“Changing the Defenders, Not the Cause”: Inside the Revolutionary Path of Masar Badil

How was Masar Badil established, and what are its central objectives in the diaspora?

The objectives of the Palestinian struggle are complex because we’re not fighting a small, local enemy. We’re fighting an enemy backed by global imperialism and capitalism.

Here in Spain, we confront the far-right, the government, and social democratic formations that claim to be in solidarity with the Palestinian cause. We're the ones who say “no” to [Spanish PM] Pedro Sánchez, that it’s not enough to recognize the Palestinian state — that’s useless. We're not going to be tricked into negotiations, a peace process, or a negotiating table where some speak in our name and keep wasting our time like they did with Oslo.

The collective started growing as more and more enthusiastic people joined. We met every week to debate the founding documents of Masar Badil because the conference was not the goal — it was a chapter in our journey. We wrote the documents and, from the beginning, made sure to translate everything because we were aware that many Palestinians in the diaspora are not proficient in Arabic or don’t speak it at all. We didn’t want to marginalize Palestinian youth abroad and leave them out of the process. Everything that came out of the planning committee was translated, and our broader meetings were simultaneously interpreted into English, Spanish, and sometimes French and German. The idea was that this is a Palestinian, Arab, and internationalist movement.

We're not going to be tricked into negotiations, a peace process, or a negotiating table where some speak in our name and keep wasting our time like they did with Oslo.

We, Palestinians in the diaspora, want to be part of the struggle of the Palestinian people, to reclaim our voice, after being marginalized by Oslo. We want to reclaim our voice without losing contact with those inside. We are not a separate body or entity. We are part of the Palestinian people, and we bring our knowledge of the outside world — of the politics of the countries and societies we live in — and we can use that advantage to influence politics and policies in these countries. We also have freedom of movement; we can travel, especially those of us in the West, and can express our opinions more freely than people in some Arab countries.

Spain is relatively close to many people who wanted to participate in the conference, though more difficult for those living in Palestine and Lebanon. So we held the main meeting in Madrid, with parallel events in Beirut and São Paulo.

What distinguishes Masar Badil from other Palestinian organizations operating today?

Our statement and call to action begin with a quote by Ghassan Kanafani: “If we are unsuccessful defenders of the cause, then it is better for us to change the defenders and not to change the cause.”

The political position of Masar Badil, adopted at its first conference in Madrid and outlined in the Madrid Declaration, starts with a strong condemnation of the “negotiations process” with the Zionist entity that had started 30 years earlier in the same city. For us, the Oslo Accords not only turned out to be an utter failure but also led the Palestinian people on a path of devastation, resulting in net profit for the Zionist entity and allowing them to achieve major strategic gains.

We, Palestinians in the diaspora, want to be part of the struggle of the Palestinian people, to reclaim our voice, after being marginalized by Oslo. We are not a separate body or entity. We are part of the Palestinian people, and we bring our knowledge of the outside world.

Rather than a bureaucratic or membership-based organization, Masar Badil is a collective of activists and activist groups working towards the liberation of all of historic Palestine and the recognition of the right of return for all Palestinians in exile.

A defining objective of Masar Badil has also been to include women in the process, not as symbols or quotas, but as leaders. We accomplished this. We also prioritized the inclusion of youth. If you look at most Palestinian parties and factions, you see that the leaders are at least in their sixties. Yet Palestine is full of young people — more than 50 percent of the population is under 35 — and they don’t have a voice. We wanted them to lead the movement and occupy the role they deserve. They are our future.

People see that we’re serious and do work on the ground — we don’t just write manifestos. They’re now paying attention to us. 

One of your movement's goals is to “link Palestinian and international resisters in the struggle to liberate Palestine and the entire world.” Can you elaborate on what that looks like?

We transmit the Palestinian resistance to everyone. The talks and roundtables we organize with members of the resistance — not just Palestinians, but other Arabs too — bring these viewpoints to the West.

The world listens to European analysts. When Palestinians are brought into the conversation, it’s usually someone from the Palestinian Authority (PA). Leftists in the West might speak to someone from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), but nobody listens to or speaks with the resistance on the ground. We build that bridge between the resistance and the world. The media will speak of them as terrorists, whereas we present them as they are. If we host a talk with a representative of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, or Ansar Allah, local activists, Spaniards, Germans, French, and English speakers attend. It’s a rare opportunity to listen to an overlooked perspective, an opportunity to ask questions and receive answers.

Liberation is not the final destination. We have to start building now. We don't have the luxury of waiting until Palestine is free to start building our state.

By international resistors, we mean anti-imperialists around the world. For example, we're in contact with movements from Abya Yala [an indigenous word for the Americas] in the Philippines, with Black struggle in the US, and with Indigenous movements in Canada. We also connect with the feminist struggle; the struggle of the Palestinian woman is not like that of the European woman. Ours is an anti-colonial fight, a struggle for national liberation.

How does Masar Badil envision Palestine after liberation? What kind of society are you building toward, and how does that work begin today? 

Liberation is not the final destination. We have to start building now. We don't have the luxury of waiting until Palestine is free to start building our state.

Everyone should read Masar Badil’s documents that were drafted in 2020 before our first conference in 2021. We debated these questions directly. From the beginning, we told ourselves: Let's think about Palestine after liberation.

How will we, as a national community, going to live in the ‘after’— with all these people at home and in the diaspora who don't speak the same language, don't share the same culture, and who have been influenced by the countries and conditions that they have grown up in? A Palestinian from a refugee camp in Lebanon is not the same as a Palestinian-Chilean, but they will have to coexist.

