Statements on Gaza by Anarchist Communists [Archive]

The Feral Underclass

9th January 2009, 21:13

For those interested:

Statement produced by the Sheffield and Manchester Anarchist Federation group's on the conflict in Gaza, in solidarity with the victims of the conflict, and for internationalism.

One thing is absolutely clear about the current situation in Gaza: the Israeli state is committing atrocities which must end immediately. With hundreds dead and thousands wounded, it has become increasingly clear that the aim of the military operation, which has been in the planning stages since the signing of the original ceasefire in June, is to break Hamas completely. The attack follows the crippling blockade throughout the supposed ‘ceasefire’, which has destroyed the livelihoods of Gazans, ruined the civilian infrastructure and created a humanitarian disaster which anyone with an ounce of humanity would seek an end to.

But that's not all there is to say about the situation. On both sides of the conflict, the idea that opposing Israel has to mean supporting Hamas and its ‘resistance’ movement is worryingly common. We totally reject this argument. Just like any other set of rulers, Hamas, like all the other major Palestinian factions, are happy and willing to sacrifice ordinary Palestinians to increase their power. This isn’t some vague theoretical point – for a period recently most deaths in Gaza were a result of fighting between Hamas and Fatah. The ‘choices’ offered to ordinary Palestinian people are between Islamist gangsters (Hamas, Islamic Jihad) or nationalist gangsters (Fatah, Al-Aqsa Martyrs brigades). These groups have shown their willingness to attack working class attempts to improve their living conditions, seizing union offices, kidnapping prominent trade unionists, and breaking strikes. One spectacular example is the attack on Palestine Workers Radio by Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, for “stoking internal conflicts”. Clearly, a “free Palestine” under the control of any of these groups would be nothing of the sort.

As anarchists, we are internationalists, opposing the idea that the rulers and ruled within a nation have any interests in common. Therefore, anarchists reject Palestinian nationalism just as we reject Israeli nationalism (Zionism). Ethnicity does not grant “rights” to lands, which require the state to enforce them. People, on the other hand, have a right to having their human needs met, and should be able to live where they choose, freely.

Therefore, against the divisions and false choices set up by nationalism, we fully support the ordinary inhabitants of Gaza and Israel against state warfare – not because of their nationality, ethnicity, or religion, but simply because they're real living, feeling, thinking, suffering, struggling human beings. And this support has to mean total hostility to all those who would oppress and exploit them –the Israeli state and the Western governments and corporations that supply it with weapons, but also any other capitalist factions who seek to use ordinary working-class Palestinians as pawns in their power struggles. The only real solution is one which is collective, based on the fact that as a class, globally, we ultimately have nothing but our ability to work for others, and everything to gain in ending this system – capitalism – and the states and wars it needs .

That this seems like a “difficult” solution does not stop it from being the right one. Any “solution” that means endless cycles of conflict, which is what nationalism represents, is no solution at all. And if that is the case, the fact that it is “easier” is irrelevant. There are sectors of Palestinian society which are not dominated by the would-be rulers – protests organised by village committees in the West Bank for instance. These deserve our support. As do those in Israel who refuse to fight, and who resist the war. But not the groups who call on Palestinians to be slaughtered on their behalf by one of the most advanced armies in the world, and who wilfully attack civilians on the other side of the border.

Neither one state nor two states, but no states

The Feral Underclass

9th January 2009, 21:19

A much longer article from Federazione dei Comunisti Anarchici (Italy) and Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front (South Africa):

The Gaza slaughter: Europe's hand is bloodied too

Hundreds of dead and thousands of injured, sacrificed on the altar of Zionist expansionism and fundamentalism. In Europe, the foreign ministers of every EU country talk about an "exaggerated", though "legitimate", reaction on the part of Israel, reversing the true situation with an operation that would make the most cynical illusionist feel proud by making the aggressor, the State of Israel, appear to be the victim.

They continue to pretend that they do not remember that Gaza - one of the most densely-populated regions with around one and a half million inhabitants, about half of whom are children - has been the object of a total embargo for years, an embargo which includes medicines and basic necessities and which is supported by the entire "civilized" western world, imposed by Israel and the West as a result of the Hamas election victory, thanks to the mixed electoral system of majority and proportional representation. Just as they pretend to forget that Hamas was once financed by Israel as a way of countering the PLO.

Despite a 6-month truce, the embargo was not even slightly relaxed and not one of the Western powers even timidly suggested relaxing it. The State of Israel has returned to its strategy of military control over Gaza and the West Bank. All Europe's useless, hypocritical proclamations of a desire for peace systematically forget to mention that for 60 years Israel has been blithely violating countless UN resolutions and continues to occupy the territory militarily, with Israeli colonies spreading throughout Palestinian land day by day, building walls that segregate entire villages and prevent millions of refugees from returning to their land, uprooting olive groves and killing livestock, day after day humiliating anyone who tries to cross the segregation walls in order to go to work, to hospital or to school.

And not only that: they hide the fact that the truce was broken by the Israeli State on 4th November 2008 when its army killed a 22-year-old Hamas militant.

But aside from the false, hypocritical proclamations of pacifism, what is the reason for this unconditional support for such an aggressive, warmongering State by practically every major Western power?

As far as the USA is concerned, there is no doubt. Apart from the important strategic and territorial alliance that Israel represents for American imperialism in the Middle East, it also has to deal with the powerful US Jewish economic lobby, which is strong enough to bring about a stong influence on US foreign policy. And what is happening today comes across as a clear warning to the president-elect, Obama.

Europe has partially regained its unity on foreign policy and is probably playing the card of active diplomacy in order to strengthen its role in the Mediterranean and to warn the USA that it cannot act alone in the Mare Nostrum[1] area. But one must not forget arms sales, an area where States are always ready to hide the truth under the blanket of "State secrets" and support the orders of those companies who produce arms and support systems. And these businesses are never biased. They are quite happy to sell arms to opposing parties, as long as they can pay for them. Italy, for example, is one of the biggest arms suppliers to Iran and Lebanon, but has also supplied the Israeli army for years with arms technology through companies like Oto-Melara, Beretta, Borletti and Selenia. And the other countries in Europe do likewise.

Palestine is cynically used as an experimentation ground for deadly new technologies which are increasingly specialising in "urban warfare" and in which every arms company is interested: from US and Israeli companies to English, French, German, Italian, and so on.

So, in this tortured land where men, women and children, crushed by the wargames of the powerful, seem to have no future, new arms are tested, from cluster bombs to impoverished uranium bullets, the effectiveness of UAVs (pilotless aircraft) - able to launch remote controlled missiles - is studied, Achzarit tanks able to withstand landmines are experimented, Namer armoured vehicles with Continental Motors (US) or MTU (German) engines are tested, as is the efficacy of avant-garde systems such as Italian added protection and remote-controlled turrets mounted on Puma armoured vehicles, and Alenia's futuristic robotic war systems such as Sky-X, the first system in the world able to refuel pilotless aircraft in flight.

All this on the shoulders of a people who have always been used in clashes between States and others, cynically used even in the political clashes between the internal factions of one State, as in the case of Israeli political machinations connected with the electoral struggle both within the governing coalition between the hawkish Kadima, responsible for some of the most extreme acts - like the evacuation of the Strip proposed by the MK Yisrael Hasson - on the one hand and the Labour doves, in favour of a more measured approach, on the other, and between Kadima and the Likud super-hawks, increasingly moving towards ultra hardline positions.

We certainly do not expect the Arab and/or Islamic States to do anything, divided as they are or intent on strengthening their prestige and their influence in the area, even if it comes at the cost of the Palestinian people. Like the case of Iran, that uses the Palestinian tragedy to publicise itself as the only bulwark against the hated American imperialism and set itself up as the emerging power in the region.

But beyond all the international political conjecturing, the situation of the Palestinian population today seems bleak, with few prospects for reaching a solution that can give them a chance for a life with even a minimum of dignity, both from the point of view of social security and from that of guaranteeing respect of the minimum rights of survival.

Today perhaps the only guarantee that the Palestinian people may, as quickly as possible, find even a little respite and peace is that the marauders of all shapes and sizes - physically or ideologically thronging at their borders, or engaging in political speculation inside - reach a new, precarious balance.

The only real prospect for emancipation that we can glimpse in the near future is a growth and spread of the sort of self-organisation that many Palestinian villages practise, encouraged by the solidarity between Palestinian popular committees and initiatives such as Anarchists Against the Wall, involving internationalists from all over the world and anti-Zionist Israelis, who fight the arrogance of the Israeli settler colonists and the army that supports them using prevalently peaceful resistance. And it is not by chance that in these villages another road has been chosen and not the militarism of Hamas.

As class-struggle anarchists and libertarians we will continue to denounce Zionist settler colonialismm as we denounce all forms of imperialism and fundamentalism that oppress the liberty and dignity of every people. We will go on denouncing the fact that huge swathes of the world's proletariat suffer under the oppression and misery that results from inter-imperialist clashes and the cynical political games of powerful local oligarchs who are in turn used, knowingly or unknowingly, as pawns in the international chessboard of imperialist disputes, marked with the blood of the proletariat.

We will continue to support the struggles and act of solidarity with the Palestinian people, supporting all those embryonic manifestations of self-determination that typify the struggles of whole villages in Palestine, convinced that only if they can free themselves of the malicious influences of all State or para-State oligarchies can the working men and women begin to hope for a more dignified life.

2 January 2009

Note:
1. Literally "our sea", used by the imperial Romans with reference to the Mediterranean. The suggestion is that the modern European powers want to control the Med as the Romans did 2,000 years ago.

Pogue

9th January 2009, 22:49

BobKKKindle$

9th January 2009, 23:59

This analysis has exactly the same flaws as the analysis put forward by Left-Communists. It is completely dislocated from the material concerns of Palestinians living in Gaza, who have been systematically punished by Israel because they dared to vote for a movement which seeks to resist the aggressive maneuvers of the Israeli state by whatever means necessary including the use of armed force against the imperialists, and is not willing to give up the struggle in favour of making concessions to the imperialist bloc whilst gaining almost nothing in return, as Fatah has done in the West Bank. Palestinian nationalism and Zionism both reflect the interests of a ruling class but they should not be treated equally - the former is a motivating force for workers who are currently living under the oppression of one of the most powerful states in the entire world, backed by the whole of the imperialist bloc, whereas the latter exists to justify the historic and ongoing crimes committed by Israel against Palestine and neighboring countries. The nationalism of the oppressed can serve a progressive role by striking at the heart of the capitalist system and breaking the chauvinism of workers who currently inhabit the imperialist bloc and derive material benefits from the imperialist exploitation of the periphery - and can even lead to the eruption of class conflict once the inability of nationalist organizations to meet the needs and aspirations of the working class become clear. This is especially true in the case of Israel, as large numbers of Israeli workers currently live on land which has been taken from Palestinian owners by armed force, and have access to other privileges which might not otherwise be available, such as unlimited clean water, such that these workers are unlikely to support a just peace (including the right of return, which would inevitably lead to land being removed from the control of settlers and placed in the hands of Palestinians) as long as they continue to see their own position as justified - as was shown from the outrage directed against the Israeli government when settlements were being disbanded in Gaza. Furthermore, Anarchists evidently accept the rhetoric of the Israeli state because they see Hamas and the Palestinian working class and two entirely distinct entities, with the former imposing its will on the latter in pursuit of private objectives. In reality, Hamas is a mass movement which involves and draws its strength from a significant section of the working class, not because naive workers have fallen under the influence of "gangsters" who are intent on shedding as much blood as possible in the name of the Palestinian nation, but because Zionism continues to punish workers on a daily basis through the economic blockade and ongoing invasion, and hence workers have a direct material interest in joining the resistance struggle.

On a final note, the claim in the second article that the US' support for Israel is due to the domestic influence of a Zionist lobby is wrong, and can easily lead to anti-semitic conclusions, and obscures the fundamental importance of imperialism, as explained here: http://www.socialistreview.org.uk/article.php?articlenumber=9762

Jorge Miguel

10th January 2009, 09:18

Neither one stare nor two states, but no states
Anymore fairy stories? Is this on the cards for the Palestinian people? :rolleyes:

The Feral Underclass

10th January 2009, 09:38

Anymore fairy stories? Is this on the cards for the Palestinian people? :rolleyes:

No less so than communism in the western world

The Feral Underclass

10th January 2009, 11:02

Bobkindles, you've managed to weave together a confused mixture of political substance with everyday material concerns. It's standard leftism. Working class people support Hamas because of Israeli aggression. So what? Does that mean it is in their objective interests to do that? No. Does that mean it represents a constructive solution for the Palestinian or Israeli people? No.

Just because something "is" doesn't mean it always will be or that it is necessarily the "correct" solution; this is a common tool used by leftists to support anything from Islamic fundamentalism to the Khymer Rouge. Even if leftists did choose to support "Palestinian nationalism" on a "progressive" basis they (from a strategic point of view) would be entirely marginalised with the advent of nationalism anyway. Look at the Iranian revolution to look at a prime example of a people's revolution, supported by Marxists, that was quick to turn the guns against any force of political progression after they had secured political power.

The short answer is that a two state solution (i.e. supporting Palestinian nationalism) is a) not viable (they want the same land) or b) not fair to the Palestinian people. It's mad to support either.

Yehuda Stern

10th January 2009, 14:11

The main problem with the analysis is that it equates the oppressor with the oppressed - the Gaza Palestinian resistance and the Israeli imperialist state. This fits in well with the liberal outlook of anarchism, but not with reality.

Hit The North

10th January 2009, 16:14

Working class people support Hamas because of Israeli aggression. So what? Does that mean it is in their objective interests to do that? No.

Are you kidding? Of course joining the resistance against Israeli oppression is in the immediate objective interests of Palestinian workers.

Maybe you're referring to some metaphysical "objective interests" which exist independently of the immediate material conditions the Palestinian workers find themselves in?

I'd also like to endorse both Bobkindles and Yehuda's criticisms of the political positions inherent in the abstract posturing of this article.

benhur

10th January 2009, 19:31

benhur

10th January 2009, 19:35

Are you kidding? Of course joining the resistance against Israeli oppression is in the immediate objective interests of Palestinian workers.
.

How so? Don't just make statements, tell us how, provide some evidence to substantiate it. Just because you say, "Of course..." it doesn't make it true. One can also say, "Of course, joining the nazi resistance against Allied Forces aggression is in the immediate objective interests of the German workers." And it can be applied to pretty much any situation with disastrous results.

BobKKKindle$

10th January 2009, 21:36

. It's standard leftism. Working class people support Hamas because of Israeli aggression. So what? Does that mean it is in their objective interests to do that? NoWhy would the people of Gaza continue to support Hamas for such a long period of time despite the damaging Israeli blockade and ongoing invasion if Hamas was incapable of offering any material benefits to the Palestinian population? You seem to be suggesting that the only reason a Palestinian worker would ever become part of the resistance effort and fight againt the Israeli invasion is because they have fallen completely under the influence of a nationalist ideology, which causes its adherents to lose all rationality and willingly give up their lives in pursuit of an objective which apparently only benefits the bourgeoisie and no other section of Palestinian society. In other words, your entire argument is based on the assumption that Palestinian workers have lost the ability to recognize and act on their own interests because Hamas has taken control of the way they view the world. Your position is, in essence, grossly paternalistic and offensive. Palestinian workers are part of the resistance because they are being oppressed and exploited by the Israeli state and so the most immediate outlet for working-class radicalism is the struggle against Zionism. Socialists recognize that the two-state solution is ineffective, not only because it would be unfair, but also because Israel exists in order to provide the US and other imperialist countries with a base to conduct invasions against other countries in the region and ensure that strategic interests are protected against radical or nationalist movements, and so the only way to defeat imperialism in Palestine and throughout the Middle East is to destroy Israel, and establish an independent and economically-viable Palestinian state which encompasses the whole of what is currently Israel as well as the areas nominally under the control of Palestinians.

Benhur, it's clear you're not an anti-imperialist of any sort, so please remove Trotsky from your profile, and go join the AWL or ICC.

PoWR

11th January 2009, 01:32

Here's what communists say:

"Whether having bombs or rockets fired at them or being drafted into the IDF or recruited into Hamas, it is working people which will suffer the most as a result of this clash.

