On the fifth day of the Ghassan Kanafani Brigade, the Samidoun international delegation in Lebanon, the delegation met with the Popular Democratic Party in Saida, Lebanon, incuding the General Secretary, Mohammed Hashisho and Coordinator, Rita Hamdan.

The Democratic Popular Party is a historic Lebanese Marxist-Leninist political party which was actively involved in the armed Palestinian resistance, both in the south of Lebanon and in organizing in the cities. Being a Palestinian and Lebanese political party, they consider the cause of Palestine their own and central to the communist struggle within Lebanon.

The Party and the delegation engaged in discussions on a wide variety of topics. The Party operates a People’s Kitchen which provides free hot meals to eight hundred people in need each day and health clinic that serve the community in Saida city.

The Democratic Popular Party shared with the delegation their history of active participation in armed struggle against the Zionist state from inside Lebanon. The party recognizes the importance and necessity of encouraging and supporting all forms of struggle aimed at the liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea.

Another of the fundamental premises on the basis of which the Party operates is the rejection of any solution that does not seek to decolonize all of Palestine, so they position themselves categorically against the Oslo Accords. They view the Oslo Accords as aiming to close the possibility of confrontation and Palestinian resistance both inside and outside Palestine (Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan, Syria) while at the same time opening the door to Zionist and U.S. imperialism, using occupied Palestine as its center of military operations and its neo-liberal experiment in the region.

The role of the Democratic Popular Party was fundamental during the Lebanese “civil war” in the protection of the popular classes and the Palestinian resistance. They have historically worked in coordination with Palestinians inside Palestine, but also with Palestinians in Lebanon, as well as with other internationalist causes struggling for liberation. That is why they are part of other projects, such as the campaign for the release of Cuban prisoners in U.S. jails or the campaign for the release of George Ibrahim Abdallah. In the same way they play a role in the formation of the Alternative Palestinian Path (Masar Badil) and its local committee in Lebanon.

The role of the Palestinian resistance has gone through three different stages (being at this moment centered inside Palestine and especially in Gaza). The Democratic Popular Party focuses its efforts on generating the optimal objective conditions to consolidate the resistance to overthrow Zionism in a coordinated manner.

The Party also mentioned to the delegation as a fundamental point the creation of an international Arab force that breaks with the years of normalization with Zionism and undertakes a social and economic war against imperialism, whose spearhead is Zionism.

In relation to the current state of the Palestinian liberation movement, the Party believes on re-establishing Palestinian armed struggle outside of Palestine in unity with the resistance inside Palestine. It considers this aspect crucial to the success of the project which is the liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea. The Party has unwaveringly stood for this political line.

The Samidoun delegation also presented their political work and perspectives to the Democratic Popular Party organizers, speaking about Samidoun’s history, formation, membership and chapter-building activities in Europe, Palestine, North America and internationally. Each country presented on their work, with members of the Collectif Palestine Vaincra in France speaking about their work to liberate Georges Abdallah and to organize among the left, Palestinian and Arab communities, and other marginalized groups; Samidoun Netherlands spoke about their work to strengthen the ties between the people’s struggle in the Philippines and the Palestine liberation movement as well as to develop resources and study centers for Palestine.

Samidoun Spain spoke about their work with the United Left to push for a broader support for Palestinians’ right to return and right to resist, and for the liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea, as well as the work in the European Parliament to stand for Palestine and confront anti-Palestinian repression in Europe, such as the political ban imposed on Palestinian writer Khaled Barakat in Germany. The comrades from Samidoun Stockholm and Malmo in Sweden spoke about their work with antifascist groups and the Kurdish movement as well as their efforts to rebuild an anti-imperialist front, which has been particularly devastated in the past 20 years.

Finally, the delegation discussed with the party the situation of political, social and economic crisis engulfing Lebanon. Their analysis of the Lebanese regime is that it is a fundamentally unproductive economy, without any industry or agriculture, depending mostly on the financial sector. This situation is being maintained by the comprador state, which serves the interests of US imperialism instead of the popular and poor classes in Lebanon. Lebanon’s current economic and political crisis is a clear reflection of this, and the crises will worsen unless there is a revolutionary change.

For our comrades, this crisis is neither sporadic nor accidental, but is part of a concrete form of political organization. The Lebanese political system, direct heir of French colonialism, is fundamentally based on financial speculation and the destruction of the national productive system and, while the neo-liberal economic forces have dragged the country into misery, the hegemonic Lebanese left has not been able to give an adequate alternative to the people.

