On behalf of our battle-hardened Palestinian people, we welcome the 42nd anniversary of the foundation of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine at a time in which the Arab peoples, together with the forces of the lovers peace and democracy, are celebrating the popular victories in Tunisia and Egypt and their success in opening the great door of change for reconstructing political systems in their countries. They must now create states of civic responsibility, freedom and dignity, freedom of opinion, social justice, balanced development, the transfer of authority through electoral means and the separation of powers, in addition to guaranteeing respect for judicial independence and the human dignity of their citizens in combating poverty, ignorance, unemployment and guaranteeing rights to education, health care, food and work.

The intifada of the people of Tunisia and the Egyptian people’s revolution corroborated the fact that that no one can successfully confront a people when their forces and social strata unite with a clear and certain objective that responds to their true interests and needs. No one can stop a people — no matter what the obstacles and impediments — along their path when they possess the will and stability to achieve their objectives.

We greet these two peoples who have set an example for the Arab region for continuing democratic struggles for a better future.

The Palestinian people, the first to carrying out the intifada, look with pride at the achievement of these two fraternal countries and we are even more convinced that the path of the intifada and overall popular resistance is the shortest and most healthy one toward our liberation from occupation and colonialism, toward putting an end to division, recovering national unity, achieving unity around a program for the construction of an independent government with total sovereignty and with Jerusalem as the capital and guaranteeing the refugees the right to return to their homes from which they were expelled in 1948.

To our people, the battle-hardened Palestinians around the world, with the great change in Egypt, the negotiation process with the Zionist enemy has taken its last breath after a long period of suffering due to the maneuvering of Washington and Tel Aviv, especially given that its beginning was based on an imbalance in favor of Israel and was far from the necessary demands that guarantee minimal and inalienable national rights. After 20 years, the vain and sterile negotiations have run into a dead end.

It has been demonstrated that the Israeli enemy rejects the claims of a balanced arrangement and that the United States is maintaining — despite the promises of Obama and those previously made by W. Bush — policies aligned with those of Tel Aviv at the expense of the rights of our people and of international law. In this way, the experience of negotiating with the enemy, especially in the last several months, reaffirms the fact that the road to our liberation from occupation and settlements, the recovery of occupied Jerusalem and of every inch of Palestinian earth, the creation of an independent Palestinian state with complete sovereignty, the lifting of the blockade imposed on Gaza and the winning of the right of the refugees to return are all being approached along the path of global popular resistance, and in its heart: the armed struggle.

In this context, and in light of the latest events in the region, especially in the fraternal country of Egypt, everything seems to indicate that the Zionist government is heading down a road of greater intransigence and inflexibility, and with US support. It means that our march toward turning the page on useless negotiations and picking up the weapons of the intifada and the resistance travels — necessarily — through the end of division and the recuperation of internal unity at the organic and programmatic levels. This is in addition to the reconsideration of the National Reconciliation Document (the document of the 2006 prisoners) with some modifications that respond to new developments in our national situation.

To our people all over, the recuperation of national unity and the reconsideration of the Reconciliation Document are two questions that can place our cause in its natural position of constituting the primary cause of the Arab peoples and governments; in addition, these can re-situate the national cause at the front of the interests of the international community so they will be obligated to again consider our legitimate rights with respect and concern.

Our experience and that of the fraternal peoples of Egypt and Tunisia, in addition to the experiences of peoples who have struggled for the national rights of their homelands, corroborated that the politics of good intentions and the language of begging are not the roads toward freedom and dignity. The alternative is global popular resistance, the resistance of people united around their program, leadership and their means of struggle.

The Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, while it along with our Palestinian people and all free people of the world celebrate the 42nd anniversary of its glorious foundation as a left, mass and combative party — far from the useless and substituted negotiating strategy, far from the illusions of lost bets and state infrastructure under occupation — the DFLP calls for adopting a combative strategy based on the following components:

• Inciting global popular resistance as a means of reviving the intifada and all forms of struggle against the occupier, including the armed struggle.

• Enlarging the circle of the recognition of the independent Palestinian state, completely sovereign and with Jerusalem as its capital and as a member of the international community and its institutions, even the UN.

• Demanding the international community force Israel to execute the international resolutions that guarantee the recuperation of the sovereign Palestinian state on its land and its emancipation from occupation and colonialism.

• Turning to the World Court and The Hague Tribunal to punish Tel Aviv (both the Israeli state and individuals) for their war crimes and crimes against humanity committed against the Palestinian people.

These components require, first and foremost, putting an end to division and recovering our unity. From there the Front raises its call, on the occasion of its 42nd anniversary, for all Palestinian forces to resume national global dialogue, basing ourselves on the National Reconciliation Document and the Cairo Declaration of March 2005, with the objective that our people can resist, in the face of the next demands and at all levels, according to our national interests and rights.

The Democratic Front calls for the guarantee of supports for the stability of Palestinian society, confronted by the occupier, through just social and economic policies, and to remedy, seriously, on the part of the Palestinian Authority on the West Bank and in Gaza, the problems of unemployment, poverty, price increases and the deterioration of the standards of living of the different social strata. This would be in addition to addressing, through the rapid creation of a national aid fund, the problems of the youth and of the thousands of unemployed graduates whose numbers are increasing every day.

The Front reaffirms the necessity to protect freedoms, to free the political prisoners, no matter what their political affiliation; and to put an end to the arrests, abuse and the acts of the security apparatuses based on political pretexts.

• Long live the 42nd anniversary of the foundation of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine

• Long live the struggle of our people for the independence and the return

• Greetings to the fraternal peoples of Egypt and Tunisia for the historical victory

• Freedom to our heroes imprisoned in the occupier’s jails

• Glory to the homeland and eternal life for the martyrs

Central Committee of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine
February 22, 2011