Socialism in the Palestinian struggle?

[Crimson Commissar]

Just wondering, how does Socialism fit into this exactly? Palestine, if liberated, obviously isn't going to be a Socialist nation. Infact, it would be very hard to achieve that in the middle east unless it was some "Islamic Socialism" shit. Can someone explain this to me?

[Wakizashi the Bolshevik]

It depends for a part on who leads the ultimate liberation struggle.
For example, if the PFLP were to be victorious, a Socialist Palestine will be achieved.

[Chambered Word]

It depends for a part on who leads the ultimate liberation struggle.
For example, if the PFLP were to be victorious, a Socialist Palestine will be achieved.

Yeah everything would be just peaches and cream if the lads with AK-47s pulled through.

[Wobblie]

Yeah everything would be just peaches and cream if the lads with AK-47s pulled through.

That was deep...

[Crimson Commissar]

It depends for a part on who leads the ultimate liberation struggle.
For example, if the PFLP were to be victorious, a Socialist Palestine will be achieved.
As I said in my original post, I doubt the radical islamists (Which most of the Palestinian independence movement is unfortunately) would take well to a Socialist nation in the middle east unless it disguised itself as being both Islamic and Socialist, which would just be going back to the same shit that the rest of the middle east is in right now.

[Boboulas]

Its a tough situation no doubt. The left wants palestine to resist zionist occupation but at the same time wants them to be socialist. It also doesnt help when your only allies are islamic states.

To be honest i think anyone who actualy cared about the palestinians would support a state even capitalist and islamic just so long as innocent people over there can surivive.

Besides, israel and the US would never allow a socialist palestine and i doubt their reactionary neighbors would either.

As i said, its a sticky situation, but if it were simple it would have been solved long ago.

[People's War]

The Palestinian resistance put Islam far before socialism/communism. The left needs to give up on it, it's a lost cause frankly, and there are other more pressing conflicts where communism should be supported.

[Boboulas]

Never give up on anyone, ever.

[AK]

The Palestinian resistance put Islam far before socialism/communism. The left needs to give up on it, it's a lost cause frankly, and there are other more pressing conflicts where communism should be supported.
You give new meaning to the word 'troll'. The working class is everywhere - and so is the struggle. The class struggle does not stop at religion; submission to and faith in organised religion is a sign of the ruling class attempting to control us and distract us from real issues. The world did not have massive temples and church taxes before class-based society. What we should be doing, is turning both the Palestinians and Israelis away from an ethno-religious struggle to one that is purely class-based.

[Proletarian Ultra]

As I said in my original post, I doubt the radical islamists (Which most of the Palestinian independence movement is unfortunately) would take well to a Socialist nation in the middle east unless it disguised itself as being both Islamic and Socialist, which would just be going back to the same shit that the rest of the middle east is in right now.

Absolutely not true.

Here are the results of the last Palestinian legislative election (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_legislative_election,_2006), the best indication we have of the balance of forces in Palestine:

Hamas (Islamist) 44.45
Fatah (left-wing nationalist) 41.43
Martyr Abu Ali Mustafa - Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (Marxist-Leninist) 4.25
The Alternative (al-Badeel) - Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Palestinian People's Party, Palestine Democratic Union & Independents (Eurocommunist) 2.92
Independent Palestine - Palestinian National Initiative & Independents (post-Communist, center/center-left) 2.72
Third Way (liberal) 2.41

What happened was Fatah expected to win the largest share in the election, and passed an election law that gave a legislative majority to the party with a plurality of votes. EDIT: but of course they didn't, so Hamas got a majority of seats but not votes.

But as you see, while only 7% of votes were cast for the principal left-wing fronts (PFLP and DFLP), less than 45% of votes were cast for the Islamists. But Fatah is still officially a pan-Arab socialist party, so overall about 50% of the vote went to parties nominally of the left (Fatah, PFLP, DFLP plus a few small left-nationalist groups that didn't win seats and I didn't list), plus a little less than 6% for secular liberal parties - so 55% for secular parties overall.

Even assuming that none of Hamas's support comes from otherwise secular-ish people who just admire its intransigence and relative lack of corruption, secular forces outnumber Islamist ones by 10% in the Palestinian territories.

[AK]

Interesting to see that result. Are any of those parties plagued by nationalism?

[Proletarian Ultra]

Interesting to see that result. Are any of those parties plagued by nationalism?

Lots of parties are plagued by lots of things. Some are plagued by nationalism, others by ultra-leftism. But Palestinian resistance is not primarily Islamist.

[AK]

Lots of parties are plagued by lots of things. Some are plagued by nationalism, others by ultra-leftism. But Palestinian resistance is not primarily Islamist.