This crisis especially affects the Palestinians living in the refugee camps in Lebanon, who are under siege both by the Lebanese army, by the Lebanese reactionary forces, and also by some Palestinian parties, notably the Palestinian Authority. Therefore, it is essential that the true Lebanese revolutionary left is able to create a strong alternative that prevents the above mentioned forces from using the situation of misery brought by the crisis to make the Palestinian community dependent on them.

The Party has good relations with all organizations which practice resistance against Zionism and US imperialism, inside and outside of Palestine and Lebanon. While the liberation of Palestine is its central goal, it practices this alongside anti-sectarian revolutionary struggle in Lebanon and proletarian internationalism.

The delegation also visited the memorial for the martyr Maarouf Saad, the assassinated Lebanese political leader in Saida, Nasserist and strong supporter of Palestine. Saad was assassinated in 1975 as he led general strikes in Saida against the attempt of a corporation to monopolize fishing and destroy the union organization among the fishers.

• Read the Day 4 Report: Day 4 of the Samidoun delegation to Lebanon: Ghassan Kanafani Brigade at the Al Naqab Center
• Read the Day 3 Report: Samidoun Delegation to Lebanon Day 3: Generations of struggle for return and liberation
• Read the Day 2 Report: Samidoun Delegation to Lebanon Day 2: Political and cultural discussions at Mar Elias camp
• Read the Day 1 Report: Samidoun delegation to Lebanon begins: Visit to Shatila camp, meeting with boycott campaign

The delegation will proceed throughout the coming days, with ongoing reports of the delegation’s meetings and work throughout Lebanon. You can also follow the progress of the delegation on Samidoun Stockholm’s social media (@samidoun08), Collectif Palestine Vaincra (@collectifpalestinevaincra) and Samidoun Spain (@samidoun.esp).

**

The delegation is self-funded by Samidoun Network and the participants taking part in the delegation and its meetings. However, the delegation also aims to support organizing and build resources in the Palestinian refugee camps and throughout Lebanon, which is currently experiencing an extreme financial crisis, the greatest burden of which is falling on the most marginalized.

Your contribution can help the delegation to support the work of grassroots organizers in the Palestinian refugee camps to sustain and build their work as well as launching new centers for organizing for liberation and return for Palestine. Make your donation below to support this important initiative. 

Click here to make a donation.

On the fourth day of the Ghassan Kanafani Brigade, the Samidoun international delegation to Lebanon visited the Bourj Al Barajneh refugee camp in the south of Beirut. In the camp we met with the Al-Naqab Center for Youth Activities, its members and its coordinator, Mohammed Abu Ali.

The Al Naqab Center was founded in 2013 by Palestinian and Lebanese youth, who came together to address urgent needs facing the community, working with the Maan group (“Together”) and the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM).

The center focuses on four main points: 1) Becoming economically independent, without reliance on NGOs and charity funds; 2) “From the river to the sea”: they do not compromise on the question of the liberation of all of Palestine; 3) The people working in the center are all volunteers; 4) They are committed to boycotting Israeli products and companies.

The center saw the effects of the standard school curriculum among the students, noting that it failed to teach skills in critical and independent thought. This led to launching what is now the main activity of the center: after-school education.

Eventually, the after-school education and its students became a part of the center as a whole, and they began joining other activities, beginning from a program to help students with homework and general schoolwork and evolving into a place where volunteers could further the education and development of youth thought.

The center noticed that Palestinian youth were not being taught about their own history and geography in the standard curriculum, so they created their own curriculum focused on keeping this history and culture alive among Palestinian children and youth.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, it became clear that most of the students were not used to working independently, which created a crisis when children suddenly needed to rely on their phones for school. This became an opportunity for the center to develop a program focused on independent work and thought.

The aim of the center’s school programs is to provide the youth with the knowledge they need for them to be the next generation of Palestinians fighting for their liberation.

The center also organizes a youth group that works not only in the center but throughout the camp as a whole, dealing with social issues and challenges like the economic crisis, mass impoverishment and drug addiction. The center also works to coordinate with Palestinians inside Palestine and everywhere in exile and diaspora.

During the uprisings in the camps in 2019, the center played a role in supporting the demonstrations and educating people on their rights as Palestinian refugees.

In the center, the children play a major role in decision-making, working to decide new rules and having a say in who teaches and provides their educational programs at the center.

• Read the Day 3 Report: Samidoun Delegation to Lebanon Day 3: Generations of struggle for return and liberation
• Read the Day 2 Report: Samidoun Delegation to Lebanon Day 2: Political and cultural discussions at Mar Elias camp
• Read the Day 1 Report: Samidoun delegation to Lebanon begins: Visit to Shatila camp, meeting with boycott campaign

The delegation will proceed throughout the coming days, with ongoing reports of the delegation’s meetings and work throughout Lebanon. You can also follow the progress of the delegation on Samidoun Stockholm’s social media (@samidoun08), Collectif Palestine Vaincra (@collectifpalestinevaincra) and Samidoun Spain (@samidoun.esp).

