Leila Khaled on Suicide Bombing as a tactic of the Resistance

With the rise of Political Islam the tactic of suicide bombing became widely employed, especially during the second intifada. What is the PFLP leadership’s position on suicide bombing as a tactic of the resistance movement?

We don’t see that it’s a way of facing occupation. We don’t see it as a strategic action or a strategic policy. But the question that should be asked before this question is, why do those Islamic factions use such a tactic? Those who went to different places to explode themselves, Israel minimises the distance between life and death to the extent that they didn’t see a difference between death and life, although we are the ones to defend the lives of people and not have the idea or the education of death. The Islamic groups use this to face the Israelis among the civilians which Israel used to get “Those Palestinians are terrorists!”

Why, we asked the question, who planted terror in our country? Isn’t it occupation? It is.

But at the same time we have advised our brothers in Hamas and Al Jihad that using this, it’s a controversial thing so they have stopped it afterwards. Because when we say that Israel target civilians in the West Bank and the Gaza strip whether by assassinating or by bombarding, like what happened in Jenin in 2002 and in Gaza last year, we have to (inaudible) we must protect lives of civilians and the Israelis who are not. That’s why you haven’t seen any of these actions. But when I said that we want to ask the question, why those people who are young who also dream of a good future and a bright future go and explode themselves? Because they didn’t find any other means. And the ideology that they are going to paradise is also one of the factors that provoked them to do it but now it has stopped and I think they realised that such action is not for the interests of the struggle.