League for the Revolutionary Party Bulletin -- April 10, 2002 Stop Israeli/U.S. Terror Against Palestinians! Israel is waging a war of devastation against civilians in all the major towns of the West Bank. Palestinian militants, along with all men from 14 to 40, are being rounded up and held in detention. Some have been shot dead, execution-style. In the cities and refugee camps under attack, electricity and telephone service have been cut off, hospitals and ambulances are targeted, civilian homes are invaded, and few dare venture out for food or other necessities. Israel has carried out its atrocities and state terrorism to such an extreme that its senior imperialist backer, the United States, has been forced to caution Sharon with a slap on the wrist. The fierceness of the Palestinian struggle, coupled with the mass uprisings sweeping the Arab world, have seriously frightened Washington. But the planes, helicopters, missiles and tanks terrorizing the Palestinians are still largely American-made and supplied. And Bush blames the victims. The mass media in the U.S. mimic the Israeli and U.S. rulers in incessantly harping on acts of terrorism associated with the Palestinian intifada. None dare mention that well over 200 Palestinians were massacred by Israeli imperialism during March -- the bloodiest month, so far, in the 18-month course of the present intifada. Israeli dead are presented as full human beings, with names, ages and histories; but the many more Palestinians murdered (over 1200) are lucky to even receive a number. While the Israeli attacks are invariably described as "retaliation" for suicide bombers, they are in fact planned in advance. This was telegraphed by the Israeli armed forces through one of their mouthpieces, Amir Oren of the liberal Israeli daily Ha'aretz: In order to prepare properly for the next campaign, one of the Israeli officers in the territories said not long ago, it's justified and in fact essential to learn from every possible source. If the mission will be to seize a densely populated refugee camp, or take over the casbah in Nablus... then he must first analyze and internalize the lessons of earlier battles -- even, however shocking it may sound, even how the German army fought in the Warsaw ghetto. (Jan. 25.) Given the racist and inhuman nature of Israel's offensive, picking the Nazis as a role model is most fitting. Today's Palestinians take their place alongside the fighters of the Warsaw ghetto and the Paris Commune in the long line of those who struggle against overwhelming force to fight their oppressors. Suicide bombings are only one side of a much more important mass struggle. Their ultimate cause is Israel's bloody campaign, which has created a sense of hopelessness and left Palestinians with seemingly few alternative ways to fight back. Attacking Israeli soldiers and the religious settlers who are an army of occupation is justified. But the killings of workers and other civilians (including Arabs) are terrible acts born out of desperation. They provide ammunition for the U.S./Israeli "war against terrorism" public relations machine. Many Palestinians see them as heroic. But suicide bombers cannot stop Israeli tanks and terrorism. Most crucially, they mislead masses into trusting false leaderships and "saviors," instead of recognizing their own mass power -- and the fact that there is still a real alternative. Mass Eruptions Shake the Seats of Power Many commentators point out that, militarily, the Palestinians in the so-called occupied territories cannot defeat Israel, especially given its American backing. By themselves, that is true. But they are not alone. Their struggle has already shown that it can spark a far greater mass struggle against imperialism. It has shaken the centers of world power. It points the way to ending the phony "peace process" by destroying the apartheid State of Israel and recognizing that all Israel is occupied territory. The Palestinian struggle has already accomplished valuable services for all humanity. Courtesy of Osama bin Laden's criminal attacks, Emperor Bush was riding roughshod over all opponents around the world. Afghanistan fell, Iraq was next; no place in the world was safe from imperialist attack. Suddenly, Washington's plans for the new "New World Order" met an unexpected wall of resistance. Palestinians spoke, and the world was forced to listen. The fight for Palestinian self-determination and the struggle for the social and economic emancipation of the oppressed and exploited workers of the whole Arab world are inseparable. Each ignites the other in a chain reaction. The various Arab rulers -- exploitative, corrupt, subservient to U.S. imperialism and brutally oppressive of their own people -- were terrified by the potential of the Palestinian struggle. But they had relied on their imperialist overlords to maintain their rule. Now, as a result of the intifada and the looming mass explosions it was sparking at home, even these traitors had to temporarily oppose the threatened U.S. war on Iraq. This was done, not out