ONE STATE - ISRAEL’S COMING NIGHTMARE?,
Israeli socialist, Yacov Ben Efrat, explains in Challenge magazine how the Zionist state may have created its own worst nightmare by undermining the possibility of a two state solution. (Photo by Wissam Nassar. Gaza, June 2007. Hamas takes over)
AFTER RETURNING from the Annapolis Conference, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told Haaretz (November 28, 2007) that “the State of Israel cannot endure unless a Palestinian state comes into being.” Olmert had made a like pronouncement in December 2003, when he was Deputy Prime Minister to Ariel Sharon. At that time he told Nahum Barnea of Yediot Aharonot: “Israel will soon need to make a strategic recognition… We are nearing the point where more and more Palestinians will say: ‘We’re persuaded. We agree with [right-wing politician Avigdor] Lieberman. There isn’t room for two states between the Jordan and the sea. All we want is the right to vote.’ On the day they reach that point,” said Olmert, “we lose everything. … I quake to think that leading the fight against us will be liberal Jewish groups that led the fight against apartheid in South Africa.”
On hearing these words, Barnea rubbed his eyes in astonishment. Today, it would appear, the message is no less relevant. In Olmert’s appraisal, if no solution is found to the Palestinian question, Israel will wind up with an apartheid regime; the Palestinians of the Occupied Territories will then demand the right to vote. The democratic West, he knows, will not forever tolerate an ethnocracy that withholds this right from a third or more of its subjects. Such is the Zionist nightmare.
The head understands, but the hands lag behind. Or to vary Abba Eban’s quip: where peace is concerned, Israel has never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Apparent exceptions turn out to prove the rule. In the Oslo Accords of 1993, for instance, the Palestinians recognized Israel. But playing its usual zero-sum game, Israel tried to use the Accords as a means to extract concessions. By the end of the 90’s, blockades, settlement expansion, economic manipulation and political intransigence had wiped out Palestinian trust. The result became apparent at Camp David in July 2000: Yasser Arafat knew he did not have a mandate to sign.
Or consider the Sharon-Bush vision of June 2003, articulated in their letters of April 2004. Haunted by the Zionist nightmare, Sharon saw the need for a Palestinian State, but he could not bring himself to allow a real one. The vision announced by Bush amounted to a state without substance. It would be fractured territorially, it would lack military capability, and it would have no control over borders or air space. The economically weak Palestine was to remain dependent on Israel, whose needs it would have to serve. In this way, Israel and the US vitiated the concept of a Palestinian state, encountering no international opposition.
Then came the disengagement from Gaza in August 2005. Israel insisted on unilateralism. “There is no partner,” was Sharon’s mantra, although Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) of Fatah was president. Sharon (and Olmert, his deputy) bypassed him. This turned out to be a major error. If disengagement had come about through negotiations with Abbas, he could have taken at least partial credit for Israel’s withdrawal. In the event, Hamas took it all.
A few months later (January 2006) the Palestinians overwhelmingly elected a Hamas government (although Abbas was still president). The two years since the Hamas landslide have been difficult ones for them. Hamas has refused to accept the West’s conditions that it recognize Israel and accept the Oslo Accords. As a result, the US and Europe have backed a political and economic blockade against it, seeking to destabilize its rule. In June 2007, in Gaza, matters came to a head. Hamas took the Strip in a military coup.
This event has immensely complicated the chances for peace. If Israel were to reach a separate agreement with Abbas in the West Bank, there would still be rockets from Gaza. Also, what guarantees that Hamas won’t take over the West Bank too? The notion of “two states for two peoples” has faded farther away than ever. For example, in building the separation barrier as it did—carving off pieces of the West Bank to protect its settlement blocs—Israel may have been nursing the idea that the barrier would one day mark the border. The Hamas victory has foiled that too: a wall does not stop rockets.
Such were the realities behind the Annapolis Conference. At first it was meant to set forth principles for peace. According to first-hand sources on both sides, these were already formulated in the year 2000 at Camp David and Sharm al-Sheikh. At that time, however, trust between the sides was lacking, and regional conditions were unfavorable. Today an agreement is impeded by the internal Palestinian situation.
No discussion of principles or prior understandings can occur as long as the Territories are divided between Fatah in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza. An Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank, it is feared, will lead to a Hamas takeover there too. For this reason, Israel has clung to the Road Map as a life preserver. It obligates the PA to eliminate the terrorist infrastructure as a precondition for Israel’s withdrawal. This implies the renewal of Fatah control over Gaza. Israel is not about to begin a civil war with its settlers as long as it lacks a secure and stable partner on the other side.
And so we come full circle: given the might of the Israeli Occupation, the power of Hamas, and Fatah’s lack of credibility, what chance has the Fatah leadership—no matter how moderate it may be—to govern its people and wage peace?
The most significant new factor in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the enormous decline in the status of the PA after Fatah lost Gaza to Hamas. It is an axiom among all the mainstream Israeli parties that the State no longer has an interest in direct occupation. Yet the facts on the ground keep Israel from handing the reins to Abbas.
Theoretically, the daily rocket attacks from Gaza might stop if Israel were to reconquer the Strip. Yet such a step could hurtle the region into a tailspin, undermine what remains of Abbas’s rule in the West Bank, and force Israel to reconquer the cities there too. The notorious Civil Administration would then return, and Israel would have full, direct responsibility for the feeding, education and employment of 4 million Palestinians. Added to the 1.4 million Arabs living as citizens within its borders, the number of Arabs under Israel’s rule would then almost equal the number of Jews (5.7 million).
