The Case of Ahmad Sa’adat: Resistance Without Compromise

Special Commentary by Abu Riad

Join the Week of Action to Free Ahmad Sa’adat, January 15-22, 2025

January 15^th of this year will mark 23 years since Ahmad Sa’adat’s abduction by the Palestinian Authority, the start of his continued detention in occupation jails. He is a man at the center of many things: a story of PA treachery, the Palestinian prisoners’ movement, and of course, the political affairs of the PFLP. Despite his cruel conditions, such as long periods of solitary confinement and lack of visits from family, his will has never broken and he remains committed to the people of Palestine and the cause of resistance. He has been a consistent leader of the movement of Palestinian political prisoners, participating in multiple hunger strikes in 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2019. Despite being sold out by the PA, forced through sham trials and frame ups, he has remained a committed leader of the political prisoner movement and the PFLP. Through his struggle, he represents the living, fighting spirit of the Palestinian people and its Resistance.

This anniversary comes at an especially important time in light of the genocide in Gaza and the PA’s brazen treachery across the West Bank. Ahmad Sa’adat was sold out by the PA to the arms of the occupation, an important example of the true nature of the Palestinian Authority, which sacrifices popular and patriotic Palestinians to the occupation in order to cynically maintain its own power. As ‘Abu Ghassan’ said in 2014, “Two decades on, the results of the negotiations have conclusively demonstrated that it is futile to continue the process according to the Oslo frameworks.”

The Palestinian Authority was established in the wake of the 1993 Oslo Accords with the ostensible goal of being the government by which the new “Palestinian State,” set to be established on less than a third of historic Palestine, would be administered. Oslo marked the ultimate triumph in the PLO of the more “pragmatic” faction of Fatah (Palestinian National Liberation Movement) led by Yasser Arafat, which since 1974 had demanded for the creation of a Palestinian government on any territory liberated by the Resistance. In word, this was to be one step on the road to the liberation of all of historic Palestine, but as Oslo showed, it meant capitulation. It is worth noting that since the inception of the concept of a “Palestinian authority” in the wake of the conquest of the West Bank and Gaza during the Zionist entity’s 1967 aggression, the PFLP vehemently opposed such schemes. In 1971, 22 years before Oslo, martyred PFLP spokesman Ghassan Kanafani defined any type of Palestinian “state” founded through peace negotiations as “one instigated, overseen and dominated by Israel.” Its existence would herald surrender of Palestinian resistance forces, with its purpose being to “develop the victor’s [Israel’s] military, political and economic superiority, and to engender a profound advance towards its strategic objectives.”

22 years later, the former forces of the Resistance led by Arafat were to help create such a reality for Palestine in the halls of Western capitals and on the lawn of the White House. Forsaking claims on all of historic Palestine, the right of refugees to return, and giving up on armed struggle, Fatah and allied entities, under the tutelage of the United States and Zionist occupation, established the Palestinian Authority which was to nominally govern the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem. From the very onset, this government agreed to flagrant violations of Palestinian sovereignty, including the ceding of control of Palestinian resources to Israel, allowing Israel to oversee and control the finances of the PA, allowing Israel to control the borders of the territories, and agreeing to divide the West Bank into different zones of control. Israel was able to create an illusion of nominal Palestinian control of the occupied territories while ultimately having the Palestinian Authority do its bidding.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the “Security Cooperation” agreements between the PA and the occupation. From Oslo onwards, the main repressive arm of the PA has been the Palestinian National Security Forces (PNSF) which was formed with direct US & European aid and supervision in the 1990s.

with the purpose of securing the Oslo Framework and cracking down on Resistance groups like Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the PFLP who rejected the agreement and continued armed struggle against the occupation. Between 1993 and the start of the Second Intifada in 2000, the PA arrested hundreds of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, PFLP, and DFLP members who rejected the “peace process”, accusing their legitimate acts of resistance to be extremism and terrorism. Ironically, those who called out Oslo for the betrayal it was were accused by the PA of hurting the Palestinian cause. With almost no break, security cooperation has persisted from Oslo till today.

