[From March 11th, 2009]
Why do we need an anti-war movement?
If all you listen to are the speeches of the liberal establishment, of President Obama or of organizations like MoveOn.org, there is none. The war in Iraq is over. The war in Afghanistan is a just and humanitarian crusade. And Palestine is not an issue. It is safe to become complacent, to relax, to let the right men take care of things and go about business as if nothing was happening.
Iraq
Yet in Iraq last month 258 Iraqi's were reported killed, twice as many were seriously wounded, and every Iraqi in the country faces the humiliation and terror of the occupation and the militia's it spawned.
This, we are supposed to ignore, because we are told that there will be but a small force of 50,000 troops left after 16 months, and supposedly all of them will be gone by 2011. Yet all of these promises are, as is frequently stressed, "dependent upon conditions on the ground."
Yet what are these conditions on the ground? A Baghdad brought "peace" by concrete walls which divide the city into partitioned neighborhoods which have long since been ethnically cleansed? A deal cut with Sunni warlords to provide money and weaponry in exchange for their temporary service as proxy warlords? A ceasefire with the Shia militia of Muqtada Al-Sadr as he bides his time and also faces pressure against fighting from Iran? There is no real political solution, and the probability that Iraq will again descend into chaos is great, and as soon as this chaos turns into the slightest threat to perceived US interests the US army will try move right back in.
And it will do so with full legality, because under the current Status of Forces Agreement (which is what is supposed to set the cap of 2011), the United States is allowed to intervene "In the event of any external or internal threat or aggression against Iraq." Iraq is made a US protectorate.
And the Pentagon is already preparing for such interventions, with many officers drawing up plans for a military presence beyond 2011 and one very senior military commander who is reportedly making plans for a 15-20 year presence
The military is planning and organizing to continue this war, if we are to definitively end this war then we must plan and organize and take action to stop it ourselves.
Afghanistan
Afghanistan is Obama's "good war". The usual democratic establishment opinion being that Iraq was a bad war, launched for the wrong reasons and executed terribly, but the intervention into Afghanistan is some noble and humanitarian crusade launched to defend human rights, women’s rights and democracy, against the barbarism of so called Muslim extremists.
Let’s take a break and go back a bit into history. How did the Soviet Union justify their invasion of Afghanistan in 1979? The government of Afghanistan had "requested" their intervention. They were defending "democracy", human rights, women’s rights and secular institutions in the face of the terrifying specter of "radical Islam". Yet they, and all 115,000 troops they sent in, succeeded only in bringing violence because they were there for the same reason all Empires occupy a country, to exert control, safeguard their interests and subjugate the population. The United States at that time certainly had no trouble pointing this out, and emphasizing both at home and abroad how a Soviet Military presence would give the Russians a base from which to exert influence throughout the Middle-East and the threat this posed to US interests in the region. So why should the vital role military bases in Afghanistan can play have diminished one bit since then? Especially since the collapse of the Soviet Union opened up the vast Oil and Natural Gas resources of Central Asia to exploitation.
Six months prior to the Soviet Union’s invasion, the United States had already begun to aid the Mujahadeen resistance in the specific hope of provoking the USSR into invading Afghanistan. A 1979 State Department report said
“The United States’ larger interest…would be served by the demise of the Taraki-Amin regime, despite whatever setbacks this might mean for future social and economic reforms in Afghanistan."
In order to hurt the Russians as much as possible, the US gave aid to the most extreme factions of the Mujahadeen. Particularly a disproportionate amount went to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who’s followers first gained attention by throwing acid in the faces of women who refused to wear the veil. The strategy according to Carter’s National Security Advisor was not just to damage the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, but “to export a composite ideology of nationalism and Islam to the Muslim-majority Central Asian states and Soviet Republics with a view to destroying the Soviet order."
The military continued with these ends in mind throughout the Reagan Presidency, in which one of the running jokes was that they would fight the Soviet Union “to the last Afghani life”. The annual supply of arms reached 60,000 tons in 1987, and it should have come as no surprise that under these circumstances when the Soviet Union withdrew, the factions of Afghanistan began to fight it out, with the Taliban eventually emerging on top an outcome which the US didn’t have much trouble with, as a US diplomatic official under Clinton put it.
