Stop Israel's Massacre in Gaza!

By Walter Leon
Tuesday, 30 December 2008

Two years after the Israeli ‘Defence’ Forces indiscriminately slaughtered over a thousand Lebanese civilians in the quaintly-titled Operation Just Reward, Israel has turned its attention to Gaza, in the form of Operation Cast Lead. Stripped of its innocuous-sounding name, this operation becomes a lot less palatable: according to Palestinian medical sources, nearly 300 Palestinians have been killed, including numerous women and children. Israel’s targets have included police stations (which are unsurprisingly situated in densely-populated areas), the headquarters of a Hamas-owned satellite television channel, and the Islamic University, Gaza’s only higher education institution.

According to witnesses, hospitals are overwhelmed with the injured and the bodies of the dead are piling up in the morgues. BBC correspondent and Gaza resident Hamada Abu Qammar describes a typical grisly scene:

“I followed one woman who was screaming ‘my son, my son’ as she searched the building.

Eventually they located him, a young man was in his twenties. The staff would not let her see the body, but I saw it. It didn't have a head and there was no stomach. She fainted on top of the remains of her son, which were covered with a white sheet.”

Israel’s ‘Ceasefire’ and the Complicity of the Arab World

The attacks have come as a six-month ceasefire between Israel and Hamas elapsed. However, even when this ceasefire was in place, this did not mean the people of Gaza were free of problems. Israel has instigated a crippling blockade of Gaza that has starved its people of food, fuel and even medical supplies. As John Ging, head of operations of the United Nations agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA), said in an interview with The Electronic Intifada in November, “there was five months of a ceasefire in the last couple of months, where the people of Gaza did not benefit; they did not have any restoration of a dignified existence. We in fact at the UN, our supplies were also restricted during the period of the ceasefire, to the point where we were left in a very vulnerable and precarious position and with a few days of closure we ran out of food.”

Nor should Israel alone be held responsible. Whilst Israel was instigating these brutal attacks, Egypt was playing host to Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni. According to the BBC, “[a]s jets pounded the southern Gaza Strip, hundreds of Palestinians stormed over a fence on the Gaza-Egypt border, but Egyptian security forces fired shots to prevent them entering.”. In fact, Egypt has consistently participated in the blockade of Gaza, time and again doing Israel’s dirty work, caging Palestinians like animals and denying them essential supplies. Arab states called for an ‘emergency’ session of the Arab League, but Egypt opposed this and Saudi Arabia expressed ‘reservations’.

Why has Egypt done this? Well, firstly, as the world’s second largest recipient of US military aid (no prizes for guessing the first largest), Egypt is a ‘key regional ally’ (i.e. pawn) of the United States, and as such, will carry out US policy. Writing in Haaretz, the liberal Israeli newspaper, Zvi Barel argues that “Egypt and Saudi Arabia, which view Hamas as an Iranian ally whose goal is to increase Tehran's regional influence at their expense, prefer to wait a bit in the hopes that Israel's military operation will strip Hamas of its ability to dictate terms.” In other words, the Egyptian and Saudi regimes (and their US puppet-masters) are hoping Israel succeeds in destroying the Hamas government and replacing it with something more pliant. They are prepared to see Gaza’s streets drenched with Palestinian blood to make this happen.

The Masses Rally

Of course, the pusillanimous collaboration by the Arab states has not been matched by its people. In Egypt and Lebanon, rallies of tens of thousands have taken place in support of the Palestinians. Large rallies have also taken place in Syria, Libya, Iraq and Jordan. Revulsion at the complicity of the Arab states was evident: left-wing Lebanese television station Aljadeed (New TV) showed demonstrators outside the Egyptian embassy, some waving red flags and one sporting a Ché Guevara t-shirt.

Even in Israel itself, where the population is subjected to a relentless propaganda machine in support of the state, a rally of over a thousand people assembled spontaneously in Tel-Aviv, attended by organisations from “Gush Shalom and the Women’s Coalition for Peace to the Anarchists Against the Wall and Hadash [with whom the Israeli Communist Party are involved]”.

