AL-HADAF : Some observers say that you were elected as part of a compromise and without real elections. They are referring to a lack of democracy in the inner party life of the left-wing Palestinian groups. What is your comment on this ?

SAADAT : If there was a compromise, that would not bother us at all, if it contained a possible formula for the internal unity of the Party. Compromise, as is legitimate, necessary, and appropriate in external political relations, is also legitimate within the framework of relations of parties and political forces. Compromise also does not invalidate the rules that govern the work of the leading institutions of the Popular Front and neither does it harm the democratic process. Any formulation, whoever proposes it, will in the final analysis be submitted to the Central Committee for ratification. Despite all that, there is no basis for concern regarding this legitimate question, because the election process for the position of the General Secretary and the Deputy General Secretary took place in accordance with the Party statues for elections that are followed by the Popular Front and that constitute one of the fundaments of its internal political system. If there were complete agreement, why would we have competing candidates for the post of General Secretary ? Why would ballots have been distributed, then taken up and counted ? If there had been agreement, it would have been possible simply to vote by acclamation in less than an hour without any need for administrative arrangements to bring together circles of the Central Committee at the same time, spending a whole day just to carry out an election. >From another standpoint, the notion of compromise implies the existence of full-blown factions with their own positions and members. These do not exist in the Popular Front. Yes, there are different viewpoints on this or that issue, and there are struggles between the different opinions, but there are absolutely no groups that express their own opinions as factions inside the bodies of the Front or outside them.

THE UNITY OF THE POPULAR FRONT

AL-HADAF : A lot has been said about the existence of different trends within the Front, one moderate and the other extremist. How do you respond to that ? Is the Front free from internal differences or different orientations ? What are the mechanisms for internal dialogue within the Popular Front on the different levels of its hierarchy ? Is there any concern about the Front’s unity ?

SAADAT : It is not strange or wrong for there to be struggle over politics and ideas inside the Front. In fact, that is the natural logic of internal life for any democratic left-wing party. Stormy debate over ideas, policies, and organizational matters gives life and liveliness to any party that strives to renew itself and to follow the new developments in reality. It is unnatural and inappropriate for there to be personal struggles always tied to private interests of individuals that are expressed most of the time in primitive, tribalistic ways, in the form of unprincipled coteries that practice sabotage inside and outside the party, tossing aside the organizational rules that govern relations of the members of the party with its bodies, and the relations of the party bodies inside the hierarchy and structure of the party. These bring the subject of struggles down to the lowest level and prevent their development and elevation to a level where they respond to the concerns and needs of the people and their national and democratic cause. An end was put to this personal form of struggle in the life of the Popular Front more than two decades ago, although features of it reappear in times of stagnation and crisis. But these are only secondary and marginal manifestations that do not affect the course of the Party. The essential issue that we must emphasize is that the Popular Front is the most inclined of any of the organizations in the Palestinian national movement to muster the courage to address its situation, problems, and contradictions. This is not only internally, but also realistically on the political and public mass level. People who refer to the documents from the Popular Front’s past congresses will see the depth and responsibility of the political review that the Front has given itself at every stage. They will see the courage in its self-criticism of mistaken points of view. The documents of the Sixth National Congress in their various political and organizational aspects did not depart from this basis. In the basic political document, presented in a programmatic form, diverse points of view were discussed on the subjects, details, and principle areas of difference inside the Front. The convening of the Sixth National Congress resolved in general the basic details of the Front’s viewpoint and working program for the coming period. Everyone - cadres, leaders, and members - came together on the basis of respect for the Congress’s resolutions. At the same time, they practice their right to have distinct viewpoints and to maintain dialogue and struggle over different ideas on the basis of commitment to these resolutions. Finally I would like to say that we have not yet reached the level of a model Party. I would say, however, and with conviction, that we are proceeding after the Sixth National Congress on the path that will lead us towards fulfilling this ambition, and to achieving qualitative changes in our development, although we may never be able to attain an absolutely ideal situation. The sea of life is always renewing itself and whoever wants to swim in that sea must renew himself at every instant. What is ideal today will be backward and lifeless tomorrow.

