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When you work with European diplomats for three decades, it is difficult for you to meet in a working meeting without food, so the armies are not the only ones who crawl on their stomachs, as Napoleon says, and even diplomats. When I promised Professor Majid Al -Zeer (Aba Abdullah), the pioneer of the Palestinian popular work in Europe, to conduct a press interview to review his busy experience, he invited me to break breakfast with him near his office in Istanbul. And because the Turkish breakfast is a morning feast, I sent him an apology:
“Very grateful for your generous invitation, but I am committed to a boring diet. I was thrown in Ramadan 10 kg behind my back, and I do not think about restoring anything from it … so that we can meet a cup of coffee or tea.”
Talking on a cup of coffee can be effective and very convincing. In September 1978, at Camp David, where Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin met, negotiations almost failed due to the severity of the dispute between the two men. At that time, Jimmy Carter called the two men to his hut, and on the impact of the coffee cups, he was able to persuade them to complete the agreement, while the Japanese insistence on dinner protocols with President George Bush Senior on his visit to Tokyo in 1992, to vomit the US President on the pants of the Japanese Prime Minister, Kyichy Miazawa.
My meeting was with the man who mocked his life to defend the Palestinian right to return to his occupied country in an office close to Istanbul Mall, near the old city airport. He was written on his main painting, “The Foundation, the Foundation.” Abu Abdullah sat in front of a narrow office, and he sat close to us, a young man in the early twenties, Abu Abdullah asked me in his presence for dialogue and listening to the story.
In the beginning, Kuwait was
Where do you like to start? I asked him and I took my notebook and brought him a sound recorder.
“We are in Palestine, the focus of our lives is the catastrophe, so let us start from it.” With these words, the minor began to narrate its first roots, and he is the son of the parents from the generation of the Nakba; His father is a fighter of the Tamamaria, the Bethlehem of the village of Harmla, and was imprisoned twice by the British because of his armed activity, and he was also a national tribal judge, and his mother from the town of Al -Malha near Deir Yassin.
“I was born on December 8, 1962 .. My birthplace is coincided with three articulated facts in the history of our region: the anniversary of a Palestinian uprising, the establishment of UNRWA, and the victory of the Syrian revolution.” Abu Abdullah said with a broad smile.
The setback formed a detailed moment in the consciousness of the young boy .. “I remember the entry of the occupation soldiers to Bethlehem, carrying their flags, and the displacement of the family to Kuwait, where the father was working” .. Al -Zeer says.
In Kuwait, its national identity will grow and bloom. Kuwait opened during the era of its Emir, Sheikh Sabah Salem Al -Sabah, early, as the Palestine Liberation Organization was allowed to take over the Palestinian education through “the second working hours”, and a generation grew up in educational and national incubators between 1967 and 1976, chanting every morning: “returning return”. The same national educational environment continued in the same schools with a Palestinian majority in the administration of the Kuwaiti Ministry of Education in a Palestinian national and Arab atmosphere with distinction for the end of secondary education.
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Indeed, when we look at the history of the Palestinian work, we find Kuwait as a station for many of its flags. What is the secret of this in your opinion?
“The experience of Kuwait was exceptional in making the Palestinian national awareness. In adjacent buildings, the Palestinian, the village, the farmer, the intellectual and the teacher lived under one roof, so their fuse was the experience of living in Kuwait in one unified environment that was not repeated anywhere. Al -Zeer adds: “Kuwait was not just a station; it was a kitchen of Palestinian political awareness through the annual festivals and the upbringing of cadres … If this atmosphere exists today, the Arab street would move to support Gaza in a very sophisticated way. In support of the interior and a Kuwaiti Arab harmony .. At that stage, I became a lecturer to raise awareness of the case, so I visited Greece and the United States.
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In your writings and media posts, it often calls for the revival of the PLO as a comprehensive political umbrella for the Palestinians, and it seems to me from your speech that it is not just a longing for the past, but I lived its national role a successful fact that contributed to your development with your generation.
The organization in Kuwait was not just a slogan, but rather a “living fact”, it is not possible to start any Palestinian initiative from scratch .. There are institutions, relationships, and democratic models that adopt elections or consensus, with a non -functional factional reference, but they only need “will” to work. “In Kuwait, our home was a factional forum, and my father was a tribal judge at the level of the Palestinian presence in Kuwait, and this extended to be accredited to the organization’s office there, so he was separated in conflicts between the factions, which made the house a national forum, not only socially.”