“The Taliban will probably develop like the Saudis. There will be Aramco, pipelines, an emir, no parliament and lots of Sharia law. We can live with that,"
While US policy turned against the Taliban as it became clear that Afghanistan was harboring opponents, the fundamentals remained the same and this pattern of policy, of holding US geopolitical interests far above human rights or national self determination, is one that has more or less been followed since 9/11.
In the lead up to the war the Taliban was actually ready to negotiate and meet many of the US’ demands, including handing over Bin Laden if proof was presented (Something which it is clear now after more then 7 years would have been a lot better at actually catching him then an invasion), however Bush rejected this and refused to negotiate, aiming for an occupation.
In the opening round of the war the strategy was to use U.S. air power, combined with the ethnically-based militias known as the Northern Alliance. On the one hand, the indiscriminate warfare of bombing with heavy civilian death’s (Which also happened to keep a great deal of non-governmental aid in food and medical supplies from reaching Afghani’s), and on the other the use of Warlord armies who were so brutal and corrupt that the Afghan population had preferred at least the relative stability of the Taliban to their rule.
Since then we have installed the government of Hamid Karzai, first proclaimed President then elected with widespread reports of intimidation and fraud at the polling places. A government which according to the reporter Christian Parenti is so corrupt that “To pay taxes in Kabul one must first bribe the tax collector! No bribe and your taxes (which will be stolen) won’t be registered as paid.”
So if the United States has not caught Bin Laden, and it has not built a viable Afghani State, and if it has not brought secular liberal values but instead the rule of warlords who are often as bad and even worse then the Taliban, what has it brought?
The answer is that it has brought occupation, an occupation that is not just a necessity but is in fact the central goal. The Afghanistan operation allowed the U.S. to plant forces not just in Afghanistan but in the Central Asian states of Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, the gains of which have been partly reversed, but which have been more and more offsetted by every greater investment in bases in Afghanistan.
As of January 2009, the U.S. has begun work on $1.6 billion of new, permanent military installations at Kandahar, hundreds of millions are being spent across the country to establish a permanent military infrastructure to turn Afghanistan into a launch pad to ensure the United States has a firm position in Central Asia, one of the world’s most vital energy producing regions. As a country which borders Iran, Pakistan and China, which is located at one of the most strategic points in the world, Afghanistan is more valuable as a base for projecting US hegemony then any amount of buried oil or minerals.
Obama is currently implementing a plan for more troops on the ground, and more money to be spent on aid. However the increase of troops will at most establish the Karzai’s government control over areas dominated by weak warlords that have fallen under Taliban influence, not to in anyway challenge the warlords who are in many cases worse then the Taliban. The aid will mostly be spent to buy off warlords and keep them loyal to Washington, not to provide genuine aid to the people of Afghanistan
----------
We should, and we must fight against these wars not just because of their individual injustice, but because these wars are the most glaring examples of the systematic injustices that pervade all of our lives. It is the injustice of a world and a nation which is not accountable to it's people, the corruption of a system in which wars are launched. We do not need an anti-war movement just to end this war and that war, only to start all over again in 5 or 10 years, we need an anti-war movement that is committed to ending war, to ending the conditions that give rise to war and the men that make them. We must take back a society in which the media acts as an outlet for the Pentagon. Take back a country in which the poor have their services cut to pay for the decadence and failures of the rich. Take back a world in which billions starve among world-wide abundance.
Because that is ultimately what fighting against the war is about, it's about taking back our lives and our communities and our world from those who have hijacked them and saying that this hatred and destruction and madness will not be waged in our name!
George Orwell once said that "During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act." And that's what we will be doing for most of tonight, stating the facts and demystifying the illusions, and if any of us sound revolutionary it will be because we are getting that much closer to the truth. But it is not enough to know the truth, or even to tell the truth, the essential thing is to apply that knowledge to reshaping the world, and to commit to the slow patient work of building the organizations that will have the power to reshape the world. That is the most important thing we will do tonight, provide the opportunity to get involved in building the organizations that can fight for a better world and make it a reality.
Monday, July 26, 2010
In Solidarity With Gaza
[From January 25th, 2009]
-Speech Given at a protest against the Israeli invasion of Gaza sponsored by the Committee For Justice in Palestine, Santa Cruz Campus Anti-War Network and Santa Cruz International Socialist Organization.