THE NEW ROLE AND MISSION

AL-HADAF : Some people believe that your own personal situation, as a man wanted by the occupation authorities, will prevent you from fulfilling your new role and mission. How can you overcome that ?

SAADAT : I am surprised that this question is raised. Is it necessary that there be one model or arrangement for work in the leadership, for playing the role of top official that must apply to every Palestinian organization ? Has not the history of world revolutionary movements presented examples of leading bodies in parties, all of whom were fugitives, outlaws, being pursued by the authorities ? In spite of that, they were able to lead their people towards victory. If the general secretary of any party can only work in easy conditions that enable him to hold meetings, to communicate, to use modern technology, and to move freely wherever his work takes him, that would mean either that this leader would be out of the country, or that he be on the alert against doing anything that would anger the Israelis. He would have to declare the peaceful coexistence of his party with the occupation. In such a situation, the enemy would facilitate his mission, and he might become even more famous in the information media that have become adept at manufacturing leaders in our contemporary world. In the end, the natural condition of a General Secretary of the Popular Front and of its leading bodies is to be wanted people, fugitives of the occupation authorities, inasmuch as we adhere to the Front’s program of collision with the occupation. At the same time, necessity dictates that the leaders of the Front must contrive forms for working arrangements that allow them to fulfill their national role and not lag behind in carrying out their obligations to our people and their national and democratic cause. Just as every disease has its cure, the revolutionary knowledge and abundant experience of the Front are a guarantee that we will overcome all the challenges that the reality of struggle with our Zionist enemy places before us.

THE PLACE AND ROLE OF THE POPULAR FRONT

AL-HADAF : The Martyrdom of Comrade Abu Ali Mustafa has motivated many members of the Front who have been hanging back or who had left the Front to come back to its ranks. The stage that followed Oslo and before the intifada, on the other hand, witnessed a decline in the role and activity of the Front. Do you have a plan to bring back the role and place of the Popular Front, and what are its features ?

SAADAT : What I can say and what reflects reality is that the Front has correct guidelines in this area, guidelines it has adopted at three stages : the stage of holding the Sixth National Congress, the stage of the intifada, and the latest and most outstanding stage when the crime of murdering Abu Ali Mustafa inflamed the feelings of comrades and friends and of all Palestinian patriots. It motivated them to return and join the ranks out of loyalty to their leader, to their party, and to their people. I say with optimism that our comrades, men and women, who were officially outside the organizational ranks were never for one day outside of general patriotic activity. Many of them did not wait for initiatives or plans to be issued by the Party. Rather, they signed on and merged themselves and their activity with party work, with the party program. Some of them are cadres who possess gifts and a valuable stock of experience and who have the ability also to participate in drawing up the arrangements and programs to win back those who remain officially outside the ranks of the Party, and also to attract those among the masses who are ready to join the activity of the Party, its institutions, or its associated committees. In the framework of a thorough evaluation and despite my optimism that is derived from my knowing the strength of character and spirit of responsibility that the members of the Party and its cadres possess, their legacy, and militant history, I say that until now the arrangements and programs that have been drawn up do not respond to what is demanded and necessary to integrate the army of the Party into an actual organization and to translate into reality its militant, patriotic, and democratic program. This requires a serious examination by all levels of the general cadres in the Popular Front.

THE PATRIOTIC DEMOCRATIC CURRENT

AL-HADAF : The Palestinian Patriotic Democratic Current remains divided despite the efforts that have been made to bring it together and unite it in the course of the past year. These efforts have had no reverberation in the streets. What is your position on that ? When will we hear of a Union of Palestinian democrats ?

