From Jenin camp, Jamal Hawail speaks with Al Jazeera Net;
The man who was once a fighter with a group of people is now between a martyr and a prisoner, in an epic battle that took place in 2002 and is forever immortalized in the hearts of the Palestinians, between a resistance group with simple equipment and equipment and the Israeli occupation army, armed with advanced machinery and weapons.
After seven and a half years of detention as a result of that battle, Hwail was freed from behind bars after he - while a prisoner - won membership in the Legislative Council in the 2006 elections, a council that was dissolved by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in 2018.
Since the start of the Al-Aqsa Flood Battle on October 7, 2023, a member of the Fatah Revolutionary Council has launched his tongue in the media and his feet in the field, praising the resistance and calling for an end to harming it in the northern West Bank, taking a position opposing the official position of the Palestinian Authority and the Fatah movement.
In an interview with Al Jazeera Net, Hawiel called on Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to meet with the head of the Hamas political bureau, Ismail Haniyeh, and the rest of the leaders of the Palestinian factions, to agree on a Palestinian national program.
As for the prisoner Marwan Barghouti, Hwail declared that he is “an important opportunity for the Fatah movement in any upcoming elections,” as he is a unifying national figure who believes in partnership and calls for national unity, as he put it.
More than one hundred and fifty days have passed since the war of extermination in the Gaza Strip, during which the occupation continued to kill the people, starve them, and deprive them of all necessities of life, while the occupation and its settlers escalate their attacks on Al-Aqsa Mosque and the city of Jerusalem, and not a day in the West Bank is without an assault, arrest, or assassination. Or confrontations with the occupying army.
For example;
Jenin, from which Huwail is part, has been raided by the occupation more than thirty times since the beginning of the flood.
With this situation, the question about the role of the Palestinian Authority, which is responsible for the Palestinians in the West Bank, and its organization, Fatah, becomes urgent: Where are they in relation to what is happening?
What role do they play during the Battle of Al-Aqsa Flood?
What should be done?
Is there a way to reform the political scene?
In light of these questions, came this dialogue with the prominent leader of the Fatah movement, Professor of International Relations at the Arab American University, Jamal Hawiel:
About 5 months ago, on the 7th of October, there was great destruction and tens of thousands of martyrs and wounded.
Some say: Why did the resistance attack Israel and start this war?
Some members of the Fatah movement even went on to hold the resistance responsible for everything that was happening and demanded that it be held accountable after the war.. What is your vision of the Al-Aqsa flood?
Operation "Al-Aqsa Flood" was a result, not a cause, and the occupation has been on our land for 75 years.
He builds settlements, arrests Palestinians, Judaizes the city of Jerusalem, steals our goods and wealth, abuses Palestinians at checkpoints, controls the crossings, and on top of that, continues the siege of the Gaza Strip for more than 17 years, slowly killing its people.
The Al-Aqsa Flood operation is a natural and expected response due to the existence of this occupation.
The leaders of the Israeli occupation themselves warned before this operation that pressure, oppression and injustice on the Palestinian people would generate an explosion.
So, what is happening is a result, not a cause, and the main problem is essentially the occupation.
For example;
If someone was besieging your house, and you left the house and hit them, would you have the right?
No, it is normal to defend yourself.
The Al-Aqsa Flood Operation created strategic transformations in the region, and returned Palestine to the top of the international agenda, whether at the official or popular level, at a time when some were negotiating normalization processes in the region in exchange for financial gains and not even political gains, and thus Palestine returned to the forefront of international public opinion. The Palestinian narrative triumphed over the Israeli narrative.
Then, Israel, which was portraying to the world and the Arab region in particular that it was a nuclear and technological state capable of protecting these Arab countries from supposed, artificial enemies, a group of fighters from the Gaza Strip, whose area does not exceed 365 square kilometers, proved the corruption of this perception, and they overthrew the image of the army that does not They are defeated, after they achieved a military, psychological, and intelligence victory over this occupation.
From the first moment of the flood, the American President led the War Council meeting, and the US Secretary of State and the US Secretary of Defense came to the region. They supported Israel with smart bombs, equipment, and weapons, sent an aircraft carrier, a nuclear submarine, and reconnaissance planes, and provided Israel with all financial support and political protection at the international level.
This confirms that Israel without America is worth nothing, and that the one who protects Israel is America.
Israel does not live in the region except for two reasons: First;
American support for it on the grounds that it is an advanced colony in the region, and second:
Arab disintegration, and all previous wars that the Arabs fought with Israel were representative wars.