On the third day of the Samidoun international delegation, the Ghassan Kanafani Brigade, in Lebanon, the network participated in numerous visits and meetings in Beirut, Tripoli and Beddawi refugee camp.

The first of these meetings took place at the office of the cultural organization Ajyaal (“Generations”) coordinated by Samira Salah, who welcomed us together with her husband, Salah Salah, co-founder of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and historical member of the Arab Nationalist Movement. The Samidoun delegation honored Salah and Samira for their lifelong struggle and dedication to the Palestinian people and their liberation movement, presenting them with Palestinian embroidery.

Samira is a Palestinian refugee born in Tiberias, who grew up in Homs, Syria, after her family’s forced displacement from Palestine during the Nakba. In 1965 she joined the Arab Nationalist Movement, although she had always participated as an activist. When she became a member of the PFLP, she was in charge of the women’s union, became a member of the Central Committee of the Front, and later she devoted her greatest efforts to the Palestinian refugee committee of the PLO. Her activity in this committee was directed towards the refugee camps that were not recognized as such in Lebanon and therefore did not receive any financial support, including from UNRWA.

After the war in Lebanon in 2006, both Salah and Samira moved to Tripoli to focus on developing Lebanese-Palestinian cooperation. Before the COVID-19 pandemic struck, the two coordinated youth activity camps every year, structured in three different ways: one for Palestinians, Arabs and Europeans; one for Lebanese Palestinians; and one for Palestinians in Europe.

This project is based on an essential premise on which Salah and Samira’s thinking is based, and around which our conversation revolved: The role of the new generations is an indispensable key to the liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea. Salah, anxious to make it clear to us that this premise was not a simple logo, briefly exposed us to the important role played by the Palestinian youth as active political agents and subjects from 1920 until today. Finally, we were honored to receive a dedicated copy of his recent autobiography “From the banks of the Al Buhaira to the revolution.”

The meeting was powerfully touching, as Salah and Samira shared their decades of experience in struggle and their conviction in supporting youth organizing to move forward the liberation of Palestine.

At mid-morning the delegation headed towards Tripoli, in the north of Lebanon, where we were received in the home of Robert Abdallah, brother of the political prisoner Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, who has been incarcerated in French prisons for 37 years. The delegation talked with Robert and his colleagues in the national campaign to liberate Georges Abdallah about the various campaigns underway for Georges’ release, as well as the political situation in Lebanon and the lack of commitment and action of both the Lebanese government and the Palestinian factions to secure the release of Abdallah.

The members of the Collectif Palestine Vaincra participating in the delegation discussed their efforts on the ground in France to widely amplify and publicize the campaign for Georges Abdallah’s liberation, working hand in hand Samidoun internationally and with the campaign in Lebanon.

Robert and his colleagues in the campaign in Lebanon also appreciated the important role played by European internationalists in George’s case and in the Palestinian cause. Delegates discussed their work and activities, explaining the origins of Samidoun, the different fields in which we work and the collective work of Samidoun between occupied Palestine, the network in Europe, and elsewhere in the Arab region and internationally. Finally, delegates presented the new initiative of the Masar Badil, the Palestinian Alternative Path.

Next the Samidoun delegation travelled to Beddawi refugee camp, located near Tripoli. The delegation was warmly received by the Arab Palestinian Cultural Club, and delegates delivered the funds that were raised earlier in the year to support the People’s Ambulance of Beddawi camp, a project that has become increasingly important, especially as the medical and financial crisis in Lebanon deepens.

Before entering the building of the club, the delegation walked through the streets of Beddawi. The camp is well-known for the murals and artworks painted on the walls in the streets of the camp, and in many ways, daily living conditions are better in Beddawi camp than in the camps visited by the delegation on previous days.

Next, the delegation visited Al-Shifa medical center, which is run by Abu Abed. Al-Shifa provides medical checkups and recipes for the residents of the camp, and it also has a specialized room for pregnancy and childbirth. In addition, the center houses a laboratory for diagnostic testing.

The good and necessary work of the center, which has already existed in a consistent state of harsh conditions, has been heavily affected by the economic crisis in Lebanon. There are widespread shortages of medication, and even simple painkillers like ibuprofen and paracetamol (Tylenol) are sometimes unavailable. Medical hardware and equipment is also much needed to provide adequate services to the camp. All in all, the center demonstrated the need for close cooperation between international revolutionary movements and the Palestinian diaspora in the camps.