A demonstration also took place in London outside the Israeli embassy. According to police reports, 700 people attended the stormy demonstration, blockading the road outside the embassy and bringing traffic to a standstill. Clashes between protesters and the police broke out when a group of protesters tried to storm the barrier that was penning them in.

The Futility of Terrorism and the Bankruptcy of the Fundamentalists

So what is Hamas, the supposed leader of Palestinian resistance to Israel, doing to defend the Palestinians? Unfortunately, their ‘resistance’ strategy is based on futile terrorist attacks on Israeli civilian targets. Since taking control of Gaza, the Islamic movement has fired hundreds of homemade rockets at the Israeli border town of Sderot. Whilst these attacks have rarely been deadly (less than 20 Israelis have been killed in such attacks since Israel removed its settlers from Gaza), they have made life miserable for the inhabitants of this poor, working-class town.

These attacks do nothing to militarily damage the regional superpower; they do however serve to harden Israeli public opinion, particularly amongst the poor workers of Sderot, who should be the Palestinians’ natural allies. Such attacks help to create a fortress mentality within Israel, encouraging its workers and poor (themselves heavily exploited by Israeli capitalism) to support ‘their’ state in its attacks against ‘the enemy’. The Israeli military can then take advantage of favourable Israeli public opinion to launch an attack. Its aim is to destroy or severely weaken Hamas, and see it replaced by something more pliant.

For its part, Hamas is primarily interested in gaining power over its own stretch of territory. The terrorist attacks on Israel are aimed at strengthening its position at the negotiating table; Hamas has already shown its willingness to accede to Israel’s demands (even going so far as to aid the Egyptian security forces in preventing Palestinians from entering Egypt via Gaza), but its support base forces it to drive a harder bargain than Fatah. This is a problem for Israel, whose dominant economic and political position will be threatened if it concedes too much.

Is There an Alternative?

If Hamas were serious about organising a resistance against Israel’s occupation, it would base its strategy not on futile acts of terrorism by small bands of ‘heroes’, but on arming the Palestinian masses. It would organise regional defence committees in every city, town and village, democratically controlled by the workers, peasants and refugees, and composed of every able-bodied man and woman. Such a force would have a genuine mass base, and, conducting a campaign of guerrilla street-fighting, would be a formidable foe for the Israeli occupation forces. But such a force would threaten the power of Hamas (and of the powerful, semi-feudal clans that dominate Palestinian politics). One of Hamas’ first actions upon taking control of Gaza was to raid the offices of the Palestinian Trade Union Federation, in an attempt to stifle any independent organisation of Palestinian workers.

For its part, the Israeli labour movement has a moral duty to oppose Israel’s barbarous actions. The Histadrut (Israeli Trade Union Federation) should refuse to cooperate with the ‘war effort’, calling strikes amongst workers involved in the handling of military supplies, and, if necessary, an anti-war general strike. The workers and poor of Israel are the natural allies of the Palestinian masses of Gaza and elsewhere. This war will not benefit them – it will mean more curtailing of civil liberties by the state (Israeli police already have unprecedented powers to search people’s homes without even informing them), more cuts in public spending, and more threats of terrorism as Hamas or Hezbollah retaliate.

Of course, we are under no illusions that the Israeli labour movement is about to take such actions – even more than in Britain, Israeli trade union leaders are very much integrated into the state machine. But some rank-and-file members, Israeli workers, will start to ask awkward questions at union meetings, demanding that their leaders take action.

We demand

:

An immediate cessation of hostilities by the Israeli military against the population of Gaza
An immediate lifting of the crippling economic blockade, to allow free movement of goods and people in and out of Gaza
An end to the futile terrorist attacks on the civilian population of Sderot; the leadership of the resistance must arm the Palestinian masses and organise regional defence committees in every city, town and village
Support for the suffering masses of Gaza by the Israeli labour movement – no cooperation with the Israeli war machine
For a Socialist Federation of the Middle East

RENEGADE EYE

Israel Turns 60 – Where Next for the Jewish and Palestinian Peoples?

