign raids in Gaza…

Quite naturally, this situation is not isolated from everything that is happening in the Arab world. It fits in a way, in the extension and development but also the impasses of all these protests and other revolts (Hirak) which have shaped the Arab world for ten years. It is also and above all part of an international context where the inter-imperialist contradictions are more and more exacerbated against the background of the worldwide crisis of the globalized capitalist system. It is clear that this crisis continues to deepen and spread throughout the world. At a time when the Brown Death of the far right has clearly, without cover, organized itself almost everywhere in Europe and has even managed to impose itself as the main political force in certain countries, fascization is proving to be at the center of the whole global dynamic of the management of capital, especially in the center of the system…

We must also note, comrades, that the inter-imperialist contradictions are beginning to structure international relations more and more and to occupy the forefront of the world stage. No one should be unaware that the tendency to war is somehow inscribed in the genetic code of capital.

The loss of hegemony of US imperialism at the world level pushes it in its headlong rush towards more aggressiveness towards the other imperialist poles and especially towards more criminal hostility towards the independent states that are somewhat too contentious to their taste…

Comrades, after thirty years of expansion in the East, of war in the Middle East, in Afghanistan, in Africa and also of coups d’état disguised as “orange revolutions” all over the world, US imperialism and with it Europe are facing a new situation in which “slippage” is not very improbable… with a war in the heart of Europe! And in the first place, economic sanctions to manage the confrontation with this imperialist pole in the process of being structured, without having to counter it militarily in a direct way!

Quite naturally, the “officials of capital” are not offended by the presence of neo-Nazi parties and their militias (Azov Regiment) which have been fueling military aggression in the Donbass and elsewhere since 2014; they only can discover hatred in all the structures of solidarity with the struggle of the Palestinian people and therefore, with all shame, they criminalize “BDS” as soon as they can, and decree the dissolution of the “Collectif Palestine Vaincra” and the “Comite Action Palestine”…

Naturally, all solidarity with the dissolved collectives and with “BDS”.

Comrades and Friends, from behind the abominable walls, Ahmad Saadat, as well as the thousands of comrades imprisoned in Zionist jails, send you their revolutionary greetings and draw your attention to the fascist and supremacist groups raging in Ramleh, Lydda, Haifa and Umm al-Fahm openly supported by the Israeli police…

That said, Comrades, the Palestinian popular masses can rely, and must be able to rely upon your mobilization to confront all the nefarious propaganda of the imperialist bourgeoisie in your country in particular…

The conditions of detention in Zionist jails are getting worse day by day; and as you know Comrades, to confront this, international solidarity can prove to be an indispensable weapon…

Quite naturally, the Palestinian popular masses and their struggling vanguards in captivity can count more than ever on your active solidarity.

May a thousand solidarity initiatives flourish in support of Palestine and its promising resistance!

May a thousand solidarity initiatives flourish in favor of Palestinian Flowers and Cubs (imprisoned Palestinian girls and boys)!

Solidarity, all solidarity, with the two comrades Sibel Balac and Gokhan Yildirim on a hunger strike [in Turkish prisons] at breakneck speed!

Solidarity, all solidarity with the resistance fighters in Zionist jails, and those in solitary confinement cells in Morocco, Turkey, Greece, the Philippines and elsewhere around the world!

Solidarity, all solidarity, with the proletarians in struggle!

Solidarity, all solidarity, with the popular Yemeni masses!

Honor to the Martyrs and to the popular masses in struggle!

Down with imperialism and its Zionist watchdogs and other Arab reactionaries!

Capitalism is nothing but barbarism, honor to all those who oppose it in the diversity of their expressions!

Together, Comrades, and only together will we win!

To all of you Comrades and friends, my warmest regards.

Your Comrade, Georges Abdallah