When the delegation arrived at the Arab Palestinian Cultural Club building, local organizer Osama Al-Ali explained the history of the club. It was founded in 1993 as a response to the Oslo accords and the marginalization of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, with its principal goal to organize and activate the youth in the camp to struggle for the right to return to Palestine.

The delegation met with children and youth in the camp to hear their views and discuss the future of Palestine; in their comments, they highlighted the central importance of the connection between the struggles in the camps and for the right to return with the armed struggle, especially the resistance in Gaza.

The children and youth had an insightful and productive discussion with the delegation, in which they demonstrated their curiosity, understanding, depth of knowledge and brilliance. Questions were raised about the internationalist character of the Palestinian struggle, the prisoners movement and visions of a future Palestine free of colonialism.

The evening concluded with a dinner and musical performance, where the children and youth of the Club sang songs about workers, the right of return, Palestinian resistance and armed struggle, and freedom. Our hosts gifted the delegation keffiyeh scarves adorned with the logo of the club and the image of Al-Aqsa before the conclusion of the program.

• Read the Day 2 Report: Samidoun Delegation to Lebanon Day 2: Political and cultural discussions at Mar Elias camp
• Read the Day 1 Report: Samidoun delegation to Lebanon begins: Visit to Shatila camp, meeting with boycott campaign

The delegation will proceed throughout the coming days, with ongoing reports of the delegation’s meetings and work throughout Lebanon. You can also follow the progress of the delegation on Samidoun Stockholm’s social media (@samidoun08), Collectif Palestine Vaincra (@collectifpalestinevaincra) and Samidoun Spain (@samidoun.esp).

On 23 July, the second day of the Samidoun international delegation to Lebanon, the delegates participated in several political meetings and cultural activities. Delegates began their activities of the day by meeting in Beirut with Jamal Wakim, a professor at the Lebanese University. Jamal Wakim is also a leading member in the People’s Movement of Lebanon (Harakat al-Shaab), a political party formed in 2000, with a progressive and anti-imperialist agenda.

The delegation discussed the situation for the Palestinian Left and its political organizations, and how we can collectively move forward to advance Palestinian liberation. Also on the agenda were differing views on Arab nationalism and visions of the path of national liberation for the region as a whole. The delegation also discussed the relationships of various anti-colonial movements around the world and their relationships to each other, with Wakim drawing parallels to Cuba, Brazil and the rest of Latin America as examples to learn from, including the pitfalls of reformist movements and the necessity of revolutionary change.

We also had a discussion on how US imperialism, with Israel as its spearhead, actively works to fragment Lebanon and the rest of the Arab region in order to further establish its hegemony, and how important it is to counter these attacks. One part of this fragmentation was reflected in the Lebanese Civil War, in which Lebanese society was restructured in favor of imperialist interests, mainly through violence against the poor and marginalized minorities.

In the evening, the Samidoun delegation visited Mar Elias refugee camp, where they met with comrades of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in its office in the camp, hearing from veteran strugglers for Palestine about their experiences and visions for the future of Palestinian liberation.

The delegation then visited the Palestinian Cultural Club in Mar Elias refugee camp. The Club is a social, cultural and political platform in the camps of Lebanon, serving mainly children and youth. It organizes cultural activities and Palestinian history and geography events for younger children and political workshops for older youth. One of the Club’s purposes is to raise political awareness among the Palestinian youth.The Palestinian Cultural Club welcomes all independent youth organizations which wish to organize together. The Club was launched by students at Beirut Arab University in 1993, after the Lebanese Civil War and the signing of the Oslo agreements, when they saw an absence of political organizations for the inhabitants of the refugee camps, to advance Palestinian liberation and protect the right to return. Samidoun and the Club has a long discussion where we shared our experiences of organizing for Palestine and how we can build our cooperation to further the cause of national liberation.

The delegation received a history lesson on the culture of the camps, including the founding of Palestinian music group Jafra, which was the start of several generations of dabke dancing in the camps. At the end of the evening, the Samidoun delegates were treated to music and poetry from Jaafar al-Toufar.

Our hosts Cirine Nabulsi and Mahmoud al-Badawia concluded the meeting by presenting Samidoun Network with a portrait of an imprisoned Palestinian looking towards freedom and a message of solidarity, struggle and hope for the future liberation of Palestine.

• Read the Day 1 Report: Samidoun delegation to Lebanon begins: Visit to Shatila camp, meeting with boycott campaign

The delegation will proceed throughout the coming days, with ongoing reports of the delegation’s meetings and work throughout Lebanon. You can also follow the progress of the delegation on Samidoun Stockholm’s social media (@samidoun08), Collectif Palestine Vaincra (@collectifpalestinevaincra) and Samidoun Spain (@samidoun.esp).