You're making it sound like I thought Islam was a nationality.
Fucking ultra-leftists these days, with their anti-authoritarianism and all.

[REVLEFT'S BIEGGST MATSER TROL]

It depends for a part on who leads the ultimate liberation struggle.
For example, if the PFLP were to be victorious, a Socialist Palestine will be achieved.


Surely you think of achieving socialism on different terms than just having "the right party" win power?

[freepalestine]

As I said in my original post, I doubt the radical islamists (Which most of the Palestinian independence movement is unfortunately) would take well to a Socialist nation in the middle east unless it ......this is incorrect,most arent.

[Crimson Commissar]

Even assuming that none of Hamas's support comes from otherwise secular-ish people who just admire its intransigence and relative lack of corruption, secular forces outnumber Islamist ones by 10% in the Palestinian territories.
The question is though, are these parties really Socialist or just some crazy form of Islamic Socialism that still embraces Islamic law? Somehow I just can't see Secular or Atheistic Socialism as being very popular over in Palestine, but I may be wrong of course.

[Proletarian Ultra]

The question is though, are these parties really Socialist or just some crazy form of Islamic Socialism that still embraces Islamic law? Somehow I just can't see Secular or Atheistic Socialism as being very popular over in Palestine, but I may be wrong of course.

You're wrong. Every party listed but Hamas is a secular party.

BTW: Before the nakba, Palestine had the most religiously diverse, secular, urban, literate and educated population in the Arab world. It's still pretty far ahead of most places, so check your premises.

[People's War]

You give new meaning to the word 'troll'. The working class is everywhere - and so is the struggle. The class struggle does not stop at religion; submission to and faith in organised religion is a sign of the ruling class attempting to control us and distract us from real issues. The world did not have massive temples and church taxes before class-based society. What we should be doing, is turning both the Palestinians and Israelis away from an ethno-religious struggle to one that is purely class-based.

Ignoring your insults you seem to be throwing at me for some reason or another, I don't see how you can change what is rooted in ethnic and religious conflict to class conflict.

[Proletarian Ultra]

Ignoring your insults you seem to be throwing at me for some reason or another, I don't see how you can change what is rooted in ethnic and religious conflict to class conflict.

Why is your name People's War, and for Lenin's sake why do you have a picture of Uncle Joe as your avatar, if you're against national liberation struggles?

[People's War]

Why is your name People's War, and for Lenin's sake why do you have a picture of Uncle Joe as your avatar, if you're against national liberation struggles?

I'm not against national liberation struggles. I'm against theocracy.

[Communist Pear]

I'm not against national liberation struggles. I'm against theocracy.
The guy just explained that 55% of the parties in Palestine are secular, so your statement: "The Palestinian resistance put Islam far before socialism/communism." is completely wrong. There is no theocracy in Palestine.

[Crimson Commissar]

The guy just explained that 55% of the parties in Palestine are secular, so your statement: "The Palestinian resistance put Islam far before socialism/communism." is completely wrong. There is no theocracy in Palestine.
You can't really blame him for being doubtful about this situation. Honestly, after hearing about how Afghanistan reacted to Socialism back in the 80s, I've started to wonder if Socialism will EVER work in the Middle East.

[Communist Pear]

You can't really blame him for being doubtful about this situation. Honestly, after hearing about how Afghanistan reacted to Socialism back in the 80s, I've started to wonder if Socialism will EVER work in the Middle East.
The Afghani situation is and was completely different from the Palestinian situation. Adding to that, Afghanistan didn't react that badly to socialism at first, the real war (before there were only a few incidents that eventually led to the invasion) started after the occupation by the Soviet Union. Before that there was about 10 years of relative stability and also relative socialism. :D

[Coggeh]

The guy just explained that 55% of the parties in Palestine are secular, so your statement: "The Palestinian resistance put Islam far before socialism/communism." is completely wrong. There is no theocracy in Palestine.
Fatah and the other organisations have roughly 0 influence in the Gaza strip with some exceptions here and there and fatah are not left wing lets not kid ourselves lads. They are corrupt anti worker and now pretty much accepting of Israel's tactics instead of organising the mass of people in the P.A they sit back and beg for sympathy from the international community

And also who gives a shit about these so called "socialist" organisations? by using a tactic of violence or hoping to defeat Israel on a military front is nothing other than middle classy save the world crap arguments that don't see the reality of certain situations by instead gloss over everything like the charicteristics of certain organisations. Its basically like many orgs around look up the wiki on these organisations and judge them by what they say their political position is on that box on the right lol

[Boboulas]

The PFLP does have something of a base in Gaza. It held a rally there not so long ago that attracted over 70,000 people.

http://www.pflp.ps/english/?q=unity-and-steadfastness-over-70000-rally-gaza-pflp

This is from another palestine thread (http://www.revleft.com/vb/fascist-lieberman-plan-t137747/index2.html). And fatah actualy have quite a base in gaza although what you say about them is true.

