Khaled Barakat: Gaza, Resistance, the Death of Oslo, and the Crisis of the Left
"They might issue a statement here and there, but in reality the left have lost their historical purpose of existence when they lay down their arms..."
Last week, I had the honor of interviewing Khaled Barakat, a Palestinian writer and organizer from Al-Quds and a leader of Masar Badil, the Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement. We discussed regional developments, the ongoing genocide in Gaza and war of aggression on Lebanon, and the Israeli occupation’s new execution law against Palestinian prisoners, as well as the state of organizing in the imperial core and Palestinian diaspora, the shortcomings of the “left,” and the path forward to building an international popular cradle of resistance against zionism and imperialism.
You can find much of Khaled’s writing on Masar Badil’s website; I especially recommend his recent reframing of “Nakba Day” and his tribute last year to Elias Rodríguez in the context of external operations in the Palestinian revolution.
This interview was conducted in Beirut, Lebanon on 19 May, 2026. The transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.
Calla Walsh: Let’s start with Palestine. There have been many reports in the zionist media that the IOF is preparing to renew and escalate its fighting and genocide in Gaza. A war, of course, we know never ended on the people in Gaza and the Palestinian people. But as the disarmament deadline enforced by the so-called Board of Peace has passed and Hamas has refused to give up its arms, there are many indications that the IOF will resume the genocide in full force. So, what do you make of this next stage in the struggle in Gaza and in Palestine? And how have Iran and Lebanon’s re-entry into the battlefield changed future dynamics?
Khaled Barakat: Yes. Well, first of all, we have to always remember that the genocide did not stop in Gaza. This is a false report and deception to say that there is a ceasefire or Israel and the US have seized their war crimes against the Palestinian people in Gaza. This is a daily aggression carried by the US and Israel against our people in Gaza. The assassination policy did not stop. Just two days ago, they assassinated the commander, Ezzedine Al-Haddad. He is the head of the Qassam Brigades.
And this is really a daily crime. I mean, people in Gaza, when they are asked, are you worried that the war is going to come back, they say, well, the war never stopped. And if we look at the situation in Gaza today, really what the Israelis are trying to do is to continue their aggression, continue their crimes, business as usual, and at the same time talk about, you know, a Hamas violation or the resistance or the disarmament of the Palestinian resistance. These are all US and Israel schemes, and the Palestinian people across the board know that these are plans by the Israelis in order to keep the siege and in order to keep the Palestinian people in Gaza under daily pressure.
This attempt by Israel to keep the siege and at the same time talk about a ceasefire is something that the world needs to see that this is nothing but a scheme. And today the so-called Board of Peace has submitted a report to the United Nations full of lies, full of deception, and Palestinians have rejected this so-called Board of Peace today across the resistance movement.
What we need to understand is that the genocide did not stop, war crimes did not stop, and the way to move forward in our view is for the resistance to declare the death of the so-called Board of Peace and not to allow the so-called administrative committee to even enter Gaza. And our people are sick and tired of these games that the US, Israel, and some of these so-called Arab mediators are playing, just buying time. And at the same time we see that the aid to Gaza is not reaching the people. What is required by our people is a full open of the Rafah crossing. This is not happening. And the Egyptian regime, Qatar and Turkey, are guilty as charged when it comes to these things. They don’t even now condemn Israeli violation of the so-called ceasefire.
Calla: Another major development in Palestine has been the passing in the Knesset of this horrific execution law targeting only Palestinian prisoners that would affect many sentenced in Israeli occupation military courts, making the death penalty the default sentence. Could you tell us about how the resistance may respond to this? And why is the Israeli occupation doing this now? Why do they want to execute Palestinian prisoners now?
Khaled: Well, the Israelis have killed over 100 Palestinian political prisoners after October 7th. Some of them were killed under torture. Some of them were killed by shooting them directly. Some of them were killed because of medical neglect and so on and so forth. But actually hundreds of Palestinians were executed after they were arrested after October 7th. We have evidence of Israeli killing of Palestinian youth after they have been arrested. And when our people received the bodies of these martyrs, it was very clearly showing that they were arrested for 24 hours, some of them for 48 hours, and then after that they were assassinated, killed right on the spot. And this is Israeli practice after October 7th.