At Kuwait University, the student movement was an extension of the political movement, as the Palestinian concern merged with the nation’s concerns. In the early 1980s, Al -Zyer joined the university, was elected deputy head of the Islamic League for Palestine Students, then presided over it in the 1984 and 1986 sessions. Thus, the training stages were completed: from origin and immigration, to the educational incubator in Kuwait, then to university student work.
After Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait and with the impossibility of staying there, he moved to Jordan for a year, then he obtained acceptance of a doctorate, and in 1992 he moved to London inside it from the university life gate specializing in engineering, where he decided to write about “the impact of Islamic law on building systems”, then he soon moved to the world of journalism.
After Oslo
When the American waved the organization with the state’s promise, Yasser Arafat came to him to signing the Oslo agreement in 1993. On the road, many of the case papers fell from the pocket of Abi Ammar, including the right to return to the Palestinians. The organization retreated and fell inside in preparation for receiving a country that will not come, and left a large policy void for workers abroad.
“In that vacuum, the stage of specialization began for me … We started to ask: How do we transfer the work to the issue after the organization’s retreat? How do we create pressure groups? How do we practice organized work? How do we build a nationally influential national speech in European public opinion? The Palestinian Return Center, which is concerned with activating the issue of the Palestinian diaspora and demanding their right to refer to their homes; was the fruit of that serious question.”
London formed a focal point for the emerging project. From the fog capital, the Balfour Declaration, which truly granted the Jews to occupy Palestine, came out, in which the project of one of the victims of that unjust promise was established, calling for the right to return to his land and country from which his parents took out. The Arab media had a presence in London, so Al -Zeer and his colleagues were able to form a network of relations with media professionals and journalists to serve his case … and with the company of a Palestinian elite who extended bridges with the Arab elite.
The center attracted the thinker Abdel -Wahab Al -Masiri, who opened their eyes to the danger of the Jewish return law, which allows any Jew in the world to migrate to Israel on a religious basis, in a flagrant violation of international law. Al -Masiri linked this law and the right of the Palestinian return, and considered the application of this right a parallel legal response.
The polarization of the intellectual elite was accompanied by a soft power with Arab political figures .. He told me with a broad smile a funny position on his memories with Arab diplomats .. “In one of the conferences held by the Al -Awda Center under the auspices of the Arab States Group, the Egyptian Foreign Minister and former Secretary of the Arab States Amr Moussa participated, and I found that it is necessary to document the relationship with him, and I knew that he liked the honor, so we made a shield for him in the eighth. In the morning at his hotel to honor him before traveling. “
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The right of return is a popular right, so how did the elite work help you install it?
Communication with the “elite” was a path and was not a trend, and in another path we were communicating with the “people”; Defending the right of return is only possible with the people, “until we establish this defense, we established the Palestinian Europe conference, so that the Palestinian people appear and defend their right by themselves. We were not satisfied with working in Europe, but we also went to the camps in Lebanon, Jordan, Syria and the camps of the Palestinians of Iraq who were suspended between the Arab borders and visited Gaza while it is under siege to convey the suffering, and most importantly to convey opinion, so the Western solidarity will not be completed. The case is from its people.
The Palestinian European conference is highlighted as a vital mass platform that restores the national identity in the diaspora. Since its inception in 2003, the conference has been an arena to emphasize the principles of the Palestinian people, foremost of which is the right of return, amid attempts to exclude this demand from official policy tables. The conference brings together tens of thousands of Palestinians annually, from various European countries, to deliver a message that the Nakba has not been forgotten, and that the communities abroad are not silent communities, but live energy in the national struggle.
On the European scene, the conference played a growing role in forming a more aware public opinion of the justice of the Palestinian issue. Through its cultural and legal activities, and its hosting of European parliamentarians and political figures, the conference succeeded in penetrating the decision -making circles and exposing the double standards of European standards towards Palestine. It also contributed to strengthening the presence of the Palestinian novel in the Western media, and in building bridges between Palestinian communities and human rights activists, which made him one of the most prominent tools of popular pressure outside Palestine in the face of international collusion and official silence.