The nominal PA rule over the cities of the West Bank, along with the Hamas domination of Gaza, enables Israel to maintain an indirect occupation while avoiding responsibility. But if Israel were to retake Gaza and then (following a PA collapse) the West Bank, that would bring on the Zionist nightmare.
We may regard Annapolis, then, as a desperate attempt to strengthen Abbas, prevent the PA’s collapse and save the Jewish State. At the subsequent Paris Conference, the developed nations pledged $7.5 billion toward the building of Palestine. The West has recognized that this latest effort may be the last chance for a two-state solution.
What exactly is the nature of the Jewish state that is thus endangered? It has become clear in recent years that Israel’s drive to separate the two peoples is not meant as penance for its crimes of forty years. The desire for separation results rather from the evaporation of the Zionist ethos. This ethos once embraced all Jewish citizens of the state, but it has shriveled to embrace the successful alone. From a nation for all its Jews, Israel has become a nation for all its rich. The classes that have lost strength in recent years, such as workers who could not make the transition to high-tech, or those displaced by foreign labor, or single mothers, have become a burden on the state (that is, on the rich), just as the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank are a burden. Israel seeks a model for separating from the Palestinians, while it employs a neoliberal model to separate from its own poor. Recently, for instance, the Olmert government faced the longest and most militant teachers’ strike in the country’s history. (See article, p. 10.)
Criticism of the government is concentrated on two levels. The first is political, focusing on its inability to bring the peace that alone can secure the continuation of the Jewish State. The second level is that of class conflict. The same Jewish State, which once symbolized job security and a homeland for most of its citizens, is breaking up before their eyes. It has detached itself from the workers and the poor. In a nation that lacks both physical and economic security, we cannot expect solidarity.
On the analysis given here, Israel is damned if it does and damned if it doesn’t. Perhaps it still has time to save the two-state solution—and itself—by doing what it should have done long ago: through bilateral agreement, it should have dismantled the settlements and withdrawn to the lines of 1967. But the likelihood of such a conversion is now near zero, because a new element has entered the picture: Hamas, which might do in the West Bank what it has done in Gaza.
Israel is also damned, on the other hand, if it does not withdraw to the lines of 1967, for it will then have to face the ever stronger forces pushing for a single democratic state. The time has come for hard decisions: either help build an independent Palestine or face a one-state solution.
An excellent piece. For a sharp overarching analysis of the Palestinian struggle, from inception to the present, one that contains a compelling argument in support of a one-state solution, I recommend Ghada Kharmi’s book, ‘Married To Another Man.’
There is no doubt that a significant shift in public consciousness has occurred in recent years vis-a-vis the issue of Palestine, whereby Israel is now commonly regarded as the oppressor and apartheid state it is, rather than the plucky little liberal democracy surrounded by Arab hordes it succeeded in portraying itself as previously. This shift increased dramatically during Israel’s assault on southern Lebanon in 2006. It has led to a breach between the public and those govts which continue to offer Israel blind support in the EU. Even in the US, long a bastion of unqeustioning support for Israel, there has been a shift in public opinion over Israel and its role in the world. The momentum that has built over an international boycott of Israel reflects this shift in consciousness and the vitriolic response of the Israeli state and the Zionist lobby internationally in reaction to the boycott, in particular to the UCU’s motion to discuss it, reflects the fact that already it has begun to chip away at the foundation of moral legitimacy upon which this apartheid state rests.
It seems that for Israel, the writing is on the wall.
J
Comment by John W — 22 January, 2008 @ 10:05 am
Overwhelmingly voted for Hamas?
What was the percentage, 39%?
This zero sum stuff is a nice parlour game for those who dont give a toss about the Palestinians because it ignores the fact that Israel can always just withdraw and say there you go, have it.
Comment by tim — 22 January, 2008 @ 10:37 am
Tim
They can’t “just withdraw”.
there are half a million illegal settlers in the West Bank, and billions of dollars of investment in developing an east-West econominc infrastructure and transport axis to integrate these settlements with the 1948 lands. Theee is also the questioon of illegally annexed East Jerusalem, which includes the Western Wall (wailing wall) the holiest Jewish site. Are they goinf to simply withdraw from East Jerusalem, and abandon the Western wall? But without East Jeruslem the economy of the West Bank is non-viable.
And a total withdrawal wouldd also mean relinquishing control of the Allenby bridge and other links with Jordan, and allowing international flights into the West Bank - which the hard line Zionists will not accept. Actually, many palestinians in the West Bank would jump at the “just withdraw” option.
Comment by Andy — 22 January, 2008 @ 10:49 am
If the article is correct and the alternative is the end of a Jewish state, (which of course is doubtful) then of course they can “just withdraw”.
You fail to understand that without economic and land agreements the real losers remain the Palestinians.
Comment by tim — 22 January, 2008 @ 10:54 am
Tim
The issue at stake here is not the economic viability of a Palestinian state. Israel’s role in the region has been the cause of its dislocation - for endless war and for helping to send a signficant proportion of Arabs and Muslims into the arms of fundamentalism - and for the unremitting poverty suffered by the Palestinian people under its occupation. A Jewish state is an historical anomaly, as it any state formed on racist lines and which exists at the negation of the indigenous population. The aim and objective which lies at the root of Israel’s existence is abundantly clear by now - the complete cleansing of the land of the Palestinians and the murder of their culture and history. From 1948 to 1967 this was being done through foced transfer and removal, and from 1967 to now by making conditions so intolerable that the Palestinians leave of their own accord.
This is no struggle between two warring tribes or groups, this is a struggle against ethnic cleansing and apartheid. As such there can be no middle ground.
J
Comment by John W — 22 January, 2008 @ 11:22 am
“A Jewish state is an historical anomaly, as it any state formed on racist lines and which exists at the negation of the indigenous population. ”
Are you campaigning against the USA,Australia, South American countries etc?
