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Programme of the Palestine National Front in the Occupied Territory
Programme of the Palestine National Front in the Occupied Territory
15 August 1973
Masses of our people in our occupied territory,
At the present time all of our Palestinian people, both within and outside the occupied territory, are faced with an escalation of the conspiracies and Zionist colonialist attacks directed against them with a view to striking at their national movement, obliterating their identity and finally liquidating their just cause, keeping them a prey to dispersion, fragmentation, enslavement and frustration.
The Zionist occupiers are giving a free rein to acts of robbery, plunder and judaization in our occupied territory. They are confiscating vast areas of Arab land, properties and buildings. They are evicting their owners and demolishing them, erecting on their ruins new Zionist quarters and settlements. They are taking a series of measures to join our economy to theirs and to make it the appendage of Zionist companies which reap vast profits by exploiting our people, turning them into a band of servants and hired labourers and exhausting them with exorbitant taxes and an excessively high cost of living
These occupying invaders do not hesitate to violate the sanctity of our holy places or to make every effort to destroy them and take possession of them. They combat our Arab culture, humiliate our national dignity and deprive us of the most fundamental provisions of the Declaration of Human Rights.
While preventing hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees, whether they left their homes after the 1948 or the 1967 aggression, from returning to their land and their homes and rejoining their families and relatives, they open the doors wide to welcome Jewish newcomers from all parts of the world and settle them throughout Palestine.
In pursuing this course the Zionists are supported by the bayonets of invasion and occupation and by the use of the most odious forms of terrorism reminiscent of the savagery of the Nazis. They unleash bloody campaigns of repression against our Palestinian Arab people and their national movement within and outside the occupied territory, encouraged by unlimited American political, economic and military support. They promote the forces of surrender and defeatism in anticipation of an American solution concocted in Washington with the aim of serving and protecting the piratical interests of colonialism in the Arab homeland and realizing the expansionist ambitions of Zionism at the expense of our Palestinian Arab people and their sacred rights.
But these conspiracies and attacks, ferocious and dangerous though they are, have not succeeded in subduing our struggling Palestinian people, in spite of the huge sacrifices they have made and the miseries and harsh conditions to which they are exposed; they have not succeeded in effacing our people's identity or liquidating their cause. On the contrary, this fearless people are still in the field, raising high the banners of struggle. They are performing an outstanding role in the general Arab struggle against Zionist imperialist aggression and standing up to the waves of aggression and conspiracy, whether these are initiated by the Zionists or the colonialists and the subservient reactionary forces which are their agents. By their heroic struggle they have succeeded in giving prominence to the Palestinian identity, reviving the Palestine cause and winning greater recognition and support. This is evidenced by the numerous resolutions adopted by the United Nations and the statements issued by international conferences and meetings, all of which affirm that the only way to reach a solution of the Middle East problem and to establish peace in the area is to safeguard the legitimate rights of the Palestinian Arab people, first and foremost their right to self-determination and return.
Our Palestinian people in the occupied territory are aware of the gravity of the situation because they are living face to face with the Zionist schemes for expansion and judaization which are being implemented at the expense of their land and their very existence. This has led them to resist these schemes and to strive to unify their forces so as to stem the Zionist flood which threatens to sweep everything in its course.
This is why a number of members of our people in the occupied territory have come together to. face up to these dangers. After discussion and exchange of viewpoints, they have decided to form t the Palestine National Front in the Occupied Territory. Experience has shown that this is the way to mobilize and unify our people's energies for the struggle; this move is also in response to a call from the Palestine National Council which met in Cairo at the beginning of this year.
Thus the Palestine National Front is an integral part of the Palestine national movement as represented by the Palestine Liberation Organization which, in turn, is part of the Arab liberation movement.
