The 21st anniversary of the martyrdom of Abu Ali Mustafa

This Saturday 27 August we mark 21 years since the martyrdom of Abu Ali Mustafa, the General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, targeted for an Israeli assassination raid with a U.S-made and -provided missile in occupied Al-Bireh, Palestine, in 2001. 

As Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, we remember and honor Abu Ali Mustafa’s legacy as a popular and revolutionary leader of the Palestinian liberation movement, a principled struggler who organized, upheld and defended the Palestinian resistance and the Palestinian people until his last breath.

Abu Ali was born in 1938 in Arraba, Jenin, Palestine. At the age of 17, he joined the Arab Nationalist Movement, the Arab liberation movement founded by Al-Hakim, Dr. George Habash, Wadie Haddad, Abu Maher al-Yamani, Basil al-Kubaisi, Ahmad al-Khatib, Hani al-Hindi and their comrades. He played a leading role in the Arab Nationalist Movement in the 1950s and 1960s and confronted the repression of the Jordanian regime, which banned political parties; in fact, he was arrested and imprisoned for five years in Jordanian prison, sentenced by a military court for his organizing. Throughout his life in struggle, he consistently upheld the centrality of the liberation of the political prisoners from Zionist, imperialist and reactionary regime prisons. 

The PFLP prison branch issued a statement from behind Zionist bars connecting the anniversary to the struggle taking place inside the prisons today:

“The 21st anniversary of the martyrdom of the leader Abu Ali Mustafa comes at a sensitive moment in the history of our people, in which the Zionist enemy continues its comprehensive war against our people. It comes at a shameful moment for the normalizing Arab reactionary forces in a U.S. plot against our people and our cause. These aggressions and schemes are being met with steadfastness and resistance, and amid this battle, the prisoners are confronting the so-called ‘Prison Authority’ with legendary steadfastness, to teach it lesson after lesson despite all of the forms of oppression and abuse, the confiscation of the prisoners’ rights and the barest necessities of life…In your memory, Abu Ali, we raise our fists in the face of the occupier, announcing the continuation of our resistance. We raise our fists as a greeting from Palestine to all Palestinian, Arab and international resisters. We raise our fists in salute to the masses of our people who are united with the resistance.”

After his release from Jordanian prison in 1961, Abu Ali continued to work with the Arab Nationalist Movement. He became responsible for the northern district of the West Bank of Palestine before joining with Habash and his comrades in co-founding the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The founding of the PFLP followed al-Naksa in 1967, the occupation of the remainder of Palestine as well as the Syrian Golan Heights and the Egyptian Sinai. 

Abu Ali Mustafa played a key role within the PFLP and, thus, within the Palestinian revolutionary movement as a whole. He was renowned for his humbleness, sincerity and dedication; he did not like to be the center of attention. Amid his dedication to establishing the underground organizations of the Front, he consistently listened to his comrades and, indeed, the Palestinian people, sharing their experiences and ideas in order to deepen his understanding and leadership. 

As Khaled Barakat explains:

“Abu Ali Mustafa treated the Popular Front as his ‘daily workshop’ that does not rest and does not sleep. […] Abu Ali Mustafa was not only fighting for the rights of his people to liberation and return, but he was equally as strongly building the revolutionary tools that could create the act of liberation and help people to extract their confiscated rights: from the women’s institutions to the youth organizations, to the institutions for students, workers and charity, and for military action. These tools are the vehicles of revolutionary organization.”

Upon his return to the occupied West Bank of Palestine in 1999, Abu Ali Mustafa stated: “We return to the homeland to resist, not to compromise.” It was this commitment to resistance, including the armed resistance, that led the occupation to plan for his assassination. The occupation viewed his role as a principled national leader as a threat to its continued military domination throughout occupied Palestine, as well as to the Oslo so-called “peace process” and the “Palestinian Authority” acting as a subcontractor for the occupier.. 

On 27 August 2001, only two years after his return to Palestine, Abu Ali Mustafa was killed by occupation forces firing two missiles, produced and provided by the United States, into his office in occupied Al-Bireh. His martyrdom was saluted by over 50,000 people attending Abu Ali’s funeral. 