Within a few hours, the resistance in the Gaza Strip was able to take control of the “Gaza Envelope” camps, including Nahal Oz, the Shin Bet headquarters, the Gaza Division, and the 8200th Battalion. This confirms that if the Arab countries have the will, preparation, and faith, they can end Israel within hours.
In addition, today, for the first time since 1948, Israel is being tried for the crime of genocide.
In addition to its shattered military image in the region, its image as a civilized country has also fallen in the Arab region, which is portrayed as backward, and today Israel has become a criminal terrorist state before the world.
Hawail combined political struggle and writing.
He wrote the book “The Great Battle of Jenin Camp 2022: A Living History.”
You mentioned that the Al-Aqsa flood restored the Palestinian issue to its prominence at the international level, but at the internal level and throughout all this period, no meetings, dialogues, or communications took place between Hamas and Fatah.. In this context, what is your message - as you are a leader in the Fatah movement - to the centrality of Fatah and President Mahmoud Abbas?
On a personal level, I am not invited to leadership meetings, because of my nomination of Marwan Barghouti to head the political system, because he is a man who believes in national unity and comprehensive resistance.
In order for the sacrifices not to be in vain, there must be Palestinian agreement on a national strategy that leads to a Palestinian state, within the limits of June 7 at the very least, under the umbrella of the Liberation Organization, the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, with the presence of Hamas and Islamic Jihad within the organization.
We have to be united, so I call on the president to meet with Haniyeh and with the leaders of the jihad and the various factions to develop a Palestinian national strategy to confront the occupation, and to develop a political project that is consistent with the scale of the event and this genocide.
It is unreasonable that the entire Israeli society is united in killing the Palestinian people while they are wrong, while we who are oppressed under the occupation are not united!
Therefore, as Brother Marwan Barghouti says, national unity is the law of victory, and we must also start from a principle that Marwan Barghouti believes in, which is: Partners in blood, partners in decision-making, partners in the field, partners in Parliament;
This is the only formula capable of bringing the Palestinians together, and there is a national reconciliation document that serves as a basis for moving towards this unity.
These days, there are meetings with foreign and Arab officials, and during these meetings, the Palestinian Authority is asked to implement reforms in the Authority. Do you really believe that the Authority needs reform?
What are these reforms?
Reform and restoration of the Palestinian ranks is a Palestinian need before it is international, and all the countries in the world that demand reforms from Abu Mazen also demanded these reforms from Yasser Arafat, and then besieged him in the boycott and he was killed in the boycott.
Therefore, the same scenario is repeated, and these reforms are a necessary Palestinian need and not an Arab, American or other need.
This occupation and the system that proposes such matters does not want to offer anything to the Palestinian people, and invents arguments in order to distract the internal Palestinian situation with internal issues.
I believe that the priority now is to cease fire, open the crossings, provide relief to our people in the Gaza Strip, and achieve national unity, and then go to general Palestinian elections in which the Palestinian people decide for themselves, and reforms can only be achieved through the people in general elections and not through the patchwork that America proposes, which is... An enemy and adversary of ours, and it was tried more than once, specifically after the precautionary decisions issued by the International Court of Justice and the call on Israel to stop the genocide in the Gaza Strip, as it and its partners immediately stopped support for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Refugees, and so what reforms is America talking about?
In my view, reforms cannot take place except through general Palestinian elections for the presidency, the legislature, and the National Council, and the Palestinian people renew and choose the leadership of the institutions that assume responsibility for reform. As for recycling leaders from here and there, it is a patchwork process that only leads us to a new disaster.
A while ago, a press statement was issued by President Mahmoud Abbas demanding that Hamas complete a prisoner exchange deal in anticipation of massacres in Rafah. Certainly, you read the statement and understood what it meant and in what context it came. Do you believe that Hamas is actually the one obstructing the ceasefire?
What is required is from Israel, not from Hamas. Hamas did what it did in the Al-Aqsa flood, and said it came to stop the attacks on Al-Aqsa Mosque, stop settlement activity, and release the prisoners.
Netanyahu is the one who is delaying the prisoner exchange process, according to the confessions of Benny Gantz and Eisenkot.
Netanyahu does not want to release the prisoners or stop the battles, in order to continue in the political arena in Israel, and the whole world and even the families of the prisoners in Israel hold Netanyahu responsible.
