Greetings from Occupied Palestine

[JaffaRed]

Greetings! I am a left Communist from Occupied Palestine ("Israel"), involved in various struggles vs. the fascist Israeli regime and capitalism in general.

[Q]

Welcome

If you have political questions, you can ask them in the Learning forum. That's why it's there after all!

If you have questions about your account, don't hesitate to send me a PM or ask here.

[JaffaRed]

Thanks!

[Aslan]

Greetings! I am a left Communist from Occupied Palestine ("Israel"), involved in various struggles vs. the fascist Israeli regime and capitalism in general.

Welcome, I am glad people from the neo-apartheid state known as Israel are here to contribute their world views here. I hope we can have conversations in the future!

What is the current position of Palestine with Israel? What is you opinion on the Palestinian Liberation Organization and Israel's relation to the current government.

What is your opinion on the PKK and Rojava?

And lastly, do you think that Israel should be dismantled? What would you do with the Israeli Jews after that? Is is possible to ever do that to Israel?

[JaffaRed]

Welcome, I am glad people from the neo-apartheid state known as Israel are here to contribute their world views here. I hope we can have conversations in the future!

What is the current position of Palestine with Israel? What is you opinion on the Palestinian Liberation Organization and Israel's relation to the current government.

What is your opinion on the PKK and Rojava?

And lastly, do you think that Israel should be dismantled? What would you do with the Israeli Jews after that? Is is possible to ever do that to Israel?

Thanks for the welcome!

I am quite overloaded with work at the moment (yes, even of Friday and Saturday - that's how things are when you are a freelance worker), but I'll try to post some answers to your questions over the weekend.

[JaffaRed]

To start, here is a leaflet we put out a few years ago about our position towards the one state and two state solutions and the need for workers' revolution in Israel-Palestine.

Neither Two States Nor One State – But Workers' Power!


The imperialist powers and their proxies in the middle east repress all the workers - of all ethnic and religious groups – who live in Palestine (by this term we refer to the entire area between the river Jordan and the Mediterranean, including both the state of Israel and the 1967 territories) – and especially the Palestinian Arabs, and even more so in the 1967 territories. The colonial Israeli regime brutally terrorizes the Palestinian-Arab worker on a daily basis in all parts of Palestine. The same regime also brainwashes the Jewish worker with "Zionist" nationalism and rampant racism and feeds him with a few crumbs from the bosses' table. All of this in order to win the Jewish worker to serve as cheap cannon-fodder for use in imperialist wars all over the Middle East in service of the U.S. masters of the Israeli regime.

The constant nationalist war, repression, apartheid and overt racism make the life of all workers in Palestine – Arabs and Jews alike – into hell on earth. The nationalist conflict, which lasts for decades, is such a harsh dead-end that even the bourgeois bosses, who are responsible for it, pretend to look for a way out. In this article, we will review the solutions for this conflict offered by various groups and factions, both bourgeois and leftist, and describe their inability to improve the lives of workers in Palestine. We will then offer our own solution: a workers' revolution which will establish the rule of the working class over the entire area and abolish nationalism, racism, apartheid and repression.

The Failure of the Two States Solution
The solution favored by most of the Israeli capitalists, most imperialists and a large part of the Palestinian-Arab bosses, as well as by many workers from both nations, is the two-state solution. The essence of this solution is to divide historical Palestine into two states, one Jewish and one Arab, in each of which the respective nation will reach self-determination and "sovereignty". This solution served as the basis of the 1993 Oslo accords and their follow-up agreements. The bosses like this solution as it separates workers physically by borders and walls, which will make it more difficult for us – the workers – to unite and fight back against the bosses.

Furthermore, the Palestinian Authority created by the Oslo accords was no more than a sub-contractor of Israeli colonialism. The Palestinian Police oppressing the Palestinian-Arab worker in the Authority's territory. Many European and American corporations have invested large sums of money in factories inside the Palestinian Authority as well as in its vicinity such as the Erez industrial zone while super-exploiting the impoverished workers, who were forced to work under horrifying conditions for starvation wages. The Israeli bosses also hoped to exploit this cheap Palestinian-Arab work-force from the Authority's territories in order to lower the wages in some of the sectors of the economy in the areas under Israel's control. This situation, of independence in theory and violent (if indirect) colonial repression in practice, is very similar to the notorious "Bantustan" states established by Apartheid-era South Africa for its native population.