SAADAT : Before uniting the democratic patriotic current there first must be unanimity on what it means, what its ideological identity is, on its political and social program, in order to define the motivating forces of this current and those who support its multifaceted program. This concept is necessarily fluid, yet it provides the bases for leading our people’s democratic and patriotic struggle. As we see it in the Popular Front, for this union to be patriotic and democratic in word and deed, it can only be leftist and radically and seriously opposed to the program of the Palestinian Authority. Therefore, it cannot be a part of a coalition within the Authority’s government. This is because of the essential opposition of the interests of the popular classes that a democratic union would represent, to the private interests of the class coalition that leads the Palestine Authority. Here I am not just using empty words. I am talking about a vision based on a reading of the program of the Palestinian bourgeoisie that exercises hegemony over the leadership in the Palestine Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization in the spheres of national struggle and social construction. The Palestinian bourgeoisie has chosen the path of negotiations and conciliation with the Zionist entity keeping the struggle as a tactical option that it uses to improve its position every time its negotiations with Israel reach an impasse that aggravates its internal contradictions. Regardless of their intentions, the strategic path that they have chosen for settling the struggle of the Palestinian people with the Zionist enemy and for attempting to attain the components of the national establishment - this chosen path, in light of the real balance of forces on the ground locally, regionally, and internationally, leads objectively to frittering away the national rights of our people. If, as a supposition, this choice in the beginning was by way of an erroneous analysis, today after the emergence of the Authority and the concentration of ruling class coalition interests it represents, the chosen path has come to express a vital and strategic interest in remaining in power. Abandoning the path of conciliation would threaten to destroy the agreements that brought the bourgeoisie outside and inside the homeland to the pinnacle of the self-rule government. Based on this, a position on the Oslo Agreements and on the negotiations on the basis of Oslo, a position on participation in the Palestine Authority, and a clear vision of the importance of the intifada and resistance struggle and their tasks in the Palestinian National program of struggle, and of the forms and methods of struggle in general - all of these are issues over which unity should be achieved for us to talk about the birth of a new framework for the unity of patriotic and democratic forces and organizations. To put it briefly and concisely, we can say that what we have just mentioned has not prevented the formation of a circle for dialogue between the Palestinian democratic forces and individuals and social organizations. It has gone a reasonable distance and arrived at a draft that still reflects the continued differences and distinct positions on articulated political questions such as those on our attitude toward the negotiations and on participating in the Authority. The viewpoints of the different participating political forces on these issues have been recorded, and every group has been permitted to bring out the points on which it differs from what is articulated in the draft. In the very near future this draft will be distributed and a call issued to attend an enlarged meeting that we hope will embrace all those interested in the birth of this new organization. Although the ongoing discussion has not reached a solution to the essential differences between the participants in the preparatory committee, the orientation charted by the preparatory committee is bringing it to the widest possible social circles for participation in correcting the views and programs. This approach should be considered a qualitative move towards activating dialogue to the furthest extent possible. This in itself also reflects a real and serious beginning of the democracy of dialogue that can lead to the birth of an appropriate form for Palestinian democratic work.

THE INTIFADA

AL-HADAF : The intifada still is in need of active leadership in the field, not to mention its need for a political program and collective political leadership. This situation has opened the door to the initiatives of individuals and the spread of certain negative phenomena in its performance, leading to fears that it may be undermined. How will the Popular Front work to provide political protection for the intifada and to strengthen its leadership in the field ?

