This article was first published in Turkish in early August on the web site www.gercekgazetesi1.net. Other responsibilities have prevented us from translating it into English immediately. Abdallah has, in the meanwhile, given an interview to the Lebanese journalist Moussa Assi in French, where he has reiterated many of the views emphasised here, although the main topic of that interview is to invite Abdallah to give a message to the French people. We publish the piece almost a month later than it was composed. Better late than never.
The Zionist state of Israel is now slaughtering the civilian population of Gaza without even bothering to hide it. Two months ago, in an article published on this web site ("The Privatisation of Humanitarian Aid"), we explained that the sabotage of food aid to Gaza by the Israeli army, aid that was carried out by United Nations humanitarian organisations, had reached a new stage. We stated that Israel and its patron, the United States of America, were transferring food aid to a so-called “civil society” organisation, and that, like all privatisations, this would unilaterally impose the will of the Israel-US partnership. Since that day, we have witnessed, before the eyes of the whole world, the people of Gaza, especially the children, being condemned to starvation day after day! On social media, we all see that Gazans, in order to escape starvation, are forced to endure scenes reminiscent of those described in the poem Inferno by the great 13th-century Florentine Italian poet Dante.
Lebanon's heroic son, Georges Abdallah, boarded a plane from France in the last days of July and returned to the heart of the war raging in the Middle East (West Asia), first to the capital Beirut, then to his hometown of Qobiyyat, in the midst of this infernal atmosphere. He was setting step into his home for the first time since 1984. After 41 years of imprisonment! After paying the price for his organised struggle against the Zionist state of Israel and its main supporter, America, in French prisons for 41 years, he was finally released and returned to his homeland.
This man, who endured 41 years of imprisonment with the patience of the prophet Job, with great resistance and fortitude, without compromising his cause in the slightest, challenged the enemy with a thunderous voice as soon when he arrived in his homeland, addressing the crowds who came to greet him at Beirut airport, calling for "resistance". and, brushing aside, out of lack of confidence, all the reactionary Arab regimes marked by servility to imperialism, he addressed directly the conscience of the Arab people: "While the children of Gaza are dying of hunger, millions of Arabs are watching them like spectators," he said.
What can one say to such truth? This is precisely what is happening. Welcome to the Middle East, comrade Georges Abdallah, to our shared geography with its bleeding wounds and its heroic past! With your courageous and outspoken stance, you may well open a new chapter in the development of the struggle against the Zionist genocide. Welcome, you bring good tidings!
Who is Georges Abdallah?
Georges Ibrahim Abdallah is a Maronite (Christian) Lebanese citizen born in 1951. He embraced communism early on, first joining a left-wing Nasserist organisation in Syria (the Syrian Social Nationalist Party), then the Palestine Liberation Organisation. Abdallah's youth coincided with a period of profound upheaval for both the Palestinian people and Lebanon. In 1975, a civil war was unleashed in Lebanon (a loose federation of diverse peoples) that would last 15 years, and in 1978, Israel invaded the southern parts of its northern neighbour Lebanon. The development that led Abdallah and his friends to embark on a new path occurred in 1982. Israel, using militias from an organisation operating in Lebanon under the name of the "Falanges" (a name also used during Franco’s fascist Spain), raided the famous Sabra and Shatila Palestinian refugee camps in Beirut, slaughtering thousands of Palestinians, young and old, men and women. In this environment, Georges Abdallah and his friends established a communist organisation called FARL (Fractions Armées Révolutionnaires Libanaises) in French (in English, the Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Faction), which prioritised the defence of the Palestinian people against Zionism above all else. (Lebanon, along with Syria, had been an area of interest for French imperialism within the Ottoman framework since the 1860s, and after the First World War, it was fully colonised by France, so French carries a weight in its political and cultural life close to that of Arabic).
The FARL immediately took action against agents of the Zionist state of Israel and of the United States, carrying out successful assassinations in 1982 against both an agent of the American state (Lieutenant Colonel Charles Ray) and Yacov Barsimantov, widely known as the head of the French chapter of Israel's notorious foreign intelligence organisation, Mossad. Between 1982 and 1984, FARL carried out two more unsuccessful assassination attempts in France. It has never been claimed that Georges Abdallah played a role in these assassinations. At the very least, it is already established that Barsimantov was killed by a lone female militant.