In Gaza a hundred thousand Palestinians will begin to return to their homes to find they no longer have any. Thousands more have been left mauled, injured doesn't even begin to describe the body's packed with shrapnel, burns from white phosphorus and blown off limbs that not only cause immense personal pain but can destroy the very livelihood of a family. Over 1300 are dead, many of them children. There are mothers who will never again know the soft touch of their children. There are sons who will grow up without ever again hearing their fathers voice. The whole of Gaza struggles for water, food, medicine and electricity because of Israel's barbaric assault. And for what? Is it for the 13 Israeli dead? Is it For Israel's Security?
No, this is a war of collective punishment waged against the Palestinian people for choosing not to be cowed, for choosing not to bow down to Israel and to Washington. Because when they had a chance in one of the only truly democratic elections in the Middle-East they chose to cast out the corrupt Fatah party and repudiate its collaboration with the occupiers in favor of a party that however flawed would at least stand up for the Palestinian people's basic right of self determination.
What Israel has done is an atrocity, but Israel’s blank check does not happen and is not so massively supported and funded by both American political parties just because of AIPAC, or because enough Zionists show up to counter protest.
It happens for the same reason that Millions suffer under the US occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, the same reason that the tinpot dictatorships of Saudi Arabia and Egypt are propped up in their suppression of democracy and human rights. It’s the same reason that the death of half a million Iraqi children due to sanctions was seen as worth it by Madeline Albright. It's the preservation of American hegemony over the middle-east. It's the strategic dominance of the US with Israel over the most important, oil rich region of the world and the rest of the world with it.
And Israel has been a more then willing servant of Imperialism for some time. When Iranian Prime Minister Mossadegh nationalized Iran's oil reserves in 1953, the “moderate” Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz explictly made the offer to the the United States for Israel to become a tool.
"The feudal regimes there have to make such concessions to the nationalist movements...that they become more and more reluctant to supply Britain and the United States with their natural resources and military bases...Therefore, strengthening Israel helps the Western powers maintain equilibrium and stability in the Middle East. Israel is to become the watchdog."
Since that time Israel has become more then just the watchdog regionally, Israel has taken a vital role in working to suppress freedom and democracy internationally.
*Israel trained the armies and secret polices of the Shah, Mobuto Sese Seko, Idi Amin and Ian Smith
*Israel Sold US weaponry to Indonesia in the midst of what was a massive genocide that killed over 200,000 being committed against the Timorese
*Israel sold weaponry to terrible military dictatorships throughout South America
*Israel disobeyed the international arms embargo against Apartheid South Africa, and helped to train the South African armies and secret police
Regionally, the vital role of Israel is made clear enough with much more recent examples, like the oft threatened possibility of an attack by Israel on Iranian nuclear facilities, the invasion of Lebanon, an air strike against Syria, what they’re doing now in Gaza and Israel's work to suppress any threat from the Arab people to the US backed Arab regimes. Israel has and continues to play the essential role in suppressing radical Arab movements to wrest control of their own oil resources which are so essential to the functioning of the global capitalist economic system and US geopolitical aims.
And where do they get the money to finance their atrocities in Gaza? From us, all of us here and across the nation who have to pay taxes that fail to provide the basic social and educational services we need. While our schools are failing, millions go without jobs and tens of millions go without health care our taxes fund the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people.
They take money out of our pockets to put blood on our hands!
We cannot tolerate this anymore
The Palestinian struggle becomes our struggle too, because it is the struggle against the few corporate and political elites here and abroad that benefit from Imperialism while the vast majority are asked to sacrifice their wages and to fight and die on the battlefields. The Palestinian struggle to liberate themselves from Imperialism is our struggle against the system of Imperialism.
Ultimately their struggle for self determination is intricately tied to the global struggle for a world order that finally recognizes the fundamental moral principle from which all others are derived.
One human life is as good as another
From that basic idea which is the cornerstone of morality all else that I have said follows. A life in Gaza is worth as much as a life in Tel Aviv. A life in Sudan is worth as much as a life in Rome. A life in Oakland, like that of the late Oscar Grant murdered by police, is worth as much as a life in Malibu. That is the world which is needed and that is the world for which we must fight.
-Speech Given at a protest against the Israeli invasion of Gaza sponsored by the Committee For Justice in Palestine, Santa Cruz Campus Anti-War Network and Santa Cruz International Socialist Organization.
