
Comrade Bassam Al-Salhi, Secretary-General of the Palestinian People’s Party (PPP), stated on Thursday that the Israeli occupation has failed to impose a surrender agreement on the Palestinian people, as was its goal and that of the US administration throughout the aggressive war against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip.
In an interview with Al-Ghad TV (aired on Thursday 16 January 2025), Cde. Al-Salhi emphasised that the most important thing in this agreement is the cessation of the war of genocide and destruction against his people.
He added that there remain doubts and misgivings over the implementation of the terms of the agreement as well as the extent of Israel’s commitment to it, making clear his view that Israel will likely seek to find various ways to disrupt and torpedo the process.
In response to what others have stated about the “failure” of the resistance, Cde. Al-Salhi said: “The Palestinian struggle was not limited to a specific form of struggle. It has adopted and used various forms of struggle, and we in the Palestinian People’s Party have always said that limiting the struggle to one form, especially the armed struggle alone, is wrong, as experiences have proven that our people are able to innovate their forms of struggle in accordance with the surrounding circumstances – and there is a living and advanced example of this when our people fought the First Intifada [1987 – 1993] against the brutal occupation.”
The Secretary General of the People’s Party added: “Armed resistance may take a step back, but [the struggle] will advance, and be replaced by other forms that serve the desired political goals, especially the united and organised popular resistance, the shining example of which was the popular uprising in which all our people participated in 1987 – and through which the occupation was limited in its ability to deploy its criminal military machine in the manner it tried to.”
Speaking about the role of Hamas and whether it has been removed from the Palestinian scene, Salehi said: “On the contrary, the entire world, led by the US administration, is negotiating with Hamas. It is true that Israel seeks to ensure that Hamas has no role in the upcoming administration of the Gaza Strip, but at the same time it does not want a role for the Palestinian National Authority either, and it wants to liquidate the national movement and its legacy of struggle and build new elites tailored in accordance with the wishes of Israel, the US, and their allies.”
In the course of the interview, Cde. Al-Salhi stressed the importance for all Palestinian forces to realise that only by joining together, uniting their efforts, and taking serious steps to rise above petty matters [of dispute], can they hope to protect the people and advance their national cause – and thereby force the Israeli occupation state to properly and fully implement the agreed terms. He added that the agreement would mark the beginning of new phase in the struggle – one that might not be armed, but which would instead “have political and other dimensions.”
Cde. Al-Salhi explained that the Arab and international support that is opposed to the occupation is much broader than the model of Iranian support that the various resistance movements have chosen. He predicted that this broader support will likely manifest itself in other forms of conflict and confrontation with the occupation and thus represent a source of ongoing tension in the region, therefore necessitating the coordination and integration of all forces opposing the occupation and the mutual sharing and benefitting from each other’s experiences in the struggle.
In the same context, Cde. Al-Salhi noted that care should be taken not to prematurely conclude and confer judgement that the resistance forces, especially Hezbollah, have been comprehensively defeated or that Israel has prevailed and resolved the battle in its favour.
He stated: “The current agreement is not a trade-off between the status of Gaza and the status of the West Bank, stressing that the battle will intensify in the West Bank in the face of attempts to annex the largest part of it, implement further Judaization of Jerusalem, expand the settlement area, and isolate and suffocate the population areas.”
At the end of his television interview, the Secretary General of the Palestinian People’s Party emphasised that the overall political goal must now be advanced towards, namely the ending of the occupation, achieving the full independence and sovereignty of the State of Palestine, and ensuring the inalienable right of return – all of which will require steadfast national unity as opposed to the deepening of contradictions within the movement.
Source: Alghad TV https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ns0ZuQNMa0k Interview translated from Arabic to English by Liberation.
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Photo: Bassam Al-Salhi social media profile picture