Ottawa Declaration
Palestine Liberation Conference: Envisioning Liberation, Confronting Colonialism
Masar Badil: Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement
May 1, 2023
We dedicate the work of this conference to the memory of Lee Maracle; to the life of Walid Daqqah, who continues to struggle in the Zionist occupation prisons while battling cancer, and to all Palestinian political prisoners.
Under the slogan and framework, “With the resistance until the liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea,” and on the land of the Algonquin Anishinaabe people in Ottawa, Canada, amid the approach of the 75th anniversary of the founding of the racist Zionist settler colonial entity “Israel” and the Palestinian Nakba that has been ongoing since 1948, and on the eve of 1 May, the Masar Badil, the Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement, convened a conference in North America on 28-30 April 2023.
The conference issued the following political declaration:
From here, at the heart of the imperialist core in the east of North America, and as a challenge to the Zionist movement and its agents, and in order to achieve the unity and cohesion of the Palestinian, Arab and international fronts and arenas confronting imperialism, Zionism, racism and reaction, dozens of popular organizations, women’s organizations, student organizations and labour organizations, alongside academic, youth and legal activists, participated in the first North American conference of the Masar Badil, the Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement. Extensive dialogues and discussion took place in a comradely atmosphere over the course of three days in the conference that bore the name. “Palestine: Envisioning Liberation, Confronting Colonialism.” At the end of its work, the conference announced the official launch of the branch of the movement in North America, on the road to return and liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea.
Today, we in the Masar Badil, the Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement, salute the struggle of the Palestinian Arab people, affirming and renewing our absolute and unconditional loyalty to the people of Palestine, their just cause, their rights and all their national goals, committed to the revolutionary democratic struggle to achieve the goal of a historic and continuous revolution of liberation in the face of Zionism and colonialism, in order to achieve the return of Palestinian refugees to their homes, villages and cities from which they were expelled, and to walk together on the path of removing and dismantling the racist Zionist settler entity (“Israel”) and sweeping away this project from the land of Palestine and liberating the occupied Syrian Arab Golan, the Shebaa Farms and the Lebanese Kfarchouba hills.
In the same context, the conference of our movement extends a Palestinian, Arab and international salute to the resistance forces in occupied Palestine, with all of its battalions, brigades, committees, and heroic armed forces, and to the forces of the “Lion’s Den” and the fighters of the cities, villages and camps of the West Bank, and to the masses of activists throughout the land of Palestine, led by the Palestinian prisoners’ movement in the prisons and detention centers of the occupation. The Palestinian resistance, and with it and before it, the struggling prisoners’ movement and the revolutionary youth of the intifada, constitute the vanguard of the Palestinian people, its solid revolutionary core and the leadership of the national liberation struggle in Palestine. The Masar Badil, the Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement, will always be a revolutionary, popular, struggling support for the liberation movement throughout the occupied land, from the river to the sea.
In this political declaration, the Masar Badil movement confirms the continuation of its mission and responsibility to strengthen the relationships of struggle between the Palestinian people’s movement and the struggle of the indigenous peoples of Turtle Island, the Black liberation movement, and the movements of the oppressed, impoverished masses and those displaced from their homelands on the continent.
On International Workers’ Day, the movement salutes the struggles and sacrifices of the world’s workers, the struggling popular classes in the Arab world and in occupied Palestine, in the refugee camps and in exile and diaspora, and calls for supporting their steadfastness as the popular majority affected by the systems of colonialism, exploitation and capitalism, with a real interest in revolutionary democratic change and the accomplishment of the tasks of national and social liberation.
The movement calls to escalate the struggle at all levels, in all locations, regions and arenas, and confronting the U.S., Canadian and European policies that support the occupation and its institutions. The movement declares, once again, its rejection of the inclusion of Palestinian, Lebanese and Arab resistance forces, as well as many fellow liberation forces around the world, on the so-called “terrorist lists” in the U.S., Canada and Europe. The conference also announces the launch of an ongoing popular campaign against the criminalization of revolutionary forces and liberation movements, from Palestine to Lebanon to the Philippines.
In this context, the Masar Badil movement affirms the rallying of the Palestinian people in the homeland and in exile and diaspora, the peoples of our Arab and Islamic nations, and the free people of the world, around the approach of resistance and liberation. We renew our pledge to the martyrs, wounded and prisoners who have marched on the path of revolutionary struggle, and we reaffirm the right of the Palestinian people to practice all forms of struggle for the liberation of Palestine, first and foremost of which is the revolutionary armed struggle.
The movement considers that all of the revolutions of the Palestinian Arab people and their successive national and historical intifadas since 1947 have been and still are continuing in order to achieve the return to the homeland, the liberation of the land and people of Palestine, and the decisive, conclusive victory over the Zionist entity.
The Palestinian people, inside Palestine and in exile and diaspora, are struggling for the liberation of Jerusalem, their unified, eternal capital, and to build a new society in all of liberated Palestine, free from racism, Zionism, oppression and exploitation, a society based on the foundations and rules of justice, peace, equality and socialism, and guaranteeing the achievement of social justice and freedom for all its people under the absolute sovereignty of the Palestinian people and their national banner, the flag of Palestine.