SAADAT : Since the Palestinian people’s intifada broke out, fed and strengthened by heroic attacks by resistance fighters, it has carried within itself the possibility of rising and developing and moving on to more advanced things further along the path of attaining the direct national goals of our people at this stage. It also carried within itself the opposite possibility : that it would spin its wheels without moving forward, that it would fail, or take up a position as a tool for clearing away obstacles that hinder negotiations between the Palestine Authority and Israel. To put it more broadly and precisely, it carried within itself a contradiction between two parallel political programs that dovetail to the extent that the programs shared interests. The first program is the one that sees the path of negotiations as having yielded the maximum possible during at the time of Camp David. This maximum does not reflect the limit that is nationally acceptable in attaining our people’s national goals within the framework delimited by the "ceiling" of what United Nations resolutions permit. These national goals are the right of Palestinians to return, to achieve self-determination, and to establish an independent state in the borders of the land occupied in 1967, with Jerusalem as its capital. This program sees that persisting in the negotiations will lead objectively to lowering that "ceiling," that nationally acceptable minimum limit, regardless of what anyone intends or desires. Therefore, this program sees the intifada and resistance struggle as the alternative dictated by circumstances and by the arrival of the Oslo negotiations at their destined dead end. The other program, represented by the Palestine Authority, regards the strategic path of the plan for attaining our people’s national goals to be negotiations. It sees the intifada as a tactical means to improve the "ceiling" of what the Israeli side proposes for a peace settlement. In the framework of this contradiction, the intifada has continued and the resistance struggle has escalated. Phases of negotiations have also continued in Paris, Washington, Sharm al-Shaykh, and Taba. In addition it was in the framework of this reality that there took place the acceptance of the Mitchell report - although it was incapable of giving any practical form to a peace settlement - and also the Tenet document on a cease-fire. Without resolving this contradiction also, we will proceed talking about a duality of political rhetoric, about the need to raise our unity in the field to the level of national political unity, about concern that the intifada might be overwhelmed by some crippled agreement emerging at a phase of the negotiations, or a lack of symmetry between the Authority’s institutional structure and the intifada’s need to develop. To put it more clearly and exactly and using revolutionary scientific language far removed from improvisation, we say that a key to the solution of this problem, which keeps dark clouds covering the sky over the intifada and threatens to cause the loss of its achievements, a key to this solution lies with the Palestine Authority and the actual leadership of the Palestine Liberation Organization. They have a key to unity and to elevating the level of unity, a key to organizing the intifada and building its institutions, a key to protecting it. This demands that they answer the following question : can the Authority allow the intifada to be transformed into an open clash with the occupation even if that leads to the legal status of the Authority being taken away by America and the occupation regime ? The answer to this determines everything that is required politically : breaking the ties to Oslo, ending the stage of self-rule and moving on to the stage of establishing a state and extending its sovereignty in the framework of a program of struggle that centers on the intifada and resistance, building a national government or emergency leadership that reflects the unity of our people on the inside [Palestine] and outside, and preparation for rebuilding the Palestine Liberation Organization in accordance with a democratic mechanism and by way of direct popular elections. The other key lies with the opposition in its two parts, the patriotic and democratic and the Islamic. What are the outlines of its vision of the intifada and the resistance and, given their positions, whichside will they choose in case things come down to aquestion of continuing the intifada and resistance or continuing the existence of the Palestine Authority. If the intifada is their choice, then how will the opposition manage its contradiction - as causes for struggle, or causes for dialogue, while there is no dialogue inside the institutions of the PLO and the framework of the patriotic and Islamic forces ? Along those lines, the new international circumstances have deepened the fears of the Palestine Authority, fears that have been with them and never left them, that the continuation of the intifada and the resistance, and their exceeding the bounds acceptable to Israel, will give the Sharon government an opportunity really to threaten the existence of the Authority and to raise a sharp contradiction between the interests of those associated with the Authority, on the one hand, and the continuation of the intifada and resistance, on the other. The killing of the racist Zionist Ze’evi and the Sharon government’s large-scale offensive that followed it set off urgent warning alarms in the salons and parlors of the Palestine Authority, which moved immediately and undertook what the masses consider, and what they themselves used to consider, inappropriate or unacceptable, particularly after the land of Palestine had been dyed red by the blood of more than seven hundred martyrs and tens of thousands of wounded. The question comes back to pose itself once again, "What is to be done ?" It finds only one answer : whoever sees in the intifada a way to the deliverance of the people must struggle first against himself. Secondly, he must struggle to get the Authority to choose the option that is in line with the program of the people, without excluding any democratic means of struggle. Thirdly, he must struggle against the occupation with all the power and resolve he has. The opportunities that are given to peoples in each era are few and they might wait for dozens of years if they do not reach out and grasp them with strength.