Or is it just the jewish state that fires you up John?
Comment by tim — 22 January, 2008 @ 11:40 am
John..
I think you go further than you need to: when you say “any state formed on racist lines and which exists at the negation of the indigenous population” is an anomaly.
This would apply to Australia and the USA as well.
Nor is the Israeli constitutional “right of return” unique. Article 116 of the German constitution (the Grundgesetz of the BRD)allows a “right of return” for those of German decent (Aussiedler), who may speak no German, and be decended from german populations who never lived on the current territory of the German state. These immigrants are granted immediate citizenship, while foereigners living in germany need to live there for eight years and speak fleunt German before getting citizenship.
The Jewish israeli settlers in the 1948 lands now are the indigenous popluation.
Any solution needs to reflect that fact.
havin said which, i think that a single secular and non-ethnic state is the only eventual solution, but it needs to protect the identites and safety of both populations.
Comment by Andy — 22 January, 2008 @ 11:46 am
Tim
And so you would advocate a repeat of the genocides you mentioned that took place on the continents of American and in Australia,
The reasons that socialists and all people of conscience and consciousness should throw themselves into the struggle against Israel’s ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians is precisely to prevent them being sent into the night as the indigenous peoples of the nations you listed were.
So you believe, it seems, that might is right. That we should just ignore the lessons of history and stand by and allow Israel to do as it sees fit? Is this your position? Is this the world that you aspire to?
You sound very much like a card-carrying member of the Cruise Missile Left with the sentiments you’ve just expressed.
Not only is there a moral issue at stake with regard to supporting the Palestinians, it is also a matter of material necessity, if you understand Israel’s role as a US gendarme in the region.
It must be brought to its knees not only in the interests of the Palestinians, but also in the interests of the international working class.
Tim, you might be willing to accept the Palestinians being reduced to the status of the native Americans and aborigines of Australia?
Thankfully, you’re in the minority.
J
J
Comment by John W — 22 January, 2008 @ 11:53 am
A very interesting article but I am not convinced that a two state solution on pre 67 borders will work whilst there are still many thousands of Palestinian refugees in the Lebanon. Even if the Israeli settlements in cis jordania are given over to house and resettle the rufugees there will still remain the issue of East Jerusalem which not only has the wailing wall but two of the holiest Islamic sites in the same location.
John W’s comment at 5 gets to the nub of the problem the state of Israel is an anomaly with strong elements determined to ethnically cleanse their ‘Jewish’ lands already many Palestinian towns have been resettled by the jewish community and there names changed whilst those that lived there originally languish in camps in Lebanon - how many of us reaching sixty years old would be happy that we have spent all of our lives as refugees?
And what of Gaza are we going to have a repeat of the Berlin airlift to link together the two enities that would probably be part of a two state solution?
However the article is right, the Israeli’s are damned if they do and damned if they don’t to that end a two state agreement that offers a solution to the refugee problem might have some mileage - I won’t hold my breath
Pete Brown
Comment by Pete Brown — 22 January, 2008 @ 11:54 am
Andy
‘havin said which, i think that a single secular and non-ethnic state is the only eventual solution, but it needs to protect the identites and safety of both populations.’
Reply:
We are in complete agreement.
Comment by John W — 22 January, 2008 @ 12:02 pm
Pete: “already many Palestinian towns have been resettled by the jewish community and there names changed whilst those that lived there originally languish in camps in Lebanon ”
Well although the Germans don’t live in camps now, that is exactly what happened to the german populations of Czechoslovakia and Poland. East Prussia was wiped off the map completely.
In 1940 Danzig was a German city populated by Germans, today Gdansk is a Polish city populated by Poles. Do you think the Germans who were born in Danzig, or East Prussia, or the formerly german towns of Bohemia are ever going to get that land and property back?
The palestinian right of return is a bargaining chip, but the best actually obtainable outcome for the refugees is compensation and future access to prosperity.
Comment by Andy — 22 January, 2008 @ 12:07 pm
Andy
The difference is that the Germans of Danzig are not clamouring to return. Germany is not an oppressed nation. The German people are not being ethnically cleansed by another power, nor is their national identity being systematically crushed under the wheels of an apartheid regime.
Your analogy misses the point completely. The Palestinians are facing annhilation as a homogenous people. The prescription is clear, one alluded to by Tim in a previous post. They are destined to share the fate of the native Americans and Aborigines of Australia. The German people are explicity not facing the same threat and never have.
The Right of Return for the Palestinians is understood as a vital aspect of their struggle to hang on to a national identity that is slowly but surely being destroyed.
John
John
Comment by John W — 22 January, 2008 @ 12:17 pm
well Chancellor Angela merkel did cause some flutters in Polish political circles when she referred to it last year. But that aside.
the right to return is never going to happen, and can’t happen. It may be part of the national myths of the palestinians, but in the same way Hungarians weep for the lands lost in the treaty of Trianon, there is no going back.
It is true that a shared predicament and shared oppression by Zionism is an important component of palestinian national consciousness, but if there really was just peace possible, then things would move on. (It is interetsing by the way how little identification there is between israeli Arabs and Palestinians in the occupied territories)
Comment by Andy — 22 January, 2008 @ 12:33 pm
John,
I tend to agree with most of what Andy has written here.
To single out only thhe Jewish state for dismantling,ignoring all others that exist for the same reasons you say Israel does, exposes you.
The resulting promise to the Palestinians and the special “camps and sympathy” status imposed on them by some so called supporters does noone any good.
