By Brahim Harchaoui

Question: Dr. Ibrahim Alloush, the AEL is proud to interview you. First of all, we would like to discuss the subject of Iraq, specifically, the national liberation project there. Where do you stand on the legitimacy of the current Iraqi government, especially after the elections that were held recently in which all the layers of the Iraqi society participated.
And what can we expect from the Iraqi resistance in the future? Has the project of the liberation of Iraq met its death?

First off, we have to emphasise some principles and precepts, the most important being that any elections or political process under occupation cannot be legitimate. There are still 142.000 American soldiers in Iraq and there are even more foreign ‘security personnel’. They are soldiers as well, only working through private companies or what is known as the ‘privatization of occupation’. Now, under this kind of occupation, and under another less visible Iranian occupation in large parts of Iraq, elections cannot possibly be a correct indication of the true aspirations of the Iraqi people, which is true for all elections under occupation in any country.

Therefore, we have to reject the results of this most recent election. Another point I wish to bring up concerns the allegedly strong participation of different layers of Iraqi society. Who has decided that? If we take a look at the websites of resistance groups, for example www.albasrah.net, you’d find them reporting a steep decrease in the participation rate in this election compared to previous ones. In reality, the participation rate is lower than it was a couple of years ago when the previous elections were held. We also observe a sectarian game being implemented by the Americans, which was what attracted the Sunni community to the electoral process to begin with.  And this is directly connected to the permeation of Irano-American influence in the region as a whole, and Iraq in particular. Moreover, certain sectarian militias were allowed to operate freely in Iraq, wreaking havoc and committing massacres, rapes, kidnappings, and sectarian cleansing.  These organized slaughter campaigns were especially undertaken by the security forces of the collaborating state which is under sectarian hegemony.  The Sunni community was especially targeted here, although systematic campaigns to eradicate Baathists and their supporters among Shiites took the lives of many thousands as well.

The Sunni community was told that the reason for this carnage was its refusal (with the except of the Islamic Party in Iraq) to take part in the collaborator state that was created by the occupation in Iraq, its apparatuses, and its elections.   To the state-sponsored sectarian-cleansing campaigns, one should add the scandalous and grievous errors of al-Qaeda in Iraq and the dynamic ignited by its rabid discourse whose victims were not only Shi’ites, but Sunnis as well, including some resistance groups. This led to the founding of the so-called ‘Awakening Councils’, thus the participation of some components of the Sunni community in these elections under occupation. This does not render the elections legitimate nor does it impart legitimacy to the collaborating government. It only provides us with further evidence that the sectarian game has reached a point allowing the American occupier to abuse sectarian sensitivities and to set sects up against each other to realise some of its goals. (It’s the good old divide and conquer strategy).  Such “strategic accomplishments”, we must remember, were achieved in the presence of an occupation.

Regarding the Iraqi resistance, we must keep in mind that it helped coax the Americans into a major strategic, military, economical, financial, and political quagmire (along with the Afghani resistance).  Yet the Iraqi resistance is also has also suffered many a setback.  One cause for this has been the siege the Iraqi resistance has been reeling under since its inception.  Unlike other resistance movements in the region, the Iraqi resistance not only receives no serious support from abroad, but is virtually under siege.  This siege is not only laid by the Americans and the enemies of our nation like the Zionist State and the Arab regimes, but also by some layers and groups who are considered as anti-American by some.  These layers and groups pledge allegiance, without any question, to Iran and its cronies in Iraq.  All these groups collaborated to demonize the Iraqi resistance.  Still, this did not diminish the great potential of the resistance. Some of the greatest blows the Iraqi resistance suffered had to do with the discovery of some of its piles of weapons and funds. Thus the resistance is unable to continue as well as it once did without funds and weapons. Just think how much money the U.S. Government lost in this war.  Then think how much local Iraqi resources had to expend to defeat the U.S. Government gloriously as it did.  But do not get me wrong, the resistance apparatus is still intact and the resistance remains the strongest player in Iraq.  Furthermore, the battle for the liberation of Iraq is still going on.   And the Iraqi resistance continues to prepare for the final battle to cleanse the occupation.