There is no limit to Israeli crimes when it comes to political prisoners. We see the starvation policy against prisoners, that they are even prevented from seeing their families or prisoners get the right to lawyers to visit them. Last week when Israel announced that it’s going to allow the Red Crescent to enter the prisons, they put a condition that they will not speak to the prisoners. So basically this Red Crescent visit is useless. If they’re not going to be talking to the prisoners, if they’re not going to be meeting with the representatives of the Palestinian political prisoners, then why are they going to prison?
The thing here to remember is that Israel has always practiced the killing of Palestinian prisoners. Now they want to make it as part of their judicial law, and that people or Palestinians who have participated in the resistance or will participate in the resistance are subjugated to execution. In fact, in my view, Israel, if they do this, this is not going to be something that will help the Israeli occupation. In my view, the Palestinian people are going to revolt. Executing Palestinian prisoners historically has been an action that will only generate an intifada, a popular uprising. It will only generate more Palestinian resistance.
And we have said previously and now we say again that we challenge the Israeli government and the war criminal Ben-Gavir to actually announce a date of an execution of Palestinian prisoners. They will not do that in our view because they know that they can practice these crimes and kill Palestinian prisoners without having it in the law. And this is something for the world to see, the Palestinian reaction to such a law, it’s going to be very similar to October 7th one more time because Palestinians are not going to let 10,000 of their political prisoners be subjugated to all forms of oppression, including executions, without reacting.
Calla: You’re involved in a lot of advocacy on behalf of Palestinian political prisoners and also on behalf of some of the Lebanese who’ve been abducted over the past couple years by the Israeli occupation. The exact number is unclear. They don’t have contact with their families or lawyers. And just today (Tuesday, May 19) there was news of another abduction, including a Lebanese army soldier. Could you tell us more about the Lebanese abductees in Israeli torture prisons and what kind of advocacy is going on here in Lebanon on their behalf?
Khaled: This is a very important question when it comes to the Lebanese prisoners in particular because the experience has shown us that Israel will not release any political prisoners without the resistance taking on an action and conducting an exchange between the resistance and the occupiers. This has been the fact of how the resistance managed to liberate political prisoners.
The issue with the Lebanese political prisoners, one, Israel refused to even acknowledge that there are Lebanese prisoners inside Israeli jails. They just showed one time a fake confession of one of the prisoners in their jails.
The other thing is that this is a national issue in Lebanon. It’s not just the issue of the resistance. The people in Lebanon and in the region, they stand behind these prisoners and they understand that Israel always abducts people, whether they are involved in the resistance or not. Some of these Lebanese prisoners are fishers and farmers, and they were abducted from their homes or in the streets. Some of them are actually mayors or heads of their municipalities in the civil sector. What Israel is doing is literally trying to bargain with the resistance, with Lebanon, that they have hostages. These are hostages that were abducted at the hands of the Israeli criminal army.
Now, the families of the prisoners here are actually leading a campaign in Lebanon to demand the immediate release of the Lebanese prisoners, and this is one important pillar in the strategy of the resistance today in Lebanon. They said that we will not be able to reach any kind of a ceasefire without the release and the full freedom of these Lebanese prisoners, and it’s important that the resistance uphold this position.
It is important that we support the resistance in this position, but I’ll be frank: The role that the state here in Lebanon is playing is not acceptable. They should raise these issues, the scores of the Lebanese prisoners in all levels. Lebanon is a member of all sorts of international organizations, and they should raise the issue of the Lebanese prisoners, whether internationally or nationally. The issue to remember here is that Israel always, when it comes to Lebanese prisoners, sees them as a bargaining chip, and they see them as a card that they will use, whether in indirect negotiations with the resistance or with the direct negotiations with the Lebanese government.
The thing to remember for us as a popular movement and political movement is that any talk of any ceasefire in Lebanon should not happen without the full release of these prisoners and to come back to Lebanon and to their families safe.
Calla: And speaking of the Lebanese government, a major pillar of Masar Badil and of your writing is the rejection of this liquidationist Oslo path of normalization and compromise. We can recall in Lebanon in 1993, during anti-Oslo demonstrations, the Lebanese Army even opened fire on protesters in Dahieh and killed nine of them. Now we see the Lebanese government taking a very similar path, directly negotiating with the Israeli occupation while massacres in the south and other parts of the country continue on a daily basis. So what lessons do you think can be applied from Oslo, or what do they say about the dangers of the path that the Lebanese state, the US-imposed, Saudi-imposed Lebanese state is going down right now?
