Interview: Former activist leader cherishes spirit of uprising, regrets current leadership's failure

by Fatima AbdulKarim

RAMALLAH, Dec. 9 (Xinhua) -- Dec. 9 marks the birthday of the first popular Palestinian uprising (intifada) that brought the Palestinian cause into the international community's corridors and across the world.

Saturday is the uprising's 30th birthday, which is seeing what it was, a local intifada that grew into a global phenomena with its internal democratic networks and peaceful resistance.

Jamal Zakout was a leader of the Unified National Leadership (UNL) of the intifada, who contributed to the "communique No. 2" that was considered the first such deal within the UNL by the four factions: Communist party (now Palestinian People's Party), Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Fatah party, and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) to which Zakout belonged.

Thirty years later, Zakout is still active. He heads a think tank in Ramallah and is a member of the Palestine National Council, which is the highest legislative body of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). He still believes there is much to be done.

He said that the general atmosphere after U.S. President Donald Trump's Jerusalem declaration has reminded him of the clout of the eve of the intifada in 1987.

The breakout of the intifada came after a series of Israeli measures that culminated in the Gaza Strip, where Zakout was born and raised, into a suppressive living condition with which no one was willing to cope.

"The political, economic and social reality would show that something was flickering under the ashes," he said, explaining that "the bipolarity that has matured to its climax between the Palestinian people under occupation and the policies. Schemes and practices of the occupation have reached an unbearable point and reached its limit."

On Dec. 9, 1987, an Israeli military truck ran over four Palestinian workers in Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza, sparking nationwide protests that quickly organized and carried on in peaceful means with a two-fold strategy: stone hurling and stopping of Israeli forces from entering Palestinian localities; civil disobedience and boycotting the Israeli authorities that governed daily life of Palestinians, until the establishment of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) as per the Oslo Accords, which were signed by PLO and Israel in 1993.

"The intifada was the question of life," Zakout said, deeply breathed and added. "With dignity and independence, Palestinians will head towards a just peace."

Zakout said there were lots of dialogue, then it was a must to resort to the people, when the communique was issued.

He highlighted the demands of the people including "ending land confiscation and settlement activity, stopping closure of educational institutions, withdrawing of Israeli army from Palestinian areas, and ceasing intervention in unionist work and the high taxation policy."

Zakout said that three things made the intifada meaningful to the Palestinians, as "the spirit of social solidarity" that spread amongst the people, "the leadership's involvement in the front lines," and "the realistic nature of the tasks it requested."

The intifada came to an end as the leadership of the PLO started the Madrid peace talks in 1991, eventually leading to the signing of the Declaration of Principles in Washington D.C, the Oslo Accords, and the historic handshake between late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

Zakout believes that the recent declaration by the U.S. President Donald Trump is a result of the U.S. bias to Israel, international silence and the failure of the current Palestinian leadership to create an alternative to peace negotiations, which has allowed the situation on the ground to worsen and reached this moment of nationwide protest.

"The unified Leadership was the consciousness of every Palestinian and not just a leadership that issues directives," commented Zakout, the 60-year-old politician who was close to the former PLO secretary general Yasser Abed Rabo and later worked as an advisor of former Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad.

"The Israeli disrespect of the lives of Palestinians, the Israeli denial of the existence of Palestinians, the dismay of the Palestinian leadership are clearly evident. It's not just the lack of hope, it's the absence of the leadership that offers hope for possible change," he added. Enditem