Personal Info
- Country of residence: Portugal
Information
Arkan Ahmad Badr was born in the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon on February 11, 1967, to a Palestinian refugee family originally from the town of Sheikh Daoud in the occupied Acre district. He is married and has seven sons and one daughter. He completed his primary education at UNRWA schools in the Nahr al-Bared camp and his secondary education at Al-Hikma High School, affiliated with the Palestine Liberation Organization, in Tripoli, graduating in 1986. He then enrolled at the Lebanese University in Tripoli to study social sciences.
Badr joined the ranks of the Pioneers in the Democratic Youth Organization of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine while he was a student in school. He worked as the youth official in the intermediate stage in 1983, then took over the responsibility for secondary students in 1985, and the responsibility for the Democratic Youth Union in the North region in 1995. He became the Democratic Front official in the Nahr al-Bared camp between (1998-2004), its official in North Lebanon between (2005-2010), and its official in Beirut, the Bekaa and the North between (2010-2019). He took over the file of its relations with Lebanese and Arab leftist parties in 2017, and supervised the file of the workers’ sector and the refugee movement in it since 2019, and was elected as a member of its political bureau since 2019.
Badr wrote many articles in more than one place, especially in Al-Hurriya and Tariq Al-Watan magazines, and the Sawt Al-Bared bulletin, all of which are issued by the Democratic Front, and he discussed in them the issues of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon in particular and the Palestinian cause in general.
Badr belongs to the leftist ideology and believes in the necessity of working to establish the legitimate Palestinian rights based on the right of return, the right to self-determination, and the right to establish a fully sovereign independent state with Jerusalem as its capital. He believes that the Oslo Accords were signed in the context of an imbalance of power between the Palestinian people and the occupation, and that they do not meet the minimum requirements of legitimate national rights. He considers them to be the result of a settlement process that began incorrectly, and that the Palestinian people are still living with the negative repercussions of this mistake. He demands that the political leadership abandon them in implementation of what was agreed upon in comprehensive Palestinian national dialogues and in the decisions of national and central councils, with the necessity of stopping reliance on negotiations, withdrawing official Palestinian recognition of the occupying state, and cutting off all forms of political relations, economic dependence, and security coordination, in favor of establishing a new phase based on an integrated struggle strategy whose foundation is the intifada and resistance.
He believes that the division has weakened the Palestinian national cause, provided a free service to the occupation and successive American administrations, and was exploited to play on the pace of factional disputes, and contributed to wasting Palestinian sacrifices. He believes that resistance is a legitimate right for Palestinians, and it takes multiple forms in which the military dimension sometimes takes precedence, and the popular dimensions and guerrilla operations are integrated with political, diplomatic, legal and other forms. He believes in the option of comprehensive resistance, intifada and national civil disobedience that combines all forms of struggle while emphasizing partnership with Palestinian factions in all arenas of struggle. He believes that what the Palestinian territories are witnessing in terms of escalating resistance operations is a good omen.
It is believed that the Palestine Liberation Organization succeeded in bringing the Palestinian issue to the United Nations General Assembly and the Security Council through its phased national program, where the Palestinian people and their legitimate Palestinian national rights were recognized, with emphasis on the principle of partnership within the framework of the organization and the Palestinian Authority, which he sees as weak and absent due to the state of monopolizing national decision-making. He stresses the importance of holding comprehensive elections (presidential, legislative, and for the Palestinian National Council) at home and abroad, which would restore the credibility of the collapsing political system and restore the credibility of the institutions of the Palestine Liberation Organization, which constitute the reference for the Palestinian people.
Badr believes that all of historical Palestine belongs to the Palestinian people, and this right and the mechanisms for obtaining it come through achieving the political program that is based on the phased solution proposed by the Democratic Front in 1973 and adopted by the PLO in 1974, and adhering to the right of return of refugees to their homes and properties, and achieving the strategic solution by dismantling the Zionist movement as a racist movement, and establishing a democratic state on the land of Palestine. As for Resolution 194 on the right of return, it is a clear resolution, and therefore attempts to talk about returning to the 1967 borders are attempts aimed at circumventing the content, texts and spirit of Resolution 194.
Badr believes the Palestinian political system is in a state of decay and needs reform in both its texts and substance. He also believes it is essential to end the current state of affairs characterized by exclusivity and the exclusion of others. He sees elections as a necessary step towards revitalizing and developing the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). He emphasizes the importance of agreeing on a unified Palestinian vision and a national political program to unite the Palestinian people in order to achieve their legitimate national rights, which have been unanimously agreed upon by all Palestinians. He considers the Arab Spring uprisings to be legitimate demands for social rights, including justice, equitable distribution of wealth, the right to life, democracy, and social justice, but believes that foreign interventions, primarily by the US administration, have diverted them from their intended course.
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