In Gaza a hundred thousand Palestinians will begin to return to their homes to find they no longer have any. Thousands more have been left mauled, injured doesn't even begin to describe the body's packed with shrapnel, burns from white phosphorus and blown off limbs that not only cause immense personal pain but can destroy the very livelihood of a family. Over 1300 are dead, many of them children. There are mothers who will never again know the soft touch of their children. There are sons who will grow up without ever again hearing their fathers voice. The whole of Gaza struggles for water, food, medicine and electricity because of Israel's barbaric assault. And for what? Is it for the 13 Israeli dead? Is it For Israel's Security?
No, this is a war of collective punishment waged against the Palestinian people for choosing not to be cowed, for choosing not to bow down to Israel and to Washington. Because when they had a chance in one of the only truly democratic elections in the Middle-East they chose to cast out the corrupt Fatah party and repudiate its collaboration with the occupiers in favor of a party that however flawed would at least stand up for the Palestinian people's basic right of self determination.
What Israel has done is an atrocity, but Israel’s blank check does not happen and is not so massively supported and funded by both American political parties just because of AIPAC, or because enough Zionists show up to counter protest.
It happens for the same reason that Millions suffer under the US occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, the same reason that the tinpot dictatorships of Saudi Arabia and Egypt are propped up in their suppression of democracy and human rights. It’s the same reason that the death of half a million Iraqi children due to sanctions was seen as worth it by Madeline Albright. It's the preservation of American hegemony over the middle-east. It's the strategic dominance of the US with Israel over the most important, oil rich region of the world and the rest of the world with it.
And Israel has been a more then willing servant of Imperialism for some time. When Iranian Prime Minister Mossadegh nationalized Iran's oil reserves in 1953, the “moderate” Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz explictly made the offer to the the United States for Israel to become a tool.
"The feudal regimes there have to make such concessions to the nationalist movements...that they become more and more reluctant to supply Britain and the United States with their natural resources and military bases...Therefore, strengthening Israel helps the Western powers maintain equilibrium and stability in the Middle East. Israel is to become the watchdog."
Since that time Israel has become more then just the watchdog regionally, Israel has taken a vital role in working to suppress freedom and democracy internationally.
*Israel trained the armies and secret polices of the Shah, Mobuto Sese Seko, Idi Amin and Ian Smith
*Israel Sold US weaponry to Indonesia in the midst of what was a massive genocide that killed over 200,000 being committed against the Timorese
*Israel sold weaponry to terrible military dictatorships throughout South America
*Israel disobeyed the international arms embargo against Apartheid South Africa, and helped to train the South African armies and secret police
Regionally, the vital role of Israel is made clear enough with much more recent examples, like the oft threatened possibility of an attack by Israel on Iranian nuclear facilities, the invasion of Lebanon, an air strike against Syria, what they’re doing now in Gaza and Israel's work to suppress any threat from the Arab people to the US backed Arab regimes. Israel has and continues to play the essential role in suppressing radical Arab movements to wrest control of their own oil resources which are so essential to the functioning of the global capitalist economic system and US geopolitical aims.
And where do they get the money to finance their atrocities in Gaza? From us, all of us here and across the nation who have to pay taxes that fail to provide the basic social and educational services we need. While our schools are failing, millions go without jobs and tens of millions go without health care our taxes fund the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people.
They take money out of our pockets to put blood on our hands!
We cannot tolerate this anymore
The Palestinian struggle becomes our struggle too, because it is the struggle against the few corporate and political elites here and abroad that benefit from Imperialism while the vast majority are asked to sacrifice their wages and to fight and die on the battlefields. The Palestinian struggle to liberate themselves from Imperialism is our struggle against the system of Imperialism.
Ultimately their struggle for self determination is intricately tied to the global struggle for a world order that finally recognizes the fundamental moral principle from which all others are derived.
One human life is as good as another
From that basic idea which is the cornerstone of morality all else that I have said follows. A life in Gaza is worth as much as a life in Tel Aviv. A life in Sudan is worth as much as a life in Rome. A life in Oakland, like that of the late Oscar Grant murdered by police, is worth as much as a life in Malibu. That is the world which is needed and that is the world for which we must fight.
The Socialist Case for a Free Palestine
[From January 14th, 2009]
The Socialist Case for a Free Palestine
-Is fundamentally opposed to Zionism, an ideology rooted in racism and tied to the project of imperialist powers.
-Is correspondingly opposed to the state of Israel, as it rejects that any national or religious group should be valued over another.
-Advocates the creation of a secular, democratic, socialist Palestine where Jews and Arabs live together as the only viable and just long term solution.
