Bassam al Antari-Albawaba.com
Shocked by the sudden fall of Baghdad in the hands of the US forces without any tangible resistance, Palestinian faction leaders said this “earthquake” would enhance their determination to continue resistance and uprising against the Israeli occupation. “What has happened surprised and shocked us,” Abdullah al Shami, a prominent leader of the Islamic Jihad in Gaza Strip, told Albawaba.
He added, “we expected the Iraqi people to resist longer, particularly in view of the fact that the aggressors are the Americans who want to redraw the map of the whole region.” “What we discovered was that most of the Iraqi people took a neutral stance in the war which the isolated Iraqi regime fought alone with the US forces. This showed the extent of the weakness of Sddam’s regime in front of this force and explains its noticeable collapse,” he continued.
Describing the grievance of the Palestinians for the fall Baghdad and its impact on their morale, al Shami said, “the sadness and despair on the faces of Palestinians were evident yesterday while they were walking in the streets.”
However, he said, this will not deter the Palestinian people from resistance choice nor will it make them desperate. “We, as a resistance movement, have more important messages than this disaster, which won’t have any impact on our role in preparing our people for resistance. There is a difference between the two cases as the whole Palestinian people have only one option which is resistance,” said Shami.
For his part, Fatah movement secretary in the West Bank, Hussein al Sheikh described Baghdad’s fall as an earthquake. “This earthquake makes us proud of ourselves as people who have been resisting and fighting for 100 years,” he told Albawaba.
Al Sheikh expressed his bitter feeling and said, “we are very sad to see an Arab capital falling so easily, while a small refugee camp inhabited by few thousands of Palestinians with modest capabilities resisted the Israeli massive war machine longer than Baghdad and inflicting more casualties among the enemy.”
While the Fatah leader admitted that the event was astonishing, he reiterated that this wouldn’t leave any negative impacts on the determination of the Palestinian people. “This will bolster the fact that we are on the right direction. We are proud to constitute the crown of resistance and revolution for this nation,” he said.
On his part, Hamas leader Abdel Aziz al Rantisi expressed shock but reiterated that resistance will escalate and will not cease because it is the last remaining hope for the Arab and Islamic worlds.
The spokesman of the Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Maher al Taher, described what happened in Baghdad as shocking and bewildering, without knowing the reasons so far. However he said he was confident that the Iraqi people would continue to resist and expel invaders from his land.
For his part, Muatasem Hamadah, member of the Palestinian Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine Politburo saw the fall of Baghdad as a surprise that has come quicker than was expected particularly if compared to what happened in the south cities.
“We did not expect under any circumstances that the invading force would be defeated due to the imbalance of powers but we expected resistance to last longer,” he said. Hamadah added, “In solidarity with the Iraqi people, Palestinians are sad and feel pain. This is perhaps due to the fact that they have realized before others the magnitude of suffering that people may face under occupation.”