However, Abdallah, as one of the organisation's leaders, was placed under surveillance in France and arrested in 1984. Initially, an agreement was even reached to exchange him for a French agent imprisoned in Lebanon. However, at that very moment, the discovery of a FARL weapons and ammunition depot and of Abdallah's fingerprints on the materials there changed the nature of the case. However, as no link could be established between Abdallah and the assassinations, he was sentenced in 1986 to only four years in prison for illegal possession of weapons, association with a criminal organisation, and passport forgery. He had already served two years of that sentence.
However, the United States was out for revenge. William Casey, the director of the CIA at the time, began to exert pressure personally on the French justice system. In 1987, a new case was opened linking Abdallah to the two assassinations. Meanwhile, the first scandal emerged: Abdallah's lawyer was acting as an agent for the French state, passing secrets from Abdallah on to the authorities. Naturally, his licence was revoked, and a new lawyer was hired.
The context of the case, the environment in which it was heard, was of great importance in terms of the outcome. In 1985-1986, France experienced a level of violence unseen since the Algerian War (1954-1962). The 1980s were already a period of violence across Europe with organisations such as the Red Brigades in Italy, the Red Army Faction in Germany, and the lesser-known Action Directe in France resorting to armed struggle in response to the organised left's complete reconciliation with capitalism, and subsequently facing heavy retribution and death at the hands of European states. This second phase of the struggle is referred to as the "years of lead".
It was in this general climate that, during the years 1985-1986, numerous bombings and assassinations took place in Paris, resulting in the deaths of 13 people and injuries to approximately 250 others. The Corsican and Basque movements were also active in these events. Amidst all this, an enigmatic "organisation" called the "Committee for Solidarity with Arab and Middle Eastern Political Prisoners" claimed responsibility for the bombings and demanded the release of three Arab prisoners, including Abdallah. This was accompanied by the publication in the press of photographs of Arabs, claimed to be Abdallah's brothers (who were later proven never to have left Lebanon), linked to the metro bombings. A reward of one million French francs (equivalent to $350,000 today) was offered for the "brothers". The metro attacks placed the brothers, dubbed the "Abdallah clan," at the centre of Parisian political life, and the term "public enemy number one" began to circulate widely in reference to Georges Abdallah.
Thus, when the second trial began, Abdallah was already seen by the French public as a convicted criminal. Abdallah denied any involvement in the two assassinations until the very end, never admitting to them. However, he stated: "Even if the people have not bestowed upon me the honour of carrying out the anti-imperialist actions you attribute to me, it is a great honour for me to be accused of these actions." After this statement, Abdallah did not attend any more hearings, appearing before the court only when the verdict was read.
The US government took the extraordinary step of participating in this trial as a "civil party". It also appointed America's most renowned criminal lawyer to fight for the securing of a life sentence for Abdallah. Although the French state prosecutor demanded 10 years, the court went on to sentence Abdallah to life imprisonment!
A few months after the verdict was finalised, it emerged that the metro bombings were the work of pro-Iranian activists!
Belated confessions
Years later, representatives of the French state and press would begin to confess one by one after the fact. Robert Pandrot, France's Security Minister at the time, wrote in his 1996 book that both he and the (notorious!) Interior Minister Charles Pasqua focused on Abdallah not because the evidence was strong, but because they had no other options. He also added that (regarding the "brothers" claim) "all bearded men from the Middle East looked the same to the French."
Edwy Plenel, a leading representative of the French press who worked for the social democratic newspaper Le Monde at the time and referred to Abdallah as a "professional terrorist" in a series of articles he wrote about him, stated years later that establishing a link between the Lebanese prisoner and the 1985-1986 bombings was "a mistake, even a big mistake".
Yves Bonnet, former head of France's domestic intelligence agency DST, stated in 2012 that there was a "chasm" between the crime and the sentence in Abdallah's case, adding that "it is time to put an end to this story." But "this story" continued for another 13 years. We will see why below.
This is how legal murders are committed in "democracies" when imperialism and the bourgeoisie are discomposed.
26 years of unlawful imprisonment!
Abdallah's right to parole arose under French law in 1999. Since then, Abdallah has made countless requests for parole, which have been rejected each time on scandalous and despicable grounds. Let's look at one or two examples.
In 2007, the aforementioned internal intelligence agency DST responded to the request for release by reporting that Abdallah had converted to Islam and committed the crime of religious propaganda (proselytism) in prison. What a coincidence during the "endless war" period that prevailed under the Bush Jr. administration after 9/11! Yves Bonnet, the former head of the DST mentioned above, describes this as "an unacceptable lie." Behold the alchemists of the bourgeois legal system! They converted an unalloyed communist into a fundamentalist Muslim militant!
