"Will Never Abandon Palestine": Who Is Georges Abdallah, Lebanese Leftist leader Freed After 40 Years?

Beirut, Lebanon: On Friday, Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, a Lebanese pro-Palestinian communist leader, arrived in Beirut, with people welcoming the revolutionary leader flying the Palestinian and Lebanese Communist Party flags. Abdallah left the prison after spending four decades in a French jail for his alleged role in the murder of two Israeli and US diplomats in Paris.

After reaching homeland, the the pro-Palestinian leader stated that he return to the path of resistance until Palestine is free, asserting that he will never abandon Palestine. He lamented that Palestinian children are dying of hunger just meters away from 80 million Muslims in Egypt. “This is a historical disgrace to the Arab masses, more than to the regimes,” Abdullah said, asking how many Arabs were martyred trying to enter Gaza. He added that if 2 million Egyptians take to the streets, the genocide would end, and that the question relies on Egyptians in particular.

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The leftist leader’s imprisonment – one of the longest political detentions in modern European history – was convicted of terrorism at Lannemezan prison, France for his alleged role in murdering Charles R. Ray, a US officer in Paris, and Yacov Bar-Simantov, an Israeli diplomate in France.

Abdallah’s release was authorised by a Paris appeals court on July 17 on the condition that he leave France immediately. Upon the pro-Palestinian Lebanese fighter’s arrival in the country’s capital city, dozens of supporters gathered nearby hailing the communist leader. Chants were heard as Abdallah appeared, with many hailing him as a symbol of resistance.

Though he was long eligible for release, his repeated applications were rejected, often due to pressure from the US, which was a civil party in Abdallah’s case. While he was captured, the leftist leader testified that he did what he had to do because of the injustice done to human rights where Palestine is concerned.

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Born in 1951, Georges Ibrahim Abdallah initially worked as a secondary school teacher and was a member of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party.  During Israel’s 1978 invasion of Lebanon, he was wounded. The same year, Abdullah joined the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

A year later, Abdullah formed the Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Factions (LARF), and was involved in military activities. Notably, the group was also in connection with other far-left militant organizations in Europe, such as the Action Directe of France, the Red Brigades of Italy and the Red Army Faction of Germany.