Khaled: Well, the resistance here in Lebanon expressed their view when the Palestinian so-called leadership of the PLO signed this disgraceful agreement called the Oslo Agreement. And the resistance in Lebanon and others, including Palestinians, marched in the street in a very peaceful manner, and they were met with bullets. Nine martyrs, over 30 injured on September 13 of 1993 here in Lebanon. And the resistance did not respond, although they could have responded, but this could have jeopardized the entire situation in Lebanon. So they kept their patience and they considered these victims like martyrs of the resistance, and they are.
This is a position that actually represented the vast majority of the people in Lebanon and also in Palestine, rejecting this liquidationist process of Oslo. Now, after over 30 years of this process, we see where we are, and we see that the position that was expressed by the resistance in Lebanon and the resistance in Palestine is the correct position. We see that the Palestinian Authority that was the product of the Oslo process now is just a collaborator, and literally are mercenaries of the Israeli occupation. They target the resistance. They’re on the payroll of the CIA and the US security agencies and also Europeans.
US and Europe and the Arab regimes are trying to impose another version of Oslo today on Lebanon. And this is not going to work. The last polls that were conducted by centers here in Lebanon that have nothing to do with the resistance, the vast majority of the people in Lebanon reject any kind of an agreement with Israel that will push Lebanon to recognize Israel or to have a so-called peace with Israel. And also because people, after the signing of the so-called Camp David Accord and then Wadi Araba and Oslo, there is an experience of over 40 years of these kinds of agreements and that it has never benefited the people of Egypt and Jordan and Palestine. So why would Lebanon go into the same path?
The other issue to remember here is that these kinds of attempts to push Lebanon into an agreement with Israel will only weaken Lebanon and will only create a tension in the country, an internal tension within the Lebanese people, and at the same time Israel will be very comfortable claiming that they actually have a victory. We remember when the Oslo Agreement was signed, the Israelis declared victory. They say that we have achieved through this agreement more than what we achieved in 1948 and the declaring of the entire so-called the State of Israel.
Here I think that the resistance is very patient. They are expressing a very clear position in terms of rejecting any kind of agreement with Israel. Also the experience of Lebanon with these kinds of agreements. May 17th, this was the anniversary of the attempts to sign an agreement with Israel by some of the Lebanese forces here, and everyone saw the results of that. Lebanon would be the last country in the world to sign an agreement with Israel. I think that as long as there is a strong resistance in this country, this recognition of Israel will never happen.
Calla: As you kind of hinted at, a country that is fighting internally, that is internally divided, is a much easier country to invade or try to conquer than a country that’s unified. So why do you think the US and the Israeli occupation have made this pivot to focusing their pressure on the internal situation in Lebanon and forcing the Lebanese army to forcibly disarm Hezbollah? Is it a result of Israel’s failures in the battlefields?
Khaled: I think so. I think Israel’s failure on the battlefield pushes the Israelis and the US to do some kind of U-turn and to say, you know, let’s evaluate the situation. There is a resistance who is steadfast in the south. They are inflicting real pain on Israeli Occupation Forces to the extent that a minister like Avigdor Lieberman in Israel said that the resistance is dealing with our soldiers as if they’re pigeons.
This is due to the success of the resistance in Lebanon, particularly in the south, because they were patient for 15 months. Israel violated every law in the book, assassinating leaders, assassinating civil society leaders, doing every crime you can think of in terms of the destruction of the villages in the south. And the resistance kept patient. They kept calling on the Lebanese government to act, to do something, to raise this issue, to stop the Israelis from these crimes. And the government in Lebanon has failed. The entire world has failed.
So the resistance path today is showing that it is very effective, and that’s why we began to see some of the Israeli voices, whether settlers in the north or whether on the level of ministers, talking about the withdrawal from Lebanon. This is a country and a people who have experienced resistance from 1982 until 2000 when they liberated the south. The way of the resistance is the correct way. It has been tried. It has been tested. And the will of the people in Lebanon, especially in the south, have been also tested. The popular cradle of the resistance is strong and patient, and they understand what it takes to liberate the south and the sacrifices that it will take to do that.