Therefore, it is a priority to demand that Israel and the international community put pressure on Israel, in order to agree to the just and right demands of the resistance of the Palestinian people, and not what is required of Hamas, as it is doing everything it can to release the prisoners.
Whether the deal is completed or not, Israel will never stop committing massacres against the Palestinian people. The West Bank has had President Mahmoud Abbas for 20 years, and yet there is a continuation of building settlements, Judaizing Jerusalem, building the wall, and controlling water and the goods of our people, and all of these are massacres.
You spoke more than once about your relationship with Marwan Barghouti, and you previously ran on his legislative list, but since that time you have been banned from attending Fatah meetings in the district and have not been invited to them. How do you comment on that?
It is true that I am not invited to any meetings of the Revolutionary Council without organizational support, and without any reference to the movement’s internal regulations, and to date I have not received any decision, whether oral or written, regarding my membership in the Revolutionary Council.
I am also not invited to any dialogue in the official media, and I have been put on the blacklist in this media, knowing that Palestine Television is the property of the entire Palestinian people, and is the product of the sacrifices of tens of thousands of martyrs, prisoners, and wounded.
On a personal level, I was elected to the Legislative Council while I was in the occupation prisons, where I spent 11 years. I was accused of participating in establishing the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, and of being one of the leaders of the battle of Jenin camp. I was elected to the Revolutionary Council, and my ranking was 9 out of 80 members at home and in the diaspora, and thus I am elected from the rules of this movement.
The occupation does not respect the Palestinian leadership, and the President previously stated that we are all under the rug of the occupation, and Saeb Erekat previously said that the Prime Minister is the head of the Civil Administration, and therefore the titles of minister, ambassador, general, etc. are worth nothing in comparison to this injustice that our people face in the face of the occupation. Therefore we must shoulder our responsibilities.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (right) and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (Reuters)
Could you tell us more about your relationship with Marwan Barghouti, whom you say was the main person in establishing his list for the Legislative Council?
Marwan Barghouti is an important opportunity for the Fatah movement in any upcoming elections, since he enjoys great consensus in opinion polls at the national level and at the level of the Fatah movement’s grassroots.
I lived with him for a very long time while I was in Jordan, where he was deported, and I was a student and the president of the student council. After we returned, he was the secretary of the Fatah movement and I was an official in the Fatah Youth. At the beginning of the uprising, the occupation accused us of establishing the brigades and leading the uprising. We entered the prisons and succeeded in Legislative Council elections from inside prisons.
Marwan Barghouti spent a total of 30 years in prison, 7 years of deportation, 4 years of house arrest, expulsion, and 4 assassination attempts. He is a doctor in political science and an academic professor at Al-Quds Abu Dis University. He won the Legislative Council and the Central Committee with the highest votes, and he is free of... Corruption, he believes in true partnership, and he always demanded that we all bear the Palestinian concern, not Fatah alone.
During the last two weeks, Marwan Barghouti was isolated three times, and he entered his 24th year in the occupation prisons, and he did not leave solitary confinement. However, the prison was turned into a university and 240 master’s students and more than 1,200 bachelor’s students graduated, and he is subjected to a fierce physical and psychological attack.
Does the situation represented by Marwan Barghouti have extensions in the street?
Marwan Barghouti is not a Palestinian movement. He is a Fatah leader for every Fatah, and he has transcended the Fatah issue. He is one of the leaders of the Palestinian people. Therefore, Marwan is not a movement like some cases. Rather, he is a Palestinian case that we must exploit, as he is called the Mandela of Palestine, and his state of struggle is no less than that of Mandela. A symbol of the freedom of the Palestinian people and the entire world, and Marwan is important to have outside prison as a Fatah, national and popular necessity.
Hamas always talks about releasing prisoners, led by Marwan Barghouti and Ahmed Saadat, because they believe in a partnership with Fatah in the subsequent period.
A picture of Marwan Barghouti hangs in one of the residential buildings in the city of Nablus in the West Bank.jpg (European News Agency)
If some believe that they can eliminate the Hamas movement, then they are delusional, and if some believe that they can eliminate the Fatah movement, then they are delusional, and there is no salvation for us except through our unity and the development of a great Palestinian national project related to independence, equal to the scale of the disaster, the genocide, the sacrifices, and the great price that the people paid. Palestinian.
From time to time, there is talk about the post-Abi Mazen era, and leaders in Fatah constantly present themselves, and the names of Marwan Barghouti, Muhammad Dahlan, Hussein Al-Sheikh, Jibril Rajoub, and others are circulated. What is your vision for the post-Abi Mazen era?