Andys last point about Israeli Arabs is a salient one and is why any long term solution must involve economic agreements with all the countries in the immediate region.(Maybe Syrias Alawite regime is not capable)
Has anyone got any opinion polls done amongst Israeli Arabs?
Comment by tim — 22 January, 2008 @ 1:37 pm
Tim: “I tend to agree with most of what Andy has written here.”
There goes my credibility !!!
last year two israeli Arab activists from the Workers Advice Centres came over to the UK, and I had a chat with them about this. they have very little to do with palestinians in the occupied territories, although they do consider them compatriots. And in the 1970s and 1980s there was much more contact
there are difficulties of communiations and travel, the fact that they have been operating in a different political context for 60 years, and to be frank the fact that many palestinians from the occupied territirories seem to regard those who stayed in the 1948 lands as somehow compromised.
Comment by Andy — 22 January, 2008 @ 1:44 pm
What credibility was that?
Comment by tim — 22 January, 2008 @ 1:50 pm
And if you’re honest Andy,Israel has treated its Palestinian population better than most of the surrounding Arab states have in terms of political and social freedoms.And they certainly have a much better living standard.
The “home grown terrorist” thing in Israel seems to be similar to the US thing.
ie the threat is likely to come from an Islamist loon indocrinated elsewhere.
Comment by tim — 22 January, 2008 @ 1:55 pm
#17 “Israel has treated its Palestinian population better than most of the surrounding Arab states have in terms of political and social freedoms”
Even if you are referring to the population within the 1948 lands that isn’t true.
Comment by Andy — 22 January, 2008 @ 2:00 pm
Clearly I was referring to 1948.
In terms of citizenship,political rights,sexual freedom and equality I certainly think its preferable to being in a camp in Syria,denied citizenship and living in a dictatorship.
Comment by tim — 22 January, 2008 @ 2:07 pm
Oh,and obviously in terms of living standards.
I also believe that any discriminatory laws in Israel should be removed by the way
Comment by tim — 22 January, 2008 @ 2:09 pm
Tim #14
Yes, it does expose me - it exposes me as someone committed to the defeat of US imperialism and its objective of turning the world into a free market desert. Israel, as a US gendarme in the Middle East, plays the same role as the UK does in the North Atlantic, S Korea does in SE Asia, and Colombia in Latin America - namely regional guarantors of US hegemony. This is why I call for the break-up of the British State as well as Israel’s defeat vis-a-vis the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians.
This is a global struggle, but everything in your analysis reveals that you can’t see past what is for you an issue of political pragmatism based on a muddled analysis of the struggle as one between two tribes both with the same rights. It is not. This is a Zionist position, it is what they would have us believe, and reveals their success in beguiling even those who would call themselves leftist into that trap.
The Right of Return holds weight as much for symbolic as concrete reasons. Symbolically it is an extra weapon in the depleted armoury of the Palestinians, and it acts as a counterweight against uninhibited assimilation of Jews onto their land, land upn which stood Palestinian towns and villages in recent history. It is an issue encompassing the theft of land, resources, and national identity.
I am not interested in any bourgeois conception of fairness or balance. I am interested only in taking sides.
The Palestinian struggle is a struggle fought in the interests of the international working class and the oppressed. By failing to understand that you betray that you have succumbed to the weight of moral pressure exerted by Zionism and its apologists.
Comment by John W — 22 January, 2008 @ 2:25 pm
And they must live in camps until you are satiated.
Comment by tim — 22 January, 2008 @ 2:28 pm
Tim
It is not John making the palestinians live in camps. The responsibility for that lies with Israel
Comment by Andy — 22 January, 2008 @ 2:41 pm
‘And they must live in camps until you are satiated.’
Tim
What a ludicrous statement.
Comment by John W — 22 January, 2008 @ 3:29 pm
If there were millions of refugees still in camps in the Indian Punjab,the Indian Government would bear,by now, the primary responsibility for that.
If Hungarians had been kept in camps until the wall fell,the host countries would bear responsibility for that.
And if Jews who moved in the opposite direction,from the west bank had been kept in camps,now that would be Israels responsibility.
John.
Basically you see the Palestinians as a pawn in the whole game.
Kept in camps they are more useful to you.
You could of course follow your own advice and strike a blow by storming the perimeter fence at Mildenhall.
Unlikely.But perhaps more dignified than your present game.
Comment by tim — 22 January, 2008 @ 3:36 pm
# 6: Are you campaigning against the USA,Australia, South American countries etc? Or is it just the jewish state that fires you up John?
Tim, for your perusal!!! THAT is what “fires” me up!!!!!!!!
We, in the so-called West, ARE SUPPORTING WITH OUR TAX DOLLARS such atrocities. ENOUGH ALREADY!
BTW, I strongly suggest that you read Yosef Grodzinsky’s In the Shadow of the Holocaust. Perhaps you might then stop linking ‘Zionism’ to ‘Judaism’. What is happening over there HAS NOTHING to do with Judaism or Jewishness.
Comment by Gene — 22 January, 2008 @ 5:39 pm
Israelis are far more aware of the reality than their so-called supporters are in the West. The above excellent article is a perfect example.
Leading Israeli politicians talk about an apartheid state, about being France in Algeria but this time not withdrawing (that is, openly colonialist), and if any Palestinian state comes into existence being completely dependent on Israel and not worth taking seriously (or “fried chicken”, as one leading politician described any future Bantustan state). Meanwhile, Israel’s “supporters” splutter about all kinds of deranged nonsense and bray about anti-Semitism.
Like Arab socialists, Israeli socialists despise the liberal “Left” and pro-war “Left”. No surprise there. The so-called leftwing “supporters” (that is, destroyers) of Israel haven’t got a comrade outside the expansionists and racists who are strangely referred to as “doves” and “hawks”.