By Luke Wilson
Friday, 16 May 2008

Introduction

On May 14th, 1948, David Ben-Gurion, leader of the Jewish Agency in Palestine, declared the independence of the State of Israel. Soon afterwards, the constant fighting between Jewish and Arab militias would erupt into a full-scale war, dragging in neighbouring Egypt, Transjordan, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq, and displacing over a million people. Though figures vary, it is estimated that over 700,000 Palestinians fled or were driven from their homes by the nascent Israeli Defence Force (IDF) and Jewish militias. Just as tragically, more than 600,000 Jews fled or were driven from their homes across the Arab world; many would make their homes in the new State of Israel.

60 years on, the problems of this troubled region remain, with repercussions for the rest of the world. The Palestinian refugees and their descendents, now believed to number 3-4 million, still live in squalid refugee camps, and face often daily harassment and terror at the hands of the IDF. On the flip-side, the creation of Israel, which was supposed to solve the ‘Jewish question’ and emancipate the Jews from antisemitism, has manifestly failed to achieve this: Israel’s citizens have had to live through several major wars and a consistent terrorist threat, and an undercurrent of anti-semitism exists today even in the West (albeit at relatively low levels).

So where did the movement to found the modern Israeli State come from? What roles did imperialism and the Soviet Union play in bringing this about? And what does the future hold for the Jewish and Palestinian peoples?

The Historical Roots of Zionism

The term Zionism refers to the nationalist movement with the aim of establishing a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Its origin is attributed to Theodor Herzl, a wealthy Austro-Hungarian journalist, who put forward the idea at the first World Zionist Congress in Basle, Switzerland. Initially, Zionism largely involved wealthy Jews buying land in Palestine from absentee Arab landlords (often leading to the eviction of the existing Palestinian tenants), and donating it to Jewish settlers, who would form collectives and work the land.

Zionism was Herzl’s answer to the age-old ‘Jewish question’, that of emancipating the Jewish people from anti-semitic discrimination and raising them to a level of equality with other peoples. The nineteenth century had seen severe anti-semitic reaction across Europe, particularly in Tsarist Russia, where many were butchered in pogroms. However, Zionism was a bourgeois answer to the question, seeking emancipation by separating the Jewish people from the struggles of other peoples for emancipation from the drudgery and enslavement of capitalism.

In the early years, Zionism attracted little interest from European Jews, wealthy or poor, bourgeois or proletarian. My own ancestors, who were of the German petit-bourgeoisie, had little interest, forsaking the harsh desert of Palestine for more hospitable surroundings in England (though many of their descendents have since ended up in Israel, after the holocaust). For the Jewish proletariat across Germany and Eastern Europe, the class struggle, in the form of the Bund and the Bolsheviks, was more attractive than the isolationism of Zionism. Nonetheless, a steady trickle of Jews, mostly of European origin, entered Palestine throughout the early twentieth century: by 1914, around 60,000 Jews (7% of the total population) called Palestine home, and by 1941 this had risen to just under 475,000 (30% of the total population)[i].

Relations Between Jews and Arabs in Palestine

The manner in which the Zionist movement colluded with absentee Arab landlords to expel Palestinian farmers from their land naturally created hostility between the Jewish settlers and the Arab inhabitants. Nonetheless, there were examples of joint struggle of Jewish and Arab workers against their employers.

In 1920, the General Federation of Jewish Workers in Palestine, or Histadrut, was established. A coalition of various political parties or movements, its roles included absorbing new Jewish immigrants, establishing workers’ cooperatives, and providing basic social services. Already, the industrialisation caused by settlement was attracting Arab workers from the surrounding countries, whose standard of living was on the whole much lower than that of the European Jews. As with all capitalist concerns, the businesses sought to employ these workers at lower rates, thus helping to drive down wages (and foment racism at the same time). However, a contradiction arose: the Zionist movement’s social base was Jewish immigration (it relied heavily on help from Jews outside Palestine to make it happen), and hence there was an ideological commitment to providing work for Jewish immigrants.

