il Commie
24th January 2004, 11:35
With all the talking about Geneva today, and the preperations for the big "Yes to The Agreement" rally in Tel Aviv few weeks from now, I would like to post a political statment of the Jerusalem wing of the israeli YCL. It's from October 2000, the begining of the Intifada, and it compares the capitalist agreement to the socialist peace.
You can find it also on:
http://www.geocities.com/bankial/intifadaeng.htm
================================================== ========================
For a Truly Socialist Peace!
The recent confrontations between Israel and the Palestinians have caused a major crisis for many Israelis. This is especially so for those who believed that the political process that begun in 1993 has put the two parties to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on a one way track of constant progress towards peace and away from violent confrontations. Such was the case of many left wing Zionists who in the last elections gave their vote to Ehud Barak and to parties such as the Labour led “One Israel” or the liberal democratic “Meretz”. Now these people are talking about a crisis, about doubts and sometimes even about “sobering up”. The political process has turned out to be very fragile. Another thing that added to their feelings was the solidarity that the Arab citizens of Israel have demonstrated with their brothers in the occupied territories. For the Zionist left this stance of the Arab citizens of Israel was no less than betrayal and ungratefulness.
We in the Israeli Communist Youth League and in the Israeli Communist Party were never part of this “Left”. Although we often stood shoulder to shoulder with left-wing Zionists in demonstrations, and in the struggles for human rights and against the fanaticism of the extreme right, we have always presented a different and unique stand from that of the Zionist left, a stand that derives from our Marxist worldview that analyzes reality in a universal way and sees the class character of all political phenomena, which transcends the unique circumstances of each case.
This is why we are not talking today of a crisis or of doubts. Just as we didn’t worship the Oslo agreements and Rabin’s government who concocted them, we are not falling apart now in view of this new and ongoing wave of violence in spite of its severe implications on the chances for a true peace in the near future. We see the development of the events from the Oslo agreements and until now as a historical process the understanding of which can provide us not only with an explanation of the current situation but also with the power and the means to deal with it, by defining clearly our own unique role as communists.
In 1993, after 26 years of occupation in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and of demonstrably ignoring the collective aspiration of the Palestinian people for independence, the two sides finally set to the negotiating table. Contrary to popular opinion, the Oslo agreements weren’t between the Israeli people and the Palestinian people but between the Israeli bourgeoisie and the Palestinian bourgeoisie. For the Israeli bourgeoisie, these agreements were an escape from the daily violence of the Intifada, from the harsh image of Israel in the world and especially from the danger of being pushed out from the global capitalist market, which sets political stability as one of the main criteria for admission to it. As long as violence and insecurity ruled in our region, the major international corporations who control big investment capital would not invest in the Israeli economy. It was their will to achieve such stability that preoccupied the minds of who was in this, as in many other matters, a loyal ally of the U.S.A which leads the global market and constantly works for its expansion. For the Palestinian bourgeoisie, which had its headquarters in the Tunisian exile, the agreements meant returning to an active leadership position in the struggle for national independence, a position seriously undermined by the heroic role played the popular elements who had leading the Intifada in the occupied territories.
The Israeli and Palestinian bourgeoisies, with the patronage of the U.S.A signed an agreement the purpose of which wasn’t peace in any humanist sense (one based on destroying any form of exploitation of one human being by another or the oppression of one nation by another). Instead it was to be a “settlement” ensuring regional tranquility and stability which will make it possible for the bourgeoisies of both sides to establish themselves and develop. This “settlement” will be based on separation, on a militaristic balance of fear, and on the “guarantees” provided by the “international policeman” – the U.S.A.
Following the Oslo agreements the Palestinian National Authority was founded where the bourgeoisie of the Tunisian exile occupied all the key positions. The PNA worked with energy to destroy the popular political leadership by setting up an authoritarian regime that included an excessive use of police force, intelligence services and the army, with blatant breaches of human rights and harsh censorship measures to curb the freedom of political expression. Funds that were destined for economic and social development did not reach their target due to corruption in the various branches of the PNA’s administration. As a result, many voices began to be heard against the Oslo Agreements and their rational which turned the Palestinian bourgeoisie into the watchdogs of Israel while doing nothing to improve the socio-economic lot of the Palestinian masses. at the same time in Israel the socio-economic crisis kept getting worse. Around one million citizens were in poverty and hundreds of thousands were caught in a vicious circle of unemployment. Over this distress an orthodox party Shas, which helped the needy, had developed. (This party main help to the needy is turning to god, who is no help at all.) After only three elections Shas became the third party in its parliamentary representation. Shas gave its support to the political process on the condition that social reforms are carried out (which for them meant giving more money to their own politically-committed charity organizations). In the last elections a party called “Am Ehad” managed to send two MK’s to the Knesset. Their political platform was that the socio-economic policy of the government, rather than its record in the diplomatic arena, should constitute the main criteria for the decision on whether to support it or not. Since the Israeli bourgeoisie was unwilling to perform socio-economic reforms, the coalition broke and Barak’s government was on the verge of collapsing.