NATIONAL POLITICAL DECISION MAKING

AL-HADAF : How do you see the possibilities and paths to participation in Palestinian national political decision making ? Will it be through the Palestine Authority’s monopolization of decision making even in the framework of a government of National Unity, or will it be through the Palestine Liberation Organization ? And what will be the form and content of the national emergency leadership for which you are calling ?

SAADAT : I answered part of this question in the course of my answer to the previous question. On that basis, I would say in summary that the leading institution that represents the unity of our people and embodies the content of the aims of its national program is the Palestine Liberation Organization. It is the PLO that must constitute the means for Palestinian decision making. On this basis the first requirement for achieving the participation of all groups and parties and the people in political decision making begins with rebuilding the Palestine Liberation Organization. This must begin with the Palestinian National Council, which still has the composition it was formed with in 1968. Today the "legality of the struggle" is no longer sufficient to confer legitimacy on the PLO as the representative of our people. It has come to require the support of popular legality through the direct, popular election of representatives of the Palestinian guerrilla organizations and institutions to the National Council insofar as that is possible. And that is possible in most concentrations of the masses of our population. This would also conform to the Basic Organization of the Palestine Liberation Organization, second section, paragraph five. By relying on the PLO as our authority in decision making, we will have met the first of our conditions for an agreement on the outlines of a political program for the period of the intifada, since it would mean the end of the institutions of the self-rule authority, as expressed groups, for this period. It would mean the transfer of authority to the PLO for a transitional stage until elections for the institutions of the PLO are ready. This is what we called for in the last session of the Central Council. It also formed the basis for our resumption of participation in the Executive Committee. With the launch and continuation of the intifada the need increased for these steps and for building the institutions of the Palestinian people to provide a conditional cohesiveness for supporting the development of the intifada and developing it. At the time when the intifada came to push things in this direction, it also threw down a number of complications besides, providing a permit for the birth of a transitional form that prepares the way to the implementation of these requirements. On that basis, the proposal tabled by the Popular Front in November sought the transfer of authority to the Palestine Liberation Organization and a declaration of the end of the stage of administrative self-rule. We saw in the Executive Committee, after it was expanded to include all the political forces of our people, and all the popular and social organizations, a model for a temporary national emergency leadership. Its formation would be preceded by a comprehensive national dialogue in which all the political and social representative groups of our people would participate in laying out the political program of this leadership. It would be a program that would focus on setting up the Palestinian state and extending its sovereignty and on supporting the intifada and the resistance as the basis for regaining sovereignty in the remainder of the occupied territories. It would also focus on the sort of economic development that would respond to the needs of developing the intifada and resistance and that center on building an economy of steadfastness and resistance, and radiating democracy in its various forms. As regards the negotiations, it would declare its refusal to negotiate on the basis of the Oslo Agreement and demand to take the file of the Palestinian cause to the United Nations as a legal authority that focuses on the resolutions of international law and as a framework that can force Israel to implement United Nations resolutions that give our people their right to return, self determination, and to their independent state. Despite the fact that these outlines were ignored, they still represent what is needed and constitute the bridge over which our people will cross from a narrow passage out to the open road of securing the achievements that will take them towards attaining their national program. At the same time there remain subjects requiring popular discussion or struggle for their attainment. Dialogue by itself changes these visions into rhetorical expressions in a well with no walls. What can transform them into reality is the combination of responsible dialogue and mass struggle that presses for the creation of the equations that it throws out as working problems.

THE POPULAR CHARACTER OF THE INTIFADA

AL-HADAF : The popular character of the intifada is still limited. What are the mechanisms for activating it, and what is the role of the institutions of civil society in that ?