After "Abu Mazen", there will be no president for the Palestinian people except by the choice of the Palestinian people. They may succeed in choosing some figures for positions here and there, but the Palestinian people will not accept, and legitimacy will only belong to the Palestinian people, and whoever the people choose, we will pay homage to them.
I always call on the president to unite the Fatah movement and unite the Palestinian people and then go home, because he has been in power for about 20 years and before that in the political scene.
We must unite the Palestinian people and form a unified Palestinian national leadership in the Liberation Organization, and form a government that works to stop the aggression and reconstruction in Gaza and prepare for general Palestinian elections. The man who follows “Abu Mazen” will be chosen directly from the Palestinian people and not from America or an Arab country here and there. Because, according to previous experiences, everyone whom America chose and placed in a position of leadership in the Middle East did not withstand the popular situation much, and I do not think that any Palestinian leader with honor and dignity would accept to come on the back of an Israeli tank.
In the context of your talk about unifying the Fatah movement, do you think that the Fatah movement is being weakened today by some of the leaders at the forefront of the scene?
All Palestinian organizations are in a state of weakness, not just the Fatah movement.
My point of view is that the entire Palestinian situation needs to be re-evaluated in the next stage at the organizational and national levels.
Yes, the Fatah movement is flabby, and the Revolutionary Council and the Central Committee should have a greater role than this, but the institutions were absent after the dissolution of the Legislative Council and the Judicial Council, as there is no one in the country to hold anyone accountable, who holds the minister accountable when he makes a mistake, who holds the director of the security apparatus accountable, and who He holds the presidency and the prime minister accountable.
We had institutions that evaluated and held accountable, but the absence of some institutions and the absence of important institutions led to a major defect and corruption in these institutions, and hence our demand to return to the Palestinian people.
Yes, there is a monopoly on the decision, and there are no institutions involved in making decisions, and some leaders in the Central Committee and the Revolutionary Committee hear about the decisions from the media or from a message over the phone, and therefore an issue like the Palestine issue should not be led in this way, but rather through collective action that rises to the level of the Palestinian issue. Its reference will be the Palestinian people. Otherwise, we will be wrong and will commit a crime against this generation and future generations.
Fatah is capable of establishing a national project, but Fatah, which believes in partnership and national unity, needs a spirit like the spirit of Marwan Barghouti, Zakaria Al-Zubaidi, and our heroic prisoners from Fatah and other factions.
This leads me to ask whether the Fatah movement is still in charge in the West Bank?
If I said that Fatah is leading the situation 100%, I would be wrong, and contradicting the truth, and there is an imbalance in the relationship between Fatah and the authority, and the main problem is when the institutions of the authority, especially the security ones, cover the organization and bypass the organization and do not deal with the organization seriously and on the ground, and thus lose this balance, and also if The organization in the field has become strong without seeing the institutions of the Palestinian Authority, and this also creates an imbalance.
Therefore, authority must belong to the Palestinian people and the institutions of authority belong to the Palestinian people, and not to an organization here and there, and organizations are organizations that express the situation within societies.
Israel does not originally want you to be in control in the West Bank, and every day it storms cities and camps, kills, assassinates and destroys, and therefore, according to my vision, any security institution in the world has a responsibility to protect citizens from the occupation and this asset, and it is not as the occupation wants to transform the Palestinian Authority into a security company that protects Occupation, and this is not acceptable to any rational person.
The doctrine of the security establishment is to protect the homeland and the citizen from the criminal occupation, and therefore the authority does not control the land, and the occupation storms “Area A” and homes near the district and the president’s house, and therefore how do you want to be in control when the occupation does not allow you to be so, and there will be no control by the authority without Any political project and a price for this control over the land.
Do you think that these are the reasons that led to the weakness of the West Bank’s participation in supporting the Gaza Strip in light of the current situation?
The West Bank was required to play a greater role at the public level, but it has also provided more than 400 martyrs and 8,000 prisoners so far, and 800 checkpoints are spread between the regions, and abuse and oppression are taking place, which have been carried out since 2021 and before that.
It is true that it was required to play a greater role than that, and this is the responsibility of everyone who demands popular resistance. Therefore, where is the popular resistance in closing the streets in front of the settlers, who are burning Hawara and Turmus Ayya, and where is the popular presence? This leads us to the conclusion that whoever is leading the situation and demanding popular resistance does not He finds support for him, because there is a lack of trust between the masses and the leadership.