-Argues that the conflict between Israel and Palestine is understandable only in the larger context of imperialism in the Middle-East and the vital role of Oil to the modern capitalist economy. We see US backing of Israel as similar to US backing of the dictatorial regimes of Egypt, Jordan and the Gulf monarchies.
-We argue that essential to Palestinian liberation are democratic challenges from working class Arabs to these complacent and corrupt US backed regimes. The unique situation of the Palestinian people with many living expelled outside of Palestine, and with those in Palestine marginalized in the Israeli economy, means that Palestinians must connect their struggle to the struggle of the only force with the power to challenge Imperialism, the Arab and International Working Class.
What is Zionism?
-Religious zionism has existed for a long time, and the formation of small religious communities has gone on for centuries, however political zionism built around the formation of a Jewish state is a relatively recent phenomenon rooted in the effects of industrialization and the divide and conquer strategy of the ruling class towards the working class. With the destruction of the old fuedal order many Jew's lost their position as lenders and organizers of commerce, and the powerful new factories led to the obliteration of the artisanal economy, leading to the creation of a very large Jewish working class, particularly in Eastern Europe. The new jewish working class faced intense repression, and in Russia in particular the Tsarist police would stir up pogroms (essentially lynchings of Jews) in the same way racism was used as a tool to undermine unions and divide the working class throughout the industrializing world and in America in particular.
-Jewish and non-jewish Socialists throughout the world saw that anti-semitism was a ridiculous, ignorant ideology being stoked by conservative organizations like the Army and Catholic church to help maintain control. Socialists consistently organized and fought against anti-semitism and because of this drew many Jewish people to their ranks. In particular anti-semitism was condemned by the SDP (German Social Democratic Party) as the "Socialism of fools" and in Russia leading jewish members of the Bolshevik party like Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev and Sverdlov took on prominent roles before and after the revolution (Trotsky's role was so important in fact that it was often refferred to as the government of Lenin-Trotsky). The socialist position has always been firmly for fighting descrimination in anyway possible and standing for internationalism.
-There was however another group, who saw the people of Europe as fundamentally, inherently anti-semitic and advocated the formation of a separate Jewish state. This was given expression by Theodore Herzl, an Austrian journalist who covered the infamous Dreyfus trial. The Dreyfus trial involved the framing of a Jewish officer and showed the ridiculous level of anti-semitism in France at the time. Whereas Socialists and anti-racists used this to launch a campaign against anti-semitism, Herzl in his 1896 work "The Jewish State" accepted anti-semitism and pushed immigration to Palestine. It effectively amounted to an ideology of defeat in the fact of anti-semitism.
"I achieved a freer attitude toward anti-Semitism, which I now began to understand historically and to pardon. Above all, I recognized the emptiness and futility of trying to "combat" anti-Semitism."-Herzl
-He with other Zionist intellectuals formed the World Zionist Organization to advocated for the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine, unfortunately for him however the vast majority of Jewish people were simply not interested in it.
"In 1914, there were only about 12,000 members of Zionist organizations in the U.S. At the same time, there were as many Jewish members of the Socialist Party in the Lower East Side neighborhoods of New York's Manhattan!"
-Zionism only really began to gain a mass following in the 30's in the face of the ascendancy of the Nazis in Germany, an event which corresponded with the degeneration and defeat of the international left.
-No real socialist alternative existed to challenge the institutions of anti-semitism, and in fact Jewish organizations seeking to fight anti-semitism and the rise of the Nazi's were actually hampered by the existing Zionist organizations. These organizations which had been more then happy to appeal to British Imperialism in aiding them in the colonization of Palestine now sought to appeal to the most anti-semitic regime in the history to help them achieve their goal.
In 1933, the Zionist Federation of Germany sent a memorandum of support to the Nazis:
"On the foundation of the new [Nazi] state which has established the principle of race, we wish to fit our community into the total structure so that for us, too, in the sphere assigned to us, fruitful activity for the Fatherland is possible.10"
Later that year, the World Zionist Organization congress defeated a resolution for action against Hitler by a vote of 240 to 43.
Ben-Gurion opposed a plan to allow German Jewish children to emigrate to Britain in 1938. To justify himself, Ben-Gurion said: "If I knew that it would be possible to save all the children in Germany by bringing them over to England, and only half of them to [Israel], then I would opt for the second alternative.