"What’s needed to bring an immediate end the mass slaughter in Gaza is the power of the international working class. Working people in Gaza must establish their own self-defense militias instead of relying the reactionary Hamas outfit, who claim to fight in their interests today, but smashed their strikes yesterday and seek to establish an anti-worker theocracy tomorrow. Workers of all countries should refuse to touch any or products going to or coming from Israel. Likewise, workers of all nationalities in Israel and the West Bank should organize and carry out a number of well planned strikes aimed at crippling Israel, thus ending its ability to wage war. Workers in the U.S. can and should carry out similar actions, as it the massive aid given by “their” government that props up and supplies the Israeli rulers and their machinery of war. Peaceful protests and other appeals to the blood soaked murderers who started this attack aren’t going to convince them to end it. They must be forced to stop, and the working class is in the unique position to make that happen."

(This is taken from Revolutionary Perspective, link in signature)

Annie K.

11th January 2009, 01:54

your entire argument is based on the assumption that Palestinian workers have lost the ability to recognize and act on their own interests because Hamas has taken control of the way they view the world. Your position is, in essence, grossly paternalistic and offensive.How could it be in their own interest to join islamist militias directly controled by a conservative governement ? They are oppressed by Israel (but not exploited) it's true, but the resistance of the hamas can only bring them death and suffering. The life they lead as militants are not more emancipated than the ones they lead as workers, and if, as you say, the goal of the socialists in this region is the replacement of the israeli state by a palestinian state, the hamas is simply not able to realize it.
Maybe it's offensive, but it's also a fact that the militants of the hamas die for a lie. That being said, I think that most of the leaders of the hamas believe that lie too (and some of them die for it).

Charles Xavier

11th January 2009, 04:47

How could it be in their own interest to join islamist militias directly controled by a conservative governement ? They are oppressed by Israel (but not exploited) it's true, but the resistance of the hamas can only bring them death and suffering. The life they lead as militants are not more emancipated than the ones they lead as workers, and if, as you say, the goal of the socialists in this region is the replacement of the israeli state by a palestinian state, the hamas is simply not able to realize it.
Maybe it's offensive, but it's also a fact that the militants of the hamas die for a lie. That being said, I think that most of the leaders of the hamas believe that lie too (and some of them die for it).

Because without national liberation of the oppressed colonies there is no left or right wing, there is either pro-liberation or pro-colonialism.

Annie K.

11th January 2009, 05:13

"Either with us or against us", huh ?
But the hamas is still not offering a national liberation. It barely manage to maintain a state of war.

black magick hustla

11th January 2009, 05:48

good to see british anarchists are more sober than their american counterparts.

Sasha

11th January 2009, 13:25

israeli anarchist direct-action group with an sensible look upon the conflict: http://www.awalls.org/

Hit The North

11th January 2009, 13:32

How so? Don't just make statements, tell us how, provide some evidence to substantiate it. Just because you say, "Of course..." it doesn't make it true.

So do you believe that it is in the interests of the Palestinian workers to not resist Israeli oppression? If so, you must also believe EITHER that the Israeli state does not oppress the Palestinian workers or, more absurdly, that the Palestinian workers somehow benefit from Israeli oppression. Which is it?

One can also say, "Of course, joining the nazi resistance against Allied Forces aggression is in the immediate objective interests of the German workers." And it can be applied to pretty much any situation with disastrous results
Yes, but I made my statement on the assumption of at least a rudimentary background knowledge of the situation in Palestine. I obviously wasn't accounting for your ignorance.

But coming back to your absurd analogy - which, I fear, you only made in order to assert a dodgy claim of moral equivalence between Hamas and the Nazis - it would be more relevant to ask whether the French working class should have involved itself in the resistance to Nazi occupation? From your point of view, I guess the answer would be 'no'.

Originally posted by Annie K
How could it be in their own interest to join islamist militias directly controled by a conservative governement ? They are oppressed by Israel (but not exploited) it's true,It's not true that the Palestinian workers are not exploited by Israel. Many Palestinian workers work inside Israel (just a bus ride from their homes) but work there as migrant labourers; excluded from employment rights enjoyed by Israeli citizens and, consequently, suffering a higher rate of exploitation by Israeli capital.

http://www.dollarsandsense.org/archives/2003/0503aruri.html

Meanwhile, the impact Israel has on the Palestinian territories - continually destroying infrastructure as well as human labour - keeps the economies of the Palestinian territories in a state of backwardness.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1006282.html

So Zionism isn't only a nationalist creed, it is also a particular way of organising capitalist relations within Israel and ensuring Israeli economic dominance over its neighbours.

So, taking this into account, and coming back to Benhur's question: to doubt whether it is in the interests of the Palestinian workers to oppose Israeli oppression, is like doubting that the black working class of South Africa should have opposed the Apartheid regime (itself another way of institutionalising the migrant labour status of the indigenous population).

Red October

11th January 2009, 16:31

There's a difference between supporting resistance against Israeli imperialism and supporting a reactionary, conservative group like Hamas. This idea that in order to fight imperialism you have to get in bed with a bunch of anti-worker reactionaries is ludicrous.

HoChiMilo

11th January 2009, 19:30

Because without national liberation of the oppressed colonies there is no left or right wing, there is either pro-liberation or pro-colonialism.

I concur, unfortunately. I agree with our anarchist friends that nationalism and religious extremism (dare i say religion in general) is a load of garbage.

By assuming the inhabitants of Israel and Gaza are "ordinary" people is disrespectful to them. Do you look at any of your working-class friends and colleagues and view any of them as "ordinary" people? We're all philosophers, from the garbage man to the banker.

Now, nationalism is garbage but history has shown that the working class will band together with the most familiar elements if they are being kept down by an unfamiliar invading force.

Think about it, they have a choice between an Israeli tyrant or an Islamic tyrant.

Just like the hybrid communist/nationalist forces in Vietnam, the cling to the idea of their autonomous nation saved countless lives and eventually led to Vietnamese independence.

Again, I stress the dangers and failures of nationalism. I am an internationalist. But is the push for an internationalist worldview really worth the lives of over 860 innocent, working-class inhabitants of Gaza? 13 Israelis have been killed. Every death is a tragedy, but the ratio shows the imperialist, one-sided support from wealthy western nations.

If the entire Israeli nation was inhabited by atheist anarchists, there would be no war. The unfortunate truth is, it's not. There are religious zealots on both sides, and on both sides there are "ordinary", moderate religious folk who will see this violence and further radicalize.:crying:

Black Dagger

12th January 2009, 02:23

The main problem with the analysis is that it equates the oppressor with the oppressed - the Gaza Palestinian resistance and the Israeli imperialist state.

No it doesn't. Pointing out the flaws of hamas or opposing its leadership in the conflict is not the same as equating the working class of palestine ('the oppressed') with the israeli state ('the oppressor'). Although there is obviously cross-over between the membership of Hamas and the palestinian working class that doesn't change the fact that they are not the same thing.

Because without national liberation of the oppressed colonies there is no left or right wing, there is either pro-liberation or pro-colonialism.

I disagree. Because with national liberation you have only the 'left' and 'right' wing of nationalism. 'There is either pro-liberation or pro-colonialism' - so nationalism is the only solution? That's an odd thing for a communist to say :closedeyes:

So, taking this into account, and coming back to Benhur's question: to doubt whether it is in the interests of the Palestinian workers to oppose Israeli oppression, is like doubting that the black working class of South Africa should have opposed the Apartheid regime (itself another way of institutionalising the migrant labour status of the indigenous population).

That's not an honest representation of what behur said at all. Nowhere did he doubt the need to resist Israeli occupation (quite a mischaracterisation on your part) - but merely the utility of joining a hamas militia if liberation is your goal.

And besides it was Annie K who you have quoted in that post, not benhur.

That's not what Annie said either though, she asked:

How could it be in their [that is, palestinians] own interest to join islamist militias directly controled by a conservative governement ?

A question you didn't answer, though it was the quote you were replying to...

Black Dagger

12th January 2009, 02:32

As far as the USA is concerned, there is no doubt. Apart from the important strategic and territorial alliance that Israel represents for American imperialism in the Middle East, it also has to deal with the powerful US Jewish economic lobby, which is strong enough to bring about a stong influence on US foreign policy.

What is the 'US Jewish economic lobby'?

Charles Xavier

12th January 2009, 14:22

I disagree. Because with national liberation you have only the 'left' and 'right' wing of nationalism. 'There is either pro-liberation or pro-colonialism' - so nationalism is the only solution? That's an odd thing for a communist to say :closedeyes:

Right and Left-Wing forces can form a popular front for liberation. Which will be 100% progressive even if they are religious. If you recall historically the Japanese invaded China and took over Mainland China, the politics became much more simple and much more important, all forces in China united to throw out the Japanese Invaders.

Patriots of Palestine can not sit idle as their houses, their families are being blown to smithereens by a Fascist Army. It is the duty of all able bodied Palestine to fight for liberation, left or right wing.

You cannot discuss lowering tuition fees and allowing homosexuals to marry while an Imperialist power is attempting to conquer your people. If you do that you are a loud mouth windbag.

Bilan

12th January 2009, 14:57

Typical nationalist sympathizer.

Annie K.

12th January 2009, 17:02

Right and Left-Wing forces can form a popular front for liberation. Which will be 100% progressive even if they are religious. If you recall historically the Japanese invaded China and took over Mainland China, the politics became much more simple and much more important, all forces in China united to throw out the Japanese Invaders. The situations cannot be compared. The CCP and the Kuomintang made a truce, but they were never fully united during the war against the japanese army. And even then, there were still two parties; the communists didn't enlist in the KMT.
If you were just supporting the marxist and anarchist palestinian groups to coordinate their action with the hamas, while obtaining from it the suspension of its attacks against them and against syndicalists, it could be debatable. But that's not the situation : the situation is that the oppressed and exploited people of gaza turn to an islamist governement which send them to their death against an imperialist army, not for a liberation, but for a resistance, or worse, for a revenge. And that's also why even if progressive groups in gaza could have enough militants to force the hamas to negociate instead of attacking them, as they are necessarily opposed to martyrdom (they would not be progressive if not), they could never join its resistance.

You cannot discuss lowering tuition fees and allowing homosexuals to marry while an Imperialist power is attempting to conquer your people.Yes you can. And if you want a liberation, you need to do it, simply because you will need to have an idea of what to do where the territory is not occupied. Remember that the left is defined by its revendication for a positive liberation as much as a negative one.
Take your example of the chinese-japanese war. Did the communists stopped discussing about their revolution to please the reactionnary nationalist forces ?
A national liberation is not a diner party...

Charles Xavier

12th January 2009, 17:09

If you are only going to support groups which are anarcho-syndicalist supporting the fight against Israel than you will never support the Palestinians. The Palestinian people, like all colonial and semi-colonial oppressed people, will carry this slogan forward: "if you abandon the fight for our liberation, we will abandon you."

And I fall to see how you can call me a Nationalist, as I am not Palestinian.

I do not support the breaking up of states for the sake of breaking up but I do stand for colonial and semi-colonial oppressed nations standing up for their rights and fighting against Imperialist policies and in this case armies.

If you support Israel you are not a communist, you are not even a Leftist.

In the colonies and semi-colonies, there is no traditional left or right, there is pro-liberation and pro-servitude, as the policies in the Semi-Colonies and Colonies is not determined by the people within it, but by the imperialist powers.

As for Annie's Question, the Communist Party did join an Anti-japanese pact with the KMT.

Annie K.

12th January 2009, 17:38

As for Annie's Question, the Communist Party did join an Anti-japanese pact with the KMT. They still had their own agenda and a certain control over their militants, and they participated in the decisions over the conduct of the war. Besides, there's no such thing as an anti-israeli pact. The solution you propose is joining the militias, not cooperating with them.
The best historical comparison, I think, is the vote of the war credits by the socialist parties of europe in 1914, which provoked the end of the socialist internationalism.

you will never support the Palestinians.As internationalists, we do not support peoples, we support their emancipation.

In the colonies and semi-colonies, there is no traditional left or rightAsk a dead syndicalist of gaza, he will not even make the effort to answer such a stupid question.

Hit The North

12th January 2009, 17:46

That's not an honest representation of what behur said at all. Nowhere did he doubt the need to resist Israeli occupation (quite a mischaracterisation on your part) - but merely the utility of joining a hamas militia if liberation is your goal.

Yes but I'm trying to cut through the crap of Benhur's position: that one can somehow support the struggle of the Palestinian people against Israel, but not support Hamas's struggle against Israel; as if there is some other option or force which the Palestinian working class have at their disposal. The political and military resistance against Israeli oppression is Hamas! The Palestinian workers have to work in solidarity with that resistance as there is no one else, unless the Anarchist Federation are going to magic up some other means. If I'm wrong on this, then please tell me what means the working class of Gaza have to mount an independent resistance, separate from Hamas.

And besides it was Annie K who you have quoted in that post, not benhur.
I quoted from both :closedeyes:

That's not what Annie said either though, she asked:

How could it be in their [that is, palestinians] own interest to join islamist militias directly controled by a conservative governement ?

A question you didn't answer, though it was the quote you were replying to...Because I was responding to Annie's claim that the Palestinian working class is not exploited by Israel, so my bad for not sufficiently editing my quotes.

But to answer the question: it is in their interests if this is the only manner in which they can oppose Israel because it is in the interests of the Palestinian working class to throw off Israeli power.

Annie K.

12th January 2009, 18:07

The hamas is not able to throw off Israeli power.
The interest of the palestinian working class is to install a better power instead of israels. Their power at best. The hamas is not better than the israel governement.

In fact, I don't see anything left to do for the gazans, except fleeing or waiting for the sionist madness to end.

Charles Xavier

12th January 2009, 21:43

Ask a dead syndicalist of gaza, he will not even make the effort to answer such a stupid question.

First, I never asked a question

Second, there is no syndicalists in Gaza

Third, I can't talk to dead people

The left is pro-liberation the right is anti-liberation.

Omi

12th January 2009, 22:31

Patriots of Palestine can not sit idle as their houses, their families are being blown to smithereens by a Fascist Army. It is the duty of all able bodied Palestine to fight for liberation, left or right wing.

You cannot discuss lowering tuition fees and allowing homosexuals to marry while an Imperialist power is attempting to conquer your people. If you do that you are a loud mouth windbag.

Do you even know how many people you are insulting by this very sentence? I know a guy who fled the region a couple of years ago, and now you are calling him a coward of some sort for fleeing and not resiting the opression? I find this remark very, very insulting and I wish you to back the f*ck down and think about what ever you are going to post before you post it. Go and fight your war for liberation over in Gaza, or stop saying things like this!

Secondly, I support the analysis of the AF. I think it is spot on, and some so called internationalists or leftists around here should be carefull with what you claim to are in solidarity with. What if Hamas succeeds in what they are trying? What will be the end result of their struggle?

BobKKKindle$

12th January 2009, 22:38

I know a guy who fled the region a couple of years ago, and now you are calling him a coward of some sort for fleeing and not resiting the opression?

Socialists do not believe that anyone has a moral duty to fight as part of a resistance movement against imperialism, nor do we look down on those who choose to flee instead of fighting. However, when workers do choose to resist imperialism, we support their struggles, as we acknowledge that struggles against imperialism strike at the heart of the capitalist system by undermining the ability of the oppressor-nation to exploit the periphery for their own economic benefit, and we also argue that such struggles can remove the major obstacles to revolution inside the imperialist bloc by breaking down the chauvinism of the oppressor-nation working class. This is not the same as supporting nationalism, although we would also argue that nationalism can serve a progressive role as a motivating force behind anti-imperialist struggles. You need to calm down, and if you disagree with someone, engage with them sensibly, and not hurl abuse.

Omi

12th January 2009, 22:52

You are right that I need to calm down. Excuses for being so sensible. It just happens that GeorgiDimitrovII did say that it is the duty of the Palestinian people to fight for the liberation of their country, which is greatly insulting those who flee the region. But again, excuses for the outburst, I just can't take it when some self proclaimed anti-imperialist in Canada makes ridiculus remarks like this. It is insulting, hyper-nationalist, and ultimately very reactionary to have a stance on the conflict like this!

benhur

13th January 2009, 06:08

Led Zeppelin

13th January 2009, 06:13

Here we go again. Hamas knows that the oppressive Israeli state is waiting for an excuse to attack and kill Palestinians. Knowing this very well, hamas still goes ahead and attacks Israel, thereby sacrificing Palestinian workers to Israeli rockets. That makes hamas anti-Palestine and anti-worker.