Now, in terms of the internal situation in Lebanon, of course the US feels that they can pressure the government here because these forces, aside from the resistance, whether we’re talking about the president or the prime minister, are very much into the US camp. They are not at all on the side of people even, let alone the resistance. And instead of unifying Lebanon, unifying the people, unifying the position on an official level and on a popular level, they are talking about negotiations, and they are blaming the resistance for defending Lebanon. And this is ridiculous. People here are really angry at the positions that they have been hearing from the prime minister, which definitely are stamped with a US product. This government, without the resistance, has no legitimacy. Any negotiations today, without the resistance, have no value.
What works in Lebanon is when they take in consideration the resistance position. And it has been very clear. There are five pillars of this position that were declared by the resistance. An immediate, not just ceasefire, but an immediate cessation of aggression, the withdrawal of the Israeli occupation forces, the liberation of the Lebanese prisoners, people’s right to go back to their homes, and the rebuilding. These are national consensus pillars. Most of the people here in Lebanon, over 90 percent, I would say, are behind this plan that the resistance have declared. Anything they hear in the Western media is nothing but gibberish.
Calla: As we talk about all this US and Western imperialist meddling and genocidal aggression in this region, of course it raises the question of what people outside the region, particularly people in the imperial core, can do to resist from where they are. I want to ask a few questions about the building of an international popular cradle of resistance. Of course, you come from a historic left tradition, but the resistance forces we’re talking about right now are the Islamic resistance.
I’ve heard you make really nuanced historical critiques of some of the left’s mistakes. For example, a lot of people on the left blame the collapse of the Soviet Union for everything, rather than reckoning with the left’s own internal contradictions or mistakes over time. First, I want to ask, why do you think the left is so much less relevant today on the international scene, particularly in the West?
Khaled: When we talk about the left, we have to also talk about which left are we talking about. The vast majority of the so-called left today in the world are either social democrats or have been co-opted, corrupted. They’re in reality social democrats, and some of them are actually traitors and collaborators, and they present opinions that will only cover up for their state or their authority practices to legitimize it. They call themselves left, but in reality they’re not.
Look at the Palestinian left, for example. Where are they in real terms, in terms of defending the Palestinian people’s rights in a place like Lebanon? There is a racist agenda that Palestinian people have to deal with every day in Lebanon, and we don’t hear any voice from the Palestinian left or the Lebanese left, for that matter, saying, hey, look, there are people here being subjugated to all kinds of racism. The Palestinians cannot work in 70 professions in Lebanon, and we don’t really see any kind of support by the Lebanese or Palestinian left, for that matter. And this will go almost on every issue you can see in our region.
Yes, they might issue a statement here and there, but in reality the left have lost their historical purpose of existence when they lay down their arms, when they stopped offering an alternative revolutionary path for people and for the nations, when they started looking for solutions and dropped the option of victory. You fight because you want to achieve victory, and you fight capitalism with socialism and with approaches that provide an alternative to these systems. But when the idea is we just want to make people’s lives a little bit better, that is a social democrat agenda.
People in the Democratic Party sometimes have a better position than most of the so-called American left. So that’s why people turn to these broadcasters to listen to them. Even broadcasters from the far right, people feel that they represent their position more than the left. And this has nothing to do with material capabilities. It has to do a lot with what is the purpose of the left in the US, in Canada, in Europe, in our region.
That’s why we see today that the real left, if we have to use right and left in our terms, is the revolutionary Islamic forces and not just Islamic forces in the open. We’re talking about revolutionary Islamic forces like Hezbollah, like Islamic Jihad, like Ansar Allah. These are the forces today that the masses are supporting. And this is not of an accident. This is not because people don’t know the position of the left. It’s because they actually support an actual resistance. And this camp of resistance today in our region is led by Iran.
And when some of our friends and colleagues and Iranian leftists talk about anti-imperialism and how are we going to fight imperialism, they should support their country, who is leading the camp of anti-imperialism today in our region and in West Asia and in the world. That’s why supporting Iran, supporting Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Ansar Allah is the real leftist position and not the other way around.
Some of the left forces also act like the philosophers of Rome, when the city is burning and they’re debating the sex of angels, whether it’s female or a male. And then the masses are being massacred. The countries have been invaded. The resources of the people are being plundered. And then the left are busy with discussions. Should we support Iran? Maybe we shouldn’t support Iran. I mean, this is really ridiculous.