In 2013, after countless appeals, when a French court was finally about to grant release on parole, the only thing left for Abdallah's release was the approval of Manuel Valls, the so-called "Socialist" Minister of the Interior. However, within 24 hours, a phone call came from none other than Hillary Clinton, the Secretary of State under Barack "Hussein" Obama, beloved by many on the left, to Laurent Fabius, the French Foreign Minister, whom also many hold in high esteem. "Madame Clinton" (as would later be proven by information included in Wikileaks) demanded "another reason that would nullify the legality of the decision." By refusing to sign, the Minister of the Interior would extend the unlawful imprisonment for another 12 years!
So, a revolutionary communist militant, held illegally for 26 years at the behest of America and in the name of Zionism, has finally been released from prison, where he was held completely unlawfully!
Georges Abdallah has spoken, how do we respond to him?
On 25 July, a lightning bolt struck in the blue sky at Beirut International Airport, and a thunderclap called upon all Arab peoples, the entire Middle East, nay, the entire Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, to fight, struggle, and wage war against the genocide being perpetrated against the Palestinian people in Gaza under the protection of imperialism.
Abdallah said that the resistance had not weakened. Referring to the leaders of Hamas and the Lebanese Hezbollah, he stated that if they had surrendered, it could have been said that the movement had weakened, but instead, the entire cadre had fallen as martyrs while resisting Zionism, and this was a sign of vitality, a source of strength.
Georges Abdallah has spoken. To find solace in this may be the job of nostalgics of the revolution. Socialists, communists, revolutionary Marxists, and vanguard workers, however, must immediately ask themselves: So, what is our response?
Let us remind those who remain silent: Naim Qassem, the new Secretary-General of Lebanon's Hezbollah, which is just recovering from the Israeli blow back in the spring, responded to Georges Abdallah immediately! In his address to the nation on 29 July, he stated that Georges Abdallah, who "stood tall and honourable in prison for 41 years and returned to the struggle upon his release," was "an indispensable component of this pluralistic resistance movement."
Abdallah has not only returned to his homeland and the region in the midst of the Palestinian genocide. He has also returned at a time when Israel's blow to Hezbollah has shifted the balance of power in Lebanon, as it has throughout West Asia, and when Hezbollah is going through difficult times.
The American-French-Israeli imperialist-Zionist coalition is attempting to inflict a political defeat on Hezbollah after the military blow: President Joseph Aoun, a man of imperialism, is making appeal after appeal to Hezbollah, saying, "Put your power at the service of the state," recognising the state's “monopoly on arms”. The new Secretary-General, Naim Qassem of Hezbollah, has responded by saying, "Those who are trying to disarm Hezbollah are serving Israel." In these difficult days, all forces must support the resistance movement. No one should remain a spectator to this situation.
Georges Abdallah is no gladiator and we are no Romans; it is not up to him to fight and us to watch!
Our response
Our response, the response of our party, the DIP (Revolutionary Workers Party) of Turkey, is to immediately take action to crown Georges Abdallah's call with a practical mobilisation, using all our resources. Since the beginning of the genocide, the Revolutionary Workers Party has advocated the establishment of a broad front of communists, socialists, progressive and anti-imperialist forces worldwide, but primarily in the MENA region. It asserts that this front should build itself step by step, relying on the support it will receive from all over the world, and position itself at a level of mobilisation that will respond to Zionism and imperialism in the language they understand.
Abdallah's call has created a great opportunity. It is impossible not to heed his call. So we must act immediately. Will the children of Palestine be defended by a lone hero who has been imprisoned by imperialism for 41 years? The Zionists and imperialists are killing whoever they find, whether the elderly, children or non-combatant women. Then we too must declare war on the Zionists and imperialists. Actions taken in individual countries are valuable. But to raise the mobilisation to another level, we must first establish a united struggle in the MENA region, then worldwide.
The more responsibility Marxists take upon themselves, the more free and equal, the more worker- and labourer-friendly the future of MENA will be. To the extent that communists shirk their anti-imperialist duties, the masses will join the ranks of those who do not merely talk but actually fight on the ground. Alors, aux armes citoyens!
The information presented in this article has been largely compiled from two sources.
1. Diane de Vignemont, “Four Decades After His Imprisonment, France Can’t Stop Fighting Over Georges Abdallah”, New Lines Magazine https://newlinesmag.com/spotlight/four-decades-after-his-imprisonment-france-cant-stop-fighting-over-georges-abdallah/
2. News and commentary published at various times from 25 July to the present in the Beirut-based newspaper L’Orient-Le Jour https://www.lorientlejour.com/