Within a few years, the Arab workers all over Palestine realized that the Oslo accords only bring continued oppression and exploitation. In October 2000, they rebelled in the entire area to the west of the River Jordan in an attempt to put an end to the exploitative apartheid. The Israeli bosses responded with brutality, murdering 14 Arab workers within the Green Line and countless more in the 1967 territories. Since then a nationalist war is going on in all parts of Palestine. The Israeli bosses crush any attempted resistance with massive force. While the big-time Palestinian bourgeoisie – represented by the Fatah – is ready to accept any deal with the Israeli Zionist regime. The faction within the Palestinian bourgeoisie represented by Hamas is willing to fight in order to squeeze a more profitable deal from the colonial oppressor.

In most cases, the two-state solution also tends to ignore the millions of Palestinian-Arab workers uprooted from their homes in the 1948 and 1967 wars. At most, the bourgeoisie is willing to transfer them from refugee camps in the neighboring Arab countries to refugee camps within the Palestinian state, where they will be exploited as a cheap labor-force.

The Trap of the Bi-National State
Faced with the resounding failure of the two-state solution, which had only resulted in suffering and oppression for most workers who live in Palestine - both Arab and Jewish - some groups of Israeli and Palestinian-Arab bosses are looking for other solutions to the conflict, mainly the bi-national state solution. Until recently, this idea was limited almost exclusively to the radical left and certain parts of the Arab bourgeoisie, but today it is gaining popularity among broader layers of the population, including parts of the Zionist right.

While a bi-national state would be single state without internal borders, each nation would have its own representation within the government and its own legal status. For example, one of the proposals is to set up a parliament where some seats would be reserved for Arabs and others for Jews, and all the people who live between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean will become citizens. Certain parts of the Palestinian bourgeoisie – such as those represented by the Democratic National Assembly (Tajamoa/Ballad) – offer this solution as it would allow them to arrange a better deal with the Zionist capital, all while keeping the nationalist separation of workers in place. This solution is also appealing to Zionist racists, who are scared to death by the "demographic problem" and want to keep the Zionist regime in power even if it will be the rule of a minority over a majority, especially if the Palestinian refugees will receive their right of return to their pre-1948 homes.

A bi-national state means nothing but legal apartheid between Palestinian-Arab and Jewish workers. The joint parliament - or two parliaments in some versions of this solution - will serve as a smoke-screen to hide the rule of both the Arab and Jewish capitalist class, The legal separation between workers will make it hard for them to unite against the bosses - the one thing the bosses fear more than anything else. Like any other nationalist solution, the bi-national state solution will only serve the capitalists and the tycoons. At the bottom line, this way the capitalists will continue to oppress all workers in Palestine.

The bi-national state solution usually ignores the plight of the Palestinian refugees, more than a million of whom are living in abject poverty in Palestine and its neighboring countries. Even if the right to return will be granted within the framework of a bi-national state, the refugees will find themselves in a similar level of poverty to the one they already experience in the current camps, as the capitalists of both nations will have no interest in improving their lives, especially since the refugees lack the money to purchase services, goods, and adequate housing. Furthermore, almost all the proponents of a bi-national state solution reserve only a passive role for the refugees.

The failure of the bi-national method could be clearly seen in Lebanon. Since 1943, the Lebanese state apparatus is built in a multi-national format. Each ethnic or religious group has its own reserved seats in the parliament and the other institutions of the state. The nationalism preserved and amplified by this regime has developed into a full-scale civil war between 1975 and 1990, killing over 130,000 civilians and injuring more than a million. Nationalism, indeed, brings the workers only death, destruction and weakness.