SAADAT : The popular character of the intifada cannot be activated by a bureaucratic political decree from above, issued by the Patriotic and Islamic leadership. Rather, the institutions that represent the different sectors of our people must undertake to draw up their programs and activities so as to bring about the participation of all those sectors of our people. But the Palestinian mentality has developed according to the principle "either black or white." I say this because some might believe that the escalation of the resistance constitutes a substitute for or an obstacle to that participation. This needs to be corrected. For popular resistance in the broad sense of the term implies both armed resistance and popular activities at the same time. Popular activities spur the escalation of the resistance, and the reverse is also true and logical. Therefore, it is necessary that the leadership of the political forces - out of which branch the leaderships of the popular institutions that represent all social sectors - push for the activation of our popular institutions. This can produce the necessary integration between the work of the vanguard (undertaken by the formations of the resistance) and the various, indeed unlimited, forms of popular struggle. In this way our struggle can take on the form and content of a comprehensive popular revolution.

RELATIONS OF POLITICAL PARTIES WITH CIVIL SOCIETY

AL-HADAF : How do you see the relationship between the political parties and the organizations of civil society including non-governmental organizations ? What is the mechanism for linking them together ?

SAADAT : That mechanism requires a basis of productivity and professionalism rather than membership in one of the political organizations or in extended families, or patronage. The popular institutions - aside from the aspects which could be criticized, such as their sources of funding, or the role of this or that particular institution - with their general orientation on the network’s activity and actions, serve to complement the role of the political parties in supporting the intifada and resistance struggle. This is in addition to their nominal roles in responding to the needs of the poor among the people, whether that be in the area of health care, or agriculture, or human rights, or family care, or help with household finance, or training for qualifications, or other fields of endeavor. This role has become prominent in the area of energizing the struggle for the right of return, and energizing Europeans around the slogans for international and popular protection, whereby groups of volunteers take up positions in areas of confrontation. In addition, there was the outstanding role played by the network of such groups in the Durban Conference and the level of pressure and influence they exerted in cooperation with the Arab popular institutions and friendly international institutions. To sum up, we view with satisfaction the role of the popular institutions and the maturation of their leaderships, but we should not stop at just "being satisfied." We must reinforce the role of these institutions by energizing the complementary, democratic relationship between them and the political parties, and by impelling their leaders to advanced positions in national decision making and in leading bodies of the intifada, including their positions in the parties’ centers of political decision making, in order to bring about a situation where there is mutual influence between their role and the role of the political parties, and in order to bring about the necessary development of the networks and channels of political activity in Palestinian society.

SLOGANS

AL-HADAF : The Popular Front made a name for itself by its innovation of popular strategic slogans. But these slogans have stopped short of being translated into detailed practical slogans, whether nationally or democratically and socially. Is there a plan to overcome this difficulty ? How is the Popular Front working to create deeply rooted, detailed slogans that also enjoy popularity ?