[genstrike]

I think there are a few different issues here that need addressing.

First, I think there is some sort of background implication in the original question that we should support the Palestinian struggle if and only if it ends in socialism (I know you didn't say that, but I find that for a lot of lefties new to the Palestinian solidarity movement, there can be that implication). I don't think that is necessarily the case. As leftists, we are opposed to any sort of oppression, including the national oppression that Palestinians face*. Leftists during the civil rights struggle didn't say "well, this isn't going to end in socialism, so lets ignore the suffering of blacks and allow them to be oppressed by Jim Crow laws and the Klan". We don't say women should continue to suffer under patriarchy just because there are a few female CEOs and right-wing politicians like Palin and Thatcher these days. So why should we say that if the struggle isn't guaranteed to end in socialism, that Palestinians should continue to face this horrible oppression?

That said, I don't think we can properly analyze the potential for socialism based on electoral results alone. Outside of the electoral sphere, there are many community initiatives, popular committees, and anti-occupation organizations in the occupied territories which could provide the basis for some sort of new society. Also, the struggle has historically been influenced by left wing ideas.

Second, people in many first world countries don't have a particularly good record either. I'd hazard a guess that by analyzing electoral results, socialists of whatever stripe do far better in Palestinian elections than they do in US elections. Looking at the analysis upthread, the PFLP in the last election got a much higher percentage of the vote than the SPUSA has gotten since around 1920ish.

Finally, we can't just generalize Hamas and everyone who votes for them as a bunch of right-wing Muslim theocrats either. Hamas has been providing a lot of social services in the occupied territories. And in the election in which Hamas was elected, this was following Oslo, which Fatah supported, pretty much going nowhere because the Israelis were bargaining in bad faith, so Fatah was widely seen as being somewhat co-opted by an agenda which will end in not any sort of liberation, but a normalization of the occupation and the apartheid situation, not to mention corrupt. It seems as though there was a movement in Palestinian society towards rejection of "peace initiatives" which go nowhere (such as Oslo) and a resumption of struggle against the occupation. Hamas fulfilled that role, and as a result was supported by rather broad sections of society.

Finally, we have to avoid broad orientalist characterizations of Palestinians, Muslims, Arabs, etc as backwards theocrats. By and large it isn't true, and it plays into racist notions of "we can't trust those darn savages to run their own country," which contributes to a colonialist mentality which makes this oppression possible. Also, to some extent certain movements towards "traditional values" are a reaction to the imperialism of the west - a way to cultivate an identity which flies in the face of imperialism and colonialism. It's still problematic, but we have to understand that struggles against patriarchy, homophobia, (which exists everywhere, in both imerialist and oppressed nations) etc. will be helped by getting over this national oppression. Even if Israel is more liberal on feminist and queer issues (and that's a big if), you can't smash patriarchy in Palestine with IDF bombs.


*I know some fellow anarchists are going to object to this, but the way I see it, nations are no more and no less of a bullshit social construction as gender, but it is an axis of oppression, and we don't ignore other axes of oppression like gender oppression.

[Crimson Commissar]

Wasn't saying that Muslims were "backwards" or anything, but it seems that if Palestine was to become independent it would most likely be yet another Islamic theocracy, which most socialists would probably object to. So why support an organisation that we will be fighting against if they succeed?

[genstrike]

Wasn't saying that Muslims were "backwards" or anything, but it seems that if Palestine was to become independent it would most likely be yet another Islamic theocracy, which most socialists would probably object to. So why support an organisation that we will be fighting against if they succeed?

Maybe I'm mixing this up with some of the dumb stuff that People's War has been posting as well, but it does sound like your argument is something along the lines of "Palestinians can't be trusted to govern themselves, so lets ignore their oppression"

I don't think any independent Palestine would be excessively theocratic. The Palestinians for the most part don't want that, and as we've seen above, largely vote for secular parties. Even among those who do vote for Hamas, a desire for a theocracy isn't the attraction, and any theocratic policies have been downplayed. You're pulling this idea of an oppressive Islamic theocracy out of your ass, or more specifically, racist stereotypes about Arabs, Muslims, and/or Palestinians.