We envision a secular, democratic, egalitarian, and inclusive society. Everyone speaks of equal rights, but equality of conditions is critical — without restrictions or exclusions based on religion, ethnicity, skin color, mother tongue, sex, or sexual preference. How do we put this into practice? We must begin now. This is why we are organizing and connecting across territories.

When we have a general meeting and Palestinians born in the US speak with Palestinians born in refugee camps in Lebanon, for example, the contradictions and differences become apparent, but that is also where they start to understand each other.

We understand that we have to accept popular sovereignty; we have to be ready to accept whomever it is that the Palestinian people elect. When Palestinians elected Hamas in 2006, many rejected it. Palestinians — both leftists and liberals in Fatah — did not defend the result, but they should have understood that it was disrespectful not to concede to the people’s choice.

We have to accept the people's choice first, because the people know best, and then work towards the secular and leftist Palestine that we want. This is also a lesson for the rest of the Arab world. That is democracy, self-determination, and popular sovereignty.

It’s very easy to imagine a Palestine without the PA. The PA is a figurehead that only the occupation and the West work with because they serve their interests. For Palestinians, either inside the territories or in the diaspora, the PA means nothing.

We have many capable people: educated, with political experience, experience in the struggle, and ready to build a country. 

Has the genocide in Gaza changed the way Massar Badil operates, its main priorities, and its timeline?

It hasn’t changed the way we operate, but the pace has accelerated. Our preoccupation has been with Gaza from day one, and we have worked hard to place Gaza at the center of our work, to make the genocide visible and rally support for the Palestinian resistance.

We have always tried to decenter the narrative that "they’re killing us," and focus on the fact that we’re putting up a good fight. We have to valorize the resistance of our people and our combatants on the ground. The world must see that part, so that they do not see us just as victims, but as a dignified resistance.

We have to valorize the resistance of our people and our combatants on the ground.

We are part of the Palestinian resistance, too. In Germany, Samidoun has been banned, and our comrades have been threatened with deportation, their refugee statuses have been revoked, but the first thing they say when we ask how they're doing is that “our people are paying a very high price on the ground, and we want to pay one, too.”

In Spain, we are being harassed with lawsuits, by the police, and in the media. Censorship by the Spanish government has increased. We can also link this to the normalization of pro-resistance discourse, which is one of our goals.

Despite this wave of repression, there have been some shifts in liberal discourse. What do you make of official recognitions of the state of Palestine and growing criticisms of Israeli violence?

These shifts are the result of the steadfastness of Gaza’s resistance, alongside the support front constituted by Hezbollah in South Lebanon and Ansar Allah in Yemen. The genocide has continued for over a year and a half now, yet the resistance remains active. That has forced these governments to respond.

Today, “from the river to the sea” is chanted in mass demonstrations, sometimes numbering in the thousands or tens and hundreds of thousands. In the past, it was just small groups like ours chanting this slogan, and we were labeled as radicals and extremists. Larger demonstrations used to be filled with humanitarian sympathy during moments of aggression, but these days, greater numbers are coming out in support of the resistance and armed struggle.

The recognition of a Palestinian state is merely a form of appeasement of popular sentiment as they continue to uphold the two-state solution as the only way forward. The two-state solution was dead upon arrival — even in 1947.

That pressure has forced some liberal governments to change their discourse to win popular opinion. For example, the Spanish government recognized a Palestinian state and commented that Israel has crossed some red lines with its use of excessive violence. But this is merely a form of appeasement of popular sentiment, and they continue to uphold the two-state solution as the only way forward. The two-state solution was dead upon arrival, even in 1947 when the UN decided to partition Palestine. What Palestinian state are they even recognizing? Where and over which borders? This is just deception.

Given Masar Badil's uncompromising stance, many wonder about its funding. Your website explicitly states that no governments, corporations, or large NGOs are allowed to donate. Could you give us some insight into who has donated to the movement and what these funds are used for?

My answer to this is always: Why do we need funding?

When they told me to plan a conference in Madrid and that I would need a budget of X thousand, I said, “We're going to host a conference in Madrid for free.” Everyone would cover their own travel, lodging, ticket, and meals. Local comrades and allies will help us get a venue, and that's exactly what happened.

The municipality of Rivas let us use the Pilar Bardem Auditorium. We used a youth hostel to host 20 visitors who couldn't afford a hotel. Others rented townhouses around Rivas, where many could stay together or with local comrades. With the donations that Masar Badil received from individuals, we were able to pay for the price of two tickets for Palestinian refugees who spent 18 hours getting to Madrid.

We also raise funds through t-shirt and keffiyeh sales. That’s all the funding we need. We pay for the website and little else. Each regional chapter of Masar Badil funds its activities, like printing pamphlets and banners for protests. This is how Samidoun and Alkarama fund themselves as well.

As we approach the anniversary of Al-Aqsa Food and two years of genocide, how has the work of Masar Badil changed, and how are you preparing for what's ahead?

Our work continues with the same mission, which is to normalize the resistance, especially in the West. But, of course, most of our effort is focused on stopping the genocide in Gaza, as well as combating the political crackdown that we face, both in Spain and elsewhere.

We now have an international youth section of Masar Badil, Tariq el-Tahrir. It is a self-organized youth network around the world — in the US, Latin America, Europe, and the Arab world — operating in coordination with people in Palestine.

We're organizing our next annual in-person conference, planned for late September 2025, “Supporting the Resistance in Palestine, Lebanon, and Yemen.”

Zionists tried to prevent our last conference from taking place, but they failed. The Israeli foreign minister accused the Spanish government of fostering terrorism by allowing it, but the Spanish foreign minister publicly defended the decision to let it go ahead.