That’s why our message to the left forces in Asia, in Africa, in Latin America is that to regroup, restrengthen your position, and provide yourself as an alternative to your governments, not just selling positions to your own contingency. This doesn’t work. Have you ever heard of any victory led by the left without real sacrifices and without real revolutionary positions and without arms? I haven’t. So today it’s like yesterday. We’re still fighting the same enemy. Capitalism didn’t change. The US didn’t change. So our role is to revolutionize the left instead of, like, tapping them on the shoulder and saying you’re doing good, you just issued a statement that you’re saying the correct position. Even correct positions today are not what we want. We want a correct position that is implemented in real programs.
Calla: I’m really curious, since you lived many years in the West, in the US and Canada, you organized there, what were the differences in your experiences organizing here in the Arab region versus in the imperial core?
Khaled: Here in our region, it’s easier and harder at the same time. It’s easier because you don’t have to explain much to the masses. They understand. So what are you going to tell them? The prisoners are being subjugated to torture and Israel is doing these aggressions and war crimes. They know that. That’s not what the masses here want to hear because they know that. They are actually the victims of these crimes by the US and Israel. But the challenge is to organize the masses here, in the West, especially in the core of the imperialists, like the US and Canada and some European countries.
The problem is that we have complicated tasks. One is that to fight against these imperialist forces and governments who is providing Israel with all kinds of support and even supporting war crimes and genocide publicly. And you have the internal task of fighting against racism, oppression, and all sorts of measures taken by these governments. And at the same time, trying to build a unified front that actually has at least some kind of like the minimum basic consensus. And we always have issues in the imperialist core of actually having the bare minimum consensus.
Some people in the movement question the issue of armed resistance. They don’t want to say armed resistance. This is really a problem. They don’t want to talk about the liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea. I’m not talking about the governments, Germany or France or Britain. I’m talking about forces that call themselves on the left or forces that call themselves even liberal and forces who actually talk a lot about international law. But when it comes to Palestine and Lebanon and our region, they have issues with international law. So all these tasks, all these struggles takes a lot of effort and a lot of time from our people who are struggling, whether they’re the immigrants and refugees or whether they are revolutionary leftists and allies.
That’s why today, we’re actually expressing our solidarity with people in the West because they’re also being subjected to all kinds of oppression. I can’t say what I say to you now in Lebanon and say it freely in Germany. I can’t say this in the US or in Canada or, you know, you’ll be called all kinds of names, all kinds of tags, supporting terrorism, all kinds of allegations. And that’s why, lately, even when delegations come from all sorts of places, especially from the West, they realize this, they see this, that they can actually say their opinion more than what they can say in their schools or their universities or their unions and so on and so forth. So it’s important to break this cycle of oppression that is carried by the governments in the West, especially in the core of imperialism. I’m talking about the US, Canada and Europe.
And to just escalate. Without escalation, without raising the scale of struggle and to be effective against these governments, then we’re just going to stay in the same cycle. There’s the World Cup coming on June 11th. This should be an arena for the left to make hell about the genocide that is taking place in Gaza, about the situation in Lebanon, about the aggression against Iran, about all these sorts of crimes that are being carried with their tax money and carried against the people of the region, with the support of the Republicans and the Democrats. Those who vote for the Republicans in the US, they’re actually voting for genocide. Those who vote for the Democrats in the US are also voting for genocide. They’re voting to support Israel. They’re voting to support war crimes. They’re voting for the war.
And we know that the vast majority of people in the US, for example, are against the war. So this contradiction between the popular position and the so-called voting process needs to be revisited in terms of, like, those who really want to change the situation in the US, in Canada, and Europe, and elsewhere. This can only be happening through revolutionary acts. And revolutionary acts have no limit, in my view. It goes from armed struggle to demonstrations to sit-ins to actions similar to the brave actions that were taken by groups like Palestine Action in Britain.
This should be really the minimum. But without escalating against the war machine, against imperialism, against capitalism, how are we going to defeat them? When you talk about defeating capitalism, you’re not going to do that with statements. You’re not going to do that with just rhetoric. It has to be done with an alternative program that gives the people the right to practice every struggle method in the book. Without this, we’re just going to be really engaged in a futile process.
Calla: Another major shift post-Oslo is that the majority of the Palestinian diaspora is actually residing in Europe, in North America, in Latin America, not in the Arab world as much so. So does this shift also necessitate a shift in the strategy of organizing for Palestinian liberation in the diaspora and the solidarity movement?