Contrary to the Israeli mythology now promoted that opposition to Zionism and anti-semitism are intertwined, Zionism was in fact founded on the acceptance of and collaboration with the most virulent anti-semitism.
Israel and Imperialism
The zionist movement from it's inception has attempted to "promote" itself to Imperialist powers, first to the British whose interests in protecting the Suez canal and supressing arab nationalism resulted in the Balfour declaration. It had support from both the US and the USSR.
However zionist leaders knew they stood most to gain from the vast resources of the United States. When Iranian Prime Minister Mossadegh nationalized Iran's oil reserves, the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz explictly made the offer to the the United States.
"The feudal regimes there have to make such concessions to the nationalist movements...that they become more and more reluctant to supply Britain and the United States with their natural resources and military bases...Therefore, strengthening Israel helps the Western powers maintain equilibrium and stability in the Middle East. Israel is to become the watchdog."
Despite this offer however it was only after the 1967 war that Israel took it's place as the favorite in Despite this offer however it was only after the 1967 war, when Israel obliterated the arab nationalist movement that it began to enter into the truly special relationship that it now has. US direct aid jumped and loans for purchases of weapons increased by a factor of 20. Israel now not only took on the US' dirty work in the Middle-East but internationally as well.
*Israel saved the regime of King Hussein in Jordan from Syria after being asked to by the United States
*Israel trained the armies and secret polices of the Shah, Mobuto Sese Seko, Idi Amin and Ian Smith
*Israel Sold US weaponry to Indonesia in the midst of what was a massive genocide being committed against the Timorese
*Israel sold weaponry to military dictatorships throughout South America
*Israel disobeyed the international arms embargo against Apartheid South Africa, and helped to train the South Africa armies and secret police
Regionally, the vital role of Israel is made clear enough with much more recent examples, like the oft threatened possibility of an attack by Israel on Iranian nuclear facilities and Israel's current work trying to suppress the Islamic movement that has become the main threat to the US backed arab regimes. Israel has and continues to play the essential role in suppressing radical arab movements to wrest control of their own oil resources which are so essential to the functioning of the global capitalist economic system and US geopolitical aims.The essential role of Israel to the US Imperialist project in the Middle-East poses two distinct challenge to the Palestinian fight for self determination.
The first is the distorted class nature of Israeli society. The extensive foreign aid from both official governments and zionist organizations, combined with the extensive role of the Military-Industrial complex in Israel's economy means that the challenge to the Israeli ruling classes that would traditionally be posed by the working class is deferred and distorted. Although individuals and groups have done significant work within Israel to improve the lot of the Palestinians a serious challenge from within is unlikely to emerge without a significant change in external circumstances.
The second is that the United States will back Israel to the hilt so long as it remains essential to US regional interest, and every American Politician and Political Organization built around the maintenance of United States hegemony in the world will back Israel (As the recent votes of support from Congress, including nearly every Democrat and spearheaded by leading Democrats shows). There is no doubt that an "Israel Lobby" exists and plays a significant role, but the far bigger project is the essential role of Israel to the preservation of US hegemony over the single most important region in the world.
Beyond that, a two state solution could not provide any real measure of independence
“.Divided into bantustans geographically disconnected from one another, with little control over air space, borders, water resources and the economy, a Palestinian mini-state would be entirely at the mercy of the U.S. and Israel.”-Snehal Shengavi, Socialist Worker
So a two state solution would effectively preserve Israel’s dominance over Palestine, and with the provision of greater moral legitimacy to Israel would help facilitate the enforcement of US imperialism in the Middle-East to the detriment of the world.
The key then to solving the problem created by Zionism is the creation of a single democratic state that casts out Imperialism and unites Jews and Arabs together. The only force capable of achieving this is the Arab and International Working Classes. By challenging and overthrowing the complacent puppet regimes and fighting for an end to US Imperialism and Zionism the Arab masses can strike significant blows for Palestinian liberation. By fighting against Imperialism and Zionism here, within the belly of the beast we can aid there cause significantly and work to alleviate the immediate suffering of the Palestinians. Ultimately however, a real, fundamental solution to the oppression and displacement of the Palestinian people will require a struggle against the global capitalist system and the imperialism that feed off of each other and for a world founded on democratic socialism, equality and internationalism.
The Socialist Case for a Free Palestine
-Is fundamentally opposed to Zionism, an ideology rooted in racism and tied to the project of imperialist powers.