In 1921, David Ben-Gurion proposed a programme of creating parallel unions for Arab workers, to prevent them being used to undercut Jewish wages. However, under capitalism, the contradictions wouldn’t go away, and Ben-Gurion gradually came to the conclusion that total separation of Jews and Arabs was necessary, i.e. Palestine had to be partitioned.

Despite this reactionary role by the Histadrut leadership, joint struggles did happen. For example, 1931 saw a joint strike of Jewish and Arab bus and taxi drivers against heavy taxes imposed by the British occupiers. Both the leaders of the Histadrut and the growing pan-Arab nationalist movement vehemently opposed this strike, and it collapsed. A more detailed account of this period can be found in Arab-Jewish Workers' Joint Struggles Prior to the Partition of Palestine.

Sadly, these joint struggles were isolated examples. The reactionary role of the Histadrut and Palestinian Arab Workers' Society (an Arab union formed due to Arabs being excluded from the Histadrut), as well as the treacherous role of the Stalinists in the Soviet Union (who opportunistically vacillated between gratuitous anti-semitism and support for Zionism!), ultimately sabotaged the potential for unity along class lines.

The Holocaust, the Imperialists and Stalinism: Partition, a Crime Against Both Peoples

The Holocaust changed the dynamics considerably. The butchering of six million Jews created millions of refugees looking for a home. Many of these fled to Palestine. However, despite Zionist propaganda, it should be noted that the Zionist movement did not play an honourable role regarding saving these poor souls. Whereas the labour movements of the USA, Britain and elsewhere organised campaigns to open the borders of their countries to Jewish refugees, the Zionist movement and the Jewish communal leaderships played little role: their interest was in populating Palestine with Jews, not saving Jews from the gas chambers.

Nor were the British and US imperialists the ‘saviours of the Jews’. Consistently refusing to bomb the railway tracks leading to the extermination camps, they also vehemently resisted Jewish immigration into their own countries, and Britain severely restricted Jewish immigration into Palestine. The US government famously turned away the S.S. St. Louis, a boat full of refugees fleeing Nazi terror, in 1939 (many of the refugees eventually perished at the hands of the Nazis), and the British similarly refused to allow the Struma to land in Palestine in 1942 (the ship was later sunk by a Soviet submarine).

Contrary to some views on the left, neither the British nor US imperialists gave unconditional backing to the Zionist movement (see Some historical clarifications on Israel/Palestine for more details). Britain promised Palestine first to the Arabs (in 1916), then to the Jews (the famous Balfour Declaration of 1917). Following their historical imperialist policy (replicated, for example, in India), they attempted to maintain control by turning the resident peoples against each other. In fact, Britain was against the emergence of a strong Jewish state: British officers commanded the Jordanian units that attacked Israel in 1948! The holocaust had caused Jews of all political stripes (including… communists) to emigrate to Palestine, and the British feared a Jewish state might fall under Soviet influence.

Amazingly, some Stalinists believe that Stalin was a consistent fighter against Zionism. This could not be further from the truth! Whilst Stalin did indulge in the most obnoxious anti-semitism (including murdering many Jewish Bolsheviks), he in fact supported the partition of Palestine and the creation of a Jewish state, believing he could use it as a bulwark against the British-influenced Arab monarchies. Soviet-dominated Czechoslovakia was in fact one of the first states to arm the new Jewish state after the United Nations voted to partition Palestine.

Similarly, the US initially supported the embargo of Israel. It changed its position as a result of its manoeuvring against British imperialism, as Britain’s position weakened in the Middle East. Still, Britain and the US would only come to fully support (and dominate) Israel as the Soviet Union extended its influence over Arab states, particularly Egypt and Syria.

On November 29, 1947, the UN General Assembly voted to partition Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state. Britain agreed to withdraw gradually from Palestine, relinquishing control to the UN. However, as we have seen, it was already manoeuvring to strengthen its own interests. The British occupation of Palestine had seen consistent violence between Jewish and Arab gangs, and between Jewish guerrillas and the British army (in 1946, the Irgun, a Jewish guerrilla group, blew up the King David Hotel, home to the British military command, killing 92 people). In 1948, this broke out into full-scale war. As we have seen, over 700,000 Palestinians fled or were driven from their homes by the nascent Israeli Defence Force (IDF) and Jewish militias, and more than 600,000 Jews fled or were driven from their homes across the Arab world. Whilst these Jews would later become citizens of Israel (admittedly amongst the poorest), the Palestinians to this day remain refugees.