The Palestine National Front in the Occupied Territory has adopted the following programme:
1. To resist the Zionist occupation and to struggle for the liberation of our occupied Arab territory;
2. To safeguard the legitimate rights of our Palestinian Arab people, first and foremost of which is their right to self-determination in their own land and to return to their homes;
3. To reject all conspiracies aimed at liquidating the cause of our Palestinian Arab people and renouncing their rights, whether they are Zionist plans such as the Palestinian entity, the civil administration, autonomy and the Allon plan or King Hussein's plan, the American solutions or similar settlements involving liquidation and surrender;
4. To defend Arab lands and properties against attempts to confiscate or judaize them or close them down;
5. To protect our Arab economy and to defend Arab agricultural, industrial and commercial projects and institutions against attempts by the occupiers to destroy them and attach them to. Zionist companies;
6. To protect our Arab culture and history. from Zionist manipulation and distortion, especially in the field of school curricula;
7. To defend our holy places against the insolence of the Zionists and their efforts to destroy and take possession of them;
8. To revivify our popular heritage and the literature of the resistance as being an embodiment of our people's attachment to their land and their heroic struggle to defend it;
9. To do everything possible for the welfare fat of our strugglers, male and female, who are the languishing in the prisons of the Zionists; to make every effort to ensure that they are better treated and released, and that their families, wives, up children and relations are cared for.
10. To support mass organizations, such as trades unions, students and women's federations, religious and social clubs and associations, in their efforts to defend the interests of the groups they represent, to mobilize their energies for the struggle against occupation and to cooperate with them with a view toward protecting them against the attempts of the Zionists to penetrate them, and to resist the efforts of the occupiers to fragment and disunite our youth by sapping their patriotism;
11. The Front affirms the unity of the Palestinian and Jordanian peoples and declares that Jordan must be made a powerful base for Arab and Palestinian struggle against Zionist imperialist aggression;
12. The Front affirms that the national movement of our Palestinian people within and outside the occupied territory is a part of the Arab liberation movement, and that continued Zionist occupation and aggression constitute a threat not only to the rights and interests of the Palestinian people but also to the rights and the very existence of the other Arab peoples.
13. The Front will struggle to strengthen the links of friendship and cooperation with all progressive and revolutionary forces in the world, headed by the socialist countries and will make every effort to win more friends and supporters for our cause in the international field.
Masses of the Palestinian people,
The establishment of the Palestine National Front in the Occupied Territory as a rallying point for our masses is an important step that will strengthen our people's self-confidence, raise the level of their struggle against the occupation and refute allegations that there is a vacuum in the occupied territory. It will reinforce struggle of our Palestinian people everywhere, both within and outside occupied Palestinian territory. We call on all classes and groups of our Palestinian people in our occupied territory-farmers, workers, merchants, students, intellectuals, craftsmen, men of religion and owners of national industries-to rally round the banner of the Palestine National Front. We call on every man to whom the land of his fathers and grandfathers, our national honour and the sanctity of our holy places are precious, to rally round the Front.
The malevolent aim of our enemy is to tear us up by the roots. If he is to be resisted successfully the whole of our people must play their part in resisting him. Resistance must not be restricted to one field only but must cover all fields; every citizen must take his proper place and play his proper part in it, whether man or woman.
This is the age of the liberation of peoples, the victory of the forces of liberation and progress and the defeat of the forces of colonialism, invasion, aggression and racialism. Every people, if it is resolute, unifies its efforts and follows the course of undiverted struggle, can win its freedom and its right to self-determination, however strong its enemies and however far they go in their repression and brutal terrorism.
It was in this way that the peoples of Algeria and South Yemen were victorious after long and bitter struggles involving so many sacrifices. It is in this way that the world is today witnessing the victory of the people of Vietnam over the most arrogant force of colonialism represented by the imperialists and the Americans, the masters and protectors of the Zionists. If our people follow the same course victory will inevitably be theirs.
Long live our Arab nation. Long live our Palestinian Arab people, and victory to their just struggle.
Defeat and humiliation to the Zionist invaders. and their imperialist masters.
Source: International Documents on Palestine 1973. Beirut : Institute for Palestine Studies, 1976, pp. 458-460.