Comment by Tawfiq Chahboune — 22 January, 2008 @ 5:39 pm
Oh dear, where do we start?
Israel is a settler colonial state. So were Australia and the US. That’s true. They ’solved’ their native problem through extermination and dispossesion. Is that what Tim wants? If so he should say it aloud. They are no longer actively involved in crushing their native populations and the result is similair - Aborigines and Indians living in reservations or villages suffering extreme racism and oppression.
Palestine is an active struggle albeit one where the Palestinians are suffering enormously as with the Nazi style siege of Gaza. And I use that comparison deliberately.
But Israel is different from the US etc. Being a Jewish citizen of Israel entitles you to enormous benefits compared to even Israeli Palestinians. 93% of the land is off limits to them because it is Jewish national land. Investment doesn’t take place in Arab areas. Arab villages are ‘unrecognised’ and like the Bedouin of the Negev they are demolished when the settlers require it. Israel has a conscious policy of ‘Judaisation’ of the Negev and Galilee. I’m not aware that this policy is in existence in the USA for example.
And Andy’s comparison with Germans is also off beat. Firstly it was a different situation. At the end of the war Germans in Poland, Czechoslovakia etc. were expelled. Noone should have supported this, it goes without saying, but these German populations had served as a means whereby the Nazis were able to legitimate their invasions of these countries. In Hungary and elsewhere it was the militias formed by the ethnic Germans that carried out the worst pogroms and massacres. In Hungary, where 1/2 million Jews were sent to Auschwitz it was the Hungarian Germans who were prominent in rounding up the Jews, i.e. these populations were Nazified. The comparison therefore with the expulsion of the Palestinians and the Jewish right of return is simply not apt on that level.
But in any case Germany doesn’t accord any privileges to Germans by blood over and above any other person that lives in Germany and is a citizen. There is no German National Fund or different benefit levels for true Germans and those who are not of German ‘blood’. Quite the contrary Germany today welcomes Jewish immigrants despite the best efforts of the Israeli government to persuade the German government to bar them entry!
Yes the discrimination between those who have are German by descent is wrong as is the fact that those residing in Germany have to wait 8 years to become citizens but it is not unlike the patriality clauses in British immigration law. But once here there is a formal legal equality, race relations legislation etc. In Israel if you are not Jewish then there is perpetual discrimination. That is why Jews and non-Jews cannot marry in Israel and indeed why there is no Israeli nationality. There is a Jewish nationality, a Muslim etc. nationality but no one single nationality.
In addition Jews in other countries are not Jewish nationals but nationals of the countries where they reside, although the Zionists historically wished otherwise.
And it is also clear that a 2 states solution is no solutuion because it simply reinforces the present apartheid situation. indeed the Yisrael Beitenu party, which has 11 seats in the Knesset and was until recently part of the governing coalition talks about exchange of land in order that Israel’s own Arabs can be ‘transferred’ into such a state. That is the danger, apart from reinforcing racism in israel, the ‘demographic problem’ as it is called and of course confessionalism in the Bantustan that is created.
Israel is and should be treated differently because it is different. It is as simple as that. The aim of Zionism is to create as pure a Jewish state as possible. That is not true of say the USA which has had massive migration of different peoples.
Today 2 States is dead which is why Olmert is worried because to change from the de-facto situation that exists today to a single state which remains Jewish would mean making the current apartheid situation a legal fact.
Tony G
Comment by Tony Greenstein — 22 January, 2008 @ 6:09 pm
Israel is a settler colonial state. So were Australia and the US. That’s true. They ’solved’ their native problem through extermination and dispossesion. Is that what Tim wants? If
The point I was making was the double standards of the “anti Zionist Left”.
Roght of return and end of the state in US,Aus,Argentina?
Not at all.
Just the Jewish state.
Again from Tony,sadly,
Its camps and sympathy for Palestinians.
Comment by tim — 22 January, 2008 @ 6:24 pm
And by the way,the majority of Palestinians also disagree with this one state sollution.
Ironically some on the “anti colonial left” know whats best for them.
And on right of return (As Andy says,a totem bargaining chip) perhaps try Cina’s tony,just to even out your protests.
Comment by tim — 22 January, 2008 @ 6:33 pm
John W # 21:
Your methodology ignores the relationship between the struggle for national and democratic rights and the class struggle for socialism (which you never mention)
Trotsky argued that national democratic tasks in the epoch of imperialism could only be solved by the socialist revolution, based on the leading role of the working class.
This was merely the elaboration of Marx’s theory of Permanent revolution for the 20th century and subsequent history has largely borne out its validity.
Calling for the defeat of imperialism is axiomatic, but not proposing a concrete strategy for achieving it is abstract and therefore useless.
It’s basically a rehash of the failed strategy of 60’s Maoism.
Please elucidate where exactly you stand on these issues.
Just to take some of the examples you mention in your first paragraph:
* Are you suggesting that North Korea should launch a revolutionary war against South Korea?
* Are you suggesting that Venezuela should declare war on Columbia?
* Will the ‘break up of the British state’, without a socialist revolution in any of the component parts, lead to anything other than the dismemberment of its components by US and European Capital? (I’d suggest looking at contemporary Ireland for an example)
Or should Korea be uniifed by the joint action of the working class in the South and North, the Columbian oligarchy and drugs barons be eliminated by the revolutionary movement in Columbia and its allies in Latin America and Britain become a socialist federation of England, Scotland and Wales?
The point is that strategies based on national democratic revolution, weren’t sucessful in the past and all came to a dead end when the Soviet bureaucracy collapsed. The outcomes of the struggle against apartheid in S.Africa and the Central American revolutions in the late 70’s were significantly affected by this too.
