France: Launch of the Palestine Defense Movement – Muqawama
We hereby share an unofficial translation of a report published by La Cause du Peuple.
On February 26, 2025, a new movement to support the Palestinian people was launched, under the name “Palestine Defense Movement – Muqawama.” This is a national movement, supported by several political organizations advocating for the Palestinian people and their combatant vanguard. The term “Muqawama” indeed means “Resistance” in Arabic.
Thus, for the first time, a movement calling for support to the resistance of the Palestinian people – whose core is armed struggle – exists at a national level in France, which has not been the case until now. This movement asserts that the struggle in Palestine is the spearhead of the world anti-imperialist struggle, and that it is only within the context of a world struggle against imperialism that we can understand our role in imperialist countries like France.
Unity, as always, was not achieved in calm and patient discussion. It is primarily the class struggle in Palestine that has imposed the question of armed resistance as the heart of the liberation process, forcing different organizations to take a stand. This has led to strong repression, expressed through fines, searches, violence against pro-Palestinian activists, as well as suspended prison sentences and even detention orders, as was the case for a Parisian activist who spent a month in pre-trial detention.
A significant effort has also been made through the Unitary Campaign for the Liberation of Georges Abdallah, which has allowed dozens of organizations to work together within a specific framework, that of the struggle for the liberation of the political prisoner, while firmly defending the principles of support for Palestinian resistance and affirming the communist identity of Georges Abdallah.
Thus, during the year 2024, activists, encouraged by the wave caused by the operation Al-Aqsa Flood and the immense victory of the resistance in Gaza, were able to develop the movement to support Palestine, and, in struggle and adversity, unite around common principles to launch a great Palestine Defense Movement, united around a shared vision and goal: support for the national liberation struggle of the Palestinian people, until the liberation of Palestine, from the sea to the Jordan.
We attach the call:
Call by Palestine Defense Movement – Muqawama
The Palestinian revolution has entered a new phase. October 7, 2023, is a remarkable acceleration of history. It was necessary to break this status quo favorable to the colonization of Palestine. The ongoing battle brings at stake the future of imperialism in the region. Capitalist countries know this, and each seeks to play its own game at the expense of the peoples. Their unwavering military and political commitment to the Zionist entity shows, if needed, that the colonial war is their own war. Arab resistance and the Palestinian revolution in particular must be crushed by all means, by extermination if necessary. Nothing new. Western countries, led by the United States, have not hesitated to exterminate entire populations in their colonial conquests. The plundering of resources and the gigantic profits made do not allow the slightest humanitarian hesitation. Exterminate and enrich oneself, that is the basis of Western capitalism. The genocidal imperialist war in Palestine is in the logic of things. It is natural to any capitalist and imperialist political order.
As in any revolution, the third way of a peaceful settlement or a non-violent transformation appears today as nonsense. Colonial violence can only be fought by the counter-violence of the colonized. Even the old bourgeois international law recognizes this. But this recognition is purely formal, as this law is not applied anywhere and is violated everywhere by the powers that dominate the world. Armed resistance is the only recourse for Palestinians to counter their programmed extermination for a century. The course of history has definitively swept away the nonsense about the two-state solution or that of a state for all its citizens and the recourse to international law. This revolutionary situation imposes the need to choose a side.
The Palestinian revolution definitively shows that the majority of Arab states are among the most solid allies on which the Zionist entity can count. The Arab thrones owe their stability only to the goodwill of the masters of the world. While Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon are subjected to Zionist crime day and night, Arab leaders do not remain passive. Far from it. They are very active in their trade with “Israel” at all levels: economic, political, and military. These pawns of imperialism know that their fate is tied to that of the Zionist entity and imperialism.
October 7 marked a clear dividing line between the camp of revolution and the camp of counter-revolution. Imperialist countries and their governing political parties are all aligned to crush the Palestinian and Arab revolution in blood.
Within the very countries of the West, and particularly in France, the pro-Palestinian movement must face terrible repression that will intensify as developments unfold in Palestine. In France, it is time to unite on a firm political line of unconditional support for Palestinian resistance and for all resistances opposing imperialism. On the occasion of this united platform bringing together several organizations, we call on everyone to join us in these clear and firm principles of support for the resistance against the Zionist enemy.
Palestine will live and win!