Khaled: This is really a central question and an important one that we’re dealing with as Palestinians. With the exception of the Palestinians in Jordan, whose identity is being liquidated, but the vast majority of people in Jordan are Palestinians, we’re talking about over 4 million Palestinians who live in Jordan. But, again, you’re right. The Palestinians today in Europe, in North America, in South America are almost one-third of our people. So their role is very important.
We need to remember that the reason they ended up in Europe is because of all sorts of wars, economic wars, political wars, and military. Take, for example, our people in Syria. They were always living in Syria, and their situation was good. But because of the wars in Syria, because of the invasions and interventions and all sorts of US and Israeli plans and others, our people had to, not just our people, the Palestinian people, but the people of Syria. We end up with 8 million refugees of Syrian descent and almost 300,000 Palestinian refugees. The same thing in Gaza and in Lebanon. When people cannot work in Lebanon, they will leave. And some of them will choose to go to Europe, even through very risky methods. And this is what Europe needs. The price that Europe pays because of its policies in our region. They keep complaining that they have illegal immigrants and migration, when in reality they are the ones who create misery for people here by supporting Israel, supporting wars.
But Palestinians in the diaspora today are organizing, and especially thanks to the Aqsa Flood and the resistance in Gaza, who have carried out a major military operation that has changed the situation completely. So today our people in the diaspora are more engaged in the struggle. We see that in the younger generation. Students, youth, they’re getting more and more organized. They’re being more involved in the struggle. And I think that there’s nothing going to stop the Palestinian people in the diaspora from launching their revolution as well. It’s just a matter of time. We see that on a daily basis on the movement of the Palestinian people. We see that not just in refugee camps, but we see it also in Europe, and we see it elsewhere. Recently we have convened forums and conferences and what have you, and we see the energy of the Palestinian youth in the diaspora.
They want to be involved in revolutionary movements, not in just a solidarity movement with their Palestinian people in Gaza. They don’t see themselves as people in solidarity with their people in Gaza and with the prisoners and with the West Bank and with our people here in Lebanon. They want to be part of a revolutionary movement, not just Palestinian, but a Palestinian international revolutionary movement, especially those who are living in Europe, in the US, and in Canada. And they see themselves also as internationalist by nature, and they understand that the cause of Palestine is not just the cause of the Palestinian people. They understand that their enemy is not just Israel. They understand that through pressure they can actually ease the suffering of the Palestinian people, but also to organize themselves in a movement that will achieve liberation and return.
They chant openly, from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free. Palestinians today don’t buy the “two-state solution,” or even “one democratic state” and vague solutions for their cause, as if the Palestinian people were struggling for a state. Our people have been struggling for over 120 years, not because they want a state in Palestine. It’s because they want to liberate Palestine from the river to the sea, and because they want to dismantle the zionist project in our region.
Palestinians understand that they are the first rank in this fight, and so they understand who’s their allies and who’s their enemy. Palestinians today view Iran as the vanguard of the people in our region. They view Hezbollah today in the battlefield. They are the ones who are fighting not just to defend Lebanon, not just to defend the people of Lebanon, but they’re also defending the Palestinian people and the Palestinian cause. Palestine has never been so visible on the world stage like it is today. And again, thanks to our people in Gaza, thanks to the resistance in Lebanon, and in Gaza, and in Yemen, and in Iran, it is because of these movements that Palestine today is in the front lines, and Palestine is not being liquidated. So this is important to remember all the time.
Before October 7th is not like October 7th. We’re paving the way for a revolution in our region, not just in Palestine. The US cannot remain in our region as a colonialist power. The British need to pay for what they did to our people and our nations in this region. All of the colonialists who have supported the establishment of Israel will pay, whether it’s today or whether it’s in 100 years and after the liberation of Palestine. There will be a day where everyone who participated in the displacement of our people, the establishment of this zionist entity in the heart of the Arab world, every state that participated in this, including the Arab regimes, will pay.
Calla: As you mentioned, the Al-Aqsa Flood has triggered this huge surge in anti-imperialist consciousness, and anti-zionist organizing. The genocide in Gaza and the war on Iran are deeply, deeply unpopular with people in the West for the most part. But at the same time, as you mentioned, this hasn’t necessarily translated in most places into a militant level of organization or resistance that is truly making the imperial powers hurt from within the belly of the beast.
We can attribute that to many things… There’s counterinsurgency, NGOization, this deliberate severing of the cause from the resistance. There is also just the capital flow that continues to the imperial core countries from the rest of the world that they’re exploiting, pacifying people to a degree, keeping them comfortable with business as usual, but still, we’re seeing the quality of life in the core deteriorate every day.