Question: During the war on Gaza, we noticed again that the Arab regimes are culpable. On the other hand the Arab people went on the street to “express” their solidarity with Gaza. Has the time arrived for the Arab regimes to be brought down through popular revolution? What do we have to do as Arabs in that regard?

Dr. Alloush: It was clear during the war on Gaza that the Arab street is not dead, although the vanguard which was able to mobilize the street, like it did in the fifties and sixties, has virtually disappeared. It is not a crisis of the Arab street, but a crisis within the vanguard and the supposed leadership of the street. There is a lack of leadership or a vanguard which is capable of guiding the masses towards a well-defined strategy and goals instead of these spontaneous and inspiring, yet aimless, protests. The Arabs were and are still ready to participate in all of the nations’ battles, from Morocco to Bahrain. We know that much for sure, last but not least from its solidarity with Gaza.  But then what? The responsibility for this void lies with the vanguard whose absence means necessarily the failure to transform this popular enthusiasm and willingness of the masses into conscious revolutionary political action. This diagnosis will bring us closer to the solution of this crisis and to performing the task of the hour, which is to set up an organized popular Arab movement. Such a movement will be the key to solving this problem. It would fall upon such a movement to realize and achieve our indispensable national goals such as unity, liberation and renaissance. But in the short term we have to focus on supporting the resistance in each territory that has been occupied; such as Iraq, Palestine, Somalia and Lebanon. We need to ask ourselves: how can we support our people in those occupied regions? How can we confront the regimes? How can we achieve any of our goals, whether they are simple or complex?

Unfortunately, we lack an Arab popular movement to realize these aspirations. I don’t mean the establishment of a party organization here, for example, but to a certain extent a front or a political current that’s endowed with the capacity to organize the Arab street in order to fight the enemies of our nation on the military, political, cultural, and economic levels. It’s clear that the responsibility of defending our nation’s security or fulfilling its historical objectives no longer lies in the hands of the Arab regimes since their mere existence has become a liability, even if we assume erroneously that they have the ability and the desire. The people are now responsible for their own salvation.  There is neither a heroic saviour nor a miracle for us if we don’t achieve our own liberation.  Hence, the people are obliged to acquire the necessary means in order to confront the regimes and bring them down. The weakness of the Arab regimes, and of the Arab-state system, gives the Zionist entity and the US the opportunity and the geo-political room to inflict more and more aggression upon us.   It also invites the negative involvement of neighbours like Turkey, Iran,  and Ethiopia. These are indications exposing the coming demise of the role of the Arab regimes.

Question: We want to understand the pacifist role of the Palestinians living in the occupied territories of 1948 (Zionist entity) and their absence in the armed resistance. Is this hindering the project of the liberation of Palestine?

Dr. Alloush: This is a complex situation and the responsibility for marginalizing our people in the Palestinian Arab land occupied in 1948 must be taken by a whole generation of PLO leaders, in particular Yasser Arafat and other factions leaders.  When contemporary Palestinian resistance movements started, their professed objective was to liberate the whole of Palestine. When Fateh was officially launched in January 1st 1965, its objective was the liberation of the whole of Palestine and its resistance operations were carried out in the occupied territories of 1948.

The political leadership at that time was not operating within the framework of specific territories.  Rather, they were dealing with Palestine as an occupied land as things should be. In the late sixties, the organizations that had been operating within the refugee camps were active in ‘67 as they had been in the ‘48 territories.  The revisionism within the programmes and the strategies of Palestinian resistance factions occurred later on.  The notion of a Palestinian state within the borders of 1967 was gradually adopted.  Eventually the program of establishing such a ‘mini-state’ on 22% of Palestine became the official party line of ALL of the factions of the PLO in Algeria in 1988 (which directly set the stage for the emergence and popularity of Islamic resistance factions in Palestine).  When the obscene “mini-state” program to establish (an empty shell of a state, practically!) in the West Bank and Gaza was adopted, even the leftist organizations, including the PFLP started focusing less and less on the developments in the territories occupied in 1948.  That is how the Palestinians of 1948 were gradually abandoned and this became official since the Oslo agreements in 1993, when the PLO recognized the Zionist entity and its right to exist, therefore sold out the Palestinians in our occupied Arab lands of 1948.