Are you serious?

The Bolsheviks knew the imperialists were waiting for an excuse to attack and kill Russians. Knowing this very well, the Bolsheviks still went ahead and attacked the whites and Germans, thereby sacrificing Russian workers to imperialist attacks. That makes the Bolsheviks anti-Russian and anti-worker.

That is your logic. It is absurd.

Hamas didn't "start" this fight, Israel did. And no, I'm not saying it did due to the entire history of the occupation, even though that is true as well, but they did so by blockading Gaza and besieging it for months while they were supposed to have a ceasefire, causing the area to be on the brink of starvation.

Any political group wishing to survive would attack the state doing this. Sieges are an act of war, if you didn't know.

This of course doesn't make Hamas worth defending as a political party, but spreading myths and lies fabricated by the IDF is not helpful.

benhur

13th January 2009, 07:01

Are you serious?

The Bolsheviks knew the imperialists were waiting for an excuse to attack and kill Russians. Knowing this very well, the Bolsheviks still went ahead and attacked the whites and Germans, thereby sacrificing Russian workers to imperialist attacks. That makes the Bolsheviks anti-Russian and anti-worker.

That is your logic. It is absurd.

Hamas didn't "start" this fight, Israel did. And no, I'm not saying it did due to the entire history of the occupation, even though that is true as well, but they did so by blockading Gaza and besieging it for months while they were supposed to have a ceasefire, causing the area to be on the brink of starvation.

Any political group wishing to survive would attack the state doing this. Sieges are an act of war, if you didn't know.

This of course doesn't make Hamas worth defending as a political party, but spreading myths and lies fabricated by the IDF is not helpful.

Your comparisons are ridiculous. The bolsheviks were well prepared and had a chance of victory, so it wasn't a sacrifice, rather a fight to the finish. Hamas knows it has no chance against the Israeli state, and yet persists in carrying out worthless attacks which not only kill Israeli workers but Palestinians as well. This is not just sacrifice, it's political suicide.

Devrim

13th January 2009, 10:28

I would like to try to address some of the anarchist confusions on the situation. I think the Trotskyist argument have already been dealt with on this thread, which they flounced from: http://www.revleft.com/vb/britain-end-zionist-t98135/index.html

This analysis has exactly the same flaws as the analysis put forward by Left-Communists.

The argument coming from the AF is the same as the one coming from the left communists. It is called internationalism, and it is not something that the communist left or the AF have a monopoly on. However, not all anarchists take this position.

On a final note, the claim in the second article that the US' support for Israel is due to the domestic influence of a Zionist lobby is wrong, and can easily lead to anti-semitic conclusions,

Bob is right here. Actually this article was quite roundly criticised from within the anarchist movement and was withdraw and changed. It certainly had very unpleasant connotations. It is interesting that the anarchist tendency that this is coming from has actually been widely referred to as a sort of anarcho-Trotskyism.

This is not the worst anti-Semitism I have seen recently by far. It is also not that far from the analysis put forward by much of the left.

Neither one stare nor two states, but no statesAnymore fairy stories? Is this on the cards for the Palestinian people? http://www.revleft.com/vb/../revleft/smilies/001_rolleyes.gif

Obviously it isn't, but then neither are many other things that people are calling for like a 'Palestinian state from the Jordan to the sea'. I don't think it is a good slogan, but the leftists are no more clear.

The reality of the situation is that there is no solution in site to the Palestinian question.

Anymore fairy stories? Is this on the cards for the Palestinian people? http://www.revleft.com/vb/../revleft/smilies/001_rolleyes.gif No less so than communism in the western world

I think it is more unlikely. I think that the working class is particularly weak in Palestine and Israel and won't be able to solve the crisis until there are massive movements of workers across the world, which will without doubt come from countries where the working class is stronger.

Yes but I'm trying to cut through the crap of Benhur's position: that one can somehow support the struggle of the Palestinian people against Israel, but not support Hamas's struggle against Israel; as if there is some other option or force which the Palestinian working class have at their disposal. The political and military resistance against Israeli oppression is Hamas! The Palestinian workers have to work in solidarity with that resistance as there is no one else, unless the Anarchist Federation are going to magic up some other means. If I'm wrong on this, then please tell me what means the working class of Gaza have to mount an independent resistance, separate from Hamas.

There is a good point here. If you support the idea of Palestinian resistance, really you must offer support to HAMAS. As Bob quite widely points out there is no cuddly militia with 'more progressive' views out there. The question is whether a national movement can offer anything to the working class.

Many anarchists took a similar position on the last Lebanese war. They supported the idea of a Lebanese national resistance against Israel, but rejected support for Hezbullah because it was seen as 'backward' and 'reactionary'.

For the communist left and I think the AF, the point is not that they have reactionary social positions. The problem is that they are calling for intra-class unity and national defence.

It is not wrong to criticise HAMAS for its social positions. They are reactionaries. It is a side issue though.

The hamas is not able to throw off Israeli power.
The interest of the palestinian working class is to install a better power instead of israels. Their power at best. The hamas is not better than the israel governement.

In fact, I don't see anything left to do for the gazans, except fleeing or waiting for the sionist madness to end.

A note of reality creeps in. Unfortunately fleeing is not an option.

Also I think that there is a problem with this piece of analysis.

The situations cannot be compared. The CCP and the Kuomintang made a truce, but they were never fully united during the war against the japanese army. And even then, there were still two parties; the communists didn't enlist in the KMT.
...Take your example of the chinese-japanese war. Did the communists stopped discussing about their revolution to please the reactionnary nationalist forces ?

The Chinese Communist Party didn't have a revolutionary plans in any socialist sense of the word by that time. It was a purely bourgeois party mobilising workers to die in an imperialist war. They may have made a truce, but it was a true between two bourgeois nationalist factions, not two parties representing different classes.

Devrim

GX.

13th January 2009, 10:39

GX.

13th January 2009, 10:47

And couldn't this argument that Hamas is sacrificing the proletariat essentially be applied to any resistance to Israeli expansionism and occupation, since Israel is set on terrorizing the palestinian population until they submit? It's conqueror logic with leftist trappings.

Annie K.

13th January 2009, 13:11

The Chinese Communist Party didn't have a revolutionary plans in any socialist sense of the word by that time. It was a purely bourgeois party mobilising workers to die in an imperialist war.
Even if it had no such plans, if it mobilised them with promises of a socialist revolution, it can't be compared to the hamas. But I don't know the details of the history of the CCP, maybe it didn't.

Devrim

13th January 2009, 14:17

Even if it had no such plans, if it mobilised them with promises of a socialist revolution, it can't be compared to the hamas. But I don't know the details of the history of the CCP, maybe it didn't.

Actually, it mobilised them with nationalism, but even if it had used socialist rhetoric would it have made any difference?

Would the situation be different if say the PLFP were in HAMAS' place, the same nationalism, but with a little socialist rhetoric?

Devrim

Annie K.

13th January 2009, 15:59

Well, my point was to say that the workers enlisting in the militias of the hamas are not doing this as a class fighting for its emancipation and able to take autonomously coherent political decisions. A class which could for example join a pact with opposed factions to fight a more dangerous and common ennemy and try to gain a favorable position for when the cooperation is no more a necessity.

If the CCP used a socialist rhetoric misleading a part of the working class, the difference is that it would be de facto a union of the right and left wings of the nationalist resistance about which black dagger wrote. The left wing would have made an error, but at least would have existed.
The part of the working class active in the hamas militias, on the contrary and as far as I know, joined the right wing directly.
If the chinese workers joined the CCP and the KMT indifferently with the same nationalist motives, there would be no left wing in this story either.

Would the situation be different if say the PLFP were in HAMAS' place, the same nationalism, but with a little socialist rhetoric?It would simply be what you say it would be : the same, except for the socialist rhetoric. That would suppose a high tolerance for contradictions, though. Too much for it to be a realistic possibility : a movement gathering socialist militants could not take an active part in such an absurd war, i think.

Charles Xavier

13th January 2009, 16:16

If you do not support the Palestinians struggle for independence you are a loud mouth windbag pretending to be a leftist. You are not a communist, you are serving the interests of the Imperialists.

You can criticize Hamas all you want but they are the ones fighting. What alternative the solution submit to the will of the Conquerors? That's what the Imperialists want, you support the Imperialists if you don't support the fightback regardless of who is doing the fighting. I have respect for someone in Hamas, its a political party where the members must be willing to sacrifice their lives for their homeland, I know they are not the only group resisting, but they are the ones doing the bulk of the fighting.

If the United States invaded Venezuela and wanted to take all of Venezuela's oil. The communist in Venezuela would welcome all Venezuelans left or right to fight the Imperialists. You don't have to be a communist, a syndicalist, an anarchist or whatever to fight against Imperialism. If you believe this you are more sectarian than Trotskyites I know.

In Bulgaria and most of Eastern Europe Communist parties united with other leftists and even right wing organizations to fight against the Nazi's oppression or their fascist puppet governments. Are you going to tell them they can't do this because some of them were Religious? Are these people who fought the Nazis and were religious or right-wing ,enemies of the people on this basis? Or that were Nationalists because they didn't respect the International Oppression of the Nazis?

Whats the Solution if not to support Resistance group; either support Israel or sit on the fence in this obvious Imperialist war?

Annie K.

13th January 2009, 16:43

Lynx

13th January 2009, 20:45

A note of reality creeps in. Unfortunately fleeing is not an option.
Fleeing should be an option. It is the least the international community could offer.

Devrim

13th January 2009, 20:51

Fleeing should be an option. It is the least the international community could offer.

How do they get out? I believe the boarders are controlled by Israel.

Devrim

Annie K.

13th January 2009, 21:38

Lynx

14th January 2009, 06:02

A civilized world would offer Palestinians the right to emigrate to a country of their choice. A formal declaration of this right may well be too much to hope for given the mentality of most of the world's leadership. So we have millions of refugees living in camps around the world for decades now.

Devrim

14th January 2009, 07:17

I think the south border is now controlled only by the egyptian army. One of the reasons why it is closed is that the egyptian government fear the augmentation of the islamist opposition's influence in egypt if the palestinians start to immigrate.

This implies that it is not:

Rafah Border Crossing Rafah is the site of the Rafah Border Crossing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafah_Border_Crossing), the only crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt. Formerly operated by Israeli military forces, control of the crossing was transferred to the Palestinian Authority (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_Authority) in September 2005 as part of the larger Israeli withdrawal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel%27s_unilateral_disengagement_plan) from the Gaza Strip. A European Union commission began monitoring (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_Border_Assistance_Mission_Rafah) the crossing in November 2005 amid Israeli security concerns, and in April 2006 Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmoud_Abbas)'s Presidential Guard assumed responsibility for the site.[9] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafah#cite_note-8)
On 2 am on January 23, 2008, the border crossing was breached (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_breach_of_the_Gaza%E2%80%93Egypt_border) after gunmen set off an explosion nearby, destroying part of the Israeli Gaza Strip barrier (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_Gaza_Strip_barrier). Over the next four days, approximately 700,000 Palestinians (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinians) crossed into Egypt, most planning to buy supplies and return to Gaza. A smaller number of Egyptians crossed into Gaza.

Devrim

Annie K.

14th January 2009, 10:13

Absolute control is difficult. There is also a number of tunnels for illegal traffics under the border, and time to time tsahal comes to destroy some of them : that's what ended the truce with the hamas in november.
If the border crossing was breached, that supposes that it was closed. And if you meant that the palestinian who crossed the border at this time did not have the intent to stay in egypt, that can be explained by the lack of time they had to prepare for this opportunity, and the immediate priority of acquiring supplies to assure the living of their families.

Devrim

14th January 2009, 10:59

I think it is closed and it is difficult to flee. During the last Lebanese war there were hundreds of thousands of refugees. This time I haven't heard anything similar. I don't think people can flee. I am not sure who is keeping the boarder closed, maybe Israel, maybe Egypt, but I think it is closed.

Devrim

Charles Xavier

14th January 2009, 13:26

The goal of Israel governement is not to conquer the gaza strip, it is to maintain the state of war. The hamas resistance is serving the interests of the imperialists.

Frankly, I said it : I have no solution to offer. Blind sacrifice, for homeland or for anything else, is not a solution, and neither is submission. I have no respect for either. If you think that the exigence of individual sacrifice gives any value to the dead men, you are not a communist, you're a christian.

I'm not saying that cooperation with conservative forces in a national liberation movement is necessarily corrupting. I'm saying that the hamas don't cooperate with progressive forces.

Hamas is the Palestinian people. And fuck your retarded white flag approach to the events unfolding. Fighting the Imperialists as they come into your cities and bomb your neighborhood is serving the interests of these same imperialists? You must be a closet fascist. Your brain isn't wired correctly to come to that conclusion. The Palestinian people cannot just say hey Israel come in! Commit Genocide against us! We won't fight back!

The border is closed, the Egyptian Army is allied with Israel and blew up the tunnels and haves machine gun nests ready and waiting to shoot crossing Palestinians. The Egyptian working class came out in the tens of thousands to protest this at the Rafah crossing and to protest any gunning down of the Palestinians.

Annie K. You are showing yourself to be a a european chauvanist.

Hamas is the democratically elected representative of the people of Palestine. Everyone who does not recognize this is a spokesman for Imperialism.

I think the south border is now controlled only by the egyptian army. One of the reasons why it is closed is that the egyptian government fear the augmentation of the islamist opposition's influence in egypt if the palestinians start to immigrate.

Wow you are a racist too.

Annie K.

14th January 2009, 13:48

Fighting the Imperialists as they come into your cities and bomb your neighborhood is serving the interests of these same imperialists?Why not ? You really think that their 13 soldiers dead are a concern for the israeli governement ? Be realistic.

Annie K. You are showing yourself to be a a european chauvanist.
Hamas is the democratically elected representative of the people of Palestine. Everyone who does not recognize this is a spokesman for Imperialism.I don't mind your insults, but I don't understand how you choose them. Yes, the hamas has been democratically elected. So what ? Bush and Olmert too. The UMP and the Labour are part of the democratically elected representation of the french and the british people (other representatives has been elected, and in palestine too), that does not legitimate their power or make their policies better as far as i'm concerned. I'm not a democrat, i'm a revolutionnary.

Wow you are a racist too. Lolwat ?

duffers

14th January 2009, 13:53

Charles Xavier

14th January 2009, 16:12

It is a ruling class aspect of the Palestinans. I agree with the sentiment of matching fire with fire of imperialism, but it is folly to not see how that is either in the interest of the Israeli or Palestinan governments. There is no third option, no working class front to combat both.

The Palestinans have their backs against the wall, and there is no option. They cannot fight even if they desired to. Hamas in turn, fire their rockets and wage war, but rely on the sacrifice of the proletariat.

Annie K. is right on the money, but is in no way displaying European chauvinism whatsoever. She's giving the dialectical, materialist response to the conflict, one that is adhered to by communists (you are a Leninist, therefore not a communist).

And Olmert is the democratically elected representative of the people of Israel. Are you a spokesperson for imperialism in denouncing that government?

Laughable claims of racism upon making a correct assertion that there is possible Islamist elements in Palestine, notably Hamas themselves. Furthermore, Islamists are a follower of an ideology, not a race. Ridiculous behaviour.

Palestine never invaded Lebanon and Israel, they are not trying to subvert the illegal government of israel who is continually annexing their territory. It is pure chauvanism. This is barbarity, when the US invades Iraq did you yell to the Iraqi working class to lay down their arms? When Germany invaded Poland was your battlecry Polish workers surrender! When the US invaded Vietnam was your answer, Vietnamese the US Imperialists must not be resisted because they too tough and by fighting them you are playing into the hands of the Imperialists. When US invaded Cuba in 1961 was the answer, surrender victorious revolutionaries, because people will die!

Submit or Fight ? is the question and you tell me the answer is Submit? What kind of revolutionary are you? You are so ultra-left, nothing is better to describe you than infantile . You might as well supply arms to the reactionary armies of the world, build their bombs. Your position isn't any better.