And so the Israeli and Palestinian leaderships, reached separately a similar conclusion: they both needed a major achievement in the political field to regain public support. With this in mind both sides went to the Camp David summit. But precisely because of their acknowledgment of the need for a major achievement, they did not reach an agreement. Arafat and Barak simply couldn’t, because of inner political problems, compromise on the major issues (Jerusalem, the refugees, the settlements) since any kind of compromise would have destroyed the possibility to come home with a significant achievement.
The failure of the summit made it clear to both sides that since a political achievement is not possible at the moment, they should look for a militaristic achievement. Barak gave the opening signal by letting MK Arik Sharon, a war criminal declared by an official investigative committee as “unfit to serve as a minister in any government of Israel”, and who leads the right-wing Likud party, to access Temple Mount where El-Akza mosque, one of the holiest sites for Islam, is situated.The visit was carried out in a provocative manner, with the accompaniment of thousands of armed police. This was in spite of (or maybe because of) the estimation of the intelligence service, seen by Barak, that such a visit would have grave consequences. Arafat was good to the challenge and ordered his men to organize armed confrontations with the Israeli army. Violence erupted and quickly developed to a situation that left behind it dozens of casualties and thousands injured. The Arab citizens of Israel, who since the foundation of the country have been systematically discriminated against by its institutions and have never enjoyed equal rights in the florid spirit of the Israeli Declaration of Independence, could not but identify with the frustration of their brothers in the occupied territories. The arrival of the peace process to a dead end in all the main issues precisely during Barak’s administration, who received 95% of the votes of the Arab citizens of Israel, caused an outbreak of rage among them which was expressed by popular protests. For the Israeli government this was a chance to promote a message of unity between the Jews, since now there was, apparently, no problem to see who’s against whom. The fight is between the Jews (all of them, including the settlers) and the Arabs (all of them, including the Arab citizens of Israel). This way all the class confrontations and the socio-economic problems have supposedly vanished. The whole nation, including parts of the Zionist “left”, has been drafted to the national war, the survival war of the bourgeoisie.
The harsh confrontations gave both leaderships a chance to widen the base of their political support. Arafat invited representatives of the Hamas and the Islamic Jihad to his cabinet and was embraced by the Arab countries, and Barak turned to the parties of the right with an invitation to form a National Unity government.
The Israeli and Palestinian bourgeoisie believed that the political process was essential to their survival and so they stove towards it during the last seven years. And yet, when the negotiations had reached a dead end they did not hesitate to change their strategy and turn to the war. Now, politically enforced and backed up by an inflamed and incited public, they will probably go back to the negotiating table to achieve that “settlement" of bourgeoisie peace which was their purpose to begin with, and on the way to which they have sacrificed the lives of many innocent citizens.
As communists, we cannot accept the bourgeois “peace” or the bourgeois war, which both serve in the most cynical way the economical and political interests of the ruling elite of both sides and in doing so use both working classes as cannon fodder for Arafat’s protests and for Barak’s military raids and as a cheap work force for international capital who is waiting around the corner. And yet, as humanists, we prefer, for now, the bourgeois peace over the bourgeois war that is claiming sacrifices from us almost every day. This is why, we will continue to support the political process on the condition that it includes the minimal elements of a fair deal: a complete Israeli retreat from the occupied territories including east Jerusalem; evacuation all the settlements; allowing Palestinian sovereignty over all the evacuated territories; solving the refugees problem on the basis of the right of return or of compensation. At the same time, we will continue to fight for real peace, socialist peace, based upon the recognition of the humanity that unites all people and on the border breaking interest of the working class. Socialist peace necessarily involves a social revolution that will establish a new form of co-existence and cooperation between the two nations, one based not on separation and enslavement to capital or to any foreign factor but on human solidarity that destroys both class and national exploitation and oppression.
