Khaled Barakat, a Canadian national based in Vancouver, BC, is a member of the political bureau of the Palestinian Front for the Liberalization of Palestine (PFLP). In 2003 The PFLP was designated by Canada as a terrorist organization.
According to No One Is Illegal, “Khaled Barakat was a founder of the No One Is Illegal network and movement in Vancouver”, “a member of No One Is Illegal” and “an active leader in social movements in Vancouver and across Canada.” He is also affiliated also with Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network and joined arms in anti-Israeli protests with activists of Canada Palestine Association and Independent Jewish Voices. In 2019 Barakat was subjected to a political ban and excluded from Germany.
On August 13, 2020 The Electronic Intifada published an article by Khaled Barakat “Uphold Palestinian struggle in all its forms.” Here excerpts from the article:
Fifty years ago, Palestinian intellectual Ghassan Kanafani put forward a clear position about the boycott of Israel. Kanafani was, at the time, not only an esteemed novelist and short story writer. He was also one of the leading spokespeople of the Palestinian armed revolution, representing the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
“Our boycott of Israel is not based on an emotional position, but rather, it comes from the nature of our confrontation against this enemy. Boycott is in itself a statement,” Kanafani wrote.
His remarks came in response to a debate between Israeli and Palestinian students hosted in Cyprus by the BBC. “Sitting with the enemy – even in a TV studio – is a major mistake in the battle, and we should not consider it a minor issue,” Kanafani said. “We are in a state of war, and at least for Palestinians, it is a matter of life and death.”
Kanafani’s words were featured in Palestinian Affairs Magazine in August 1972 following his assassination by the Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence agency. His own life reflected a complementary approach to Palestinian resistance: armed struggle, cultural work, international solidarity and boycott activity flowing together toward the goals of justice, liberation and return…
Association with the Palestinian armed resistance and its political parties is not a cause for shame or a justification for repression…
Kanafani’s clear vision and exemplary life provide us with a meaningful approach to confront repression and defend Palestine. The popular struggle, the armed resistance, the Arab and international boycott movement and the global mass movements and fights for liberation flow, like streams of water, through different lands and along different routes, to come together in the rushing current of a Palestinian revolutionary future.