Audrey Thibert
On September 30, 1956, twenty-one-year-old Zohra Drif set off a bomb in a cafe called the Milk Bar, a popular spot among Europeans in the city of Algiers. The blast, which killed three people and wounded dozens, was a defining moment in Algeria’s decade-long war for independence from French occupation.
Drif, a militant for Algeria’s National Liberation Front (Front de Libération Nationale or FLN), played a key role in the Algerian independence movement. In 1958, Drif was sentenced to twenty years of hard labor for terrorism, but she was pardoned by French president Charles de Gaulle after the signing of the Evian Accords, which granted Algeria its independence in 1962. She went on to help build the new state of Algeria, serving as the vice president of the Algerian senate, establishing an organization for children orphaned during the war, and working as a criminal lawyer in Algiers. She is also the author of Inside the Battle of Algiers: Memoir of a Woman Freedom Fighter.
Now eighty-nine years old, Drif sees echoes of Algeria’s colonial past in present-day Gaza. She says she feels connected to the Palestinians, and she sees parallels—and differences—between the Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation and her country’s own fight against the French.
Drif spoke with The Progressive about occupation and nation-building in an interview conducted in Algiers on June 10, 2024, and translated from French. It has been edited for clarity and concision.
Q: How does the Palestinian experience resonate with you?
Zohra Drif: I identify with the Palestinians. Their history is close to ours. They were born on their lands. They grew up on their lands. Their grandparents and ancestors are from these lands. And then, they were brutally removed and displaced from these lands by a foreign population. When I see this unfolding in front of me, it’s like I’m experiencing what we went through during the French occupation of Algeria for a second time.
We are talking about a people living under terrible conditions, governed by a foreign entity with differing history, traditions, culture, and language from that of the native inhabitants. The conditions under which the Palestinians live and have been living since the 1940s cannot be defined any other way than living in an occupation. On these fronts, the Algerian and Palestinian stories are the same. There is no difference.
The conditions of war are, however, different. During the Algerian war for independence against France, the French would carry out the majority of their attacks during the night. They were clever and keen on not drawing attention to their operations. What’s happening in Gaza is a different story. Since Israel carries out its military operations in broad daylight, the horrors being committed in Gaza are broadcast for the entire world to see.
When I think back to living through the war on the inside, I remember the same story. I remember a developed and powerful army. An army that stormed and killed innocent people in their homes. We fought with our bare hands and had no resources nor the ability to acquire them. In essence, the Algerian and Palestinian situations are one and the same. The only thing that sets them apart is that the war in Gaza is receiving live coverage [in the news and on social media] all the time.
Q: What do you notice about coverage of the war in Gaza, especially coming from Western media?
Drif: During the war in Algeria, the French killed in silence. Today, we live in a world where information is transmitted immediately. The whole world is watching the events unfold. This has allowed other people who support justice and freedom to strongly express their solidarity with the Palestinian people and to condemn the genocidal war waged by Israel and its Western allies.
Now, when something happens anywhere in the world, everybody knows about it an hour later. For the Palestinians, this is an advantage. The Israeli government can twist the narrative any way they want, but the rest of the world can see, clearly, that the war in Gaza is a war between an occupied people and their colonizers.
Q: One of the biggest struggles for the Algerian resistance movement was to convince the world that what was happening in Algeria was a war for independence and not an internal French problem. What can we learn from that?
Drif: [In Algeria] it took several years to get to the stage of war that Gaza and the West Bank are in now. What the Palestinians really need now is international pressure. They need entire populations and individuals from countries across the globe to pressure their governments to officially condemn the Israeli occupation of Palestine, especially in Western countries like the United States.
For example, our [the FLN’s] most important objective was to convince the United Nations that the war in Algeria was a fight between the Algerian people and France . . . . The Algerian population went on a general strike—it was the only way to get international attention. We went on strike for eight days. Algerians did not go to work. They did not send their children to school. They did not go to markets. This was to show that the struggle was between a people and their colonizers.
Q: From your experience and involvement in nation-building after the Algerian War, what do you think are some important factors for Palestinians to consider?
Drif: It is essential that the Palestinians avoid internal struggles for power after the end of the war. They must put aside personal ambitions and form a coalition without ulterior political motives. They must build a Palestine where women and men live together with the aim of sustaining a prosperous country that unites all of its children—no matter their political beliefs.
The war in Palestine is one of the last remaining wars for independence. Given the circumstances, it will not end until the Palestinians have been restored their legitimate right to their ancestral lands. What needs to be done now is to resolve the injustice inflicted on the Palestinians, and to restore their legitimate rights to the lands of their ancestors which they never deserted, despite the violence of their colonizers.