A young man lights tires at the western entrance to Nablus in a demonstration to lift the siege on the city and its closure by occupation soldiers - West Bank (Al Jazeera)
This is at the popular level in the West Bank, but there is a state of resistance rising in the northern West Bank. It began in the Jenin camp and extended to Nablus, Tubas, Tulkarm, and today Qalqilya.. How do you view this situation?
The resistance that is taking place in the occupied West Bank is caused by the occupation. Since the establishment of the Jenin camp until today, nothing has changed in the situation of the Palestinian refugee. There is no political horizon, no political hope, the economic situation is bad, and the division is bad, and thus the Palestinian people in the northern West Bank. The West exploded in the face of the occupation, which did not want to offer anything to it.
The occupation destroyed life in Jenin and the Jenin camp, including electricity, water, and infrastructure, in order to make the life of the Palestinian people impossible. It wants to displace the Palestinians not only in Gaza, but also in the West Bank, and the biblical thought of the state of Judea and Samaria is nestled in its mind.
What lies in the north of the bank also occurs in other lone wolf operations.
We are approaching the month of Ramadan, and in light of the restrictions imposed by the occupation on going to Al-Aqsa Mosque, the issue is a candidate for these confrontations in a very large way, and I believe that the West Bank will turn into a flame of fire in the face of this criminal occupation that continues to kill and destroy, and the reality is in the West Bank. It is heading towards more frustration and more blockage in the political horizon, in addition to seeing the crimes taking place in the Gaza Strip, things are on the verge of a much bigger explosion.
On the other hand, there are those who describe these resistance fighters as insecurity or as outlaws, and some of them are also being arrested and tortured in the Authority’s prisons. At the same time, leaders in Fatah and the Authority are calling for calm in the West Bank. What is your position on that?
These same Palestinian leaders accused Yasser Arafat of the same accusations, but I say that what is happening in Jenin is not lawlessness or lawlessness, but rather these are resistance heroes facing the occupation.
I do not ask the security establishment to confront the occupation, as I know the complexities of the Oslo Accords and working in the field to confront the occupation, but on the other hand, and at least, we do not cut our nails confronting the occupation.
“Come on, we want to achieve calm in the northern West Bank,” but in exchange for what?
Will the clearance funds be released, put an end to the assassination attempts of the pursuers, release the bodies of the martyrs, hand over areas in Area C and make them fall under the national authority?
what is the return?
I do not see any real return. The occupation is not over, nor does it offer any real price to the Authority in exchange for calm in the northern West Bank.
The outlaws are the agents and spies, the civil administration group and merchants who are being prepared for the next stage, the corrupt and thieves of the country and money who are not followed up and held accountable, and the children of some officials who commit violations in front of everyone and whose cases are solved with a cup of coffee.
These are all outlaws. As for the resistance youth in the northern West Bank, they do not take sides and do not rebel against people. Rather, these are heroes, most of whom were injured, their brothers were martyrs, and their homes were damaged. Therefore, we must talk to these youth. They are young, human beings who can make mistakes, but with dialogue and understanding. It solves everything.
This leads us to a final question. You proposed an initiative to President Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority to stop persecuting these resistance fighters. Can you inform us of the details of this initiative?
We called for a meeting attended by about 700 people in the Jenin camp, and I said that we must establish general principles, that dialogue must be the basis for dealing with each other, and that we criminalize shooting at the headquarters of the security establishment, and criminalize shooting at people, especially since he has been killed so far. 5 citizens were wrongly shot by security forces and their cases were resolved, and we prohibit the prosecution of those wanted by Israel.
These are general rules of mutual respect, criminalizing the use of bullets among us, so that the language of dialogue between us prevails.
Any gun that is outlawed, we support holding it accountable, as well as holding small-time car thieves and some influential parties who own stolen cars accountable.
We are in favor of protecting the resistance, not prosecuting the resistance, and not arresting the resistance, unless there is a project required by the Palestinian Authority in the northern West Bank. Therefore, let us sit together and talk with brotherhood, love and comfort.
The solution is easy if there are intentions and will from everyone, and some believe that this breaks bones and breaks the prestige of the authority, but the Israeli special forces storming Ramallah do not reduce the prestige of the authority, and arresting security officers at the checkpoints, stripping them of their clothes and taking their weapons... Isn’t this a blow to the prestige of the authority? National authority?
Therefore, the blow to prestige and the breaking of bones does not happen between the people of one people, but rather with the Israeli occupation.
Source: Al Jazeera