Abbas Zaki... A Man from the Unbreakable Revolution Lineage

The inspirational leader, Abed Abbas Zaki... when your name is mentioned, it is not referred to as that of a transient man in the history of politics but as a complete chapter of Palestine, and as a voice that emerged from amidst the bullets, camps, and exiles to tell the world that this people has men who do not break.

You are not just a leader who emerged from the Central Committee of Fatah because great men are not defined by positions nor are they limited by them.

You are the soldier who carried arms in the early days and advanced through the ranks in the fields of revolution until you became a member of the Central Committee, not because the path was easy, but because you paid the price for every step of your life, dignity, and freedom.

You are also one of those said to be the menders of the broken, who do not pass by weakness without mending it, nor do they leave anyone broken without restoring some of their dignity, nor do they stand by national wounds without attempting to heal them with patience and loyalty. You were a support for the fighters, a refuge for the prisoners, and a voice for the voiceless.

You are the prisoner who has known Arab prisons and Israeli prisons and understood the meaning of confinement when belonging to Palestine was deemed a crime.

And when you last entered Ofer prison, prisoners from all factions lined up to salute you because they saw in you the image of a fighter and leader for their cause, who has not changed, negotiated, or abandoned them for a day.

You were a father to the prisoner before you were a leader to him and a father to the martyr before you became a spokesperson for him.

You considered all the prisoners your sons and all the martyrs your children, so you wept with them, grieved with them, and carried their pain as if it were your own.

And this is why people love you, because you did not treat the cause as a political discourse but as a large family named Palestine.

You were one of the few who refused to label the Palestinian prisoner as a terrorist because you saw in the prisoner a story of a people struggling for freedom.

You rejected the changing of Palestinian curricula that tell our children the Palestinian narrative because you believed that the most dangerous thing that could be defeated in the people is its memory.

Leader Abbas Zaki... you are from the generation of the armed revolution and from the men of the first and second intifadas and the Tunnel Uprising, and from the leaders of popular resistance. You faced settler attacks in Hebron and Khan al-Ahmar and everywhere, standing against attempts to uproot people from their land, always believing that the dignity of a Palestinian is inseparable from their right to resist, persist, and remain.

You stood with Gaza as it faced genocide, refusing to leave it alone under fire, supporting its people’s right to resist, and serving as a compass for national unity, considering the strategic conflict to be with the occupation, not with a Palestinian faction. You faced the nocturnal bats and Unit 8200 which was dedicated to attacking you, and you stood tall, expressing the voice of Fatah, even when it was said that some of your statements do not represent the official stance because you were speaking with the voice of Fatah's beginnings and the Fatah that was born from the womb of the revolution, not from the cold calculations of politics.

You stood with the people of the camps who faced destruction and displacement in Jenin, Tulkarem, and Nablus because you saw in every camp the story of the first refuge and in every demolished house another Palestinian wound.

I was honored to work with you as Deputy Commissioner of the Commission for Arab Affairs and China, where I learned not only about politics but also about the true meaning of belonging to Palestine. I learned from you that a leader is not measured by the number of guards around him but by the number of hearts that open their doors to him with love. I learned from you that the revolution is about morals before it is slogans, and that Palestine is borne out of loyalty, not positions, and I learned the history of the founding revolutionaries directly from their companion.

I heard the weeping of the free from Yemen as they spoke of you as if you were one of their men, and I heard the voices of the elders and supporters of the revolution from Kuwait chanting your name:

“You are successful... successful in the hearts of the free.”

And from the heart of Algeria, the land of revolution and one and a half million martyrs, men described you as an image of the leaders of the Algerian National Liberation Front, for they saw in you the features of the old Arab revolutionary, the man who lives for his idea, not for his benefit.

Liberation movements around the world recognized you, and the free knew you as a companion resembling the giants from Fidel Castro to Che Guevara, and from Mao Zedong to Nelson Mandela.

Leader Abbas Zaki... perhaps men step down from organizational positions, but they do not leave the memory of the peoples, for positions are granted by decisions, while love is bestowed by history.

And this is why you should hold your head high... for your sons in Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Kuwait, Algeria, and everywhere else where there is a heart that believes in revolution see you as the image of Fatah that people love and as the image of Palestine that does not bow.