The Palestinian Cultural Center in Wupperal, Germany hosted a political seminar, “Palestine and the tasks of the current stage: on the road to return and liberation,” marking the 14th anniversary of the assassination of Abu Ali Mustafa, Palestinian national leader and Gemeral Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, on 29 August. Khaled Barakat, Palestinian writer and coordinator of the Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa’adat, spoke at the event, attended by dozens of Palestinian and Arabs in western Germany.
Barakat addressed the role of the Palestinian diaspora in the current stage of Palestinian politics, confronting exclusion and suppression of Palestinians in exile and attempts to confiscate the role of the Palestinian diaspora, as well as the crisis and lack of official Palestinian responsibility in the face of the situation in the Palestinian refugee camps today in Syria and Lebanon.
He addressed the reasons behind the monopolistic Palestinian leadership’s call for a so-called “extraordinary session of the Palestinian National Council” at this time when the Palestinian cause is facing some of the most severe fragentation and division.
The majority of attendees expressed their rejection of this project and the policy of the monopolistic leadership of the PLO, noting that it goes hand in hand with other suspicious regional projects, so-called “negotiations” with the enemy and “security coordination” aimed at the Palestinian resistance. In addition, they expressed their deep concern for the future of the Palestinian armed resistance because of the consistency of the Palestinian Authority with more projects taking place under the name of “long-term truce” or “calm” with no real open discussion in the Palestinian national movement.
Barakat emphasized the need for the voice of the Palestinian masses to rise in the homeland and in the diaspora to liberate their cause from the grip of a handful of dominant characters in the Palestinian institutions, emphasizing that the PLO is supposed to be a unified national front, which includes in its ranks all of the forces of resistance and national figures. The Palestinian people are the first and the last term of reference for the movement. Without the true involvement and leadership of the Palestinian masses, the organization is a weak and marginal tool that is far from addressing the concerns and reality of the Palestinian people.
In order to fulfill the goals of the leader Abu Ali Mustafa and the martyrs of the Palestinian people, Barakat said, it is critical to uphold full Palestinian rights to liberation and return and struggle for victory, not for a “solution” or a “settlement,” recalling the phrase of Abu Ali Mustafa: “If given a choice between the institution and the homeland, it is natural that we choose the homeland.”
Barakat engaged in a question and answer session with the audience, addressing various political issues and discussing the positions of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
The entire audience resolved to direct a statement from them to the presidency of the Palestinian National Council to reject the so-called extraordinary meeting and to confirm the right of the Palestinian people to restore and rebuild their unified national front, and call to convene an ordinary session of the PNC outside the occupied homeland, on a democratic and inclusive basis, to rebuild our institutions and popular unions, and organize the Palestinian community as a whole on a truly national and democratic foundation.