Jorge Miguel

14th January 2009, 16:30

http://lolsome.files.wordpress.com/2007/09/stalin.jpg

duffers

14th January 2009, 17:51

BobKKKindle$

14th January 2009, 18:11

How could it be in their own interest to join islamist militias directly controled by a conservative governement ?There is no other option for Palestinian workers who want to resist imperialism at the current time because Hamas dominates the resistance struggle, both through their military actions, and also the fact that Hamas has a major role in providing essential services which might not otherwise be obtainable due to a lack of funds, such as education and the reconstruction of buildings which have been destroyed as a result of Israeli attacks, and so workers will continue to support Hamas forever unless socialists living inside Gaza and throughout the world become part of the struggle against Israel and create their own anti-imperialist organizations. We've already established that the proletariat is the main victim of imperialism and has a material interest in resisting imperialism by whatever means possible, and so how can socalists possibly expect workers to break away from reactionary organizations such as Hamas if there are no alternative methods of resistance available? This is a general principle which can applied to all countries which have been faced with military invasion by an imperialist power - in China, for example, workers would inevitably have turned to the KMT if the CCP had refused to fight Japanese militarism, and this would have set the working-class movement back by decades.

Can Left-Communists point to a single example of workers who are being bombed and oppressed by an imperialist power not wanting to fight back?

Devrim

14th January 2009, 18:39

Can Left-Communists point to a single example of workers who are being bombed and oppressed by an imperialist power not wanting to fight back?

It is not about not wanting to fight back. It is about not wanting to fight for your nation.

The most obvious example of a country which was being attacked by an imperialist power, and workers refused to defend the nation is Russia in 1917.

Devrim

Charles Xavier

14th January 2009, 18:45

You made the remark that Hamas are the democratically elected government; as are the vast majority of imperialist governments. This is moot, and doesn't make their actions any more acceptable than coming from a dictatorship.

All those struggles you listed, had choices about their existence, whether to flee, fight a bourgeois nationalist war, or the third option, a class war one. They would unfortunately chose the second in most case. But they were not without a decision, unlike the Palestinans. Like the people they claim to represent, Hamas cannot fight either. Both are powerless to the brute force of Israel.

Again, there is no answer to that question. They need to exist, which is of the greatest importance. But there is no reason workers should die for those reactionary armies you describe, like Hamas. If they wish to wage war, they should get off their arse and do it. But as always, it is the proletariat that suffers, whether it is in the Gaza Strip or Israel.

You describe Hamas as reactionary but they are playing a much more left wing progressive role in the situation, while you are offering a reactionary solution of "Give up guys, Israel has a good army."

The Israeli army cannot win against Palestine unless they kill off the whole population. For every 1 Palestinian Fighter they kill 10 more come. Palestinians will have victory it is inevitable, it may take 100 years but their victory is inevitable.

You are the one to be called a reactionary. Hamas in their struggle against Israel are just as good as any communist, in their anti-imperialist role, they are supported by the population at large not because they conservative Muslims, but because they are showing themselves to be leaders against Israel aggression.

Left-communists on the other hand do not have any support at all in Palestine.

duffers

14th January 2009, 18:46

BobKKKindle$

14th January 2009, 18:47

The most obvious example of a country which was being attacked by an imperialist power, and workers refused to defend the nation is Russia in 1917.This discussion is about a nation suffering from imperialist oppression - Palestine. Russia was not an oppressed nation, as it included many oppressed nationalities within its own borders, despite the fact that Russia only emerged late on the world scene during the course of the 19th century and was unable to develop a strong industrial sector without the investment of other countries, such as France. Socialists adopt different tactics, and raise different slogans, depending on whether we are talking about an oppressor nation, or an oppressed nation. Can you provide an example of the workers of an oppressed nation such as Palestine not fighting back (i.e. taking up arms, or giving support to a resistance movement - regardless of whether you see this as driven by nationalism or material realities) against imperialism?

workers should embrace bourgeois nationalism.Workers are not opposed to Zionism (solely) because they have fallen under the influence of bourgeois nationalism, but because fighting back against an imperialist power is a sensible response when your house has been bombed and your community destroyed.

, nor any other left communist suggests fighting back is inheritantly wrong. What is, is doing so in the name of the bourgeois.Except, Left-Communists living in Gaza (assuming they exist for a moment - obviously this is an absurd assumption) are not trying to stop workers from turning to Hamas and other reactionary organizations. If they really wanted to do this, they would be creating organizations of their own, in order to provide workers with a new and more progressive way to fight against imperialism. Again: If Hamas is the only option for workers who want to fight against imperialism, then how can socialists to gain any support amongst the Palestinian working class, given that workers are the main victims of imperialism and have an objective interest in fighting against imperialism, and so are unlikely to sit back and let bombs fall on their houses and Israel troops enter their cities?

Charles Xavier

14th January 2009, 18:52

"Resisting imperialism" no matter how romantic that sounds, is completely fruitless, given the circumstances for those in Gaza.

Hamas runs those services required for the community, because it's the government elected. It is the least of their duty. This doesn't mean blood should be shed as a result.

It is not an acceptable conclusion that because there's a lack of class consciousness, workers should embrace bourgeois nationalism. From the world over, it has proved to serve only the ruling class' interests; it goes without saying, if it's not the Israeli ruling class acting as the cream of the crop, it would undoubtedly be the Islamists.

I, nor any other left communist suggests fighting back is inheritantly wrong. What is, is doing so in the name of the bourgeois. They must take to the streets themselves, and do the usual worker's job, if that's what they wish. The workers should only take armaments in the event that they can procure a victory from a class war. Until then, they must simply survive.

Palestine didn't want this war, Israel did. This is class war, this is 100% a class war. The extermination, annexationist policy of an imperialist power resorting to shear barbarity. You have a people's starved to death and bomb, workers if they do not take arms will be exterminated. Palestine is an oppressed nation subjected to many untold horrors, Israel is an Imperialist power.

You do not understand the national question or national liberation, you are a sloganeer who learned by rote, memorizing slogans and not understanding their essence. They are not doing this for the bourgeoisie, they are doing this for the survival of their people.

It is not about not wanting to fight back. It is about not wanting to fight for your nation.

The most obvious example of a country which was being attacked by an imperialist power, and workers refused to defend the nation is Russia in 1917.

Devrim

Russia was an imperialist country engaged in an Imperialist war, Palestine is a semi-colonial oppressed nation being invaded by an imperialist power. The situations are completely different if you cannot tell the difference you are nothing but a fool and not a communist.

duffers

14th January 2009, 18:55

Charles Xavier

14th January 2009, 19:07

They are as reactionary as any religious fundamental; in that, they are kept in good company. There is no nation more "progressive" than the other in this conflict. They both have something to gain, whilst the worker; nothing.

The Irish went down this very same route. It descended into a sectarian, anti-working class war, that led nowhere, separated the working class in the north from the south, and created more of a gulf between the people than ever occurred in history. The victory for a nation, whether Israel or Palestine is indeed inevitable, but for the proletariat, it is to never come, unless they remove these shackles of inequality. Nationalism is never the answer, temporarily or otherwise. Like the Leninist notion of a transitional state, it is proven to be a mistress that won't disperse.

But anti-imperialism is one component of communism. We as communists don't wish for imperialism to be abolished; we want the source of it gone, so that it can never have the condition to foster and breed. Hamas may be forced into the role of anti-imperialist, but by virtue, it is equally anti-working class, anti-equality, and anti-freedom.

I have no remark as to the Muslim's disposition, but I don't believe they find anything commendable in the rockets fired, which justify their murder by the IDF.

We communists know that Imperialism is a part of Capitalism, but as communists we do not say, things are inevitable, just accept it, no we say things must change, we must fight.

You can look at the class forces driving the war, it is the bourgeioisie in Israel, you can look at the class forces driving the resistance it is the working masses, you can plainly see what side the war of resistance is on

And from this war, what do the Palestinian bourgeioisie have to gain? Bombed infrastructure? overcrowded hospitals? a starved population? exploding bombs? The Palestinian bourgeioisie are seen by the Palestinian Prime Minister, they want the Palestinian people to submit.

What do the Palestinian workers have to gain? Peace an end to the siege, a chance for education, health care, recreation, and life?

And you call the Hamas fighting against freedom yet you are telling the Palestinian people to surrender and give up their freedom you are a hypocrite. There will be no debate on rights of women, union rights, equality in the middle of a war, where their government is being prevented from meeting.

Don't even begin with Ireland you speak of things you do not understand.

duffers

14th January 2009, 19:17

You hear that Devrim, I'm do not understand the national question nor national liberation!

That is right, in accordance to being a left communist. There is neither, the question and liberation is of the working class. Until then, both Israeli and Palestinan is in fear of their respective state's action; Israel, with their antagonistic of the Palestinans, resulting in rockets hitting their workers, and Palestine, enforcing repression upon their people, and having them suffer for their actions.

There is no class war occurring here, quite the opposite. This is a flexing of the capitalist muscle.

Bob, fighting against imperialism is crucial, the quarrel isn't with that, as I've expressed before. The quarrel is infact marrying anti-imperialism with nationalism. This is paradoxical, especially when Hamas seeks to exact the same authority upon the Israeli populace. You cannot have one without the other. Until there is the class option of warfare, then this holds no worth whatsoever, to the worker.

How communism (because despite the prefix, we're communists, and you're not) can impress upon the proletariat is to articulate the point, that to fight imperialism, you must fight the advocation of it yourself; this is the result of a state, and for that reason, it must be destroyed.

The Feral Underclass

14th January 2009, 19:22

The central argument that these "anti-imperialists" make is that calling for working class liberation and doing not doing anything that would essentially negate that principle, is "unrealistic" and therefore we should support whoever is popular at the time, no matter what their politics.

Utter nonsense.

Cumannach

14th January 2009, 19:59

Since some of the comrades brought up Ireland, let's compare the lot of the Irish people, after the partial success of their national liberation struggle and the condition of the Palestinian people over the last few years who so far haven't succeeded in theirs.

Will any comrade seriously try to say that the national liberation struggle of the Irish was meaningless, of no use, after they make this comparison?

Likewise compare the condition of the class struggle in liberated Ireland, and occupied Palestine. Especially compare the conditions for waging the class struggle in the two countries, which are more favourable?

I think it's clear that the conditions are significantly more favourable in Ireland, especially since there is no distraction of a nationalist liberation struggle to deal with.

And this while Ireland is only partly liberated!

Annie K.

14th January 2009, 21:17

And from this war, what do the Palestinian bourgeioisie have to gain? Bombed infrastructure? overcrowded hospitals? a starved population? exploding bombs?
What do the Palestinian workers have to gain? Peace an end to the siege, a chance for education, health care, recreation, and life?Ideology is really a terrible thing. How can your vision of this conflict be so distorted ? You haven't even to look at the situation to understand its absurdity, basic logic will suffice. It's the palestinian workers who fight, die and starve, not the bourgeoisie, why should the price of the war be better for them ? And if ever they could win peace and the end of the blockade by throwing some rockets, the end of the blockade under the reactionnary power of the hamas would only mean more and safer profits for the bourgeoisie.
It may seems surprising to you, georgi, but you remind me of george orwell - in gaza, war is peace, freedom is slavery, and ignorance is strength ?

It's a underlying danger of marxism leninism : the core idea of the unavoidable sacrifice of the revolutionnary movement to the power of the party tend to contaminate any other reflexion, and in time one will have difficulties to distinguish martyrdom from liberation. But I never expected these difficulties to be insurmountable.

Likewise compare the condition of the class struggle in liberated Ireland, and occupied Palestine.One of the key elements of the situation is that the hamas is not able to end the occupation.

Charles Xavier

14th January 2009, 23:21

Ideology is really a terrible thing. How can your vision of this conflict be so distorted ? You haven't even to look at the situation to understand its absurdity, basic logic will suffice. It's the palestinian workers who fight, die and starve, not the bourgeoisie, why should the price of the war be better for them ? And if ever they could win peace and the end of the blockade by throwing some rockets, the end of the blockade under the reactionnary power of the hamas would only mean more and safer profits for the bourgeoisie.
It may seems surprising to you, georgi, but you remind me of george orwell - in gaza, war is peace, freedom is slavery, and ignorance is strength ?

It's a underlying danger of marxism leninism : the core idea of the unavoidable sacrifice of the revolutionnary movement to the power of the party tend to contaminate any other reflexion, and in time one will have difficulties to distinguish martyrdom from liberation. But I never expected these difficulties to be insurmountable.

One of the key elements of the situation is that the hamas is not able to end the occupation.

Hamas didn't start the occupation, they are struggling against it, I don't pretend they are a party of the working class, they are an anti-imperialist party and in this point in the struggle we should support them against the occupation, the people of Gaza have a right to defend themselves, the reasons to support Hamas is not on the basis they are Religious Fundamentalists but on the basis they are anti-imperialists in the middle of an imperialist country invading.

The Palestinian bourgeioisie are represented by Fatah who wants to submit to Israel and have business as usual and have their reformist discussion that haven't done anything within the past 10 years.

Whats the alternative? Roll over and die? The Palestinian people have died enough already.

What is right today might be wrong tomorrow its part of the dialectic, but right now its the duty of all Anti-Imperialists to cry out against this monstrious war and defend the Palestinian's right to resist.

What I find harilious about Left Communism is that their greatest enemy is not the capitalist class but of other groups and organizations resisting imperialism who are not them. If you don't want to work together please get off the bus.

GX.

15th January 2009, 05:58

black magick hustla

15th January 2009, 07:10

imperialist imperialist imperialist.......its hilarious that all you cats who talk about anti-imperialist are from "imperialist countries" while us folks who defend internationalist positions are not.

GX.

15th January 2009, 07:55

The Feral Underclass

15th January 2009, 11:10

Internationalists don't talk about imperialism then?

I think Marmot's point is rather more profound than this petulant comment would give it credit.

Devrim

15th January 2009, 11:31

This discussion is about a nation suffering from imperialist oppression - Palestine. Russia was not an oppressed nation, as it included many oppressed nationalities within its own borders, despite the fact that Russia only emerged late on the world scene during the course of the 19th century and was unable to develop a strong industrial sector without the investment of other countries, such as France. Socialists adopt different tactics, and raise different slogans, depending on whether we are talking about an oppressor nation, or an oppressed nation.

I don't think that the whole idea of an 'oppressed nation' and an 'oppressor nation' has anything to offer communist theory in the present period. Is Iraq an oppressed nation? I presume that the leftists would argue that it is. Yet Iraq also 'included many oppressed nationalities within its own borders' just as you say Russia did. We could use the Kurds for an example. Are they then an 'oppressed nation'? Yet if we look a little deeper, we can see ethnic cleansing carried out by Kurdish militias, so are they an 'oppressor' nation? The worst comment I heard on these lines was a PKK man telling me that when they had Kurdistan they would kill all of the Alevis. So what are you proposing, a Middle East of a hundred flags where every ethnic/religious group has its own state? I think I know where we have heard similar things before.

Of course this analysis has nothin at all to say about class because it is not a class analysis. It is a nationalist one.

Can you provide an example of the workers of an oppressed nation such as Palestine not fighting back (i.e. taking up arms, or giving support to a resistance movement - regardless of whether you see this as driven by nationalism or material realities) against imperialism?

If you consider Iraq an oppresed nation, the end of the first Gulf war saw mass desertions, and mutinies in the Iraq army and a refusal to fight for the defence of the state.

Except, Left-Communists living in Gaza (assuming they exist for a moment - obviously this is an absurd assumption)...

There are no left communists in Gaza to our knowledge.

are not trying to stop workers from turning to Hamas and other reactionary organizations. If they really wanted to do this, they would be creating organizations of their own, in order to provide workers with a new and more progressive way to fight against imperialism.

This is absolute voluntarism. Communist militants do not create the fighting organisations of the class, the class does that itself. Basically, the working class is Palestine is so utterly defeated that it can not in anyway defend its own interests. Communists can't change this by will power alone.

Again: If Hamas is the only option for workers who want to fight against imperialism, then how can socialists to gain any support amongst the Palestinian working class, given that workers are the main victims of imperialism and have an objective interest in fighting against imperialism, and so are unlikely to sit back and let bombs fall on their houses and Israel troops enter their cities?