Jerusalem, October 2000
This declaration expresses the views of the members of the Jerusalem branch of the ICYL. It should not be considered an official declaration of the ICYL.þ
You can find it also on:
http://www.geocities.com/bankial/intifadaeng.htm
================================================== ========================
For a Truly Socialist Peace!
The recent confrontations between Israel and the Palestinians have caused a major crisis for many Israelis. This is especially so for those who believed that the political process that begun in 1993 has put the two parties to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on a one way track of constant progress towards peace and away from violent confrontations. Such was the case of many left wing Zionists who in the last elections gave their vote to Ehud Barak and to parties such as the Labour led “One Israel” or the liberal democratic “Meretz”. Now these people are talking about a crisis, about doubts and sometimes even about “sobering up”. The political process has turned out to be very fragile. Another thing that added to their feelings was the solidarity that the Arab citizens of Israel have demonstrated with their brothers in the occupied territories. For the Zionist left this stance of the Arab citizens of Israel was no less than betrayal and ungratefulness.
We in the Israeli Communist Youth League and in the Israeli Communist Party were never part of this “Left”. Although we often stood shoulder to shoulder with left-wing Zionists in demonstrations, and in the struggles for human rights and against the fanaticism of the extreme right, we have always presented a different and unique stand from that of the Zionist left, a stand that derives from our Marxist worldview that analyzes reality in a universal way and sees the class character of all political phenomena, which transcends the unique circumstances of each case.
This is why we are not talking today of a crisis or of doubts. Just as we didn’t worship the Oslo agreements and Rabin’s government who concocted them, we are not falling apart now in view of this new and ongoing wave of violence in spite of its severe implications on the chances for a true peace in the near future. We see the development of the events from the Oslo agreements and until now as a historical process the understanding of which can provide us not only with an explanation of the current situation but also with the power and the means to deal with it, by defining clearly our own unique role as communists.
In 1993, after 26 years of occupation in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and of demonstrably ignoring the collective aspiration of the Palestinian people for independence, the two sides finally set to the negotiating table. Contrary to popular opinion, the Oslo agreements weren’t between the Israeli people and the Palestinian people but between the Israeli bourgeoisie and the Palestinian bourgeoisie. For the Israeli bourgeoisie, these agreements were an escape from the daily violence of the Intifada, from the harsh image of Israel in the world and especially from the danger of being pushed out from the global capitalist market, which sets political stability as one of the main criteria for admission to it. As long as violence and insecurity ruled in our region, the major international corporations who control big investment capital would not invest in the Israeli economy. It was their will to achieve such stability that preoccupied the minds of who was in this, as in many other matters, a loyal ally of the U.S.A which leads the global market and constantly works for its expansion. For the Palestinian bourgeoisie, which had its headquarters in the Tunisian exile, the agreements meant returning to an active leadership position in the struggle for national independence, a position seriously undermined by the heroic role played the popular elements who had leading the Intifada in the occupied territories.
The Israeli and Palestinian bourgeoisies, with the patronage of the U.S.A signed an agreement the purpose of which wasn’t peace in any humanist sense (one based on destroying any form of exploitation of one human being by another or the oppression of one nation by another). Instead it was to be a “settlement” ensuring regional tranquility and stability which will make it possible for the bourgeoisies of both sides to establish themselves and develop. This “settlement” will be based on separation, on a militaristic balance of fear, and on the “guarantees” provided by the “international policeman” – the U.S.A.
Following the Oslo agreements the Palestinian National Authority was founded where the bourgeoisie of the Tunisian exile occupied all the key positions. The PNA worked with energy to destroy the popular political leadership by setting up an authoritarian regime that included an excessive use of police force, intelligence services and the army, with blatant breaches of human rights and harsh censorship measures to curb the freedom of political expression. Funds that were destined for economic and social development did not reach their target due to corruption in the various branches of the PNA’s administration. As a result, many voices began to be heard against the Oslo Agreements and their rational which turned the Palestinian bourgeoisie into the watchdogs of Israel while doing nothing to improve the socio-economic lot of the Palestinian masses. at the same time in Israel the socio-economic crisis kept getting worse. Around one million citizens were in poverty and hundreds of thousands were caught in a vicious circle of unemployment. Over this distress an orthodox party Shas, which helped the needy, had developed. (This party main help to the needy is turning to god, who is no help at all.) After only three elections Shas became the third party in its parliamentary representation. Shas gave its support to the political process on the condition that social reforms are carried out (which for them meant giving more money to their own politically-committed charity organizations). In the last elections a party called “Am Ehad” managed to send two MK’s to the Knesset. Their political platform was that the socio-economic policy of the government, rather than its record in the diplomatic arena, should constitute the main criteria for the decision on whether to support it or not. Since the Israeli bourgeoisie was unwilling to perform socio-economic reforms, the coalition broke and Barak’s government was on the verge of collapsing.