As a response to the targeted assassination of Abu Ali Mustafa, the PFLP targeted the notoriously racist Zionist tourism minister Rehavam Ze’evi several weeks later on 17 October. Ze’evi was widely known for his demands for the complete ethnic cleansing of Palestine. This response sent a clear message from the Palestinian resistance – that the Israeli assassination policy would not be tolerated and that an assassination of Palestinian leaders would be met with an equal response.

Today, the Israeli assassination policy continues to target Palestinian leaders. Indeed, the Palestinian resistance’s battle for the Unity of the Fields, fought just weeks ago and centred in Gaza, emphasized the response to the assassination of Palestinian leaders such as Tayseer al-Jabari and Khaled Mansour, of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad Movement. 

Abu Ali Mustafa was known throughout his life as an organizer and a builder of organizations. Thus, it is appropriate that many institutions have been named to honor him after his martyrdom, from schools and sports clubs to the armed wing of the Popular Front, reflecting his wide-ranging legacy in the Palestinian liberation struggle.

This legacy lives on in the Palestinian, Arab and international revolutionary organizations and movements, and the people, always his compass, who continue to struggle for the liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea, for the return of the refugees, for the defeat of Zionism. These strugglers lead and fight so heroically from behind bars, under siege and in exile, despite all the internal and external difficulties that are being imposed upon them, confronting the forces of imperialism, Zionism and Arab reaction, as Abu Ali Mustafa did throughout his life.

He said: “We are all targets as soon as we start mobilizing. We do our best to avoid their weapons but we live under the brutal Zionist occupation of our lands and their army is only a few meters away from us…We have a job to do, and nothing will stop us.”

Today, Palestinian prisoners are engaged in a collective struggle behind bars, putting their bodies and lives on the line for justice and liberation, on hunger strike and in resistance. The assassination policy that targeted Abu Ali Mustafa, with the armament and backing of the imperialist powers, continues today, aiming to deprive the Palestinian people of their beloved leaders and courageous fighters, even as the resistance grows. The legacy of Abu Ali Mustafa must inspire us all to action: to support the prisoners in their struggle, to fight back against imperialism, and to organize to bring an end to the assassination policy. Most fundamentally, Abu Ali Mustafa, a truly revolutionary Palestinian national leader, firmly upheld the Palestinian and Arab resistance, making clear that the people say “No” to normalization and negotiations, their eyes fixed on return and liberation. 

When we act and organize on the path of Abu Ali Mustafa and his fellow Palestinian leaders targeted for assassination and imprisonment, we make clear that the assassination policy will never succeed in defeating the Palestinian people and the Palestinian, Arab and international liberation movement. This anniversary is not merely a historical occasion, but a call to action – to act together with the Palestinian prisoners, to support the Palestinian people and their resistance, and  to realize the vision of Abu Ali Mustafa and of the Palestinian people – for victory, and for the liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea.

More resources:

• Abu Ali Mustafa website

In the early morning hours of Thursday, 18 August, armed Israeli occupation forces invaded the offices of seven prominent Palestinian NGOs, civil society organizations and human rights defenders: the Health Work Committees, Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, Al-Haq, Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees, Bisan Centre, Defence for Children International – Palestine, and the Union of Agricultural Work Committees. These organizations have all been designated by the Israeli occupation as “terrorist” in retaliation for their advocacy and community organizing work for Palestine, and then labeled “illegal organizations” in a military order covering the occupied West Bank of Palestine.

The invading forces ransacked the offices, confiscating computers, legal client files, documentation, printers and monitors and leaving clutter behind — as documented by the organizations’ surveillance cameras, recording the occupation forces’ invasion. The doors of the organizations were welded shut and a paper military order affixed to the door declaring their operation “illegal” under the occupation’s (illegal) military orders.

The organizations declared that they would not be silenced by these attacks, holding press conferences and returning to the offices to reopen them and continue their work. The attacks received widespread condemnation not only from Palestinian and pro-Palestinian forces but even from European governments whose policies and practices consistently target the Palestinian people and their fundamental rights.

Now, on Sunday, 21 August, occupation intelligence authorities — the Shin Bet — phoned Al-Haq director Shawan Jabarin to threaten him with interrogation and arrest if the organization’s work continues, while Defence for Children International – Palestine director Khaled Quzmar was summoned to and held under interrogation.