A Theocratic State – an Enemy of the Workers
There are quite a few capitalists of both nations – both Jews and Arabs – who want to set up a single theocracy between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean. The far-right factions of Zionism support a single Jewish theocracy in the "Whole Land of Israel" - or, in some cases, from the Euphrates to the Nile - which will deport or murder all the Arabs living in this area and violently oppress the Jewish workers. The Islamic Movement, Hamas and Hezbollah [and now ISIS] put forward the call for a single Islamic state all over Palestine where the Jewish worker will be a second-class citizen at best.

Either way, this kind of a regime will reppress workers of all religions and nations with brutal violence, all in the service of the capitalists. Iran and Afghanistan are examples of theocracies: states where workers' leaders are imprisoned or executed, states where women face cruel repression, states where the religious militias break strikes with the force of arms. A theocracy is nothing but the rule of reaction at the expense of the worker with separation between workers on the basis of religion and sex.

The Trap of a Bourgeois State of all its Citizens
Certain parts of the Arab bourgeoisie in Palestine, as well as certain radical leftists of both nations, offer a secular-democratic state "of all its citizens" as the solution. In such a state all citizens would have equal legal right regardless of their ethnic origin, and the elections to the parliament will follow the principle of "one person = one vote". State and church would be separated and the constitution would defend the majority from the minority and the minority from the majority.

On paper, this looks like a democratic and anti-nationalist solution which will bring down the walls of separation between workers and put and end to the nationalist conflict. But we have to ask: could there be, in a class society, a state which will truly belong to "all its citizens"? After all, only one class could be in power in any given time: either the bosses will rule, or the workers will. Almost all of the supporters of this solution speak of a liberal capitalist state – in other words, a state of all of its exploiters, where both Jewish and Palestinian-Arab bosses will join together in exploiting all of the Palestinian-Arab and Jewish workers from the river Jordan to the Mediterranean. And like the bi-national state solution, this solution holds no real answer to the refugees' plight, as the capitalists will have no interest in improving the living standards of the impoverished refugees – they will only exploit the refugees as a source of cheap labor.

The Real Solution – Workers Must Seize State Power!
The working class doesn't need borders, nations or nation-states. The working class must unite against the common enemy – the bosses – and fight together for a communist revolution which will establish the rule of the working which will serve the interests of all workers in and around Palestine – both Arab and Jewish – and not those of the tycoons. This will prevent the return of the bosses to power, and wipe out racism and nationalism once and for all and build a common future of all workers in the region and in the world in general.

The communist revolution will welcome the masses of refugees. Not only will communism – a workers' economic system where everyone will be provided according to need and will contribute according to commitment – be able to provide for all the needs of the refugees who will return to their historic homes in Palestine, but also the refugees themselves are a powerful revolutionary force. The refugees, especially those living in the camps, have nothing to lose but their chains – and they can win a far better future after the communist revolution. Therefore, Progressive Labor Party calls the Palestinian refugees currently spread all over the world to raise the red flag of revolution and march with the rest of the workers in Palestine, in the area and in the world towards a communist future free of exploitation and oppression!

Inter-ethnic, inter-racial unity of workers - this is the only real force capable of smashing the walls of hate, nationalism and in some cases concrete built by the rulers to keep us apart and enthralled. The task of any revolutionary in Israel-Palestine - is to build a base in the working class. That means forming personal and collective ties with workers of both nations for the purpose of building a multi-ethnic revolutionary party in these lands.

[Sewer Socialist]

How do you feel about the language of "seizing" state power, rather than smashing state power? Does this imply that a group of workers might like to inherit all the existing state apparatuses, bureaucratic and police alike, and continue with business as usual, but with the state substituting itself for the bourgeoisie, continuing to rule over the proletariat but now in their name?

[JaffaRed]

That leaflet is old and the terminology is not as precise as it would have today. The key to revolution is smashing the bourgeois state and replacing it with working-class state power, as in the Paris and Shanghai Communes.

[blake 3:17]

Welcome to RevLeft. From your last post I'm thinking you've maybe been reading Badiou. Maybe I'm wrong.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Greetings! I am a left Communist from Occupied Palestine ("Israel"), involved in various struggles vs. the fascist Israeli regime and capitalism in general.

