The “Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine” (PFLP) was founded in 1967 by the Christian Palestinian George Habash and expressed the Marxist-Leninist ideology with the primary goal, of course, of the self-determination of the Palestinian people. It was, after Fatah, the second largest entity among those that formed the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) but withdrew in 1993. The PFLP took a hard line in the Palestinian national struggle from the beginning, maintaining an armed and political wing to this day. Known worldwide as the PFLP, it does not recognise the state of Israel and promotes a one-state solution to the Middle East issue.
One of the leaders of the PFLP, Hussein Al-Khaldi, speaks to Phileleftheros about the current conditions in both Gaza and the West Bank. He explains why the Trump plan was accepted – in part – and why the organisation collaborated with Hamas in the genocidal war that Israel launched. He denounces the fundamental goals of Zionism, claiming that they began to be implemented even before 1948 and concern the control of Palestinian land and the uprooting of the people, rejects the two-state solution and insists on the existence of a democratic, secular state, with rights for all.
In several countries around the world, the prevailing view is that October 7, 2023, was the beginning of the conflict in the Middle East and especially in Gaza. What is your position on this?
The Palestinian people have been resisting occupation and all forms of settlement on the land of Palestine for more than 100 years. The Palestinian struggle has gone through many stages, and there have been important milestones in this Palestinian struggle over these long years; there were revolutions led by Palestinians and even other names that came from outside Palestine, whether against the British Mandate or against Zionist settlement. In the modern Palestinian struggle, there have been important milestones in this struggle to achieve the goals of the Palestinian people: liberation, the removal of the occupation, and the establishment of their Palestinian state.
October 7th indeed represents a significant turning point in the stages of the Palestinian struggle, but it cannot be viewed as the foundation of the struggle or the starting point; October 7th is an extension of a struggle process that the Palestinian people began decades ago and which is still ongoing. What happened on October 7th was carried out to achieve part of the goals of the Palestinian people, and it seems that a foremost goal was an attempt to “empty the prisons,” i.e., liberate more than 6000 Palestinian prisoners.
What the Palestinians did on October 7th was also a reaction of an occupied people to the practices of this Zionist entity, whether related to the ongoing settlement in the West Bank, the process of theft and ongoing violations in Jerusalem, and most importantly, of course, what the Gaza Strip was subjected to: a suffocating siege, the closure of all crossings, and the arrogance of this Zionist entity against the Gaza Strip and against the Palestinians, which has increased systematically and clearly over the last two decades.
Therefore, what happened on October 7th was a natural event and a normal reaction in the course of the Palestinian cause, because all forms of struggle for the Palestinian people are legitimate means to reclaim their historical rights and achieve the dreams of our people for freedom and ending the occupation of their land. But we cannot look at October 7th as if it were the beginning of this conflict; no, on the contrary, it is an extension of an ongoing Palestinian struggle that will continue until the full rights of our Palestinian people are achieved.
What is your opinion on the Trump plan and the ceasefire in Gaza? Do you consider it a step towards peace and a political solution for the Palestinian people?
The Trump plan came after more than two years of the war of genocide launched by the Zionist entity against the Gaza Strip, which killed more than 70,000 Palestinian martyrs. There was a war of genocide that continued for over two years against the Gaza Strip, destroying all infrastructure, including universities, schools, hospitals, and all elements of life in the Strip by the fascist Zionist entity. This war of genocide, which lasted for two years in front of the eyes of the world, seemed it would not stop due to unlimited American and imperialist support, the silence of the international system, and the cooperation of some puppet regimes in the region. In these circumstances, the resistance factions primarily wanted, and even the Palestinian people in general primarily wanted as a top priority, to stop the war of genocide and the ethnic cleansing assault launched by the Zionist entity in Gaza.
Of course, the United States of America is not a neutral party in this battle but is the main supporter, director, and driver of this entity in its war. Consequently, we viewed and view the Trump plan primarily as a means to reach a cessation of the war of genocide. Thus, the Palestinian factions dealt with it based on this principle: “We want to stop the war of genocide and achieve the demands of the Palestinian people.” From this understanding came the response of the Palestinian resistance factions: yes to the points that would stop the war, but regarding the points related to sovereignty, national rights, and the right to self-determination, these remain reserved for the decision of the entire Palestinian people.
We received the Trump plan with this logic, as a means to put an end to the killing and destruction happening in the Gaza Strip, although all resistance factions, including us, registered many criticisms and negative issues concerning this plan. However, the circumstances, whether internal or external, or the dimensions the war had reached, perhaps formed a pressure factor on the Palestinian side to accept this plan because, as I said, the top priority was primarily to stop the war of genocide and stop the bleeding in the Gaza Strip.
But the Trump plan cannot be seen as leading to a complete political solution. The achievement of Palestinian rights will only come through the struggle of the Palestinian people and steadfast international solidarity with our cause, and this requires more work and more consultation among all national action factions in Palestine to be a stumbling block before any projects aimed at liquidating the Palestinian cause.