SAADAT : The description you gave in your question is correct, and it reflects an organizational, structural, and programmatic defect. The basis for this defect is that our leadership does not bring together in its primary leading center all the preliminaries, outlines, and draft resolutions of organizations, departments, and specialized committees that it needs in the fields of national and social democratic struggle. In addition, the central leadership has a weakness in the area of its role in the field. This is the role that brings it close to feeling the concerns of the masses, to defining their needs, and re-formulating them in the form of a slogan and a goal and in laying down the mechanism to attain it. Our comrade, the outstanding leader Abu Ali Mustafa felt this defect and proposed two essential points for a program to organize our work. The first focused on the need for the Central Committee to divide work among specialized committees like parliamentary committees to energize it as a comprehensive institution striving to achieve comprehensive development of the Party’s mechanisms in all fields. The second point was a reorganization of the specialized departments - the political and the organizational - as specialized leading committees operating within the Political Bureau. The point also provided for the addition of two departments : the first for democratic and social work that was to be an incubator for preparing resolutions and drafts by specialists in those areas. The second new department was to be the Department for our People’s Affairs in the part of Palestine occupied in 1948, which would pay careful attention to the specifics of the struggle of our people in this part of the homeland and would have the ability to set priorities in defining goals and giving direct guidance in the struggle. This was so that our vision would be realistic and able to amass the factors needed to arouse the hidden strengths to bring about the necessary militant action and to achieve a comprehensiveness in the mechanisms of our party for all the communities of our people in all the areas where they live. When conditions did not promote the formation of the first proposed committees, our programmatic planning turned to the formation of the specialized departments, with the intent to re-energize the Political Bureau and Central Committee as contemporary institutions to step-by-step strengthen the relations of the leading bodies with the communications channels to the masses and the departments and committees that branch out from them. By grasping that second ring we can grasp all the necessary links to overcome our shortcomings. I believe that we have taken steps forward along these lines under the leadership of our comrade and leader, the martyr Abu Ali, and we must complete the task, and move our feet on the ground firmly and with confidence.

THE ARAB EMBRACE

AL-HADAF : One of the weak points of the intifada has been the lack of an official Arab embrace of it, and the weakness of the embrace of the Arab people. Do you have an idea of how to move on this level ?

SAADAT : To grasp this subject at its first and most basic level, I would say that before the intifada needs an official Arab embrace, it requires an official Palestinian embrace. Until now, and as I indicated earlier, the official Palestinian leadership has not defined the position of the intifada in its program. This justifies us in referring to a lack of a unified national program to protect and support the intifada. Therefore, providing an official Palestinian embrace to the intifada will at the same time provide the premises for an official Arab embrace. If the official Palestinian position does not hold together when it is presented in Arab official circles, that fact will provide a cover for the incapacity of many of the Arab regimes, allowing them to slip out of their national duty to the intifada. The simplest example is the issue of breaking diplomatic relations and stopping all forms of normalization with the enemy. How can such a decision be taken when open and secret political meetings [between the Palestinian leadership and the Israelis] have continued all throughout the course of the intifada including in its most intensely escalated periods ? Or, how can we insist upon a resolution reaffirming our stand for a comprehensive solution of all the issues of the struggle with Israel, and on all the fronts - Syrian, Lebanese, and Palestinian - while the smoke that rises from the kitchens that cooked up the agreements of Taba, Washington, and Cairo hasn’t cleared for a moment ? The point of beginning and the tie that makes our position solid and firm is securing a solid Palestinian national embrace for the intifada. This in turn will transform us into a body to exert real pressure, in addition to the pressure of the Arab people, to work for solid and firm official Arab resolve. As to the popular embrace throughout the whole Arab Homeland, this matter requires effort and a systematic plan in order to activate all the forms and frameworks of popular Arab activity, so as to supply them with a solid position derived from the field of confrontation, and with the means of support that we need. This is apart from the fact that it is a project of the forces that are in agreement with the option of the intifada and resistance as a basis for achieving our Palestinian people’s goals at this stage. It is also a basic task for our people’s political forces beyond Palestine.

THE INTERNATIONAL SITUATION

AL-HADAFF : Since 1990 the situation has been hard on the Palestinian cause. That situation was made more complicated after the explosions in New York and Washington and the ensuing war against Afghanistan and other candidate countries. How will you handle these circumstances in a way that serves the Palestinian cause ?