The occupations incessant violations of Palestinian rights throughout the post-Oslo period and the PA’s inability to confront them led to mass outrage amongst the Palestinian people, culminating in the Second Intifada which began in September of 2000. As armed struggle against the occupation commenced, all Palestinian factions begun conducting operations all over historic Palestine, breaking down the artificially imposed barriers Oslo sought to impose on the Resistance. Notably, even members of Fatah, including members of the PNSF who became disillusioned with the “peace process”, took up arms against the occupation. A couple of months into the uprising, PFLP secretary-general Abu Ali Mustafa outlined its importance due to the fact it unified the Palestinian people and Resistance, as well as rendering bankrupt the view that the cause could ever persist through peace negotiations with Israel and the United States. Due to the efforts of Abu Ali and his comrades, the Front was able to reorganize its military wing and conduct over a hundred operations across Gaza, the West Bank, and the Occupied 1948 territories between the outbreak of the Intifada in September 2000 and August 2001 when the secretary-general was martyred.

On August 27, 2001, Abu Ali Mustafa was martyred in an Israeli airstrike on his office in al-Bireh. His killing was one of the first major assassinations conducted by the occupation during the Second Intifada, due to the threat he posed to the colonial project. In the aftermath of his martyrdom, Ahmad Sa’adat, a lifelong revolutionary and militant of the PFLP was elected to take his place. Ahmad Sa’adat was born in 1953 in al-Bireh, Palestine. In 1967, he joined the student league of the PFLP and officially joined the group in 1969. He was arrested for his militancy first in 1969, followed by arrests in 1970, 1973, 1975, 1976, 1989, and 1992. Most of those arrests led to arbitrary detention without any trial. He stated his experiences in prison to be formative times for his revolutionary and political convictions. He was elected to the Central Committee of the PFLP in 1981 and then to the Politburo in 1993, but the Palestinian Authority arrested him in 1995 and 1996, following the security coordination framework of Oslo.

Upon his election, he promised to avenge the killing by adhering to the line of “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and a head for a head”. On October 17^th, 2001, with precise planning and execution, Majdi al-Rimawi, Hamdi Qu’ran, Basil al-Asmar, and Ahed Abu Ghoulmeh, leaders and fighters of the newly renamed Martyr Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades, executed the people’s ruling. At the Regency Hotel in “Tel Aviv”, fascist Israeli tourism minister Rehavam Ze’evi was executed as revenge for Abu Ali’s killing. Across Palestine and the refugee camps where the diaspora lives, the masses celebrated. The operation was historic as it marked the highest level Israeli official ever taken out by the resistance.

However, the Palestinian Authority’s reaction was characteristically out of touch with that of the Palestinian people. Immediately in the wake of the operation, the PA conducted a ferocious arrest campaign targeted at PFLP members throughout the West Bank and Gaza. By November 3^rd, 2001, over 60 PFLP members had been arrested on unjust grounds by the PNSF. Treacherously, on January 15^th of 2002, under the pretext of negotiating an end to the mass arrests of PFLP members, the PNSF lured Ahmad Sa’adat out of hiding and arrested him. He was then taken to the presidential compound of the PA in Ramallah where he was held in detention for over 2 months alongside Rimawi, Qu’ran, al- Asmar, and Abu Ghoulmeh until Arafat cynically acceded to US-Israeli pressure to place them in prison.

In May of 2002, the PA transferred Sa’adat, Rimawi, Qu’ran, al-Asmar, and Abu Ghoulmeh to Jericho prison where they were held under the de facto control of American and British guards, nominally there to observe the PNSF’s performance. They were not the only resisters who the PA repressed during the Second Intifada however. Alongside the PFLP, large numbers of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades members were arrested throughout this period for resisting. At times, the PA even arrested members of its own security forces who fought back against the Israelis. Despite security cooperation continuing to an extent during the Intifada, Israeli and American leadership under Sharon and Bush respectively started to lose faith in Yasser Arafat, looking for a more amicable successor to replace him.