Do you think HAMAS are stopping the bombs falling on Gaza? I didn't notice that happening. I don't think that HAMAS is 'fighting against imperialism'. I think that HAMAS is a part of the imperialist system. It is fighting against Israli imperialism, but that is a different thing.

Devrim

Devrim

15th January 2009, 11:37

Whats the alternative? Roll over and die? The Palestinian people have died enough already.

Yes, and you are encouraging more to go out and die.

What I find harilious about Left Communism is that their greatest enemy is not the capitalist class but of other groups and organizations resisting imperialism who are not them. If you don't want to work together please get off the bus.

We are not 'on the bus' if the bus that you refer to is bourgeois nationalism. It is a bus that communists need to get off.

you know these people do not want to fight imperialism. For them, Let's be absolutely clear, none of the Stalinists or their Trotskyist friends on this thread 'want to fight imperialism'. They want little brown people in poor countries to die doing it.

Devrim

Devrim

15th January 2009, 11:39

You hear that Devrim, I'm do not understand the national question nor national liberation!

I think it is the same line that you threw at me. It is a completely Stalinist argument which isn't based on discussing at all.

Devrim

Dean

15th January 2009, 11:56

On a final note, the claim in the second article that the US' support for Israel is due to the domestic influence of a Zionist lobby is wrong, and can easily lead to anti-semitic conclusions, and obscures the fundamental importance of imperialism, as explained here: http://www.socialistreview.org.uk/article.php?articlenumber=9762
1. That article is specifically about claims surrounding the Iraq war, it doesn't mention U.S.-Israeli military and economic cooperation.

2. Not once does the article mention AIPAC. What it does do is to use "Israeli Lobby" and "Jewish Lobby" interchangably and points to the ethic and religious background of Jewish people as the identifier which would dictate whether or not the U.S. has a firm pro-Israel lobby. To Chris Harman, nearly half of the Jews in the U.S. did not want war with Iraq, which means - somehow - that Israel didn't want war with Iraq.

3. Hamas is not "attacking its countrymen." This is a vile lie meant to isolate the primary cource of resistance in Gaza. Hamas won the elections - at which point Fatah dissolved the government. Various leaders of the fledgling state were assassinated by Israel. Hamas, enjoying overwhelming support in the disparate Gaza Strip, of course was able to seize power from Fatah.

The infighting is the fight between moderation and extremism. Fatah's political allegiance has always been primarily based in teh West Bank; as a result, as well as Fatah's extremely repressive, pro-Israel policies, Hamas gained increasing support.

The purist abstraction and opposition to weak resistance movements is pure crap. But so is the abstraction which leads to an overly-simplified, dismissive attitude about the conflict.

Charles Xavier

15th January 2009, 13:48

Hamas is now an Imperialist power according to Devrim, but this guy isn't some slouch he understands what imperialism is, Imperialism is anything that he doesn't like.

And National Liberation! How dare you liberate your country from Imperialist conquerors! Thats bourgeioisie Nationalism!!! Of course I don't understand what bourgeioisie nationalism is.... I found the phrase in a book!

My Message for the people of Palestine! For the sake of trying out half baked ICC theory, Go home and die! Submit to the will of Israel! Nations don't exist! This is all in your mind!

Let's be absolutely clear, none of the Stalinists or their Trotskyist friends on this thread 'want to fight imperialism'. They want little brown people in poor countries to die doing it.

DevrimFirst of all appealing to an ethnicity is a lame ass attempt to cover up your swiss cheese argument.

Second, how do you know my ethnicity? You don't even know where I was born. Maybe I'm Iraqi, Cuban, Venezuelan, Chinese, Palestinian, Irish, Colombian, South African, Vietnamese?

So this is besides the point, I live in Canada. I do not take pleasure in war, what Israel is doing against Palestine is a horrible genocide against the people. I in no way want the people of Palestine to be submitted to such a terrible act. I wish that all of Israel's weapons just disappear or the Palestinians had weapons equal or greater to that of Israel. So that is be a fair fight. This is not the situation.

So Israel invaded Palestine, what solution do you purpose? From what I read, you purpose not doing anything. You purpose cooperating with the Imperialist powers. The Imperialist powers want to annex the territory of Palestine. You purpose not doing anything. Cooperating with the Imperialist powers? What would this accomplish?

The solution you are telling the Palestinians is that both sides are bad, Palestinian people don't have a right to exist, don't do anything against the invasion.

This has nothing to do with one has to be brown to support the Palestinians. This has to do with which side is justly fighting for their homeland which side is fighting for Imperialism.

I support the Palestinian's right to exist and as such their right to resist. If you don't you are a loud mouth who cannot be called a communist of any stripe.

benhur

15th January 2009, 14:08

Let's be absolutely clear, none of the Stalinists or their Trotskyist friends on this thread 'want to fight imperialism'. They want little brown people in poor countries to die doing it.

Devrim

Devrim, this struck a chord. Do you really believe that communists in western societies actually have such a patronizing attitude? Considering this thread, bobkindles, dimitrov and other members are just kids in college, maybe, they're just misguided and fanatical, very much like adherents to a new religion?

Devrim

15th January 2009, 15:52

Hamas is now an Imperialist power according to Devrim, but this guy isn't some slouch he understands what imperialism is, Imperialism is anything that he doesn't like.

I didn't say that. HAMAS is not of course an imperialist power. However, it is used by the local powers such as Iran and Syria, and in the past was used (and even funded) by Israel itself.

And National Liberation! How dare you liberate your country from Imperialist conquerors! Thats bourgeioisie Nationalism!!! Of course I don't understand what bourgeioisie nationalism is.... I found the phrase in a book!

Actually, I am a communist. It means I don't go on about 'my country'.

My Message for the people of Palestine! For the sake of trying out half baked ICC theory, Go home and die! Submit to the will of Israel! Nations don't exist! This is all in your mind!

Whereas your message is go out and die rather than stay at home and die. Actually I don't say go home and die. I say do what ever you can to survive. I don't pretend that they can win some glorious victory, which all the left seem to be saying.

So Israel invaded Palestine, what solution do you purpose? From what I read, you purpose not doing anything. You purpose cooperating with the Imperialist powers. The Imperialist powers want to annex the territory of Palestine. You purpose not doing anything. Cooperating with the Imperialist powers? What would this accomplish?

I am saying clearly that the working class is so week that it is virtually incapable of doing anything. I am saying that there is probably no solution within capitalism.

And I am saying that all those who call on workers to die for some glorious revolution that they know isn't going to happen are liars.

This has nothing to do with one has to be brown to support the Palestinians.

That isn't what I said. What I said was the all of the leftists on here talking about supporting the resistance are not the ones doing the dying. It is very easy to call on people to die from another continent.

I support the Palestinian's right to exist and as such their right to resist. If you don't you are a loud mouth who cannot be called a communist of any stripe.

If somebody with your sort of Stalinist politics thought that I was a communist, I would know that I was doing something wrong. Generally, the sort of response that you get from the official CPs is being slandered, lied about, and grassed up to the police. When those things happen you know you are doing something right.

Thankfully the ideas of the CPs are largly becoming descredited amongst workers. So rant on about 'national rights' and whatever other nonsense you want to. I don't really think that it needs responding to.

Devrim

Louis Pio

15th January 2009, 16:10

I don't agree with any of the sides in this debate as it have been put forward yet. I find the leftcommunists dismissal of any form of national struggle to be totally besides the point.

However the other sides argument that support for the palestinians means unconditional support for Hamas is also quite wrong in my oppinion. I think the posters have failed to understand the history and role of Hamas or why they were voted into power. Also the argument that support for Hamas is support for the struggle against israeli aggression is fallacious since Hamas time and time again have made "peacedeals" with the israelis that solve none of the fundamental problems facing the palestinian people. I think it's also in this light that the firing of the extremely primitive Qassam rockets should be seen, it's a meager attempt from the side of Hamas to show "that they are doing something".

About the role of Hamas I think we need to bear in mind that this group was among the groups that was actually supported by Israel in the 80'ies to counter the secular/communist groups. The Israeli top knew very well that these groups would make their own agenda much easier.
Yes Hamas is the democratically elected government at this point and it is true that the Israeli and US response to election of them amounts to "you can have democracy if you vote for the right ones".
But making the assumption that Hamas election makes them "the palestinian people" is in my oppinion just extremely stupid and quite the slippery slope in regards to other regimes.
Hamas won because of the extreme corruption of Fatah, anyone that has been to the Gaza strip can tetify to that. There is no alternative.
Anyone that really has the cause of the palestinians in mind would fight to build that alternative, and you don't do that by unconditional support for Hamas or by totally neglecting the national question.

Cumannach

15th January 2009, 18:40

comrade Teis,

I don't think anyone is calling for un-conditional support of Hamas. The most effective means for resistance, meagre though they be, are in the hands of Hamas and Hamas is the only existing highly organised resistance force. Hamas whatever they have done in the past, in the present have as their objective the expulsion of the murderous Israeli military machine from the Gaza strip and the improvement of the dire humanitarian crisis there, which is the result of Israeli blockades.

The most immediate effective means for achieving the aim of saving hundreds of Palestinian lives and making a million Palestinian lives something more than dire and intolerable are the utilisation of the machinery of Hamas for this purpose and the immediate re-enforcement and strengthening of that organisation's resistance capacity.

In a state of War and blockade it's not possible to build an armed Bolshevik party with the purest ideological principles informing it's every action.

The alternative is, to do nothing, allow the Israeli savages inflict the maximum number of civilian casualties with impunity, allow them to continue to make the Gaza strip the starving wretched prison it is, and allow all socialists or leftists or progressives in Palestine lose all credibility and support in the eyes of the people.

Louis Pio

15th January 2009, 21:38

In a state of War and blockade it's not possible to build an armed Bolshevik party with the purest ideological principles informing it's every action.

Actually I would have to somewhat disagree, of course a state of war offers certain limitations in the building of such.
Tanken to it's logical conclusion your argument means war equals no talk of socialism, only in the furture far far away when the conflict is resolved can we start taking about socialism. At least that's were I see your argument going. I think it's quite naive to think that their will be any solution to the conflict inside the confines of capitalism.
But of course armed struggle against the IDF is on the agenda now, however if this armed struggle is carried out without other political aim than that of Hamas it's just sending people to die for nothing.

Btw it seems the Hamas leaders are going to sign yet another "ceasefire", were does that leave your argument?

Cumannach

15th January 2009, 22:00

Actually I would have to somewhat disagree, of course a state of war offers certain limitations in the building of such.
Tanken to it's logical conclusion your argument means war equals no talk of socialism, only in the furture far far away when the conflict is resolved can we start taking about socialism. At least that's were I see your argument going. I think it's quite naive to think that their will be any solution to the conflict inside the confines of capitalism.
But of course armed struggle against the IDF is on the agenda now, however if this armed struggle is carried out without other political aim than that of Hamas it's just sending people to die for nothing.

Btw it seems the Hamas leaders are going to sign yet another "ceasefire", were does that leave your argument?

I was wrong to say "state of war"; of course class struggle is perfectly possible in wartime, it hardly needs to be said - Russia was at war in 1917.

The words I should have used are 'state of total, brutal, military occupation. There's nowhere in Gaza right now you could set up a party congress or any kind of socialist conference, or even a trade union meeting- as bombs and bullets are raining down on the whole strip blowing up buildings left and right. The immediate tasks of the class struggle in Gaza right now are the creation of the conditions to actually wage it- the ejection of the Israeli terrorist army.

As for the ceasefire I don't get your point; a temporary ceasefire is a perfectly valid tactic in armed conflicts- especially if it gives civilians breathing space.

I think it's naive to assume that socialists or progressives are incapable of strategically supporting bourgeois nationalists without becoming irresistibly subsumed into their movement and losing their independence of mind.

Also, support of the anti-occupationary aspect of Hamas is not an assumption that this will speedily result in a total 'solving' of the conflict. But it will possibly make a real difference and hopefully be the first baby-step towards that ultimate goal.

Louis Pio

15th January 2009, 22:09

Also, support of the anti-occupationary aspect of Hamas is not an assumption that this will speedily result in a total 'solving' of the conflict. But it will possibly make a real difference and hopefully be the first baby-step towards that ultimate goal.

Well Israel is not going to occupy Gaza for a long time, none of the ISraeli leaders desire that. They will pull out and then they can attack again in another year time. Or basically when they desire so.

The immediate tasks of the class struggle in Gaza right now are the creation of the conditions to actually wage it- the ejection of the Israeli terrorist army.

Indeed but that will also mean building an alternative to Hamas and not just tailing along, without any independent political line also during a military conflict how is this going to happen? I don't know about your line on this question but at least the SWP's is totally horrendous in that aspect.

Hit The North

15th January 2009, 23:30

Indeed but that will also mean building an alternative to Hamas and not just tailing along, without any independent political line also during a military conflict how is this going to happen? I don't know about your line on this question but at least the SWP's is totally horrendous in that aspect.

Explain.

Louis Pio

16th January 2009, 00:00

Well Swp is quite frankly totally uncritical of Hamas, basically their line is hamas is the palestinian people, statements like this:

But Hamas remains the legitimate government of Palestine – and the bearer of a tradition of Palestinian resistance.
From http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=16811
Shows the total inability of them to even just try to analyse the role that Hamas plays.
Another example here http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=16777
Basically SWP acts as a microphoneholder for Hamas and fails to bring forward any independent position, actually they are quite litterally acting as microphoneholders as seen here http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=8204

Of course this position comes from a long flow of mistakes starting with "the prohet and the proletariat" and ending up with SWP now also cheerleading the regime in Iran.
A position our iranian comrades recently published a lenghty critique of in english
http://www.marxist.com/why-marxists-not-support-islamic-fundamentalists-1.htm
http://www.marxist.com/why-marxists-not-support-islamic-fundamentalists-2.htm

Hit The North

16th January 2009, 00:22

From http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=16811 (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=16811)
Shows the total inability of them to even just try to analyse the role that Hamas plays.On the contrary, the article expressly argues that the role Hamas plays is within the tradition of Palestinian opposition to Israel - especially when compared to Fatah.

Another example here http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=16777 (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=16777)Again, this article reiterates the argument that Fatah is conciliationist towards Israel whereas Hamas maintains a realistic opposition to Israeli oppression.

At some point you're going to have to deny the truth of these claims.

Meanwhile you fail to provide any shred of evidence that the SWP supports any part of Hamas's political agenda except for its continued resistance to Israeli oppression.

Louis Pio

16th January 2009, 00:52

Meanwhile you fail to provide any shred of evidence that the SWP supports any part of Hamas's political agenda except for its continued resistance to Israeli oppression

Well SWP doesn't bother with other aspects, like with their policy towards the iranian regime they are very much the picture of the ostrich burrowing it's head in the sand, or the three monkeys for that matter.
Yes Fatah is corrupt and that is the main reason for Hamas victory. But that doesn't mean "hamas is the people", it's simplified analysis and the results for SWP will not be pretty. At least it's a good thing you don't have people in those parts that would suffer the consequences of this failed theory.

Charles Xavier

16th January 2009, 01:05

Well SWP doesn't bother with other aspects, like with their policy towards the iranian regime they are very much the picture of the ostrich burrowing it's head in the sand, or the three monkeys for that matter.
Yes Fatah is corrupt and that is the main reason for Hamas victory. But that doesn't mean "hamas is the people", it's simplified analysis and the results for SWP will not be pretty. At least it's a good thing you don't have people in those parts that would suffer the consequences of this failed theory.

No, their victory in the election did not make the people support them. Their active resistance against Israel earned them that respect.

Louis Pio

16th January 2009, 01:23

No, their victory in the election did not make the people support them. Their active resistance against Israel earned them that respect.

Let's for one just assume that all that voted for them are diehard believers, and that factors such as that there wasn't any other alternative because of Fatahs blatant corruption didn't exist.

Does that equal that communists should uncritical support them in anything they does? And praise the primitive quassam rockets as a shining example of "resistance", even though they have no purpose.

I could understand the position if it was put forward by people just thinking it's injustice and having no theoretical background.
However socialists/communists who claim to be in the tradition of Marx and/or Lenin can't just limit themselves to that kinda simplified analysis. Both of them never shyed away to expose the nature of contemporary alliancepartners and put forward their own political agenda, because that's a fundamental of being a communist.