There is a strategic problem on the level of the leadership which contributed to the devolution of this critical situation. The marginalization imposed on our people in the 1948 territories is not only due to the racist policies of the Zionist enemy towards Palestinians as 10th class citizens on their own land in “Israel”, “the only democracy in the so-called Middle East”.  It was also due to the political marginalization imposed on them by Palestinian organizations. This was deepened by certain opportunist and reformist ambitions within the territories occupied in 1948, particularly the ambition launched by Azmi Bishara encouraging our people to participate in the Zionist political process in order to reform and to obtain some civil rights, again promoting elections and political processes under the occupation. Unfortunately,  this tactic has also been adopted by a part of the Islamic movement, but approximately 50 percent of the Palestinians in the occupied territories of 1948 have been regularly boycotting this political process, despite the strong efforts of Arab political parties encouraging Palestinians to participate in the Zionist elections, effectively calling for the “Israelization” of our masses and political activism. They try to ‘Zionize’ our masses in order to let them participate in the elections of the occupier which is effectively a recognition of the Zionist entity and an abandonment of any hope of re-establishing the liberation movement there.

It is crucial to readopt and re-adhere to the unamended Palestinian National Charter, which was based upon the territorial integrity of Palestine and the Palestinian people wherever they may exist worldwide, on emphasizing the unblemished Arab identity of our land, and on the supremacy of the armed struggle as a strategy for liberation.  Only such a program is able to regain our masses in the territories of 1948, as well as our masses elsewhere.

Furthermore, it is not permissible according to the Palestinian National Charter to distinguish between the Palestinians in the 1967 territories, the Palestinians in the 1948 territories, and  the Palestinians of the diaspora. We need to deal with the Palestinian cause as a whole, as one cause.  We need to integrate this cause into a liberation program in order to restore the Arab identity of Palestine.

Question: Some rumors indicate that Marouane Barghouti could be released in a prisoner swap. Are you expecting any change within Fateh. Where are the activists and leaders of this organization?

Dr. Alloush: Marouane Barghouti is not that much different from the general discourse of Fateh and its official party line. Before his imprisonment, he write a column in the New York Times wondering why the “Israelis” wanted to imprison him when he was one of the characters to convince the Palestinian people to accept the Oslo Agreements!  Marouane Barghouti is a part of the Arafat era, using the military option only as a tactical tool to pressure the Zionists during the negotiations for a larger piece of the pie, but not as a strategy to achieve liberation. He believes in a Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank; he certainly does not abide by the unamended Palestinian National Charter emphasizing the Arab identity of Palestine and the armed struggle as THE strategy of achieving liberation.

The difference between him and the current leadership is that this leadership accepts an unconditional capitulation in the hope of garnering enough support from the Jews so it can remain in power, at any political price. While on the other hand there are still some remnants of the liberation project in the vision of Marouane Barghouti, mere remnants! Nonetheless, he is one of those who are responsible for the current political situation in Palestine and the deterioration of the Palestinian liberation project.  He and his master Arafat helped bring about corrupt and capitulationist characters like Mahmoud Abbas and Ahmed Qurei.

Question: Do you have anything to add for the Arabs in Europe?

Dr. Alloush: The message I would like to send to the Arab community in Europe is that their struggle is a priority like any other struggle of the Arab Nation. It is a struggle of confronting racism, discrimination and a struggle for the preservation of our identity.

We know that it would be impossible to have an Arab Diaspora in Europe or in the United States if the conditions in the Arab homeland were better. The conditions of colonialism, dictatorship and backwardness in the Arab Homeland caused the mass migration toward Europe and the United States. The Arabs of the Diaspora in Europe should remember that when they were attacked by racists: their presence in Europe is the result of occupation and colonialism which prevented the Arab homeland from development.

If European colonialism did not interfere in 19th century and especially in the project unification and renaissance of Muhammad Ali Pasha, the conditions of the Arab homeland would be much better today. Europe attacked every real Arab awakening project and therefore the Europeans are responsible for the backwardness the Arab homeland is suffering from.   Remember that when the racists try to act like they have been great humanitarian hosts of Arabs in the West…

Arab European League