Venezuela on the other hand, shows that it’s possible to lead a struggle against imperialist domination and fight for democratic demands via mass organisation around a socialist programme.
The fact that this has not been implemented is mainly due to the Venezuelan bourgeoisie within the ruling party and the religious conservatives in the Catholic Church in Society as a whole.
Moving on to the Palestinians, the lack of analysis of the concrete situation is much the same.
How exactly do you propose to implement the right to return in the current circumstances? Short of counter-ethnic cleansing, that is?
If you think that’s acceptable in the context of Israel/Palestine, then spell it out.
Comment by Yeshiya ben Azriel — 22 January, 2008 @ 6:45 pm
.
One state in the m/e. How will this come about?
Comment by paul — 22 January, 2008 @ 8:03 pm
Andy @ 11 thanks, although I didn’t really need the history lesson. However John dealt with that for me @12. The major issue is the right to return and it must be faced although
Yeshiya @ 31 questions how short of a most extreme alternative.
Of course there is another reason why Israel will never return to the pre 67 borders that hasn’t been addressed here and thats WATER. Something like 70% of the water used in Israel comes from the aquifers in the jordan valley and the river Jordan itself and at the moment the Israeli’s can turn of the taps to the Palestinians when ever they like.
Vandana Shiva’s book ‘Water Wars’is a good read on this subject.
Years ago in Hebron I stood with a Palestinian friend whilst he apologised for not making tea because the water had been turned off and would be off for another six hours. As he told me this you could see the sprinklers watering the lawns in the Israeli settlement that overlooks the city.
The apartheid state will want to make sure that it controls the water to the Palestinian bantustans so a two state solution is even further away.
Pete Brown
Comment by Pete Brown — 22 January, 2008 @ 8:16 pm
Which is why any solution need to incorporate broader economic issues.
Water and electricity obviously included.
Jordan Egypt Lebanon also included.
Comment by tim — 22 January, 2008 @ 8:57 pm
Tim, do you support the right for Jews to move to and live in Israel?
If so then why shouldn’t Palestinians forced to leave Palestine/Israel enjoy the same freedoms.
Even without the comparison and equality the idea that the desire to return to your homeland and family only represents a ‘totem bargaining chip’ places your charge of “Its camps and sympathy for Palestinians” sound hollow. Without the right to return you are condemning Palestinians to the same.
Comment by BenP — 22 January, 2008 @ 9:45 pm
1.I believe states have a right to set their own immigration policies.
No I’m not condemning them to the same.
I’m urging two states.
And the option of citizenship in other countries,particularly those who’ve kept Palestinians in camps.
I don’t believe people who left one the Punjab in 1947 have a right to return that is transferrable down the generations.
Nor do I believe they should be made to live in camps.
Which rights of return to property do you support from the population movements of the 40s?
Or is it just Palestinians?
Comment by tim — 22 January, 2008 @ 10:00 pm
“I don’t believe people who left one the Punjab in 1947″
Like the Palestinians they hardly ‘left’, perhaps were forced under the sufferance of death would be more descriptive.
So it’s ok to force people from their land, declare a state on said land then create ‘immigration’ laws barring your return.
Yes I support the free movement of peoples - unconditionally. No quotas and not based on your benefit to GDP or meeting racial or religious qualifications.
Comment by BenP — 22 January, 2008 @ 10:36 pm
Yeshiha #31
Your analysis reveals that your conception of Marxism is NOT as a living science, as the tools by which we learn how to think - i.e. dialectically - but rather as what to think - i.e. taking the conlcusions that Marx, Englels, Lenins and Trotsky arrived at based on the world as it was in their time - and attempting to superimpose those conclusions onto the world as it is now, regardless of the difference in material conditions.
Yes, of course, objectively, by breaking up the British State, it does not necessarily follow that socialism will follow. But this is not what I believe. There is always a subjective factor which must come into play. What the break-up of the British State will achieve would be a qualitative change in the composition of an imperialist construct to which large sections of the working class - English, Scottish, Welsh, and North Irish - are attached to as imaginary and concrete beneficiaries. Intrinsically, it is how we are best able to effect a shift in the consciousness of the working class. This is why we must support the popular resistance in Iraq and Palestine. The defeat of US led imperialism in Iraq and the Middle East in general would have a knock on effect domestically - in terms of calling into question America’s perceived invincibility, etc. It would also have a material effect in terms of loss of control of Iraq’s oil reserves and thereby their objective of breaking Opec’s control over oil prices. The economic recession which may well result could lead to a social convulsion, which given the role of the US would be in the interests of the international working class and the oppressed of the developing world. Israel plays a key role in helping the US ruling classes achieve its objectives in the Middle East. This means that at this juncture socialists and marxists have common interests with the Arab resistance. We don’t have to share ideology in order to share common interests. However, it is obvious that once the struggle for self determination against Israel has been won, thereby serving to weaken US imperialism, socialism, as in the case of the break-up of the British State, would not follow in Palestine. But globally, given the nature and scope of US hegemony, it would nonetheless constitute a significant advance for the working class internationally.
James Connolly, in my view the finest Marxist revolutionary to come out of the British Isles, understood this conception of Marxism as a living science. Just before marching out to take his part in the Easter Rising of 1916 he told his men that if they managed to beat the British to keep hold of their weapons as their struggle would not be over but merely enter a different stage.
Comment by John W — 22 January, 2008 @ 10:44 pm
#38 John W
Conolly in fact, had a conception of fusing the struggle for Irish Independence with the struggle for Socialism. Had he survived I expect he would have joined the Communist International, like his daughter did after his death.