Besides, if we want to talk about a theocracy, lets look at Israel where many state services have been devolved to religious authorities which are by definition exclusionary. For example, the JNF directly or indirectly (through the Israeli Lands Administration) controls about 93% of the land, and is constitutionally required to hold that land for Jews only. Is that not a theocracy? Should Palestinians continue to suffer under that system?

And who is supporting which organization? Are you trying to say that leftists who support BDS and the liberation of Palestine or talk about Israeli apartheid all support Hamas? Because that is just dumb.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

"Palestinians can't be trusted to govern themselves,"Palestinians" is a group of people of many classes. The problem isn't that "Palestinians" can't govern themselves, but that if the forces leftists support succeed the workers in Palestine will be governed over.

[genstrike]

"Palestinians" is a group of people of many classes. The problem isn't that "Palestinians" can't govern themselves, but that if the forces leftists support succeed the workers in Palestine will be governed over.

Which forces and which leftists are you referring to? Especially with regards to leftists - if you aren't being specific, you sound like you're saying "All leftists are wrong and silly but me"

And I'm sure that ending the occupation and apartheid over there would make things so much worse for the Palestinians. After all, they're living in a wonderful, stateless, classless society now where they never get bombed or subjected to settler violence, and if they are trusted with self-determination, those silly brown people will just fuck it up.

Yes, there are Palestinian capitalists. It would be dumb to argue otherwise. But it would be even dumber to argue that leftists who are allegedly against oppression and exploitation should ignore the oppression and exploitation that Palestinians face (which impacts very heavily on the working class and women) because of the existence of these capitalists.

[freepalestine]

Fatah and the other organisations have roughly 0 influence in the Gaza strip with some exceptions here and there.. They are corrupt anti worker and now pretty much accepting of Israel's tactics instead of organising the mass of people .. they sit back and beg for sympathy from the international community And also who gives a shit about these so called "socialist" organisations? by using a tactic of violence or...where do you get your info?you should read up on palestine.more

[genstrike]

And also who gives a shit about these so called "socialist" organisations? by using a tactic of violence or hoping to defeat Israel on a military front is nothing other than middle classy save the world crap arguments that don't see the reality of certain situations by instead gloss over everything like the charicteristics of certain organisations.

Yes, how dare oppressed people resort to armed struggle in self-defense. It's not like the Israeli state ever uses violence against them. Wait, actually, armed struggle has as of late been more or less put on the back burner for political reasons in favour of things like the BDS campaign.


Its basically like many orgs around look up the wiki on these organisations and judge them by what they say their political position is on that box on the right lol

Is this sarcasm? Because who needs any sort of intelligent analysis of an organization like, say, Hamas, when you can just read one word on wikipedia and paint the entire operations of that organization with one brush.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Which forces and which leftists are you referring to?

All the permanent organizations at war with Israel and all their leftist cheerleaders.


Especially with regards to leftists - if you aren't being specific, you sound like you're saying "All leftists are wrong and silly but me"

I'm not a leftist. "Left" and "right" are not class lines. They're strategies for maintaining class rule.

[genstrike]

All the permanent organizations at war with Israel and all their leftist cheerleaders.

I hope you're not trying to paint everyone who supports the ending of Israeli apartheid or any sort of Palestinian solidarity movement as cheerleaders for any particular Palestinian politcal party (or all of them at once)


I'm not a leftist. "Left" and "right" are not class lines. They're strategies for maintaining class rule.

Is that why you post on RevStrategyForMaintainingClassRule.com?

But seriously, this is a little off topic, but I agree that the terms "left" and "right" are extremely deficient, but what is commonly referred to as the left does include some emancipatory politics opposed to class rule, patriarchy, racism, colonialism, etc., which I, as a leftist, identify with.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

I hope you're not trying to paint everyone who supports the ending of Israeli apartheid or any sort of Palestinian solidarity movement as cheerleaders for any particular Palestinian politcal party (or all of them at once)

Of course you can oppose the bombings, attacks, etc., without supporting any reactionary organizations.


Is that why you post on RevStrategyForMaintainingClassRule.com?

When I started posted here I considered myself a leftist. When I started looking for a way to change things I came across Marx. I then found the "revolutionary left," which is the most organized and visible force claiming to be fighting for human liberation.

It wasn't until later that I discovered its true nature.


But seriously, this is a little off topic, but I agree that the terms "left" and "right" are extremely deficient, but what is commonly referred to as the left does include some emancipatory politics opposed to class rule, patriarchy, racism, colonialism, etc., which I, as a leftist, identify with.

I don't think the working class forces fighting for the abolition of property in the means of production and thus classes, exploitation, etc., belong to the left.

[freepalestine]

as this all turned into leftist v liberal debate about palestine.surprising