GX.

16th January 2009, 01:24

Devrim, this struck a chord. Do you really believe that communists in western societies actually have such a patronizing attitude? Considering this thread, bobkindles, dimitrov and other members are just kids in college, maybe, they're just misguided and fanatical, very much like adherents to a new religion?

You have no room to condescend. Earlier you implied that you want "little brown people" to starve under the iron fist of imperialism without resisting, because that's the "pro-worker" thing to do. You're a callous, unsympathetic asshole and now, it appears, a troll.

GX.

16th January 2009, 01:34

I think Marmot's point is rather more profound than this petulant comment would give it credit.
Sorry, I did not see anything resembling a point in that post. And my original post was apparently not profound enough for him to respond to directly. I am merely returning the same treatment.

BobKKKindle$

16th January 2009, 02:11

But that doesn't mean "hamas is the people", it's simplified analysis and the results for SWP will not be pretty. The SWP does not put forward this kind of analysis. We recognize that Islamist movements are not capable of offering a real solution to the working class and are only useful or progressive in their capacity as movements fighting against imperialism - if at some point Hamas decided to abandon this fight and become a tool of the Israeli state in the same way as Fatah and other parties which were once part of the resistance movement, we would instantly abandon our position of military support to Hamas. The SWP is not happy about the fact that Islamism has been able to establish itself at the centre of anti-imperialist movements throughout the Middle East and we would obviously prefer these struggles to be led by genuine socialist parties, but we acknowledge the reality on the ground and refuse to ignore the suffering of Palestinians solely because they have chosen to resist and express their discontent through a reactionary movement. It should be remembered that the SWP was one of the only socialist parties to take the side of the oppressed during the Soviet-Afghan war, and the failure of the left to follow our example and reject the Soviet invasion in this case had a major role in setting back the socialist movement in Afghanistan and allowing Islamist parties to capture and maintain a mass support base amongst the oppressed population.

Is Iraq an oppressed nation? I presume that the leftists would argue that it isYou are making a legitimate point, and all socialists aware of the existence of sub-imperialism within underdeveloped regions such as the Middle East. There is no reason why socialists should not also give support to other oppressed populations such as the Kurds, but we should also remain conscious of the qualitative differences between imperialism and sub-imperialism. The conquest of Iraq by the US derived from the functioning of the capitalist system during the imperialist epoch, specifically the need to find profitable outlets for capital which could not be invested in the national economy due to a crisis of profitability, as well as an accumulation of surplus goods due to an inherent crisis of overproduction. The oppression of Kurds by the Iraqi state, by contrast, is linked closely to geopolitical and historical factors, and less to the functioning of capitalism, given that the Iraqi economy does not share the same features as a country belonging to the imperialist bloc.

If you consider Iraq an oppresed nation, the end of the first Gulf war saw mass desertions, and mutinies in the Iraq army and a refusal to fight for the defence of the state.Indeed, primarily because, at that point, fighting against the invading armies did not serve the interests of the working class. If the US had entered Baghdad and attempted to establish itself as the new government with the intention of transforming Iraq into a neo-colony in order to exploit its labour and natural resources, a resistance would have emerged - this is exactly what has happened in Iraq since the second invasion in 2003 and every other country in which workers have had their homes bombed and progressive institutions eradicated.

I don't think that HAMAS is 'fighting against imperialism'. I think that HAMAS is a part of the imperialist systemLenin already dealt with this argument in his polemics with Rosa Luxemburg - the fact that the bourgeoisie of another state may sometimes use an anti-imperialist struggle to pursue its own interest does not negate the fact that struggles against imperialism are progressive and further the interests of workers throughout the world, both inside the imperialist bloc, and in countries suffering from imperialist oppression. Lenin proved this argument by drawing a parallel - the bourgeoisie of another state may occasionally benefit from or take advantage of a struggle for bourgeois democracy but this does not mean socialists should automatically abandon our support for democratic movements and ignore the obstacles posed by operating in an autocratic state.

Communist militants do not create the fighting organisations of the class, the class does that itself. This is a much broader issue, as I'm sure you agree, and has more to do with how we perceive the role of the vanguard party, and how revolutionaries should engage with other workers, but you are underestimating the capacity of revolutionaries to shape the political direction of the mass working class.

Let's be absolutely clear, none of the Stalinists or their Trotskyist friends on this thread 'want to fight imperialism'. They want little brown people in poor countries to die doing it.Devrim, I've been perfectly civil to you in this discussion, and engaged with your points, so are these crude remarks really helpful or warranted?

benhur

16th January 2009, 05:27

GX.

16th January 2009, 07:53

The only solution is, Palestinian workers must organize peaceful protests against both Israeli Zionism and Islamic fundamentalism (as characterized by hamas and other reactionaries). Doing this, they not only win the world's sympathy, but also they wouldn't give Israel a chance to attack them.

Israel is waiting for an excuse to attack and kill Palestinians, and hamas' foolish tactics are putting Palestinians in danger. By protesting peacefully, Israel would be trapped, they'd have no excuse to attack Palestinains as brutally as they did a few days ago.

When you're confronted by a powerful enemy, Gandhi's passive resistance is the best approach. It not only protects people, but wins the hearts and minds of people all over the world, PLUS it could be used to attack the bourgeois on both sides. This is the only way to care for workers.

Huh? Palestinians are under military bombardment, they literally are not able to organize peacefully against Israel! It's inhumane to ask them to respond peacefully especially given Israel's propensity to indiscrimitely kill civilians. And peaceful tactics have been tried repeatedly for decades and met with slaughter. The mere fact of resistance, of their existence as Palestinians, is threatening to Israel.

GX.

16th January 2009, 08:06

Israel is waiting for an excuse to attack and kill Palestinians, and hamas' foolish tactics are putting Palestinians in danger. By protesting peacefully, Israel would be trapped, they'd have no excuse to attack Palestinains as brutally as they did a few days ago.

And as I pointed out earlier, rockets were only the most convenient pretext to an attack months in the planning. If Israel were interested in stopping rockets, they would attempt to renew the ceasefire, they would have renewed it in December when Hamas put forward the Idea, or they wouldn't have broken it in the first place. They do not need or have an excuse for what they are doing.

BobKKKindle$

16th January 2009, 08:38

The only solution is, Palestinian workers must organize peaceful protests against both Israeli Zionism and Islamic fundamentalismPeaceful protests like this one?

JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Israeli soldiers Tuesday fired shots near a group of Palestinian youths during a demonstration in the West Bank, killing a 9-year-old boy, eyewitnesses told CNN. The Israeli military released a statement saying it is "conducting a careful and thorough examination" into the reported incident, including a joint medical investigation with Palestinian medical personnel.

Palestinian boy killed during protest, witnesses say - July 2008 (http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/07/29/israel.palestinians/index.html)

Or maybe this one?

GreenLeft - The demonstration, which was attended by members of the Israeli parliament, as well as Palestinian Authority minister Fares Kadura and former PA presidential candidate Mustafa Barghouti, was attacked by Israeli occupation forces. Knesset member Mohammed Barakeh of the Hadash party, along with other peaceful demonstrators, was injured when rubber bullets, tear gas and stun grenades exploded next to them. Another Knesset member, Abdel Malik Dehamsha, was attacked by Israel occupation forces and thrown to the ground. According to the International Middle East Media Centre over 22 Palestinians and Israelis were injured, including three children under the age of 13. A number of Israeli and Palestinian activists were also detained.

Palestine: Protest Attacked - May 2005 (http://www.greenleft.org.au/2005/626/34758)

These are just two examples of many peaceful protests which have been attacked by the IDF, leading to loss of life. You completely ignore the fact that protesting peacefully and putting flower chains around everyone's necks is not an option for people who are living under military occupation as the authorities are unwilling to tolerate any sign of solidarity or resistance, peaceful or otherwise, to the aims of the Israeli state, and so under these conditions the only way the people of Palestine can show their opposition is by taking up arms against their oppressors, as they did during the Intifada. Please, try and have a serious discussion, instead of making crass and immature suggestions like this.

Martin Blank

16th January 2009, 10:13

Here is the view the Workers Party in America has put forward in its press and at public events:

"Only the workers of Gaza, organized into their own independent units of armed self-defense, can defend their communities against the Israeli invaders ... and attempts by Hamas to claim sole authority in the resistance.

"Our fellow workers in the West Bank and Israel also play an important role in this struggle to defeat Israel. The large protests in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa and Ramallah against the siege and invasion, organized by peace coalitions and political parties, are not enough and, in the end, become little more than impotent appeals to the 'better nature' of the very forces who initiated this conflict or, in the case of the West Bank, wish to exploit the current conflict to regain control of Gaza from Hamas.

"Mass strikes and occupations in Israel, including spontaneous 'wildcat' actions, could, if organized and carried out in key areas, cripple the regime’s ability to wage its war in Gaza.

"United with political strikes and walkouts in the West Bank, especially among Palestinian workers employed in Israel, the Israeli capitalists could be forced to withdraw and de-mobilize in the only way they they understand.

"Working together across the 'Green Line,' Israeli and Palestinian workers could not only shut down the invasion and force an end to the conflict, but could, if organized around revolutionary working-class principles, and a strategy and platform of united workers’ action, defeat and bury forever the cause of these conflicts."

-- From "For the Defeat of Israel in Gaza! (http://www.workers-party.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=58:for-the-defeat-of-israel-in-gaza&catid=1:latest-news&Itemid=53)", statement of the Workers Party in America
"The Workers Party supports a democratic, secular and non-ethnic solution implemented by the workers of Israel and Palestine themselves, which requires the defeat of the capitalists and nationalists on both sides of the 'Green Line,' and the creation of workers’ republics.

"We support this by fighting for the defeat of 'our own' capitalists and their state."

-- From "Gaza: 'Total War' Crime! (http://www.ucpa.us/node/318)", Working People's Advocate, Jan. 12, 2009The League will have it's own statement coming out in the next few days, in the next issue of The Communist Monthly. But the general position will be the same.

Robespierre2.0

16th January 2009, 17:05

If you don't support Hamas in their struggle, you are reactionary.

Martin Blank

16th January 2009, 20:33

If you support Hamas in their struggle, you are reactionary.

Corrected.

Devrim

16th January 2009, 20:40

Just to comment quickly of some of the bizarreness of the 'Workers Party in America' statement:

Only the workers of Gaza, organized into their own independent units of armed self-defense, can defend their communities against the Israeli invaders ...

To you believe that this can happen at the moment? Workers are not capable of organising independent militias at a time like this. It is absurd to pretend anything else.

Devrim

Martin Blank

16th January 2009, 20:50

To you believe that this can happen at the moment? Workers are not capable of organising independent militias at a time like this. It is absurd to pretend anything else.

And your alternative is?...

...

That's what I thought. You have no alternative.

In the end, you're no better than those who tail Hamas -- you're the flip side of the same methodological coin. You prefer to abdicate leadership to them rather than attempt the "impossible".

Of course it's difficult! Of course it seems impossible! But then, so does organizing for revolution. Oh, wait! Never mind me bringing that subject up to you.

Devrim

16th January 2009, 21:10

And your alternative is?...
...
That's what I thought. You have no alternative.

Yes, I think that there is nothing that can be done in Gaza at the moment.

But do you really think that this can happen? Do you think that workers in Gaza are capable of forming workers militias? Please answer the question. I would be very surprised if you could answer yes.

In reality, the resistance is based around HAMAS, and whatever leftist groups that do exist there have completely subordinated themselves to HAMAS leadership such as the PLFP, and you think that workers are suddenly going to start to form independent militias.

In the end, you're no better than those who tail Hamas -- you're the flip side of the same methodological coin. You prefer to abdicate leadership to them rather than attempt the "impossible".

You are not trying to attempt the impossible either. You are making a few unrealistic comments about what could happen only in the wildest leftist fantasies.

Of course it's difficult! Of course it seems impossible! But then, so does organizing for revolution.

It is about being realistic. I can go around all I like shouting for workers councils and red guards tomorrow, but I am not going to get them. You have to start from where the working class is, not where you would like it to be.

Devrim

Martin Blank

16th January 2009, 21:48

Yes, I think that there is nothing that can be done in Gaza at the moment.

And, therefore, there's no point to offering a communist perspective on what it would take to change the situation? My, that's really ... pathetic.

But do you really think that this can happen? Do you think that workers in Gaza are capable of forming workers militias? Please answer the question. I would be very surprised if you could answer yes.

They are always capable. Whether they will or not is the matter at hand.

In reality, the resistance is based around HAMAS, and whatever leftist groups that do exist there have completely subordinated themselves to HAMAS leadership such as the PLFP, and you think that workers are suddenly going to start to form independent militias.

We offer an alternative political perspective to those of the nationalists, tailists and dilettantes. It is up to the workers themselves to decide whether they agree with us and act on it.

You are not trying to attempt the impossible either. You are making a few unrealistic comments about what could happen only in the wildest leftist fantasies.

Whew! You sound like the bourgeois liberals! Guess I should go vote Democrat now, since organizing for revolution in the United States is also seen as "unrealistic" and something that "could happen only in the wildest leftist fantasies".

It is about being realistic. I can go around all I like shouting for workers councils and red guards tomorrow, but I am not going to get them. You have to start from where the working class is, not where you would like it to be.

You go be "realistic" and bow to the capitalist order. You're good at that. We'll continue to agitate, educate and organize for revolutionary change.

Maybe you and fredbergen can go compare your respective levels of political bankruptcy and exhaustion, and leave the work of building a revolutionary movement to those who actually give a damn.

Devrim

16th January 2009, 21:49

You are making a legitimate point, and all socialists aware of the existence of sub-imperialism within underdeveloped regions such as the Middle East. There is no reason why socialists should not also give support to other oppressed populations such as the Kurds,

I also went on to say that equally you could say that the Kurds are an oppressive nation, just ask the smaller minorities living in the Kurdish regions. It applies to the whole thing about 'the nationalism of the oppressed being progressive'. It isn't, it is often just as reactionary, and just as likely to turn round and masacre and ethnically cleanse minorities within its own midst.

The conquest of Iraq by the US derived from the functioning of the capitalist system during the imperialist epoch, specifically the need to find profitable outlets for capital which could not be invested in the national economy due to a crisis of profitability, as well as an accumulation of surplus goods due to an inherent crisis of overproduction. The oppression of Kurds by the Iraqi state, by contrast, is linked closely to geopolitical and historical factors, and less to the functioning of capitalism, given that the Iraqi economy does not share the same features as a country belonging to the imperialist bloc.It seems like there has been very little analysis of the development of capital in the so-called third world since Lenin wrote 'Imperialism'. These are not backward feudal countries any more. Iraq was, before the wars, a modern capitalist state. Beyond that I think that your use of Cliff's analysis of the permenant arms economy offers little to explain these issues.

If you consider Iraq an oppresed nation, the end of the first Gulf war saw mass desertions, and mutinies in the Iraq army and a refusal to fight for the defence of the state. Indeed, primarily because, at that point, fighting against the invading armies did not serve the interests of the working class. If the US had entered Baghdad and attempted to establish itself as the new government with the intention of transforming Iraq into a neo-colony in order to exploit its labour and natural resources, a resistance would have emerged - this is exactly what has happened in Iraq since the second invasion in 2003 and every other country in which workers have had their homes bombed and progressive institutions eradicated.

I don't think that the resistance/ethnic struggles in Iraq today serves the interest of the working class in Iraq. I am not sure about what 'progressive institutions' you are talking about.

Lenin already dealt with this argument in his polemics with Rosa Luxemburg - Well that certainly dealt with that argument. I won't use that one again.

To say that Lenin dealt with the argument is meaningless. Lenin's position on the national question was not only in our opinion wrong, but a disaster for the Russian revolution in that it produced reactionary anti-communist states in virtually all of the neighbouring countries, and even worse a disaster for the entire world revolution culimating in the Shanghai massacres.

This is a much broader issue, as I'm sure you agree,

Yes.