So he’s qualitatively to the left of the leadership of the other nationalist movements you describe.
Either way, history has not demonstrated what you’re saying to be true.
The victory of nationalist movements in numerous countries throughout the world ever since WW1 has not caused capitalism to collapse.
In almost all cases they moved to the right and socialism did not triumph in any advanced industrial country.
That doesn’t mean national liberation should be opposed, but it does point to the fact that the real dialectical interplay at work is not as you describe.
Basically you’re offering a variant of the “stages-theory”, albeit the revolutionary pre-1917 Lenin-Zinoviev version, not the Stalinist one that erected a Chinese wall between the bourgeois democratic and socialist revolution (although you are vulnerable to it)
Socialism is not on the agenda if capitalism can expand and rationally develop of the forces of production on a world scale.
It’s not a question of depriving it of resources in a world wide war of position.
It’s a question of whether its internal contradictions will lead to its own downfall.
The reality is, that even with all the resources in the world, capitalism cannot develop without crises of overproduction of capital.
Its happening right now.
The expansion of capital, based on endless credit, its globalisation and the inter-connectdness of the world economy has led to a massive overvaluation of exchange values.
That provides the seeds of a new economic recession which will change politics in the advanced industrial countries.
Socialism is not an inevitable outcome.
That will require resisting the chauvinist and nationalist elements that seek to divide the international working class, which must reorganise the world economy in their own interests.
Within that framework, all national questions can be solved.
“Imperialism is the Highest stage of Capitalism - on the eve of Socialist Revolution”
With the correct leadership, the supremely talented international working class can win. Just as Tottenham Hotspur under Ramos can stuff Wenger’s schoolkid Muppets 5-1 and resore the natural order in North London.
It’s just dialectics.
Comment by Yeshiya — 23 January, 2008 @ 8:15 am
Yeshiya:
Conolly in fact, had a conception of fusing the struggle for Irish Independence with the struggle for Socialism. Had he survived I expect he would have joined the Communist International, like his daughter did after his death.
So he’s qualitatively to the left of the leadership of the other nationalist movements you describe.
Reply:
Yes, you’ve read the history back to front. Had he survived I suspect he may well have joined the International. My point is that while he was alive he realised that the struggle for national liberation, without being an avowedly socialist struggle, was an advance and would implement a qualitative change in the composition of the state and bring with a chance to shift the consciousness of the working class.
Always, and ever, as I stated, opportunities are presented to us both domestically and internationally under capitalism. It is whether the requisite conscious leadership exists that can both identify and take advantage of those opportunities when they arrive. This understanding of the subjective factor is what set Lenin apart from most every other revolutionary of his time, esp Luxembourg, who held to the view that spontaneous action of the masses would occur on the back of a strike.
In my view an opportunity to advance the struggle internationally came in the UK on the back of the antiwar movement up to and including Feb 15 2003. Two million in the streets of London and you own the city. If there had been conscious leadership present on the day the opportunity to create a political crisis and quite possibly derail the Blair government’s ability to ally itself to the US may well have been called into question.
Yeshiya:
Either way, history has not demonstrated what you’re saying to be true.
The victory of nationalist movements in numerous countries throughout the world ever since WW1 has not caused capitalism to collapse.
In almost all cases they moved to the right and socialism did not triumph in any advanced industrial country.
Reply:
Yes, but again with conscious leadership history in the instances you refer to, albeit in the abstract, would have taken a different turn. In particular in Germany a large and militant and organised working class had the capability to smash the Nazis before they were able to seize power in 1933. The leadership, admittedly influenced by Stalin and his policy of focusing on social democracy as the enemy, sat on its hands.
Again and again history reveals that conscious leadership, the human factor, is the difference between success and failure.
Yeshiya:
Socialism is not on the agenda if capitalism can expand and rationally develop of the forces of production on a world scale.
It’s not a question of depriving it of resources in a world wide war of position.
It’s a question of whether its internal contradictions will lead to its own downfall.
Reply:
Here you present a deterministic understanding of Marxism. The contradictions inherent in the global economy in our time are reflected in the current conflict in the Middle East over control of the world’s energy reserves; are reflected in its inability to solve global povery and the despoilation of the environment. These are the internal contradictions objectivel -1.e that whilst capitalism under its most extreme varinat, the free market, is by far the most efficient and effective mode of production in human history in terms of producing wealth, it is also the most destructive and catastrophic in terms of deepening poverty, inequality and waste.
Socialism or barbarism. This is barbarism. As Trotsky wrote:
‘Mankind has not always and not inevitably moved upwards. It has known in history long spells of stagnation. It has known relapses into barbarism.’ And later: ‘A society from which no class emerges capable of assuring its ascendancy degenerates. The road is then open to barbarism.’
Not only is consciousness a crucial factor in the rise of the working class, it is also a weapon in the armoury of the capitalist ruling class. Recent events have demonstrated that the capitalist elite are fully conscious and understand the danger posed by socialism and communism. The attacks on left wing movements around the world post-October 1917 and the huge victory that was the collpase of the Soviet Union in 1991 has put us back immeasurably. The vacuum left in the Middle East by the destruction of secular and socialist movements has been filled by Political Islam. Resistance against imperialism and neoliberalism is inevitable, the only aspect left open is upon what basis the resistance will take.
Comment by John W — 23 January, 2008 @ 9:51 am
Tim @34 it is sweet FA to do with ‘economics’ it is about the abuse of power. The Israeli government uses the armed forces to control access to water and prioritises the setllements and greater Israeli over the needs of the Palestinians. Don’t know if you have or have had kids Tim but when you cannot bath or feed them properly because you have no water when the people up the road are watering their lawns you just, perhaps,have the right to be a bit pissed off. Multiply that by 30 years……..
