Khaled Barakat, coordinator of the international Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa’adat, is currently in Athens, Greece, holding a series of meetings with Greek political parties, Palestinian and solidarity organizations, at the invitation of the seventh Resistance Festival, where he is scheduled to speak in the opening of the annual festival on Friday, June 20, on the political developments in occupied Palestine and the region, the attacks of the Zionist occupation against the prisoners, and the escalating Zionist attacks against the Palestinian people.
He is holding a series of meetings with parliamentarians of SYRIZA (the Greek Coalition of the Radical Left, which previously raised Ahmad Sa’adat’s case in the European Parliament), the Communist Party of Greece, the Communist Organization of Greece, Palestinian left writers and organizers, and solidarity organizations to support the Palestinian people in Greece, including the Intifada Association to Support the Palestinian People.
In a meeting with the Network in Solidarity with the Palestinian Resistance, he said that “The Zionist occupation will not be defeated except by armed and popular resistance, with the support of the Arab nation and all of the progressive and democratic forces of the world.” He emphasized the racist nature of the Zionist project in Palestine and recalled the long struggle of the Greek people’s resistance to Nazi occupation, which greeted German occupying forces with popular armed resistance, “and not with words and roses.”
“The Palestinian prisoners’ movement in Zionist jails today is engaged in a tough struggle, and making a historic contribution to fighting the occupation. The prisoners are the core of the revolutionary national liberation movement and a driving force of the Palestinian people,” said Barakat. “The masses of the Palestinian people realize the historical lesson from proven experience of broken promises and ongoing violations, that there is no way to liberate the prisoners but through resistance and the capture of Zionist soldiers and settlers to conduct a prisoner exchange, as has occurred previously.”
In response to questions about the role of the Palestinian Authority and the newly appointed government described as a national consensus government, he said that “the Authority has become a heavy burden on the Palestinian people and must be fundamentally and radically changed. Palestinian national unity can never exist with those who coordinate and cooperate with the security services of the occupation.”