The Palestinian Arab people have struggled for decades to achieve their rights, freedoms and complete national independence, and to exercise their right to self-determination over all of their land, and for this they have made and are still making the greatest sacrifices. They will continue this historic fight, no matter how severe the challenges, in order to achieve their aspirations and hopes. The Palestinian people did not fight to establish a so-called “government” or a deformed security entity and a miserable puppet authority in the occupied West Bank.
Accordingly:
- The movement renews its rejection of all treacherous treaties and agreements concluded by the PLO and the Arab and Muslim regimes with Israel, and considers them illegitimate, null and void. It calls for these agreements to be overthrown by popular force, and to confront normalization with the Zionist enemy. Our movement adheres to the principles of united and democratic revolutionary action in order to expand and develop the comprehensive movement to boycott the occupation, its institutions and all of its supporters.
- To achieve this goal, our movement aims to strengthen its presence among our people, especially students, youth, women and workers, in universities, secondary schools, and labour unions. It will work to develop its relationship with the various liberation movements on the continent, strengthen international popular support for the resistance, and continue the struggle against the alliance between imperialism led by the United States, and the racist, settler colonial Zionist entity in Palestine, and all of the reactionary forces (the normalizers and those allied with them) in the Arab region and the world.
- The Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement reaffirms its decision and determination to escalate its mass, media, social and cultural revolutionary work, in various fields of popular struggle, to defeat and overthrow the puppet self-rule project in the occupied West Bank and defeat the so-called “two state solution” project of Oslo and sweep away its disastrous results, especially as the anniversary of the crime of the treacherous Oslo Accords is approaching 30 years on 13 September 2023.
In this statement, our movement affirms all of the decisions of its first conference, in the Madrid Declaration of 2021, and what was stated in the Brussels Declaration of 2022. We call for greater unity of the forces of the Arab, Islamic and international camp of resistance, with its various intellectual, political and struggling currents in the Arab world and the region. This includes strengthening the popular revolutionary alliance with all peoples, groups, resistance movements, parties and popular currents in the world that oppose imperialism, Zionism, fascism and reaction.
The unity of the Arab resistance camp and the tasks of developing its comprehensive capabilities in the face of major challenges, require a reconsideration of the role and position of the Arab national liberation movement, the resumption of revolutionary democratic struggle against regimes of dependency, backwardness and reaction and their agents, and the path of comprehensive popular revolution to eliminate colonial hegemony and sweep away the bases of U.S. and foreign occupation in its carious military, political and economic forms and manifestations in the broader Arab world.
On this path, the movement will strive to support the struggle of Arab women, liberate political prisoners from Arab prisons, defend the peoples of the region, their resources and wealth, extract their natural right to self-determination and restore their historical and civilizational role from the ocean to the Gulf.
Our movement affirms its principled support for the peoples who are subjected to wars of starvation, punishment and U.S.-European-Zionist blockades, especially in Iran, Cuba, Bolivia, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine (the Gaza Strip in particular), Venezuela, Zimbabwe and others, and rejects foreign interference in their internal affairs. The movement also calls for adopting internal dialogue as an alternative path to destructive wars, sectarian conflict and self-destructive policies. The movement renews its position rejecting the damaging, unjust proxy war taking place in Sudan and the military conflict between Russia and Ukraine, whose fire is fueled by NATO in Washington, Brussels, Berlin, Ottawa and elsewhere.
The Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement seeks to develop its comradely relations with all the forces of liberation and progress in the continents of North and South America, Africa and Asia, and with the indigenous peoples of the Global North and South, and the Black Liberation movement in the United States. It is committed to nurturing and maintaining these relations based on the principles of dialogue, respect and solidarity, and to strengthening the common struggle against the forces of exploitation, plunder, racism and capitalism.
The conference of our movement in North America confirms the central and decisive role of the masses of the Palestinian people in the diaspora, especially in the camps of Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, and the strategic role of the Palestinian popular communities in Europe, Latin America and all areas of refuge. In this regard, we declare our support for our comrades in Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, who are bravely facing all forms of incitement, harassment, racism and oppression at the hands of the German state and its political, security and media agencies.
The movement declares its condemnation of German government agencies to ban the activities of Al-Quds Day, Palestinian Prisoners’ Day and, in 2022, Nakba Day and marches for return, in Berlin. It also condemns the German racist media that promotes and invents lies to affect public opinion in Germany to serve the interests of its partners in Washington and Tel Aviv.
In this regard, we call on all comradely and supportive forces to participate in a global popular campaign to confront European racist policies that target the Palestinian people and our comrades in Germany, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain and all of Europe.
The movement highly appreciates the efforts of all of our comrades in Ottawa, and the friends who traveled from various Canadian and U.S. regions and cities to participate in the movement’s conference and the March of Return and Liberation, on the road of return, liberation and victory.
Long live the struggle of the Palestinian people!
Long live the struggle of the peoples of our Arab nation for liberation, dignity, sovereignty and the right to self-determination!
Long live international revolutionary solidarity!
Victory is coming for the people of Palestine and all the struggling peoples!