Access to the United Nations
Whoever traces your career in popular work, finds that the most prominent achievements of the return center will reach the United Nations Economic and Social Council, how did you achieve this achievement in an enemy environment and disagree with the Zionist lobby and its influence circles?
Al -Zyer is moderate in his council to talk about the details of the achievement:
“We have traveled a long distance, at a conference in London with British parliamentarians, the attendees almost laugh when the right of return was mentioned, then the term turned into a legal reality with a recognized institution at the United Nations.
The battle in the UN organization was bureaucratic, arduous, but decisive, and has begun since the request was mobilized. The committee included 19 countries, including Israel, and thanks to an intelligent and professional representative, and thanks to Sudan, Turkey and China and the support of the representatives of the Arab and Islamic countries who were members of that session … achieved achievement.
The Israeli reluctance was sharp and window, when she launched a distortion against the Al -Awda Center as a supporter of terrorism, and had a direct contact with the Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas. The center tackled the defamation of the Israeli mission to the United Nations and took legal measures in which he demanded withdrawing statements and apologizing and compensation. The center has received widespread support from countries such as China, Turkey and South Africa.
There are two documents that formed the coup point: the first, the message of British parliamentarians to the British Foreign Ministry, which has received Zionist pressure, in support of the return center. And with it a petition signed by 132 deputies in the European Parliament to support the center’s request .. At that time, the Swedish Foreign Ministry continued, and said: “If Britain’s position cohesive, we will vote with you.”
The second document, a report from an independent party that reveals the details of the Israeli propaganda against the return center. The report prepared by David Miller and Sarah Marausk mentioned serious discoveries that directly condemn the Israeli propaganda that targeted the “Palestinian Return Center” on terrorism charges, and the documents have proven that these allegations were promoted by institutions of a propaganda nature such as “UN Watch”, “NGO MONITOR”, and the Israeli Mair Amet Center, which is supported by military intelligence services. It is noteworthy that the reports of these institutions are teeming to repeat the word “terrorism” intentionally, in an attempt to sow suspicion and confusion, while their content was made of any legal evidence or actual evidence. Rather, the Meyir Amait itself acknowledged that there was no decisive evidence of the center’s connection to the Hamas movement or the Muslim Brotherhood.
The discoveries did not stop at the limits of misleading content, but rather extended to the campaign’s financing structure, as the report revealed heavy financing by the right -wing American and Israeli institutions with a clear record of hostility to the Palestinians and Muslims, such as the American Jewish Committee (AJC), the Middle East Media Research Institute (Memri), the Clarion Fund, which is behind the famous inflammatory film “Obsssion”, The Gightstone Institute is known for the production of a speech hostile to Islam.
According to the report, this campaign is part of a broader policy aimed at strangling the Palestinian human rights voice in the West, through a deliberate distortion of the facts and linking the peaceful struggle to terrorism. It is a policy, as the authors of the report, which vowed a serious undermining of the neutrality of international institutions if it succumbed to this type of organized misinformation.
“After years of the accreditation of the return center at the United Nations, I was on a visit to the head of the UNRWA Committee in Turkey, and when I met his deputy, he surprised me by saying: I know you .. I was in the Turkish mission to the United Nations in 2015 when your voting center was offered .. I talked to the representatives of 71 countries about you, and invited them to vote for you .. He surprised me!”
“The Golden Equation: Combining the Popular Dimensions and Official Coordination” .. Al -Zeer said, commenting after a long sigh.
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This is an inspirational achievement story, but what obstacles facing Palestinian work abroad today?
Many .. the Palestinian division, the strength of the Zionist lobby, the Arab disputes, and the attempts of power to abort independent work. But the new obstacle and with the deep impact on our work is the depletion of support and donations to a zero level. While the Israeli machine expanded, especially on social media.
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Our teacher tell me, after working for three decades in Europe to support the Palestinian issue, how did you remain convinced to work with the countries that sponsor the occupying state and provide them with a political cover?
They are human, my friend, and when they are politicians, the law rules them .. They were raised on the demonization of the Arabs, but today, after the flood, they knew that they were deceived by false information, and the European has an allergy to deception .. We have become human in their view. And a height of the zero ratio is a victory.