UPDATE: After approximately two hours in Shin Bet custody, Khaled Quzmar, @DCIPalestine’s General Director, has been released. #StandWithThe6 https://t.co/iekFkSXNH9

— Defense for Children (@DCIPalestine) August 21, 2022

“Terror” Designations and Political Control

The invasions, interrogations, ransacking and attacks on these organizations reflect the failure of the occupation’s regime of “terror” designations to undermine their work. In 2021, not only did the regime designate Al-Haq, Addameer, DCI, Bisan, the UPWC and the UAWC as “terrorist” organizations — quickly followed by the military orders banning their work in the occupied West Bank of Palestine — it earlier in the year designated Samidoun (on 21 February 2021), followed by three more organizations. Previously and in a similar pretext, the occupation had issued a similar designation against the Health Work Committees along with designations of groups including the Arab Organization for Human Rights UK, the Palestinian Return Centre and Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor.

As we noted at the time, this

“indicates just how meaningless the term ‘terrorist’ is in the hands of the Israeli regime. It means precisely any organization, activist, or freedom fighter that challenges Zionist colonialism through any method or means of resistance at all. The flurry of ‘terrorist’ designations for organizations working to expose Israel’s crimes and organize Palestinians underlines this reality….These designations are not attacks on individual organizations but against Palestinian human rights defenders and those around the world who stand up for Palestinian liberation — and, fundamentally, the Palestinian people as a whole, especially the Palestinian prisoners in Israeli occupation prisons. They attempt to repress growing support for the legitimate resistance of the Palestinian people and confrontation of imperialism and Zionism.”

Further, it is clear that the use of such designations is intended to further political control over Palestinian society. These designations hinge on the allegation that organizations are close to one or another Palestinian resistance organizations, most commonly the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine or Hamas. Israeli officials have shopped around “evidence” to various governments that is so weak so as to be ludicrous, consisting almost entirely of unsubstantiated statements or on the idea that employing a person who supports a political organization (or, in some cases, relatives of people in political organizations “designated” by the occupation) is “funding” that organization by paying employees a salary for doing their job.

While it is obvious that these are false claims, the objective of this type of attack goes beyond simply lobbing allegations. Indeed, the European governments that have criticized the attacks and designations have also repeatedly affirmed their willingness to “examine evidence” and “act” if the Israeli regime “proves” that popular organizations, civil society groups and human rights advocates are in some way “tied” to Palestinian resistance movements. Not only are the organizations “innocent” of the Israeli claims, the claims themselves are fundamentally repugnant. The Palestinian people have the right to resist occupation and to be a part of political, social and armed movements in that resistance; this is not “terrorism” but an essential right of people under occupation and colonization.

Rather than affirming the right of Palestinians to resist and to organize themselves to achieve those goals, these European governments instead use these attacks to impose even greater political scrutiny and conditions. In many cases (such as the Netherlands), these governments recommend or require that all employees of these organizations must not be associated with any “banned” Palestinian political organization. If Palestinians are part of a political party or movement, they must be unemployable and impoverished: this is both the argument of the occupation and of the European states providing a meager “defense” of Palestinian civil society.

For the European funding agencies and many large foundations, supporting Palestinian NGOs has never been primarily about empowering or supporting the Palestinian people to achieve their liberation but rather about redirecting Palestinian energies into “state-building” and/or “reform” projects that exist within the confines of Oslo. Time and time again, these forces have introduced new conditional funding mechanisms and restrictions on everything from the political affiliation of individual employees to the names of buildings and schools.

European Union: Partners in Colonialism and Apartheid

This is borne out once again by the statement of nine European states — Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden — which invokes the promotion of “democratic values and the two-state solution,” a fundamental contradiction as the so-called “two-state solution” itself is the legitimization of the colonization and occupation of 78% of Palestine and no solution at all for the Palestinian people. This brief comment lays bare the real political motivation for European involvement in funding Palestinian organizations, which is to limit rather than to achieve rights, justice and liberation. Further, the statement notes that “should convincing evidence be made available to the contrary, we would act accordingly.”