Hi.

Are you a member/sympathiser of the US Progressive Labor Party, or is there a separate organisation with that name in the region? I would suppose the latter, given that the PLP were more dissident Maoists than Left Communists.

[JaffaRed]

A supporter of the international PL (originally US). They were Maoist in the 1960's but sobered out later. They are no longer Maoist since the early 1970's, leading to sharply criticizing Maoism from the left. This has more in common with the "Ultra-Left" of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, who were at least partially responsible for PL opening up their eyes to the massive errors of "orthodox" Maoism. When you oppose cults of personality, "New Democracy" alliances with bosses, vanguardism, non-egalitarian social relations after the revolution, and all kinds nationalism including third-worldism, you can't really be a Maoist. There was a consistent move to the left since the 1970's. You can maybe call this "Ultra-Left Post-Maoism" if you want a fancy-sounding title... :-D

[VivalaCuarta]

What do you think about PLP campaigning for Barack Obama in the U.S.?

[newdayrising]

When you oppose cults of personality, "New Democracy" alliances with bosses, vanguardism, non-egalitarian social relations after the revolution, and all kinds nationalism including third-worldism, you can't really be a Maoist. There was a consistent move to the left since the 1970's. You can maybe call this "Ultra-Left Post-Maoism" if you want a fancy-sounding title... :-D

Just curious, what's your (and the PLP's I assume) position on national liberation, the nature of the Soviet Union (say, in the 30's), thr Chinese revolution and trade unions?

[Sasha]

heya, welcome, good to have someone around who can speak about the region and its problems from experience.
do you with the PLP work together with other groups in +972 (Israel/Palestine)? and if so, which?
Most of the people that i know there are from an anarchist background and thus active in AATW and/or Unity.

NB; do not be confused by my Hebrew user title, though an non-zionist jew i speak or read no Hebrew and almost no Yiddish

[Le Libérer]

Welcome, JaffaRed. We look forward to hearing your perspective and personal observations.

[RedAnarchist]

Welcome to the forum .

[JaffaRed]

What do you think about PLP campaigning for Barack Obama in the U.S.?

In fact PLP opposes all liberal candidates, be that Sanders or Barak "Drone" Obama, as well as the entire US electoral system as well as any bourgeois electoral system...

[JaffaRed]

Just curious, what's your (and the PLP's I assume) position on national liberation, the nature of the Soviet Union (say, in the 30's), thr Chinese revolution and trade unions?

I'm a bit busy at the moment, due to tons of translation contracts I have to finish for my living. But later this week I'll post the entire positions in details in this thread or another.

[JaffaRed]

heya, welcome, good to have someone around who can speak about the region and its problems from experience.
do you with the PLP work together with other groups in +972 (Israel/Palestine)? and if so, which? Most of the people that i know there are from an anarchist background and thus active in AATW and/or Unity.

Unity is indeed one of the more serious anti-capitalist anti-Zionist and especially anti-fascist group inside the "green line". We cooperate with them on several matters, most of them are very willing to work together with other anti-Zionist and anti-fascist groups. We also have good relations with the local branch of RCIT, despite the differences of opinion regarding the USSR.

On the other hand we steer clear of the local sect of CWI, called "Socialist Struggle - Maavak Sozialisti"; I am sorry to offend anyone here who is from the CWI but here in Palestine they are reformist, hardly speak of revolution and are at least borderline Zionist (they want "two socialist states", one of which would be a "Jewish state", a group who wishes to have a "Jewish state" in part of Palestine is called a Zionist).

And one of our members was kicked out from the Israeli Communist Party... For trying to organize an antifa front together with anarchists to smash some particularly nasty racists in southern Tel-Aviv. The revisionists said that he shouldn't be doing stuff like that...

NB; do not be confused by my Hebrew user title, though an non-zionist jew i speak or read no Hebrew and almost no Yiddish

I speak English and Hebrew and am learning Spoken Arabic, which now I have a basic understanding of.

[JaffaRed]

Welcome, JaffaRed. We look forward to hearing your perspective and personal observations.

Thanks!