-Is correspondingly opposed to the state of Israel, as it rejects that any national or religious group should be valued over another.
-Advocates the creation of a secular, democratic, socialist Palestine where Jews and Arabs live together as the only viable and just long term solution.
-Argues that the conflict between Israel and Palestine is understandable only in the larger context of imperialism in the Middle-East and the vital role of Oil to the modern capitalist economy. We see US backing of Israel as similar to US backing of the dictatorial regimes of Egypt, Jordan and the Gulf monarchies.
-We argue that essential to Palestinian liberation are democratic challenges from working class Arabs to these complacent and corrupt US backed regimes. The unique situation of the Palestinian people with many living expelled outside of Palestine, and with those in Palestine marginalized in the Israeli economy, means that Palestinians must connect their struggle to the struggle of the only force with the power to challenge Imperialism, the Arab and International Working Class.
What is Zionism?
-Religious zionism has existed for a long time, and the formation of small religious communities has gone on for centuries, however political zionism built around the formation of a Jewish state is a relatively recent phenomenon rooted in the effects of industrialization and the divide and conquer strategy of the ruling class towards the working class. With the destruction of the old fuedal order many Jew's lost their position as lenders and organizers of commerce, and the powerful new factories led to the obliteration of the artisanal economy, leading to the creation of a very large Jewish working class, particularly in Eastern Europe. The new jewish working class faced intense repression, and in Russia in particular the Tsarist police would stir up pogroms (essentially lynchings of Jews) in the same way racism was used as a tool to undermine unions and divide the working class throughout the industrializing world and in America in particular.
-Jewish and non-jewish Socialists throughout the world saw that anti-semitism was a ridiculous, ignorant ideology being stoked by conservative organizations like the Army and Catholic church to help maintain control. Socialists consistently organized and fought against anti-semitism and because of this drew many Jewish people to their ranks. In particular anti-semitism was condemned by the SDP (German Social Democratic Party) as the "Socialism of fools" and in Russia leading jewish members of the Bolshevik party like Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev and Sverdlov took on prominent roles before and after the revolution (Trotsky's role was so important in fact that it was often refferred to as the government of Lenin-Trotsky). The socialist position has always been firmly for fighting descrimination in anyway possible and standing for internationalism.
-There was however another group, who saw the people of Europe as fundamentally, inherently anti-semitic and advocated the formation of a separate Jewish state. This was given expression by Theodore Herzl, an Austrian journalist who covered the infamous Dreyfus trial. The Dreyfus trial involved the framing of a Jewish officer and showed the ridiculous level of anti-semitism in France at the time. Whereas Socialists and anti-racists used this to launch a campaign against anti-semitism, Herzl in his 1896 work "The Jewish State" accepted anti-semitism and pushed immigration to Palestine. It effectively amounted to an ideology of defeat in the fact of anti-semitism.
"I achieved a freer attitude toward anti-Semitism, which I now began to understand historically and to pardon. Above all, I recognized the emptiness and futility of trying to "combat" anti-Semitism."-Herzl
-He with other Zionist intellectuals formed the World Zionist Organization to advocated for the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine, unfortunately for him however the vast majority of Jewish people were simply not interested in it.
"In 1914, there were only about 12,000 members of Zionist organizations in the U.S. At the same time, there were as many Jewish members of the Socialist Party in the Lower East Side neighborhoods of New York's Manhattan!"
-Zionism only really began to gain a mass following in the 30's in the face of the ascendancy of the Nazis in Germany, an event which corresponded with the degeneration and defeat of the international left.
-No real socialist alternative existed to challenge the institutions of anti-semitism, and in fact Jewish organizations seeking to fight anti-semitism and the rise of the Nazi's were actually hampered by the existing Zionist organizations. These organizations which had been more then happy to appeal to British Imperialism in aiding them in the colonization of Palestine now sought to appeal to the most anti-semitic regime in the history to help them achieve their goal.
In 1933, the Zionist Federation of Germany sent a memorandum of support to the Nazis:
"On the foundation of the new [Nazi] state which has established the principle of race, we wish to fit our community into the total structure so that for us, too, in the sphere assigned to us, fruitful activity for the Fatherland is possible.10"
Later that year, the World Zionist Organization congress defeated a resolution for action against Hitler by a vote of 240 to 43.
Ben-Gurion opposed a plan to allow German Jewish children to emigrate to Britain in 1938. To justify himself, Ben-Gurion said: "If I knew that it would be possible to save all the children in Germany by bringing them over to England, and only half of them to [Israel], then I would opt for the second alternative.