Israel raided 6 human rights groups, confiscated their property and welded their offices shut after declaring them “terrorists.” Pathetic response from @EUpalestinians is a photo-op. EU failure to punish the occupier and demand it reverse its criminal act is willful complicity https://t.co/p5FxL1dXLB

— Ali Abunimah (@AliAbunimah) August 18, 2022

Here, the “evidence” being referred to would be any “links” between these NGOs and the Palestinian resistance. By including this statement in their alleged defense of the organizations, these European states actually encourage the occupation to continue its raids and ransacking, confiscation of files, arrests and interrogations, in an attempt to manufacture such “evidence”.

Of course, the position of these states themselves — members of the aggressive NATO alliance, defenders of the Israeli occupation in international arenas — is all too clear. The European Union, while rejecting the designation of advocacy and civil society organizations, continues to designate Palestinian resistance organizations as “terrorists.”

France continues to imprison Georges Ibrahim Abdallah while doing almost nothing to advocate for its citizen Salah Hamouri, jailed without charge or trial under Israeli administrative detention, as the government attempts to criminalize Palestinian activism, such as the Collectif Palestine Vaincra. Germany not only engages in weapons deals with the occupation, it also engages in severely repressive practices against Palestine organizing, particularly Palestinian communities in exile and diaspora, from the expulsion of Palestinian writer Khaled Barakat and Palestinian torture survivor and feminist Rasmea Odeh to the ban on 15 May Nakba demonstrations in Berlin. This is not to mention the links between Zionism and European colonialism from the very beginning of the Zionist project.

Now, Israeli prime minister and war criminal Yair Lapid is scheduled to come to Brussels on 6 October to convene the “Association Council” with all EU member states’ foreign ministers, for the first time in 10 years. This is the council under the EU-Israel Association Agreement, the agreement that provides for free trade for occupation products inside the EU and allows for occupation institutions to receive European grants for research and development.

Ending the EU-Israel Association Agreement is a long-time demand of the Palestine solidarity movement, but despite their expressed “concerns” about the violent repression imposed on Palestinians, these European states are planning to welcome Lapid and convene the Association Council after a long hiatus, celebrating their complicity in war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The Canadian government has refused to make any meaningful statement about these attacks, despite posing as a defender of “human rights.” U.S. officials stated their “concern,” while continuing to provide $3.8 billion in military support to the occupier.

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network affirms that these attacks are part and parcel of the ongoing war on Palestinian existence and organization, carried out by the Zionist state and supported by the imperialist powers that ally with the Israeli occupation, as well as Arab reactionary regimes engaged in “normalization” and the Palestinian Authority. While PA officials declare their public support for the targeted organizations, the PA continues to engage in security coordination with the occupation, declined the use of its security forces to defend the organizations, and has even previously detained leaders, directors and staff of these organizations challenging its repression at the behest of the occupier.

We reaffirm that the primary way that we can confront these designations is by intensifying our organizing, action, mobilization and resistance to bring down the structures of colonialism, implement the right to return for Palestinian refugees, and support the liberation of all Palestinian prisoners and of Palestine, from the river to the sea. This includes campaigning to bring an end to the so-called “terrorist lists” used to terrify Palestinian communities and Palestine solidarity organizers, which only provide a weapon in the hands of the occupation and encourages it to engage in further specious designations.

We also urge all to take action to confront Lapid’s visit on 6 October in Brussels and to bring down the “EU-Israel Association Agreement,” an agreement built on the colonization of Palestine and the massacres targeting the Palestinian people. It is incumbent upon all institutions and organizations concerned about these raids and about the Palestinian people to adopt and implement the boycott and international isolation of Israel, including at the United Nations and its bodies.

Further, we urge all to join us in organizing to march in Brussels on 29 October for the March for Return and Liberation to the European Parliament, to demand an end to European complicity, involvement in and support for the colonization of Palestine, the siege on Gaza, the imprisonment of Palestinians and the denial of millions of Palestinians’ right to return home.

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We invite all who want to get involved in building this collective solidarity to get involved with our work at Samidoun. Click here to donate to support our work. To find out about becoming a member or building a chapter in your area, email us today at samidoun@samidoun.net