Interview with Zakaria Zubeidi, leader of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades

international | rights, freedoms and repression | news report Sunday November 15, 2009 00:45 by TD - Free Palestine Campaign

The PA leaders "are whores. Our leadership is garbage."

Symbol of the resistance and intifada and leader of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades the formidable but affable and thoughtful Zakaria Zubeidi readily agreed to be interviewed on the 12th November at Jenin's Freedom Theatre. Not for him the hypocrisy of paying lip service to the PA Quisling regime in Ramallah but forthright condemnation and contempt: In June 2004, he kidnapped the corrupt Israeli collaborator, then PA governor of Jenin, Haidar Irshard to "beat the shit out of him." . He also burnt down the local office of the Palestinian Legislative Council. Alleged by the Israelis to be the chief strategist of suicide bombing he was ruthlessly hunted for extermination - in one botched attempt, in 2004, an Israeli death squad killed five other brigade members, including a 14-year old boy, in a jeep carrying him, in another, nine Palestinians were killed in Jenin including four civililians on a IOF murder expedition.

Zakaria Zubeidi on right with head of Bilin's Popular Committee Iyad Burnat

However, in July 2004 he accepted Israeli amnesty (or partial amnesty as it turned out) and now, for the time being, he confines his activities to cultural struggle through the Freedom Theatre. Arranged through the good offices of the head of Bil'in's Popular Committee, Iyad Burnat, two other internationals also based in Bil'in accompanied us to Jenin where another formidable resistance fighter, Walid Masharka ferried us to the Freedom Theatre - Walid lost three brothers fighting the IOF and spent 11 years in Israeli jails for his refusal to be crushed in the Israeli occupation juggernaut. Once one of Israeli human rights activist Arna Mer-Khamis's troupe of child actors, Zakaria Zubeidi was warmly and mischievously greeted there by her son, Juliano, who directed the award winning documentary, Arna's Children as the "black terrorist."

For a fighter who has stated that: "Today the president of the Palestinian people is General Dayton (Keith Dayton, the U.S. "security" spook). They're all working for him, he is the boss. A PA no longer exists.... there is going to be a war here. Not against Israel, or between Hamas and Fatah, but against the PA. The citizens are going to throw the PA out of here. Today the PA is doing what Dayton and Israel are telling it to do," (Related Link), it is difficult to see him standing idly by watching the PA Vichy regime suppressing what remains of the resistance at the command of the Israelis and Dayton - 4 Hamas detained activists tortured to death by the PA so far this year.

Caption: Video Id: 2249 Type: Politube
Interview With Zakaria Zubeidi; Leader of the Jenin Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades