While observers and counter-protests have kept a watch for the well-known green or yellow of Hamas or Hezbollah paraphernalia among the anti-Israel protests and campus encampments that erupted across the United States of America and the rest of the world following the October 7 Massacre, the red flags of another terrorist organization have taken greater prominence among Pro-Palestinian activists.
The Marxist-Leninist terrorist organization Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) has maintained an influential role in the post-October 7 anti-Israel movement, offering training sessions and seminars, lending manpower to other groups' events, and organizing their own protests within Western nations.
The PFLP is designated as a terrorist organization in many states, including the US, European Union, and Canada. The PFLP gained notoriety in the 1960s and 1970s for airplane hijackings, coinciding with the wave of communist terrorism that afflicted the world, but Islamist Palestinian terrorist organizations have captured attention since the Intifadas and wars in Gaza.
Laymen are familiar with Hamas as the ruler of Gaza, Palestinian Islamic Jihad for its own brief war with Israel, and Fatah for its control of the Palestinian Authority, but its appears that the broader public consciousness has forgotten PFLP, despite its continued terrorist operations in Gaza, the disputed territories, and Israel.
Far-left radicals and other movements that are part of the post-October 7 Massacre protest effort have not forgotten the PFLP, embracing its messages, members, and materials. The red PFLP flag has been sighted repeatedly at anti-Israel protests in recent months, including flying at encampment occupations of US colleges and university. The flag was seen standing in the encampment at University of Pennsylvania, and waved prominently at a speaker's stage at a May 7 rally in front of the statue of US founding father Benjamin Franklin.
On April 29, Students Supporting Israel documented a PFLP flag being displayed at the University of Minnesota encampment. Activists paraded with a PFLP flag and headband in protest of Israel’s Vertigo Dance Company in front of the Boston Boch Center Shubert Theatre on April 5.
The PFLP flag has also been featured outside the US. At the University of Manchester, activists posed with a PFLP flag and were featured on a website associated with the terrorist organization.
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Activists have publicly glorified PFLP operatives during the protests. At University of New Mexico, the student union building was defaced on April 30, and the picture of PFLP airplane hijacker Leila Khaled was placed at a desk with the caption "A woman's place." James Parsons Tower at Liverpool John Moores University was rechristened in Khaled's name by an encampment occupying the building on Monday. Khaled was featured on posters at a March 3 International Women's Day march in Toronto.
Following the April 7 cancer death of PFLP operative Walid Daqqah in an Israeli prison, activist groups praised the example of Daqqah, who commanded the cell that kidnapped, tortured, and executed IDF soldier Moshe Tamam in 1984. A sign featuring Daqqah was displayed at Columbia University encampment protest on April 21, and before his death activists compared comrades arrested at a Houston Al-Quds Day rally on April 5 to the PFLP terrorist.
At Within Our Lifetime's April 1 protest at Zucotti park and city hall a banner was unfurled extolling PFLP secretary general Ahmad Sa'adat. Activists at the event called on "Hamas, our beloved, strike, strike Tel Aviv," as they did at the Columbia encampment on April 23, where a poster calling for Sa'adat's release from Israeli prison was also seen.
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Bearing the logo of Samidoun
The posters of PFLP leader Sa'adat often bear the logo of the Samidoun: Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network. Samidoun was designated a PFLP subsidiary by Israel in 2021, and has members PFLP members in leadership roles throughout its ranks. Samidoun Europe coordinator Mohammed Khatib, has been described by Palestinian outlets Quds News, Palestinian Information Center, and Quds Press as a PFLP operative. Khatib is also an executive member of Masar Badil Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement, which is headed by Khaled Barakat.
Barakat, who had in the past been described as a leader of Samidoun, was also called a PFLP commander by the terrorist organization and Palestinian news outlets. In 2022, Israeli intelligence told the National Post that the Vancouver resident was a PFLP leader. Barakat advocated for the delisting of PFLP from Canada's list of terrorist entities at a International League of Peoples' Struggle (ILPS) conference in 2022. Barakat, who was banned from the US and Germany, has distanced himself from Samidoun, identifying with Masar Badil, but his wife Charlotte Kates continues to serve as the international coordinator for Samidoun. Barakat and Kates were photographed at the ILPS conference with a poster of Sa'adat emblazoned with the PFLP logo.