Aftermath

As the Soviet Union extended its influence over Egypt and Syria, Israel would become an ever-increasingly important bulwark of US imperialism in the region. The Cold War turned the Middle East into a battleground, and Israel’s short history has been a bloody one. Even since the fall of the Soviet Union, Israel has been a key part of US attempts to maintain control over the region. Poverty in Israel is also rising. Capitalism has failed to create a prosperous society for Israel’s Jews. Pensioners are reduced to eating rotten fruit thrown out by supermarkets at the end of the day; civil servants go unpaid for over a year; students are crippled with rising fees and debt.

As for the Palestinians, they continue to live as refugees in the Occupied Territories, Lebanon and Jordan, confined to the margins of society. A decades-long guerrilla-campaign by various petit-bourgeois groups around the Palestinian Liberation Organisation has failed to liberate this people; indeed, the PLO leaders have (as in Ireland with Sinn Fein) transformed themselves into collaborators of the worst sort. Hamas cannot provide an alternate to Palestinians.

It’s therefore safe to conclude that Zionism has utterly failed the peoples of Israel and Palestine. What has it done for Jews in the West? Well, despite the relative economic prosperity of Jews in the West (for example, in Britain, nearly 60% of Jewish males and 30% of Jewish females are employed in ‘managerial and professional’ occupations, much higher than any other religious group[ii]), violent attacks against Jews still occur, and are actually increasing. Many of these attacks are by young Muslims, brought up with television images of suffering Palestinians, and encouraged by reactionary religious leaders to attack their Jewish neighbours.

In addition, a section of respectable political discourse centres around disturbing conspiracy theories of Jewish domination, particularly of the US government (Mearsheimer and Walt’s 2006 paper, for example, purports to show that a Jewish lobby directs US policy in the Middle East counter to US strategic interests). The fact that anti-semitism still plays a political role is because the Jewish Question has transformed itself into a national question (something Marx could not have been expected to predict when he argued in On the Jewish Question that Jews would be freed from anti-semitism when they were economically emancipated). Zionism’s gift to the Jewish people is a continuation of anti-semitism.

Is There a Solution?

Capitalism, with its history of pitting different ethnic or religious groups against each other in search of lower wages, clearly offers no solution. Nor can we have any faith in the manoeuvring of the imperialist powers, and their so-called ‘peace-plans’, which would lead to a hopelessly weak Palestinian Bantustan (like the black ‘homelands’ in apartheid South Africa, which were actually just labour reserves for South African capitalism) under the economic heel of Israel, and continued exploitation of Jewish and Arab workers.

Some sections of the petit-bourgeois left give support to Islamic fundamentalism, and argue for the destruction of Israel and its replacement by a single Arab (possibly Islamic) Palestine. Obviously we cannot support any such thing. To begin with, it would have catastrophic consequences for Israel’s Jews, who would be a persecuted minority in an Arab/Islamic state. Secondly, a capitalist Palestine, even an Arab/Islamic capitalist Palestine, would be incapable of raising the Palestinian people out of poverty. Capitalism drives down wages and living conditions, it does not raise them. Thirdly, Israel has the Middle East’s biggest military machine. Whilst guerrilla tactics have had some success in defeating Israeli aggression (Hezbollah’s victory in 2006 is one such example), destroying the state is another matter entirely.

In the last analysis, the only allies the Israeli and Arab workers and poor have are each other. The marvellous workers’ movements across Egypt show that the power of capitalism and imperialism can be challenged. Only united in revolutionary struggle against their common enemy, the vampiric capitalist class and imperialist overlords, can the workers of Palestine, Israel and the wider Middle East transform society into something better.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
[i] Israeli - Palestinian ProCon.org - Population Statistics

[ii] See second figure in National Statistics - Employment Patterns

RENEGADE EYE