Their choice was Mahmoud Abbas, a veteran of Fatah’s international relations department and an architect of the Oslo Accords. He was appointed in March 2003 due to US-Israeli pressure on Arafat. He was vehemently opposed to any type of armed resistance and immediately began calls for an end to Palestinian militancy. Throughout the rest of the Intifada, he gave humiliating speeches denouncing what he called the “militarization of the intifada” like his remarks at the Aqaba “peace” summit in June of 2003. With Arafat’s death in 2004, he was elected leader of Fatah, and he won the 2005 PA presidential elections due to the fact Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the PFLP boycotted it. Alongside his rise to leadership of the PA came the restructuring and reorganization of the PNSF which had been shaken up during the 2^nd Intifada. In order to maximize the efficiency of security cooperation and reduce any possible defections of more patriotic minded officers to the camp of resistance, the United States military was brought in to train the PNSF.

With the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 due to the efforts of the Resistance during the Intifada, the US sought to bolster PA presence there as well as the West Bank. To that effect, they had American generals William Ward and Keith Dayton coordinate with the occupation to facilitate training and weapons transfers for the PNSF. Mahmoud Abbas’s own presidential guard which has been recently used in raids across the West Bank was directly trained by the US. One particular figure for US-Israeli designs on Gaza was Mohammed Dahlan, the head of the PNSF in Gaza who gained infamy for his corruption and ruthless torture of Resistance members and supporters in the Strip. Throughout his leadership, he oversaw the mass arrests of scores of patriotic Gazans and instilled a veritable reign of terror sanctioned by the US and occupation. However, the victory of Hamas in the 2006 Palestinian elections greatly upset the designs of the imperialist backers of the PA. One of the key promises the new Hamas led government made was to free Ahmad Sa’adat and the four Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades leaders and fighters held with him in Jericho Prison, as well as scores of more Palestinian prisoners held in PA jails.

The Israeli occupation and United States quickly moved into action on March 14, 2006 when the IDF laid siege to Jericho prison with up to 1000 troops, artillery, attack helicopters, and tanks. The siege lasted for over 10 hours, most of the PA guards surrendered as it began. Despite the overwhelming odds stacked against them, Ahmad Sa’adat, Majdi al-Rimawi, Hamdi Qu’ran, Basil al-Asmar, Ahed Abu Ghoulmeh, and the 200 other prisoners at Jericho stood their ground to the very end and refused to surrender as the Israelis took them into custody. The Palestinian people across the occupied lands and diaspora rose up in revolt and protest to the blatant kidnapping of the secretary-general and his fellow inmates. Across the spectrum of the Resistance, denunciations poured out from all factions who refused to put up with a status quo that allowed the occupation to detain Palestinian leaders at will. In December of 2008, Ahmad Sa’adat was sentenced to 30 years in prison in an occupation court due to his leadership of the PFLP and role in the October 17^th operation. At his trial (which was held in 1948 occupied Palestine) he stated “I do not stand to defend myself in front of your court… I stand to defend my people and their legitimate right to national independence and self-determination and return.”

Around the time of the Jericho prison raid, an American-Israeli conspiracy to remove Hamas from power was brewing in the shadows. The US, stunned by the victory of Hamas in the free and fair elections of 2006, feared that a renewed bout of Palestinian radicalism would threaten Israel and its reactionary allies in the region. To this effect, the US ordered the PA to dissolve the government led by Haniyeh and Hamas and instead appoint an “emergency government” that would act to marginalize the Resistance. In Gaza, they prepared Mohammed Dahlan and PNSF men loyal to him for a putsch, in which they were to furnish his forces with arms transmitted through Egypt and Jordan, alongside training to forcibly expel Hamas from power. However, getting wind of this coup attempt, Hamas swiftly crushed the PA’s forces in confrontations across Gaza that lasted from the 10^th to 15^th of June in 2007. In response, Mahmoud Abbas cemented his dictatorial rule in the West Bank and the PA received further US-Israeli support to entrench itself vis-a-vis the Resistance. This order in the West Bank has lasted until this day, as Abbas has trampled on numerous national unity agreements to secure his own power.