Samidoun shares communiques from the PFLP on its website. On its Manchester chapter Instagram account, where the PFLP is not designated as a terrorist organization, the group more openly shares PFLP content such as a May 1 poster calling for "workers and free peoples of the world" to "unite against the enemies of humanity." Samidoun advocates on behalf of PFLP figures and associates held in prison, as seen in a January 22 Albuquerque event about Sa’adat and Lebanese communist terrorist Georges Abdallah. Samidoun Seattle screened a film about Abdallah in late December.
Samidoun and Masar Badil runs seminars, panels, and training events for other activist organizations, including some of the major players in the protest movement and terrorists from other organizations. On February 27 Kates and Barakat hosted a online panel with Hamas Political Bureau member Dr. Basem Naim, in which Kates argued that “the only successful way to achieve the liberation of Palestinian prisoners is by conducting a prisoner exchange with the Palestinian resistance.”View this post on Instagram
The Samidoun couple organized a webinar with Hamas foreign relations chief Osama Hamdan on May 6, and Khatib was on a January 18 Athens panel featuring Fouad Baker, an international relations officer for terrorist organization Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
On February 4, Samidoun partnered with the Bronx Anti War Coalition for a "teach-in" with Kates and Barakat on how to promoted and defend "Palestinian resistance by any means necessary," including "shedding light on the different armed resistance groups in Palestine and the regional resistance forces in Yemen, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Iran."
A December 12 "political education project for the growing movement for Palestinian liberation in Albuquerque" sought to explain the plight of terrorists in Israeli prisons. A February webinar with the Pittsburgh chapter of Party for Socialism & Liberation compared mass incarceration in Israel to that of the US, and claimed that it was a form of collective punishment against revolutionary groups. PSL was one of the groups that organized the Vertigo Dance Company protest in Boston, and has been active in many major protests and encampments such as an October 8 Times Square protest.
Perhaps the most infamous of the Samidoun teach-in events was the March Resistance 101 hosted by Columbia University student organizations and featured, Barakat, Kates, and Within Our Lifetime leader Nerdeen Kiswani. Kates told students to endorse and support the actions of terrorist groups at demonstrations, explaining that October 7 was a "necessary action" and “Hamas is a mass Palestinian movement that is in a leadership role right now, and there is nothing wrong with being a member of Hamas, being a leader of Hamas, being a fighter in Hamas.”
During the Columbia encampment protests, activists claimed "we are Hamas" and called for October 7 "to be every day." The Columbia University Apartheid Divest organization that hosted the event was the principal organizing coalition for the establishment, which was born as tensions rose with the administration after the suspension of four students over the Resistance 101 "teach-in."
Samidoun was one of the organizations involved in what appeared to be a coordinated April 20 call to action to spread the encampment movement to campuses across the US. Samidoun issued a statement of support for the Amsterdam University protests on May 6, encouraging students and activists to continue even as viral videos of masked pro-Palestinian men beating counter-protesters with sticks went viral online.
Samidoun banners were displayed at a March in the Netherlands on May 11. The PFLP-affiliated group joined the Toronto Municipality University encampment on April 30, planting their flag at the campus. At the University of Manchester encampment , the local Samidoun chapter "paid tribute" to former PFLP spokesperson Ghassan Kanafani on May 6.
Samidoun also participated in the April 15 economic blockade events, and shared a poster with WOL, one of the main actors in the New York City protests, advertising mass November 4 protests. Samidoun also joined Palestinian Youth Movement, another major player in the Post-October 7 protests, at an April 21 Toronto rally in which they displayed a banner declaring "long live the resistance" with the Samidoun logo and a rifle. On September 23, Samidoun cosponsored a Vancouver anti-Israel event with BDS Canada and ILPS.
The organization also holds organizes its own protest events. Kates was arrested and may be charged for a Vancouver April 26 rally speech in which she led a chant proclaiming "Long live October 7." Echoing previous statements, she urged for the removal of PFLP and other Palestinian groups from Canada's list of terrorist entities, and called for protesters not to be ashamed of supporting such groups. Kates has been a keynote speaker at many of the recent anti-Israel protests in Canada, such as the April 5 Al-Quds Day rally in Toronto.
Policy makers and law enforcement should pay closer attention to the role that PFLP and its affiliates play in the protests and encampments, and students and citizens impacted by the protests should be educated about the group so that they can draw attention to its conduct in the same manner as they do with Hezbollah and Hamas.
Leon Kraiem and Ohad Merlin contributed to this report.