And so the Israeli and Palestinian leaderships, reached separately a similar conclusion: they both needed a major achievement in the political field to regain public support. With this in mind both sides went to the Camp David summit. But precisely because of their acknowledgment of the need for a major achievement, they did not reach an agreement. Arafat and Barak simply couldn’t, because of inner political problems, compromise on the major issues (Jerusalem, the refugees, the settlements) since any kind of compromise would have destroyed the possibility to come home with a significant achievement.
The failure of the summit made it clear to both sides that since a political achievement is not possible at the moment, they should look for a militaristic achievement. Barak gave the opening signal by letting MK Arik Sharon, a war criminal declared by an official investigative committee as “unfit to serve as a minister in any government of Israel”, and who leads the right-wing Likud party, to access Temple Mount where El-Akza mosque, one of the holiest sites for Islam, is situated.The visit was carried out in a provocative manner, with the accompaniment of thousands of armed police. This was in spite of (or maybe because of) the estimation of the intelligence service, seen by Barak, that such a visit would have grave consequences. Arafat was good to the challenge and ordered his men to organize armed confrontations with the Israeli army. Violence erupted and quickly developed to a situation that left behind it dozens of casualties and thousands injured. The Arab citizens of Israel, who since the foundation of the country have been systematically discriminated against by its institutions and have never enjoyed equal rights in the florid spirit of the Israeli Declaration of Independence, could not but identify with the frustration of their brothers in the occupied territories. The arrival of the peace process to a dead end in all the main issues precisely during Barak’s administration, who received 95% of the votes of the Arab citizens of Israel, caused an outbreak of rage among them which was expressed by popular protests. For the Israeli government this was a chance to promote a message of unity between the Jews, since now there was, apparently, no problem to see who’s against whom. The fight is between the Jews (all of them, including the settlers) and the Arabs (all of them, including the Arab citizens of Israel). This way all the class confrontations and the socio-economic problems have supposedly vanished. The whole nation, including parts of the Zionist “left”, has been drafted to the national war, the survival war of the bourgeoisie.
The harsh confrontations gave both leaderships a chance to widen the base of their political support. Arafat invited representatives of the Hamas and the Islamic Jihad to his cabinet and was embraced by the Arab countries, and Barak turned to the parties of the right with an invitation to form a National Unity government.
The Israeli and Palestinian bourgeoisie believed that the political process was essential to their survival and so they stove towards it during the last seven years. And yet, when the negotiations had reached a dead end they did not hesitate to change their strategy and turn to the war. Now, politically enforced and backed up by an inflamed and incited public, they will probably go back to the negotiating table to achieve that “settlement" of bourgeoisie peace which was their purpose to begin with, and on the way to which they have sacrificed the lives of many innocent citizens.
As communists, we cannot accept the bourgeois “peace” or the bourgeois war, which both serve in the most cynical way the economical and political interests of the ruling elite of both sides and in doing so use both working classes as cannon fodder for Arafat’s protests and for Barak’s military raids and as a cheap work force for international capital who is waiting around the corner. And yet, as humanists, we prefer, for now, the bourgeois peace over the bourgeois war that is claiming sacrifices from us almost every day. This is why, we will continue to support the political process on the condition that it includes the minimal elements of a fair deal: a complete Israeli retreat from the occupied territories including east Jerusalem; evacuation all the settlements; allowing Palestinian sovereignty over all the evacuated territories; solving the refugees problem on the basis of the right of return or of compensation. At the same time, we will continue to fight for real peace, socialist peace, based upon the recognition of the humanity that unites all people and on the border breaking interest of the working class. Socialist peace necessarily involves a social revolution that will establish a new form of co-existence and cooperation between the two nations, one based not on separation and enslavement to capital or to any foreign factor but on human solidarity that destroys both class and national exploitation and oppression.
Jerusalem, October 2000
This declaration expresses the views of the members of the Jerusalem branch of the ICYL. It should not be considered an official declaration of the ICYL.þ