Turkish Newspaper: The Death of Ahmed Jibril Ended the Era of the Popular Front’s Support for Assad

A Turkish newspaper published an article in which it talked about the death of Ahmed Jibril, leader, and founder of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command, on July 7, 2021, at the age of 83, and its impact on the cohesion of the organization and its future.

In “Yeni Shafak” newspaper, an article by writer Taha Kilinch (Taha Kılınç), reported that the "Yarmouk" camp, which hosts the Palestinian refugees and is located south of the capital Damascus, said that it "was the scene of one of the most violent scenes of the conflict" in the Syrian war.

The newspaper pointed out that "the Palestinians established the camp in 1957 after they were forced to leave their homeland. They did not gain an (official) status at any time, and after 2011 turned into one of the places where the Free Syrian Army found a base for it." 

 

Great Disappointment

"After applying all kinds of repression, intimidation, starvation and siege operations against its residents, the military operations and bombing operations that the Syrian regime's army started at the end of 2012 continued until 2017, when the camp was completely evacuated," Kilinch said.

According to reports prepared at the end of 2019, the number of Palestinians killed during the war in Syria - most of them in the Yarmouk camp - is close to four thousand, including 467 women and two hundred children, according to the Turkish writer.

He added: "More than that, more than 100,000 out of about 580,000 Palestinians living on Syrian territory were forced to leave their homes and emigrate, affected by the regime's attacks, and thus became refugees for the second time."

He continued, "In light of these difficult and painful conditions that the Palestinians were going through in Syria, a group emerged that fought alongside the army of Bashar al-Assad's regime and took its place at the forefront of the attacks on refugees: the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command."

The writer explained, "This interesting Marxist organization, has always been aligned with the Ba'ath regime since the early seventies, as it took its place on the side of the Damascus government constantly, especially during the successive strikes that were directed against the Islamic opposition."

He added, The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - the General Command, which usually puts itself in "confrontation and against the Israeli occupation", was resisting the possibility of any "Islamic" administration in Syria as it resisted the Israeli occupation, and perhaps more.

With the news that came from Damascus on July 7, 2021, about the death of Ahmed Jibril, the leader and thinker of the organization, at the age of 83, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command returned to the agenda once again, says the writer.

He added: "Not only did one of the most important figures in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine withdrew from the political scene with the death of Jibril, but an entire era ended. Thus, closing a page of the history of the modern Middle East, and there is no doubt that Jibril will now carry the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command with him to his grave, since it was based on his personal charisma."

 

The Journey Begins

Referring to Jibril's background, Kilinch said: Ahmed Jibril was born in 1938 in the Palestinian city of Jaffa on the Mediterranean coast, to a Palestinian father and a Syrian mother, and he took an active role in the resistance against the Israeli occupation since his youth.

He added: "After initially joining the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine led by the Leninist Christian George Habash, Jibril established his own organization in 1968 due to Habash's anti-Syrian stance. After working with the late President Yasser Arafat for a period of time, Jibril separated from Arafat in 1974, and started a self-made fraction within the Palestinian front through the organization he leads.

Although the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command carried out attacks on Israeli targets in both the Middle East and Europe throughout the seventies and eighties, it lost its previous activity when Jibril settled in Damascus in the early nineties, according to the Turkish writer.

He pointed out that the front and its leader, Jibril, "has become one of the most important friends that neither Damascus nor Tehran can dispense with. Unlike the Islamic Jihad organization directly controlled by Iran, the latter cannot have a full control over it Jibril’s organization. 

He added with regret that "the political legacy that Jibril left at the end of his long and active life is the blood of thousands of Palestinians who were killed in order to prevent the fall of the Ba’ath regime. The question that comes to our mind, for what was all that struggle?" Unfortunately, no clear answer could be found when reviewing the 83-year-old’s life.

Kilinch added, "By the way, news of a new death came to me from Egypt when I reached the middle of the article. Jihan Sadat died at the age of 88, she is the wife of President Anwar Sadat, who was killed by a captain in his army in 1981"

He continued: "Jihan Sadat was one of the prominent figures in the history of the modern Middle East. She spent most of her time after her husband's assassination, giving speeches and conferences back and forth between the United States and Egypt. Moreover, it is known that Jihan, who was born to an English mother, had a direct influence on some of the laws that were enacted." during her husband's presidency.

The Turkish writer concluded his article by saying: "I recommend Jihan's book, entitled A Lady from Egypt (published in Turkish with the title "The Story of Love and Revolution on the Road to the Pyramid"). She describes in the book the war and peace processes with Israel throughout the eye of a witness from the heart of events to anyone interested in the region. Worth to mention, that it is a book in which a woman tells with all her emotions a story, in which her husband is the main hero.