TO ISRAEL, the father of two is a terrorist. To his own people he is a patriot.
Abdullah Daoud, the Palestinian Authority’s former intelligence chief in Bethlehem, is stuck in limbo in a safe house in Nicosia.
“I am just a normal person, performing my duties as a man belonging to the Palestinian security department,” he told a small group of journalists through an interpreter.
“My main duty is to protect the peace process and protect and defend our Palestinian people from Israeli attacks. If the demand for freedom and independence is considered a dangerous thing, that means all our Palestinian people are dangerous.”
The 40-year-old, in black jeans and designer polo shirt, was left behind in Cyprus when his 12 comrades flew into exile across Europe on Wednesday as part of an EU brokered deal that ended a 39-day siege of Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity.
Regarded as the most senior of the 13 activists, he is expected to remain in Cyprus for several weeks more until another EU country is found ready to accept him.
But his reputation precedes him, rightly or wrongly.
The Israeli Defence Force website says he is wanted for allegedly helping to organise attacks, for alleged involvement in arms smuggling, explosives production and provision of shelter to members of militant organisations.
For Daoud, popular resistance against military occupation is perfectly justified.
“We provide protection to our people. There are no terrorists among our people. We are people who are demanding their freedom… we are all calling for the establishment of a Palestinian independent state… with the occupied West Bank and the Gaza strip with East Jerusalem as its capital.
“There is no Palestinian political force which calls for the destruction of the state of Israel,” he added.
Daoud, who received US training in intelligence work in 1996, was in exile once before, between 1992 and 1995 in Tunis. He was, he said, against suicide attacks that have targeted Israeli civilians.
Daoud is in daily telephone contact with his wife and two children, a boy and a girl, in the West Bank.
He has seen his eldest child, a daughter, on television in the past two months. “She asked why her father was being deported, that he loves this country. I think that expresses the feelings of all Palestinians,” he said.
Daoud said Palestinian President Yasser Arafat agreed to the EU-brokered deal after appeals from the Palestinian activists besieged within the Church that a continuation of the siege was a burden on the population of Bethlehem and could damage the religious compound — revered by Christians as the birthplace of Jesus.
European countries that had taken in the other activists had nothing to fear from their presence. Some of the exiles would pursue university or post-graduate studies and others would learn a profession, he said.
“We love life. We will carry the Palestinian dream with us. I hope we will be ambassadors to project the correct image of the Palestinian people, wherever we go.”
The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.