In short, the Trump plan, or all plans issued by American imperialism or the United States of America, cannot move in the direction of finding just political solutions for the Palestinian people. But perhaps the requirements of the stage and the difficult circumstances that the Palestinian people and the Palestinian cause are going through are what pushed the Palestinian negotiator to partially accept this plan without compromising the basic rights of our people. What was required was to stop the war of genocide and thwart the schemes to displace the Palestinian people from the Gaza Strip. It is with this logic that we understand the partial acceptance of the Trump plan, but this does not mean that this is the end of the road; the struggle is still ongoing, and what is required is to continue working to unify ranks to confront all projects aimed at circumventing the Palestinian national cause.
Did you, together with Hamas, resist the Israeli invasion of Gaza and the West Bank? Can this cooperation have a future for a national leadership of the Palestinians?
We must distinguish here that when the Zionist entity started the war of genocide, it tried to portray it as if this war was against a specific organization – against Hamas. We certainly do not understand the issue through this false Zionist propaganda. The Zionist entity targets the entire Palestinian people and all resistance factions present, whether inside Gaza, in the West Bank, or in all areas where the Palestinian people are present, whether in historical Palestine or even outside historical Palestine.
There is a clear targeting of the culture of resistance, of the principle of resistance carried out by the Palestinian people, and even beyond that, to all forms of resistance to Zionism and Zionist imperialist expansion in the region. Therefore, the war was not against Hamas; this war, the war of genocide, targeted the existence of the Palestinian people and primarily the Palestinian resistance factions. All resistance factions, including Hamas, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Islamic Jihad movement, and all other existing factions, stood united primarily to defend our Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, facing this Zionist entity, which came with the latest imperialist weapons and all the destructive technology it possesses, against an unarmed people.
The resistance only possesses simple capabilities in the confrontation, but what these factions possess is the will and determination to remain steadfast and to thwart the Zionist-American schemes. In the face of this enemy, which possesses the most advanced modern technology and receives support and backing at the highest levels from the United States of America and many other countries, we have reached a stage that requires the formation of a unified national leadership for the Palestinian people so that the Palestinian voice is clear in confronting all these moves, whether by the Zionist entity or even by those who support this Zionist entity and by the United States of America.
What is required now from the Palestinian people and its national forces is to be unified, and most resistance factions, including the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, have been demanding from the beginning that there be a unified national leadership and a unified Palestinian strategy to confront this war of genocide and the challenges of this stage. National unity is a strategic strength, and no resistance force can be successful by acting alone and imposing its ideas and strategies on other national forces. What is required today is unification and agreement on a unified national strategy to confront the challenges of the stage and pave the way for achieving the historical demands of the Palestinian people.
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine has supported a one-state solution since its founding in 1967. Does it still back this vision?
The two-state solution or the one-state solution is often mentioned regarding solutions to the Palestinian cause. Regarding the two-state solution, we must know well that Israel is an expansionist settler entity that aims to control the land and expel its people, and these are the fundamental goals of the Zionist project since its beginning, even before the formation of this entity in 1948, as there were settlement movements since before the Balfour Declaration, which increased during the British Mandate over the land of Palestine. The most important goals of this project are to uproot the Palestinian by all means and methods, whether through killing, destruction, or displacement.
It’s not only what happened in the Gaza Strip during the last two years; these scenes and these operations of killing, including children, women, and the elderly, were permanent policies that preceded even the establishment of the Zionist entity through Zionist gangs like the Haganah and others that operated on this logic because, according to the Zionist doctrine, “a good Palestinian is a dead Palestinian” in their view. Therefore, what happened in the Gaza Strip is not a rare case, even though the scenes are indescribable.
Thus, we can only understand the goals of this Zionist project as the cancellation of the Palestinian existence, and with this, it is impossible for the rights of the Palestinian people to be achieved with the existence of this Zionist entity. Today, in the Zionist entity, Netanyahu and others talk about a Jewish state, a national state for Jews only, and they are not only talking about Palestine but about “Greater Israel,” as Zionist ambitions extend beyond the lands of Palestine. This is how we understand the nature of our conflict with the Zionist entity. Therefore, all that is said about the two-state solution is frankly unrealistic, in addition to not meeting the demands of the Palestinian people, who are the owners of the land and the rightful owners.
The Zionist entity has always rejected the idea of a Palestinian state and says openly that it will not allow it to exist, and we have experience with this entity on this subject. If we recall the Oslo Accords, which were signed with one Palestinian party without the agreement of the others, and which stipulated the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip with East Jerusalem as its capital, along with many other issues, but after decades now, we look, what happened? Now the West Bank has become divided into suffocating cantons, the number of settlers has multiplied many times over, approaching one million settlers in the West Bank, they have taken Jerusalem and declared it the eternal capital of the entity, and they have besieged and strangled the Strip.
Therefore, neither strategically nor realistically is there any possibility for the existence of a two-state solution. Therefore, the solution remains the one democratic, secular state where everyone coexists regardless of religion, and belief, with equal citizenship, of course, in a way that achieves the historical right of the Palestinian people to return to their land without the presence of aggressive Zionist settlers violating their rights.
This is the solution primarily adopted by the Popular Front; we want a Palestinian state on the entire Palestinian national soil where everyone lives with equality, with full rights and responsibilities.
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