So what do you think it would take to get the international movement for Palestine, or the solidarity movement for Palestine, if we want to call it that, to move from just recognizing Palestinians as primarily victims who need charity, to actually recognizing Palestinians as a compass of resistance, for them not just to support in solidarity, but also to follow in fighting their own revolutions in their own countries and contexts against their own occupiers or oppressors or exploiters?
Khaled: Yes, absolutely. There are two tasks here. One is our task, and I think that the Palestinian people, people in Lebanon, people in Yemen, in the region, have been proven that they are on the front line of the resistance. They’re doing their task. The question is the task of people in general internationally.
How people in Brazil today, for example, fight against zionist interventions in Brazil. And we’re talking about a country that is supposed to be led by progressive voices, but the zionist movement and their companies are literally occupying the Brazilian economy. We see Mekarot, the company of water. The Israelis are controlling water in so many countries today in Latin America, and they are invading every home, every household.
We’re not talking about political influence anymore. We’re not talking about zionist pressure or zionist movement in these countries. We’re talking about literally a zionist intervention in an economic way that wants to control countries and how they develop and how they move forward and how they shape their relationship with the world. Because Israel is a very dangerous project, not just on Palestinians and our region, but to the world.
We see also that in every attempt that the US is taking against any country, look for Israel all the time in these schemes, because they’re part of this restructuring of some of the country’s economic systems. They want to play a role, this war criminal Netanyahu talking about Israel as a global power. You say Israel is a global power, it means Israel is intervening in every country across the globe, with, of course, the US, because Israel always acts and is a dog of imperialism and of colonialism. This zionist regime is nothing but a police baton for US imperialism.
And it’s a colony that has a very dangerous role globally. We see, for example, Israel’s role in India. Do people in India actually know what Israel is doing in India today and how they are literally shaping some of Indian positions and economy and agriculture and all kinds of aspects of the state?
How Israel intervened in Jordan, how Israel is intervening in the Gulf. Israel is the entity that actually orchestrated this war against Iran. Trump is a pawn in the hands of the zionists. When people look at this situation today in our region, they don’t understand why the US would intervene in this way, which is very much as if someone is shooting itself in the foot. The US is not going to win this war with Iran, so why would they enter? Why would Trump actually take this adventure, contrary to all the advice that he got from his military, his intelligence, and so on and so forth? He did it because of Israel.
Israel here constitutes a very dangerous power that could actually lead to more and more disasters, not just for Gaza or South Lebanon, but globally. And it’s important to see this alliance and this dangerous alliance between the US, Israel, and the Arab reactionary regimes. No wonder why Israel and the United Arab Emirates are buddy-buddy. It’s because they have this common interest. They think that by having this axis of war criminals together, that they can actually defeat the resistance in the region, defeat Iran, restructure the region, as Netanyahu was promising before October 7th.
So when we look at the tasks of our people and our resistance and the tasks of people movements in the world, it has to be also coordinated. We want to have an international unified front that is actually an anti-imperialist front, anti-zionist front. And we cannot do that just by having a conference and issuing a statement of how much we don’t like Trump. This has to come in a way that actually be very effective, and it has to be an action-oriented front, and it has to see the link between people’s struggle, the struggle of the indigenous people in North America, especially in Canada, the struggle of indigenous people in Latin America. These struggles are connected, and without having a real unified front, we’re not going to be able to win any kind of real victory against imperialism and zionism and Arab reactionary regimes.
Calla: I think we’ll stop there, but thank you so much, Khaled. It was lovely to hear your insights. Any last words?
Khaled: First, thank you for inviting me to be part of this program. I urge people to read more alternative media and not just take even some of the media that sometimes sound like they’re against US policies. There are other channels and other media outlets like the one you’re part of (Vocal Politics) that actually not just speak about being against the US policies or imperialist wars, but also look in depth into the situation. Today, people in the world need to look for a different way to view things in depth and to read articles and analysis that are outside of the box that they’re used to reading. There are so many famous people out there that people get affected by, but maybe they should also consider looking at those who may be less famous but more correct in terms of their analysis of the world and global affairs.
Calla: Completely agreed. Thank you so much again. Hope to speak again soon.
Khaled: Thank you, Calla. It’s always good to be with you.
Thank you for posting the entire interview. Very enlightening.