SAADAT : If we agree that the intifada and the resistance constitute a situation wherein our people are defending their national rights, their land, their holy places, their national identity, and their culture and dignity, then based on that we must demand a solution that goes beyond the declared Israeli maximum. This approach leads to the consecration of the logic of pragmatism while it obscures the principled opposition that we must take toward the new imperialist hegemony of globalism being forced upon the countries and peoples of the world. This approach also leads objectively, under the mantle of warding off dangers and denying Sharon opportunities to profit from the international situation under American cover, to pressure on the Palestinian Authority to stop the resistance and the intifada, lest it be consigned to the "terrorist" category. This position has had ramifications, beginning with the repression of the student demonstration in Gaza, and going as far as opening fire on them. There has been an attack on the Popular Front because it undertook to kill one of the most prominent symbols of racism and criminality in the Zionist government in response to its policy of assassinations and its targeting of the first political ranks of the Palestinian leadership. I hope that this does not continue, because a policy that is not built on a principled basis, that focuses on illusions, will only lead to frittering away our factors of strength and our means of self-defense, leaving us exhausted and incapable even of achieving the kind of solutions that were offered to us in the past. The second approach [to the intifada] centers on the principled position that is based on the place occupied by the Palestinian struggle on the map of global contradictions and the international and Arab revolutionary effort. This leads us to stake out a position that condemns the form of terrorism exported by Americans as globalism, the latest form of their imperialism ; to use this position to forge alliances between the Arab regimes and the Arab popular forces that are opposed to the latest war of aggression against the peoples ; and to strive to form the broadest possible world front to stand in the face of the new imperialism. Of overarching importance is that this three-fold tactic be applied in tandem with an escalation of the intifada and the resistance. Otherewise, if the intifada and the resistance decline while more moderate parallel activities are being pursued, the self-interest of our Palestinian people will be forfeited. One may choose to avoid confronting a bull while it is stampeding around him, but avoiding confrontation at such a moment does not allevieate the eventual or present danger of falling under its hooves. Avoiding confrontation might appear "wise" and "logical" to one who draws up his policies in the coffee houses, offices, and parlors of diplomatic activity. But this approach appears impotent to one who builds his political position on the results of battles in the field. The contrast likens that between a slave who sees his master angry and breaks his strike out of fear of punishment and the free man who works as a slave, confronts his master, and starts a slave revolt that sweeps away his master’s authority, liberating all slaves and returning bread, humanity, and dignity to each one of them. The point of departure in this situation is in defining the goals of the mad bull. We all agree that these goals are evident in America’s efforts to achieve total world hegemony. This hegemony means that even if the bull does not trample us today, it will trample us under its hooves and finish us off tomorrow. So which is the more useful policy, then, to resist this bull, or to throw ourselves under its hooves ?

WORLD EXPERIENCE

AL-HADAFF : There exist international situations that in many ways parallel the Palestinian situation, such as Ireland, the Basques, and South Africa. Is the Popular Front clearly familiar with these situations, especially as regards secret and open work, forms of struggle, and organization ? What can you derive from these situations that can be applied to the work of the Popular Front ?

SAADAT : I agree that there are broad parallels between the conditions of the struggle of our people and the struggle of the Irish and Basque peoples, particularly after the birth of the Oslo Authority and the deepening of linkages between our national and our social democratic goals. This conclusion leads to the need for organizational forms of work that are appropriate to the actual conditions of our struggle. What is needed is a solid apparatus for struggle that is able to resist and to achieve the successes that lead to victory, the successes that we need for our national struggle against the occupation. In addition we need an open political and mass organization to lead the masses to play a national role and defend their democratic and social democratic rights. The preliminaries for this form of struggle were there in the years of struggle against the occupation, and it was possible to effect a qualitative leap in the mass organization, to unite it into a mass political apparatus that constitutes the open side of the party organization. What happened, in fact, was that things were turned over and we walked on our heads, rather than on our feet. This caused great damage in the form of losing mass support and great power in the conditions of an explosion of the national struggle with the occupation, and in past times it resulted in lagging behind in the social democratic struggle. Nevertheless, argument is still taking place within leading circles of the party with the aim of arriving at the most correct organizational work forms, and with the aim of building all the necessary organizational forms to lead the complex struggle of our people in the national and social democratic spheres. I believe that reality and the ramifications of struggle with the occupation will bring us closer to building ourselves up according to the most correct form, the one most appropriate for our work.