Let's be absolutely clear, none of the Stalinists or their Trotskyist friends on this thread 'want to fight imperialism'. They want little brown people in poor countries to die doing it. Devrim, I've been perfectly civil to you in this discussion, and engaged with your points, so are these crude remarks really helpful or warranted?Look back at some of the insults that have been thrown around on here whoı refuse to support HAMAS. I think that it is quite mild in comparison. It mearly points out that it is not the people calling for 'unconditional military support' or whatever who are doing the dying.

Yes, possibly it is a bit sarcastic, but I feel that there is a very patronising attitude towards workers in the so-called third world from many posters on here.

As for lumping Trotskyists in with the Stalinists I think that is absolutely fair. Or do you think that there is a difference between their respective positions?

Devrim

Devrim

16th January 2009, 21:52

A lot of nice straw men Communist league, how about addressing what I said?

Devrim

Martin Blank

16th January 2009, 22:05

I gave it the response it deserved. You consciously choose to offer no alternative to Hamas because you believe nothing can be done. Thus, you abdicate political leadership to Hamas in the name of being "realistic". Speaking from the standpoint of political principle, that makes you no different than those who are tailing Hamas in the name of "anti-imperialism". It is the social-democratic method dressing "left".

On the other hand, communists present an alternative political perspective based on the objective need and objective capability of the working class. Objectively speaking, the working class in Palestinian Gaza can organize themselves and form their own units of self-defense (even under the current conditions), and must organize themselves in order to put an end to the misery and barbarism that reigns.

It's not a "straw man" to present a political perspective and direction, and be critical of those who abdicate that responsibility in the name of pragmatism ("realism") or phony "anti-imperialism"; it's an ABC of communism.

The only thing made of straw in this argument is your political spine.

Devrim

16th January 2009, 22:24

On the other hand, communists present an alternative political perspective based on the objective need and objective capability of the working class.

Except that you are not presenting a perspective to the working class in Gaza. That is unless you are publishing in Arabic, which I presume that you are not. If you are I would like to read it.

What you are doing is mouthing a few empty 'radical slogans' for workers in the US.

We on the other hand do attempt to address the workers of the Middle East, we publish in Farsi and Turkish and have recently started to develop work in Arabic. So actually we are putting forward a communist perspective to workers across the region.

Objectively speaking, the working class in Palestinian Gaza can organize themselves and form their own units of self-defense (even under the current conditions)...

Do you really believe that this can happen? I just don't think it has any basis in reality.

...and must organize themselves in order to put an end to the misery and barbarism that reigns.

I don't see that this will happen. I can not see the working class in Palestine being able to overcome its weakness outside of a massive wave of struggle internationally and across the region. When you look to the Middle East it is quite clear where the prospects for radical change can come from. That potential has been quite clearly shown in major workers struggles in especially in Egypt but also in countries like Iran and Turkey.

Workers in Palestine will not be able to put an end to the barbarism outside of a more general movement. To believe otherwise is pure wishful thinking.

The only thing made of straw in this argument is your political spine.

At least your insults are better than your political arguments.

Devrim

Devrim

16th January 2009, 22:40

Devrim, this struck a chord. Do you really believe that communists in western societies actually have such a patronizing attitude? Considering this thread, bobkindles, dimitrov and other members are just kids in college, maybe, they're just misguided and fanatical, very much like adherents to a new religion?

Sorry, I missed this one. I think that some leftists do have a confused patronising attitude to the 'third world'. I also think that it is particularly prevalent in the US.

I don't think that these positions are only held by collage kids. In the past masses of workers held the Stalinist positions.

Maybe you can put a little of the arrogance with which they put it across down to them being collage kids, but no more than that.

Devrim

Martin Blank

16th January 2009, 22:54

Except that you are not presenting a perspective to the working class in Gaza. That is unless you are publishing in Arabic, which I presume that you are not. If you are I would like to read it.

We work in the Detroit area. Of course we publish in Arabic! I will scan in the Arabic copy of the statement (which was distributed as a leaflet at two recent demonstrations by Palestinians) and PM you with the URL.

What you are doing is mouthing a few empty 'radical slogans' for workers in the US.

Proof?

We on the other hand do attempt to address the workers of the Middle East, we publish in Farsi and Turkish and have recently started to develop work in Arabic. So actually we are putting forward a communist perspective to workers across the region.

I won't take the opportunity to make a cheap shot here. I'll just say "fair enough".

Do you really believe that this can happen? I just don't think it has any basis in reality.

They have the ability to come together, find weapons and stand watch over their neighborhoods and workplaces. The issue is the political consciousness and wherewithal to do it.

I don't see that this will happen. I can not see the working class in Palestine being able to overcome its weakness outside of a massive wave of struggle internationally and across the region. When you look to the Middle East it is quite clear where the prospects for radical change can come from. That potential has been quite clearly shown in major workers struggles in especially in Egypt but also in countries like Iran and Turkey.

Workers in Palestine will not be able to put an end to the barbarism outside of a more general movement. To believe otherwise is pure wishful thinking.

I don't see these struggles developing solely in national isolation, either. At the same time, the problem of reactionary and pro-capitalist political leadership dominating the proletariat is an international phenomenon, present in the Great Power centers as much as in places like Palestine. The development of a worldwide proletarian movement is not a one-way street.

At least your insults are better than your political arguments.

Ummm, thanks. I think. :D

Devrim

16th January 2009, 23:04

They have the ability to come together, find weapons and stand watch over their neighborhoods and workplaces. The issue is the political consciousness and wherewithal to do it.

And do you think that the political consciousness is there? I don't. There are a whole lot of deeper problems with the argument but the biggest one is that it does not have any realistic chance of happening.

I don't see these struggles developing solely in national isolation, either. At the same time, the problem of reactionary and pro-capitalist political leadership dominating the proletariat is an international phenomenon, present in the Great Power centers as much as in places like Palestine. The development of a worldwide proletarian movement is not a one-way street.

I don't see them in developing in isolation either. However, I see more hope of workers struggle developing in a positive direction in countries where the working class is beginning to reassert itself than in countries where the working class gets dragged into gun battles between different nationalist gangs when it tries to fight for its own interests as happened in the teachers strike in Palestine.

Devrim

Leo

16th January 2009, 23:10

I remember a similar discussion taking place between us and Miles a few years ago, during Israel's invasion of Lebanon. I see that positions have not changed much so far. I'd like to add a few things to what Devrim said in regards to the methodological aspects of what Miles have been saying:

And, therefore, there's no point to offering a communist perspective on what it would take to change the situation? My, that's really ... pathetic.

On the programmatic level we are very clearly saying that history has shown the perspective of workers organizations to be mass assemblies, workers' councils and red guards. On the other hand to call for them independently of the real situation and strength of the working class in the region and internationally is not what I'd consider a marxist attitude. It is based on an ignorance of the material situation, both of the strength of the working class and the strength of communist forces. I think this mistaken conception is connected with the formation of WPA by a handful of militants. Calling for the formation workers' councils, red guards etc. can only have any point in them when the communist forces are actually strong enough, which itself is an expression of the strength of the class.

We offer an alternative political perspective to those of the nationalists, tailists and dilettantes. It is up to the workers themselves to decide whether they agree with us and act on it.

This is not a marxist approach in my opinion. To quote Marx himself: "Hence, nothing prevents us from making criticism of politics, participation in politics, and therefore real struggles, the starting point of our criticism, and from identifying our criticism with them. In that case we do not confront the world in a doctrinaire way with a new principle: Here is the truth, kneel down before it! We develop new principles for the world out of the world’s own principles. We do not say to the world: Cease your struggles, they are foolish; we will give you the true slogan of struggle. We merely show the world what it is really fighting for, and consciousness is something that it has to acquire, even if it does not want to." (Marx to Ruge, Kreuznach, September 1843)

Workers are not sponteneously going to form workers' councils or militias in Palestine tomorrow when bombs are raining on them, this is a fact. Now it is possible to call for it regardless of the situation, it would I imagine be quite easy. The other option is to analyze the regional and international situation, analyze where the working class is, and contribute to the development of the international process towards the workers' revolutionary movement with communist interventions rather than making empty and wishful calls.

Whew! You sound like the bourgeois liberals! Guess I should go vote Democrat now, since organizing for revolution in the United States is also seen as "unrealistic" and something that "could happen only in the wildest leftist fantasies".

The reason for not voting Democrat is not because the strength of the American and international working class is too low to give birth to a revolution tomorrow, it is because neither the Democrats nor anyone else winning the elections is capable of offering anything better to the working class.

You go be "realistic" and bow to the capitalist order. You're good at that. We'll continue to agitate, educate and organize for revolutionary change.

This is pure demagogy.

Martin Blank

16th January 2009, 23:18

And do you think that the political consciousness is there? I don't. There are a whole lot of deeper problems with the argument but the biggest one is that it does not have any realistic chance of happening.

It's not there at the moment, any more than it is there among American autoworkers or Chinese steelworkers. But that should not stop us from presenting a political alternative and seeking to change that.

I don't see them in developing in isolation either. However, I see more hope of workers struggle developing in a positive direction in countries where the working class is beginning to reassert itself than in countries where the working class gets dragged into gun battles between different nationalist gangs when it tries to fight for its own interests as happened in the teachers strike in Palestine.

That's no excuse to abdicate political responsibilities, though.

Cumannach

17th January 2009, 00:01

Martin Blank

17th January 2009, 00:03

I remember a similar discussion taking place between us and Miles a few years ago, during Israel's invasion of Lebanon. I see that positions have not changed much so far.

Yes. You are still promoting a dilettantish armchair radicalism -- social democracy dressing "left".

On the programmatic level we are very clearly saying that history has shown the perspective of workers organizations to be mass assemblies, workers' councils and red guards. On the other hand to call for them independently of the real situation and strength of the working class in the region and internationally is not what I'd consider a marxist attitude. It is based on an ignorance of the material situation, both of the strength of the working class and the strength of communist forces. I think this mistaken conception is connected with the formation of WPA by a handful of militants. Calling for the formation workers' councils, red guards etc. can only have any point in them when the communist forces are actually strong enough, which itself is an expression of the strength of the class.

So, in other words, do nothing until a majority of the working class agrees over a nice cup of coffee to overthrow capitalism. Then everything will magically fall into place. Never mind the hard work required to organize and build; never mind the need to educate, agitate and organize. Just put out a few long-winded leaflets every so often and never get your hands dirty dealing directly with the proles, and voila!

This is not a marxist approach in my opinion. To quote Marx himself: "Hence, nothing prevents us from making criticism of politics, participation in politics, and therefore real struggles, the starting point of our criticism, and from identifying our criticism with them. In that case we do not confront the world in a doctrinaire way with a new principle: Here is the truth, kneel down before it! We develop new principles for the world out of the world’s own principles. We do not say to the world: Cease your struggles, they are foolish; we will give you the true slogan of struggle. We merely show the world what it is really fighting for, and consciousness is something that it has to acquire, even if it does not want to." (Marx to Ruge, Kreuznach, September 1843)

Two things on this:

1) If you had read the entire letter to Ruge, you'd know that this was at a point in Marx's life when he was not yet what we (and I mean you and I) would call a communist -- when he was still only a "Young Hegelian". That is apparent in his talk about communism in the earlier passages. Thus, it's probably best to take his comments here with a methodological grain of salt.

2) Even if we do take his argument here as good coin, it still undercuts your method of dealing with things. Take, for example, the last statement: "We merely show the world what it is really fighting for, and consciousness is something that it has to acquire, even if it does not want to."

How does one "acquire consciousness"? It does not spring forth spontaneously like Minerva from the head of Jupiter. It comes from collected experience and social being. A key part of developing one's collected experience is the exchange of knowledge and lessons that are learned from others' collected experiences and social being (most effectively, from a shared social being). This includes collected experience not simply of what the world "is really fighting for", but what it can fight for, based on what it has fought for.

Further, "we develop new principles for the world out of the world’s own principles." From where do principles derive? Like consciousness, it comes from collected experience. The "world's own principles" are the principles and lessons that derive from the history of human society: the history of class struggles. So when Marx says, "We do not say to the world: Cease your struggles, they are foolish; we will give you the true slogan of struggle," he is saying that we do not pluck our political perspectives out of thin air, but base them on the experience of the class struggle -- not in the abstract, but in the concrete.

This is the meaning behind Marx's simplest of declarations: "Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it." Our role as communists is to "develop new principles for the world out of the world's own principles" -- that is, derived from the lessons of the class struggle. We then take those lessons derived from the class struggle and "show the world what it is really fighting for" -- that is, we present a political perspective that seeks not simply to interpret the world, but to change it. And we do this with the understanding that "consciousness is something that it has to acquire, even if it does not want to" -- that is, even if it is seen as "unrealistic" or "wishful thinking".

Workers are not spontaneously going to form workers' councils or militias in Palestine tomorrow when bombs are raining on them, this is a fact. Now it is possible to call for it regardless of the situation, it would I imagine be quite easy. The other option is to analyze the regional and international situation, analyze where the working class is, and contribute to the development of the international process towards the workers' revolutionary movement with communist interventions rather than making empty and wishful calls.

Translation: Palestinian workers will not join the ICC today, so we can just sit back and contemplate their sad situation, and take no responsibility for attempting to influence or change it. This is passive abstentionism, pure and simple.

The reason for not voting Democrat is not because the strength of the American and international working class is too low to give birth to a revolution tomorrow, it is because neither the Democrats nor anyone else winning the elections is capable of offering anything better to the working class.

Again, more abstentionist method disguised in "left" clothing.

This is pure demagogy.

Me thinks thou doth protesteth too much.

Devrim

17th January 2009, 06:48

Communist league, our argument is that there is no point on making abstract calls for workers to do this or that when there is absolutely no possibility of workers actually doing the thing. It is mere empty sloganering.

Your argument seems to consist of a stream of unrelated insults and that's about it. There isn't anything of substance there to try to address so I won't bother.

Devrim

Devrim

17th January 2009, 07:06

It seems to me, that, some of our Left comrades are, on the one hand, saying that supporting the Hamas resistance is wrong, for not serving the interests of the Palestinian people because it does not advance the class struggle or do anything for class consciousness. On the other hand they are plainly affirming that the class struggle is at such a low ebb, that the proletarian movement is so weak, at such a low point, that there is no possibility of them forming proletarian organizations and pursuing armed resistance through them!

What you are saying is true, but we would go a little further. We don't just say that supporting the HAMAS resistance is bad because it doesn't have, positive effects, but also because it has negative effects, national unity and the sacrifice of workers for capital. HAMAS plays its role in the massacres.

So they can't fight back in a pro-capitalist movement because it's isn't a proletarian movement, and they can't fight back in a proletarian movement because it's not feasible.

What does the whole idea of fighting back mean. In means sacrificing your interests for the interests of the nation. The opposite of communist politics. Workers can 'fight back' in the national resistance. The question is what it will gian for them. In our opinion nothing. They can't fight back in a proletarian movement because it doesn't exist.

What exactly is the Left Communist line on the best actions for the Palestinian people to take? (A serious question, and apologies if I've misunderstood).

A very good question, to be honest I don't think that there is anything that Palestinians in Gaza can do to stop this massacre. I think that in any analysis there must be an understanding of what the real situation on the ground is. Without this our politics are reduced to the empty phrasemongering that we can see in some other posters here.

It is important to realise that there are times when the working class can not act as the decisive player.

Devrim

GX.

17th January 2009, 08:43

How does one "provide a perspective" on a struggle they are not in any way associated with? Furthermore how is it "abstentionism" if you acknowledge that you are not associated with a struggle and can not affect it? It's only "abstentionism" if you are distancing yourself from something you are in a position to participate in.

Leo

17th January 2009, 09:41

1) If you had read the entire letter to Ruge, you'd know that this was at a point in Marx's life when he was not yet what we (and I mean you and I) would call a communist -- when he was still only a "Young Hegelian". That is apparent in his talk about communism in the earlier passages. Thus, it's probably best to take his comments here with a methodological grain of salt.I don't think this disproves the point or implies that Marx changed his approach here. Besides his comments about communism earlier clearly show that he is getting there.

2) Even if we do take his argument here as good coin, it still undercuts your method of dealing with things. Take, for example, the last statement: "We merely show the world what it is really fighting for, and consciousness is something that it has to acquire, even if it does not want to."

How does one "acquire consciousness"? In the experience of struggle and with out militant work of agitation and drawing lessons of past experience.