On the other hand, the victory of Hamas in Gaza has allowed all factions of the Resistance to exponentially grow their strategic capabilities. Despite the brutal siege imposed on Gaza, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the PFLP, DFLP, Popular Resistance Committees, and other factions have been able to creatively confront the occupation, ranging from the vast tunnel system under Gaza to the domestically made weapons used to neutralize Israeli armor. One of the most important tactics utilized by the Resistance has been the prisoner exchange. Dating back to the early days of the Palestinian Revolution in the 1960s and 1970s, the Resistance has taken occupation soldiers prisoner with the goal of freeing Palestinian prisoners. In 1985, the Resistance was able to free over 1,100 prisoners by exchanging 3 captured soldiers in the Jibril Agreement. In June of 2006, the Resistance in Gaza captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in Operation Dispersive Illusions. Holding him for 5 years, they were able to negotiate an exchange deal in 2011 which led to the release of over 1000 prisoners, including the martyred commander Yahya Sinwar. Notably, Israel refused to release Ahmad Sa’adat in this deal, showing how much they fear his role in Palestinian politics.

The Gilad Shalit deal led to the strengthening of the Resistance in Gaza, and paved the way for Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on October 7^th, 2023. In this historic operation led by Hamas and participated in by all Palestinian factions, the Resistance breached the Gaza “security envelope”, dealt devastating losses on the Occupation army, and managed to capture over 200 prisoners of war. One of the central objectives of this operation is the release of thousands of Palestinian prisoners held in Zionist jails.

Among the list of captives demanded to be released are Ahmad Sa’adat, Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti, former Hamas commander in the West Bank Abdullah Barghouti, and Lebanese struggler Georges Abdallah currently held in France. While a recent event, this operation marks one of the most important moments in the history of the Palestinian struggle, and will certainly merit historic gains for the Resistance.

At the same time as the camp of Resistance in Palestine and regionally has demonstrated its capabilities to confront the occupier, the PA has increased its repression in the West Bank. In March of 2024, the Fatah movement denounced the operation, claiming it had brought catastrophe and ruin to Gaza and the Palestinian quest for statehood. Since October 7^th, 2023, the PA has detained over 1,800 Palestinians in the West Bank on charges of supporting or aiding the Resistance, or simply criticizing the PA’s rule.

Journalists documenting their brutality have been repressed in manners similar to the occupations genocidal actions in Gaza, such as in the case of Shatha al-Sabbagh, a journalist martyred in late December 2024 in Jenin Camp by PA sniper fire. Throughout 2024, numerous PA raids occurred at centers of resistance, like in Nour Shams Camp in Tulkarm or the December 2024 Jenin Camp siege.

The PA’s activity is directly tied to the American-Israeli designed “Fenzel Plan”, named after general Michael Fenzel, one of the senior architects of US-PNSF collaboration. This plan entails the bolstering of PNSF forces so that they can quash armed Resistance in the West Bank, and ultimately pave way for a plan of unopposed Zionist control of the West Bank. The anti-popular character of the PA shows itself every day; no government representing the Palestinian people would claim that its most patriotic and daring youth are “terrorists” or foreign agents. The current violence in the West Bank is a desperate attempt to quell the swelling volcano and will surely fail just as the plans to liquidate Gaza’s Resistance in 2007 fell flat on their face. With every passing day the PA and its rotten security cooperation agreements are closer to being incinerated by the fire of Resistance. With every passing day the prisoners of occupation and PA jails are closer to their freedom.

Alongside over 9000 Palestinian prisoners, Ahmad Sa’adat stands in front of the occupier boldly and defiantly. Despite all the occupation has put him and his co-inmates through, they stand steadfastly and weather the storm. The Israeli occupation has tried all they could to break him, from martyring his younger brother Muhammad in a targeted assassination attempt in Ramallah in 2002 to arresting his wife Abla in September of 2024, but he has stood steadfast. His story, along with the countless stories of Palestinian strugglers in Zionist jails should serve as a call to action for all free people in the world to fight for not just their release from Zionist prison, but for the liberation of the whole Palestinian people and nation from the prison called Zionism which has been forcibly established on their land since 1948.

“Prison Cells Scare us not. O Abu Ghassan, we are ready. For your eyes, O Palestine, We Will Assault Death Itself!”