The two intifadas: Interview with a PLO activist

FromOccupiedPalestine.org, 4 November 2003


Jenin, West Bank -- Because of the constant threat of arrest or assassination, the setting for most of our interviews with activists has been dramatic: a secluded cemetery, an abandoned office, or a house on the outskirts of the city with the requisite gunfire in the background, and the roar of tanks. This time was different. We interviewed Kamal in the baby supplies store that he manages; to make room for our recorder he cleared the desk of crib-assembly instructions.

At 54 years-old, Kamel's history reads like the standard rap-sheet of a Palestinian Liberation Organization activist. As a teenager he was an "educator and agitator" in the PFLP (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine), at the time the second largest faction in the PLO. At 19 he was sentenced to 16 years in Israeli prison for his participation in the PLO; his crime: "I threw a hand grenade at an Israeli battalion occupying the city of Jenin."

He spoke of his time in prison only in passing, as most Palestinians do out of respect for their friends and allies still in prison. And on the streets of Jenin, finding a man who hasn't been in prison is easier than the reverse. What Kamel did say about Israeli prison was that he was interrogated "night and day for 18 consecutive days," routinely gang beaten, and tortured "physically, psychologically, and morally" as well as with the standard electrical shocks.

He left prison in 1986, just before the first intifada broke out, and has since played the role of a "thinker and agitator, concerned with political, not military matters."

for full text:  http://www.fromoccupiedpalestine.org/node.php?id=967&PHPSESSID=bc5589c6939080367ed86cf1b0cb1fa6