Further, "we develop new principles for the world out of the world’s own principles." From where do principles derive? Like consciousness, it comes from collected experience. The "world's own principles" are the principles and lessons that derive from the history of human society: the history of class struggles. So when Marx says, "We do not say to the world: Cease your struggles, they are foolish; we will give you the true slogan of struggle," he is saying that we do not pluck our political perspectives out of thin air, but base them on the experience of the class struggle -- not in the abstract, but in the concrete.

This is the meaning behind Marx's simplest of declarations: "Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it." Our role as communists is to "develop new principles for the world out of the world's own principles" -- that is, derived from the lessons of the class struggle. We then take those lessons derived from the class struggle and "show the world what it is really fighting for" -- that is, we present a political perspective that seeks not simply to interpret the world, but to change it.So far so good.

And we do this with the understanding that "consciousness is something that it has to acquire, even if it does not want to" -- that is, even if it is seen as "unrealistic" or "wishful thinking".Consciousness is not acquired with sloganeering and calling for things either.

Translation: Palestinian workers will not join the ICC today, so we can just sit back and contemplate their sad situation, and take no responsibility for attempting to influence or change it.Making calls about it from Detroit isn't going to change it either. Of course this has nothing to do with people joining or not joining the ICC.

The point is that the situation in Palestine can't be solved in Palestine alone, and has to be dealt with the international proletariat. Thus we contribute as much as we can in the way we see as the best way to the struggle of the proletariat in the region and internationally against the ruling classes in the places we live. If I was to make a slogan for my propaganda here, I would say something like the only way to aid class brothers and sisters in Palestine is to struggle against your own ruling class. If I was in Palestine I'd initially try to urge all that I know to not to die for the interests of Hamas, and try to survive the bombings, by hiding, fleeing battle areas etc. if possible, if not by other means.

On the rest of the things you said, I'm just gonna say that if you really try hard you can beat this guy at demagogy:

http://www.byegm.gov.tr/YAYINLARIMIZ/kitaplar/FMD/images/0412.jpg

Charles Xavier

17th January 2009, 15:09

To Summarize the left communists, there is nothing workers can do to stop the massacre of the Palestinian working class so they shouldn't even try.

And you guys aren't agents of the Israeli State are you?

The Palestinian people will go to whoever represents their most important interests. Place trust within the Palestinian people they are inevitable to win against imperialist oppression. So stop telling them they shouldn't do anything.

Martin Blank

17th January 2009, 16:11

How does one "provide a perspective" on a struggle they are not in any way associated with?

An a priori assumption.

Furthermore how is it "abstentionism" if you acknowledge that you are not associated with a struggle and can not affect it? It's only "abstentionism" if you are distancing yourself from something you are in a position to participate in.

The ICC has contact with people in Palestine. What are they doing with them there?

Martin Blank

17th January 2009, 16:19

I don't think this disproves the point or implies that Marx changed his approach here. Besides his comments about communism earlier clearly show that he is getting there.

Which is why I said, "it's probably best to take his comments here with a methodological grain of salt", not discount them.

Consciousness is not acquired with sloganeering and calling for things either.

And it's an a priori argument to suggest this is all we're doing.

Making calls about it from Detroit isn't going to change it either. Of course this has nothing to do with people joining or not joining the ICC.

Another a priori argument. You remember the last time you made that kind of stupid argument toward us, in 2006?

The point is that the situation in Palestine can't be solved in Palestine alone, and has to be dealt with the international proletariat. Thus we contribute as much as we can in the way we see as the best way to the struggle of the proletariat in the region and internationally against the ruling classes in the places we live. If I was to make a slogan for my propaganda here, I would say something like the only way to aid class brothers and sisters in Palestine is to struggle against your own ruling class. If I was in Palestine I'd initially try to urge all that I know to not to die for the interests of Hamas, and try to survive the bombings, by hiding, fleeing battle areas etc. if possible, if not by other means.

In other words, you have a do-nothing approach. Yes, comrade, it is cowardice and anti-worker prejudice. So much for the principle of transforming capitalist war into class war. Class war is only for times of capitalist peace!

On the rest of the things you said, I'm just gonna say that if you really try hard you can beat this guy at demagogy

It's not demagogy to state the facts.

PRC-UTE

17th January 2009, 22:10

I disagree. Because with national liberation you have only the 'left' and 'right' wing of nationalism. 'There is either pro-liberation or pro-colonialism' - so nationalism is the only solution? That's an odd thing for a communist to say :closedeyes:

funny cos that's what Marx said. I guess he wasn't much of a communist either.

what you said before that re nationalism is not only pure abstraction but not even accurate. national liberation doesn't equal nationalism

GX.

17th January 2009, 22:43

An a priori assumption.

:lol:

The ICC has contact with people in Palestine.

Because that's totally the same thing.

Black Dagger

20th January 2009, 04:00

what you said before that re nationalism is not only pure abstraction but not even accurate.

Could you please explain why you think this?

national liberation doesn't equal nationalism

Perhaps, but there is certainly continuity between the two no? I mean, the practical goal of 'national liberation' is national sovereignty for a 'nation' - independence from an 'oppressor' nation - as in anti-colonialism. That is 'liberation' for a whole 'nation' (regardless of class) - not say, the liberation of a specific class. How can this goal be separated effectively from nationalism? The result is the same, the creation/reinforcement of the nation-state.

I'm interested to hear your POV - how can a national liberation struggle be non-nationalist/anti-nationalist?

Cumannach

20th January 2009, 19:48

^
China

Black Dagger

21st January 2009, 01:17

What about china? Please make your point more explicit. If you're suggesting that the chinese revolution was a national liberation struggle - i disagree - so please explain why you think that.

The CCP was anti-nationalist (or at least anti 'the nationalists' with whom they were competing for power) but they were not fighting a national liberation struggle, it was a civil war:

I'm interested to hear your POV - how can a national liberation struggle be non-nationalist/anti-nationalist?

Also, these days CCP is incredibly nationalistic - they produce chinese patriots not communists (*cue bobkindles*).

Devrim

21st January 2009, 07:15

The CCP was anti-nationalist (or at least anti 'the nationalists' with whom they were competing for power) but they were not fighting a national liberation struggle, it was a civil war:

Also, these days CCP is incredibly nationalistic - they produce chinese patriots not communists (*cue bobkindles*).

I think in those days the CCP was also resolutely nationalist. Their role was to drag parts of the Chinese peasantry into the imperialist war.

Devrim

Cumannach

21st January 2009, 20:16

What about china? Please make your point more explicit. If you're suggesting that the Chinese revolution was a national liberation struggle - i disagree - so please explain why you think that.

I meant, the Chinese Communists were engaged in a struggle to liberate the territory of the Chinese nation from Western and more so Japanese Imperialism. This struggle, which included a temporary alliance with the Chinese bourgeois Nationalists, eventually resulted in the defeat of the Imperialists, the defeat of the Nationalists, (except in Taiwan), the overthrow of the feudal and bourgeois ruling classes, and the achievement of a Socialist revolution.

I think that fairly well qualifies it as an anti-nationalist national liberation struggle- a Socialist national liberation struggle.

edit;

Just to add, whatever the Chinese Communists did later on cannot change what they did prior. If the the CCP are very 'nationalist' today that takes nothing away from their past positions.

luchtoibre

22nd January 2009, 20:54

Neither one state nor two states, but no stateswell from the Palestinians view of things ,thats about right....

Charles Xavier

23rd January 2009, 15:02

well from the Palestinians view of things ,thats about right....
Yeah that's realistic and progressive why don't we ask the Palestinians to make magic and burn witches while we're at it. Palestine doesn't have a state, thats the problem. So you're telling the Palestines to give up that struggle and all cooridinate against Israel by magically being self-inspired and self-armed and self-hospitalized and commit a number of individual acts of greatness because working together is evil!

ZeroNowhere

23rd January 2009, 18:28

Do you know what you're talking about?

The Feral Underclass

23rd January 2009, 18:54

Yeah that's realistic and progressive why don't we ask the Palestinians to make magic and burn witches while we're at it. Palestine doesn't have a state, thats the problem. So you're telling the Palestines to give up that struggle and all cooridinate against Israel by magically being self-inspired and self-armed and self-hospitalized and commit a number of individual acts of greatness because working together is evil!

That actually makes no sense.

25th January 2009, 00:32

Does that mean it represents a constructive solution for the Palestinian or Israeli people? No.

That's funny because you don't have any better suggestions, your friend Devrim agrees here too
The reality of the situation is that there is no solution in site to the Palestinian question.

Perhaps then you would be kind enough to concede your Anarchism and allow through solutions that support (as much to the extent that helps support the needs of the people) the least bad faction.

But no
Neither one state nor two states, but no states - I guess by the bolding you thought that was the best part of that article, and no I'm not attacking Anarchism either, I'm attacking the fact that you're willing to put selfishly put your beliefs ahead of human needs - even though you and the people that tend to agree with you completely agree there is no solution anyway?

Devrim

25th January 2009, 17:04

Perhaps then you would be kind enough to concede your Anarchism and allow through solutions that support (as much to the extent that helps support the needs of the people) the least bad faction.

Firstly I am not an anarchist, secondly I don't think that there are any bourgeois factions that are 'supporting the needs of the people'.

Devrim

25th January 2009, 17:10

Firstly I am not an anarchist

The entire post was addressed to TAT (my bad, should have made that clear).

secondly I don't think that there are any bourgeois factions that are 'supporting the needs of the people'.

Devrim

Quite right, but some of them at least don't butcher people daily, hence least bad.

Devrim

25th January 2009, 17:30

Quite right, but some of them at least don't butcher people daily, hence least bad.

No others just encourage people to go out and get butchered.

Devrim

27th January 2009, 10:42

No others just encourage people to go out and get butchered.

Devrim

Hence why we have to at least work to moderate their extremism. People in Gaza have it so set in concrete, in their minds that Hamas are the only solution for them, so telling them they don't have to settle for either side clearly isn't actually having an effect.

I quoted you saying there is no solution, at least we can work towards minimizing the impact on their lives rather than fighting for something that they won't accept?

Black Dagger

27th January 2009, 12:54

Note: fuplu this isn't directed at you at all, more of a general thing for everyone in the thread. This first bit is my impression of the marxist (non-leftcommunist) position presented in this thread by most people.

Communists outside of palestine should support hamas because hamas are the primary group resisting israeli occupation at the moment (that is, support for 'anti-imperialism').

If we want to see 'Israeli imperialism' defeated we must support hamas. Moreover, we should do this despite the fact that hamas themselves want to create an islamic state - they have suppressed dissent in their territory and have a history of antisemitism. We might not agree with these things, but we should still support them - they are resisting imperialism - they are the only hope for palestinian ('anti-imperialist') victory.

But we also understand that a military victory for hamas is impossible - israel has insurmountable military supremacy in the region and essentially their foot on the neck of palestine 24/7. So we understand that for hamas the jihad or struggle is a war they cannot win on the battlefield - a futile struggle, but also a from our POV a necessary one. Because what is the alternative? Not fighting back? Accepting Israeli occupation? Perhaps not, but hamas is leading the fight back at present so we support them.

Okay, but if by a miracle hamas was victorious and proclaimed and could defend an islamic state in palestine - would they still be our friends? They would no longer be 'fighting israeli imperialism' - well maybe not as much with guns as with words. But would our support remain the same? Would Hamas' Palestine then become an 'oppressed [islamic] state?' What about when they start suppressing dissent again? Or when their theocratic state infringes upon the freedom of ordinary palestinians - when they start hanging gay folks or forcing them into sex changes (like in iran)? Or when women are marginalised or oppressed?

Is this not a leaf straight out of the book of the CIA? 'The enemy of my enemy is my friend'.

Moreover, as most people who live in the US, UK etc. have no active or direct involvement with what is happening in palestine - does there really need to be such venom between people when giving their comments on this subject? I don't see how some UK anarchist or left communists opinion on hamas or the palestinian struggle is of any material difference for the people in palestine (ditto for the other marxists opinions). Such that for them to state an opinion hostile to hamas (the people we are meant to be supporting) they should be attacked as 'israeli agents', 'puppets of israel' or similar - enemies of the oppressed?

Especially considering this is a futile war - hamas cannot achieve a military victory. Whilst there is something to be said for supporting people fighting against oppression and domination (this is at the very heart of anarchy) - the result of this struggle is ultimately the futile deaths of palestinians. IMO for an outsider to oppose these futile deaths is not to betray the people of palestine. So I think the importance of taking a specific line on this issue for UK/US etc. communists has been overplayed - to me all sides (the trotskyists, leftcommunists and anarchists) make reasonable points which the other should acknowledge more rather than dismiss or belittle. But no, i cannot lend my support to islamists fighting a futile war in the name of the oppressed - because knowing the reward of this fight is the futile deaths of ordinary people and when the reward will not mean liberation but life in an islamist state. I want liberation for the working people of palestine (and everywhere) and ultimately hamas cannot deliver this, so why should i support them? Because they've got a good cause? In abstract - the liberation of palestine - sure - in practice - the islamic state of palestine - no.

Black Dagger

29th January 2009, 05:15

Anybody? I was hoping to see some kind of reaction (positive or negative) from the people who contributed to this discussion so far...

Zurdito

29th January 2009, 05:32

[quote]But we also understand that a military victory for hamas is impossible - israel has insurmountable military supremacy in the region and essentially their foot on the neck of palestine 24/7. So we understand that for hamas the jihad or struggle is a war they cannot win on the battlefield - a futile struggle, but also a from our POV a necessary one. Because what is the alternative? Not fighting back? Accepting Israeli occupation? Perhaps not, but hamas is leading the fight back at present so we support them.

Okay, but if by a miracle hamas was victorious and proclaimed and could defend an islamic state in palestine - would they still be our friends? They would no longer be 'fighting israeli imperialism' - well maybe not as much with guns as with words. But would our support remain the same? Would then become an 'oppressed [islamic] state?' What about when they start suppressing dissent again? Or when their theocratic state infringes upon the freedom of ordinary palestinians - when they start hanging gay folks or forcing them into sex changes (like in iran)? Or when women are marginalised or oppressed?

I love it when people try to "work out" others logic without ever finding out the basics of their reasoning.

The point of supporting Hamas is neither because it can defeat Israel miltiarily or because it would be good for the Palestinian working class to live under a Hamas-liberated state.

The point is to relate to the mass movement which currently supports the Hamas led resistance by agreeing to supprot their momentary objectives, i.e. the defeat of zionist occupation and oppression, while arguing that only by developing into a socialist movement can this movement realise its goals.

Likewise the point is that the Palestinian working class cannot be free until Zionism is defeated, and whoever leads a defeat of zionism will lead whatever state may replace it, and therefore it is necessarry for the working class and socialists to become the leaders of this struggle, which is impossible without supporting those in struggle today regardless of their leadership.

Is this not a leaf straight out of the book of the CIA? 'The enemy of my enemy is my friend'.

Well that is not the logic, but in any case the problem with the CIA is not that every single method it uses is wrong, but that its aims are wrong.

As trotsky said different classes can use the same means for different ends. Only a moralist claism this makes them the same.

Moreover, as most people who live in the US, UK etc. have no active or direct involvement with what is happening in palestine - does there really need to be such venom between people when giving their comments on this subject? I don't see how some UK anarchist or left communists opinion on hamas or the palestinian struggle is of any material difference for the people in palestine (ditto for the other marxists opinions). Such that for them to state an opinion hostile to hamas (the people we are meant to be supporting) they should be attacked as 'israeli agents', 'puppets of israel' or similar - enemies of the oppressed?

The problem is the poisoning of the workign class movement with third campist ideas which do not supprot the oppressed nations int heir struggles against imeprialism. In the long run this has a terrible effect on people in Palestine and elsewhere, and also ont he workign classes in other countries as well, as only through united struggle against all oppressiona nd explotiation can the working class take power.

Though it says a lot that some people are happy to talk whilst thinkign that their words don't affect anything.

I don't know about "venom", but personally I think a complete destruction of their views, is well earned by anyone who equates Hamas with Israel and I think it is necessarry to give a struggle to defeat these views within the working class movement, because it adds up to poisoning public opinion with lies and false logic which only help zionism.