Comment by Pete Brown — 23 January, 2008 @ 1:32 pm
BTW - the reason I raise Germany (and the partition of the Indian sub-continent is another example) is not to make a political comparison of the circumstances of the mass population movements, but to give some time frame referenc eof how settled the Zionist settlers are now.
To me it is inconceivable that the displaced Arabs will return to the actual land and houses they were displaced from, and any suggestion that they might feeds Zionist propaganda about a pogrom.
This is why a single state is such a problem for the Zionists, becasue that would require that either everyone had a right of return, or no one. But there woudl have to be equality between Jews and non-Jews.
Where the Zionists have shot their own fox is by undermining the viability of a palestinian state.
Comment by Andy — 23 January, 2008 @ 1:39 pm
John W
(Conolly) “realised that the struggle for national liberation, without being an avowedly socialist struggle, was an advance and would implement a qualitative change in the composition of the state and bring with a chance to shift the consciousness of the working class”
Yes I’ve read the reactions of Radek, Trotksy and Lenin to the Easter Rising in John Ridell’s book on the Comintern.
Lenin was right, inasmuch as the national question was not played out and it was hopelessly sectarian to dismiss it just because it wasn’t conciously socialist.
But of course it’s also the case that the struggle for Irish independence *didn’t* lead to a Socialist Ireland and that many other radicalised independence movements didn’t either.
So it’s clearly not enough just to tail-end these movements and not put forward distinct socialist politics and *organisation*
That, might I suggest, is Pabloism.
JohnW
“in Germany a large and militant and organised working class had the capability to smash the Nazis before they were able to seize power in 1933. The leadership, admittedly influenced by Stalin and his policy of focusing on social democracy as the enemy, sat on its hands.”
Yes I 100% agree with that point.
JohnW
“Here you present a deterministic understanding of Marxism. The contradictions inherent in the global economy in our time are reflected in the current conflict in the Middle East over control of the world’s energy reserves”
No I don’t, because I said that there was no guarantee that socialism would be the outcome. (go back up the thread and read what I said again)
I’m not entirely sure that your second sentence is right either. Oil’s just running out in the US and the whole country runs on cheap gasoline.
I think you’re substituting a *different analysis* of the crisis of capitalism from the one developed by Marx in Das Kapital.
You’re underestimating the likelihood that there will be a major economic recession at *precisely* the time when the US has become a unipolar superpower, has de-facto control of the majority of the world’s oil and when the production of consumer goods (especially using Chinese cheap labour and technical expertise) has reached dizzying heights.
You may well claim that this is a creative interpretation of Marxism for the 21st Century, but I think you’re chucking out important aspects of Marx’s baby with the bathwater.
The whole point being, that your view means that the “labour aristocracy” in the West will never radicalise until the “countryside has surrounded the cities” and the resistance movements of opressed peoples and nations has broken up the imperialist states.
As I said, to me, this sounds like a re-hash of 60’s Maoism and worse than that, I don’t think it will even happen.
For one thing, the national question isn’t what it was in the 60’s.
Reactionary seperatism, like in Yugoslavia, has assumed as important a role as progressive nationalism since the 90’s.
Furthermore, unless a socialist government comes to power in a country with sufficient resources to radicalise the movements in question, they will be absorbed by the overwhelming capitalist framework provided by the EC and US.
The practical differences between us come out in what you argued in the very beginning, where you didn’t discuss any aspect of a socialist programme at all, merely argued that the national movements would accelerate the crisis of capitalism and this would be to the advantage of the working class etc…
Maybe so, but I’m arguing something different; that capitalism based on private ownership *cannot* buy itself out of economic crisis on a mountain of cheap credit, or cheap labour.
Therefore there are important implications in the centres of world capitalism itself.
That doesn’t mean that socialism develops through a contradiction free transition. It means that politics goes through a sharp break in which what was assumed for decades is no longer valid.
I don’t accept that just because there is a political vacuum into which movements like Political Islam, or neo Stalinism, or various forms of local nationalism are stepping, that’s a reason to tail end those movements.
On the contrary, it’s a question of supporting them when they are under attack from the right, but having a very sharp ideological profile against them within the mass movement.
That means *always* maintaining an open organisation and press
*always* standing for the unity of workers across national boundaries
*always* saying what he socialist solution to a question should be
Comment by Yeshiya — 23 January, 2008 @ 7:47 pm
Here is a hardcore racist, Azzam Tamimi.
A man who some who read this website sympathise with.
Telling a Jew born in Tel Aviv to “go back to Germany”
http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/1663.htm
A sick,unstable man.
An Islamist John Tyndall
Comment by tim — 23 January, 2008 @ 10:32 pm
Tamimi is a humane and charming man motivated by a desire to see justice. I like and respect him.
Seething with indigantion at the humiliation of his people he uses typical Arab rhetoric. this iis rhetoric though, not adeclaration of war, not a declaration of intent.
It is a reminder to israel that the palestnians are not going to go away, and the alternative to finding a just peaceful settlement is war.
Comment by Andy — 23 January, 2008 @ 11:31 pm
Why would a humane and charming man tell a Jew born in Tel Aviv to go back to Germany?
And remember he doesn’t talk about Palestine.
A racist pan Islamist.
Comment by tim — 23 January, 2008 @ 11:37 pm
“Seething with indigantion at the humiliation of his people he uses typical Arab rhetoric. this iis rhetoric though, not adeclaration of war, not a declaration of intent.”
You’re right Andy.
He desires paradise,but prefers to persuade others to strap on the belt.
scum
Comment by tim — 23 January, 2008 @ 11:46 pm