Contrary to the Israeli mythology now promoted that opposition to Zionism and anti-semitism are intertwined, Zionism was in fact founded on the acceptance of and collaboration with the most virulent anti-semitism.
Israel and Imperialism
The zionist movement from it's inception has attempted to "promote" itself to Imperialist powers, first to the British whose interests in protecting the Suez canal and supressing arab nationalism resulted in the Balfour declaration. It had support from both the US and the USSR.
However zionist leaders knew they stood most to gain from the vast resources of the United States. When Iranian Prime Minister Mossadegh nationalized Iran's oil reserves, the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz explictly made the offer to the the United States.
"The feudal regimes there have to make such concessions to the nationalist movements...that they become more and more reluctant to supply Britain and the United States with their natural resources and military bases...Therefore, strengthening Israel helps the Western powers maintain equilibrium and stability in the Middle East. Israel is to become the watchdog."
Despite this offer however it was only after the 1967 war that Israel took it's place as the favorite in Despite this offer however it was only after the 1967 war, when Israel obliterated the arab nationalist movement that it began to enter into the truly special relationship that it now has. US direct aid jumped and loans for purchases of weapons increased by a factor of 20. Israel now not only took on the US' dirty work in the Middle-East but internationally as well.
*Israel saved the regime of King Hussein in Jordan from Syria after being asked to by the United States
*Israel trained the armies and secret polices of the Shah, Mobuto Sese Seko, Idi Amin and Ian Smith
*Israel Sold US weaponry to Indonesia in the midst of what was a massive genocide being committed against the Timorese
*Israel sold weaponry to military dictatorships throughout South America
*Israel disobeyed the international arms embargo against Apartheid South Africa, and helped to train the South Africa armies and secret police
Regionally, the vital role of Israel is made clear enough with much more recent examples, like the oft threatened possibility of an attack by Israel on Iranian nuclear facilities and Israel's current work trying to suppress the Islamic movement that has become the main threat to the US backed arab regimes. Israel has and continues to play the essential role in suppressing radical arab movements to wrest control of their own oil resources which are so essential to the functioning of the global capitalist economic system and US geopolitical aims.The essential role of Israel to the US Imperialist project in the Middle-East poses two distinct challenge to the Palestinian fight for self determination.
The first is the distorted class nature of Israeli society. The extensive foreign aid from both official governments and zionist organizations, combined with the extensive role of the Military-Industrial complex in Israel's economy means that the challenge to the Israeli ruling classes that would traditionally be posed by the working class is deferred and distorted. Although individuals and groups have done significant work within Israel to improve the lot of the Palestinians a serious challenge from within is unlikely to emerge without a significant change in external circumstances.
The second is that the United States will back Israel to the hilt so long as it remains essential to US regional interest, and every American Politician and Political Organization built around the maintenance of United States hegemony in the world will back Israel (As the recent votes of support from Congress, including nearly every Democrat and spearheaded by leading Democrats shows). There is no doubt that an "Israel Lobby" exists and plays a significant role, but the far bigger project is the essential role of Israel to the preservation of US hegemony over the single most important region in the world.
Beyond that, a two state solution could not provide any real measure of independence
“.Divided into bantustans geographically disconnected from one another, with little control over air space, borders, water resources and the economy, a Palestinian mini-state would be entirely at the mercy of the U.S. and Israel.”-Snehal Shengavi, Socialist Worker
So a two state solution would effectively preserve Israel’s dominance over Palestine, and with the provision of greater moral legitimacy to Israel would help facilitate the enforcement of US imperialism in the Middle-East to the detriment of the world.
The key then to solving the problem created by Zionism is the creation of a single democratic state that casts out Imperialism and unites Jews and Arabs together. The only force capable of achieving this is the Arab and International Working Classes. By challenging and overthrowing the complacent puppet regimes and fighting for an end to US Imperialism and Zionism the Arab masses can strike significant blows for Palestinian liberation. By fighting against Imperialism and Zionism here, within the belly of the beast we can aid there cause significantly and work to alleviate the immediate suffering of the Palestinians. Ultimately however, a real, fundamental solution to the oppression and displacement of the Palestinian people will require a struggle against the global capitalist system and the imperialism that feed off of each other and for a world founded on democratic socialism, equality and internationalism.
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