After forty-one years of cruel and unjust incarceration in French jails, Georges Ibrahim Abdallah hit the ground running. He did not miss a beat in his lifelong struggle for the liberation of Palestine, the Arab world, and the Middle East. He immediately proclaimed, upon a triumphant arrival at Beirut airport, what many of us have been thinking or even saying out loud:

“We know how these [Arab] regimes are. But how many Arabs were martyred trying to enter Gaza? None. If 2 million Egyptians take to the streets, the genocide would end. The question relies on Egyptians in particular, more than any other people.” He added, "If only one million Egyptians took a stance at Rafah, the genocide would not continue." "Take to the streets," he went on, emphasizing that the borders that suffocate life must be torn open by the people's will. Directly addressing Egyptians and other Arabs, regarding the Palestinians’ cause, he challenged them: "Your silence is their [the enemy’s] weapon. Your uprising, their lifeline."

Georges Abdallah became a legend while serving the longest prison term in European history. However, even though it was not his intention, at Beirut airport, the legend was catapulted to yet a higher level of a mythical personage, a larger-than-life human being, by speaking the truth. A legend is a legend only when it is not the intention to become one, but instead humbly serves the cause.  

Who is Georges Abdallah? He was a Lebanese Christian militant and the founding leader of the Marxist-Leninist Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Factions (LARF). Originally a Christian militant fighting for a predominantly Muslim cause, Abdallah defies sectarian categories. Al Mayadeen Espagnole’s director Wafica Ibrahim further traces his life:

In the prime of his youth, during the height of the struggle with "Israel" in the 1980s, Georges founded LARF. The factions as a group claimed responsibility for an operation against the US military attaché in Paris, Charles Ray, and against the Israeli agent Yacov Bar-Simantov. However, Georges Abdallah's direct involvement in these operations has never been proven, despite the fact that the first lawyer appointed by the court to defend him had ties to French intelligence. This alone was enough to ruin the trial from the outset. Georges served his entire sentence in 1999 and, since then, at the behest of the United States and "Israel", the French state has held him hostage, imprisoned outside the law. Eleven requests for his release were filed over the course of 25 years. Georges Abdallah's release, Wafica wrote, will not be limited to speeches and waving flags. We will then take him to the museum of veteran fighters, and that will be it. “No, a thousand times no," concludes Ibrahim, “You are wrong. Because at this challenging moment in our history, Georges Abdallah will come to help us reinvent the meaning of resistance… It is a historic day of joy and hopeful pride for Lebanese revolutionaries… Perhaps July 25, 2025, will be the beginning of the countdown to stop the depression and defeatism of some and restore joy and victory to the people of Lebanon, to steadfast Gaza and its heroic people.” At the airport, he courageously addressed his Lebanese people, urging them to come together and stand in the face of what he described as a global Zionist threat.

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Georges Abdallah’s statement comes at a time when Yemen is reaffirming its position. The president of the Supreme Political Council in Yemen, Mahdi al-Mashat, recently declared that the country is ready to be “at the forefront” of any collective action taken by the region against Israeli crimes and the powers that support them. “If you are unable to act, then let the people act. And if the people do not act, the consequences of silence and inaction will reach every nation of this Ummah [global community of Muslims].” On July 24, the leader of the Yemeni Ansar Allah movement, Sayyed Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, renewed his appeal to the governments of countries geographically located between Yemen and Palestine to "open passageways for our people,” so that Yemenis mobilizing in the hundreds of thousands can march in support of Gaza. The very survival of Palestine is at the point of no return.

What does Georges’ living legend tell us in the West? The pro-Palestine movement must openly and unapologetically increase its support for the Resistance more than ever. What was the excuse from some for refusing to do so? The Axis of Resistance does not fit the romantic Western preconceived notion of a “pure” national liberation struggle, because, among others, it is “tainted” by religion, Muslim to boot. However, Georges is of Christian origin. Furthermore, he is a revolutionary drawing on “Western” Marxist traditions.

Moreover, these roots span religions and ideologies to encompass everything the Resistance needs to win the victory over the US-backed Zionist scourge. The heterogeneous olive tree’s roots encompass different strands of thought, religions, and action. However, these roots intertwine with each other under the soil to form the same tree. Still not satisfied? When Hamas announced the martyrdom of its leader, Yahya Sinwar, many Palestinians viewed his iconic armchair position as the Che Guevara moment for Palestine. Lebanese Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah is another case in point, as Tim Anderson points out. He created a Resistance network that came to include the majority of the Lebanese people and served as a reference point for the regional alliance of independent peoples. That alliance crossed sects and religions.

The Islamic Republic of Iran is another notable example. However, reports from Westerners who have recently visited Iran conclude that it is perhaps the most misunderstood country in the world. 

More than ever, the pro-Palestine movement in North America and Europe cannot shy away from openly supporting the Resistance by proudly holding its banners high and expressing support for the group Palestine Action, which is proscribed in Britain. There is no reason to refrain from doing so. How does it help to shape the narrative in favour of Palestinian liberation when the middle of the road is taken in the same breath in favour of both the release of the Palestinian prisoners and “hostages,” or opposing both October 7 and Zionist “violence?” The Empire latches onto every crack in the hegemonic anecdote as a sign of weakness and encourages them to continue with the same account. Can one be so naïve as to think for a second that when even some pro-Palestine activists accept the falsehoods spun by the ruling circles' version on October 7, the Western corporate media and governments do not see this as a vindication of their cause? Choose your camp. The legend of Georges Ibrahim Abdallah suggests that there is no reason to be neutral. This cowardly approach is often hidden behind the fear of Western sensitivity toward critics of Zionism, on the one hand, and, on the other, recoiling at the thought of transgressing the false Western-imposed boundaries of what it means to be revolutionary.

To reject this ambivalent slant is to honor Georges and his forty-one years in prison.