of genuine opposition to U.S. policy, but out of fear of what might befall them if they went along with yet another attack on Arabs. Jordan has continued to brutally repress pro-Palestinian protests, but the demonstrations continue. The normally brutal Egyptian state at first allowed demonstrators in solidarity with the Palestinians to swell into hundreds of thousands, but then began to crack down. Eruptions elsewhere in the Middle East and North Africa are breaking out. The growing economic crisis sweeping the Arab countries, like most of the world, is feeding fuel to the anti-imperialist explosions. "Practical" Solutions Over the decades, the Palestinian masses have been led to believe in a variety of "practical" solutions (i.e., ones that accept the continued existence of imperialist capitalism and Israel) -- all of which inevitably failed. In desperation, some turned to reactionary clerical leaders, another dead end. The masses have paid in blood for the absence of a revolutionary alternative leadership. If Palestinians and the rest of the Middle Eastern Arab working classes were armed with a revolutionary socialist program, the now-divided struggles of the Palestinian, Egyptian, Jordanian, etc. workers would merge. The united struggle would create a Palestinian workers' state, part of a Socialist Federation of the Middle East. The revolutionary road is far more practical than the plans now being presented. Look at the plan presented by Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and approved at the recent Arab League summit in Beirut. In exchange for a full withdrawal from the 1967 occupied territories and the establishment of a Palestinian mini-state, it promises "normal relations" between Israel and all Arab states -- that is, free reign for Israel to militarily and economically imprison the Palestinians in a pseudo-independent Bantustan. Despite Washington's verbal support for the Saudi plan, motivated by its desire for help against Iraq, all sections of the Israeli ruling class rejected it. Sharon simply refused to entertain the thought of giving up an inch of territory; other "dovish" racists like Foreign Minister Peres rejected the "right of return" for Palestinian refugees, which would destroy the "Jewish character" of Israel. In fact, the Saudi plan was equivocal on the right of return, referring vaguely to U.N. Resolution 194, which promises "return or compensation" to exiles. States more closely aligned with the U.S., such as Jordan, interpreted this as a call for the "return of refugees," i.e., only those now-elderly people who were personally uprooted in Israel's ethnic cleansing campaigns, and not their descendants. Lebanon's rulers, in contrast, presented it as a full endorsement of the "right of return," not out of support for Palestinian self-determination but because of its chauvinist desire to be rid of its large, unstable and scapegoated population of Palestinian refugees. Thus the Saudi plan is a betrayal of Palestinian self-determination by Arab rulers desperate to be rid of a "problem" that threatens to devour them, jeopardizing both their repression of the masses and their profitable subordination to U.S. imperialism. The Fighters and the Capitulators As for Yasser Arafat, every tank and bulldozer, every Israeli bullet and bomb aimed at his Ramallah compound, gives him added popularity among Arabs. The Palestinian people, who have had just cause to mistrust him, nevertheless know that they are being attacked when the Israelis attack him. They want unity of all Palestinians in the struggle. They know that their guns must now be trained upon his attackers and not upon Arafat. However, Arafat's politics are in fact a barrier to united Arab mass struggle. Sharon's blitzkrieg and Bush's support for Israel have not stopped Arafat from repeatedly signaling his desire to scab on the intifada. First he urged Arab states to enlist in Washington's "war on terrorism;" then he arrested militants from rival organizations like Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). He supported the Saudi plan. Now, under fire from Sharon's terrorist forces, he calls for U.N. "peacekeepers." But this kind of "protection" for the Palestinians would mean their defeat and disarmament in the face of Israeli terror by the imperialists, a lesson that should have been learned 20 years ago in Lebanon. Arafat tried and failed to end the intifada; he knew he would fall if he went further. He couldn't remain in power if he openly took the side of the intifada's enemies. Sharon therefore wanted to humiliate Arafat and directly crush the Palestinian people. The necessity of defending Arafat against Israel now must not blind Palestinians and their supporters to the need to defend themselves from him as well. Rulers Want the Struggle Contained The Bush administration is clearly upset that it cannot yet unleash more terror on Iraq. The upheaval started by the Israeli assault on the Palestinians is too great. Yet while they are annoyed at Sharon for not crushing the intifada in a quiet fashion, they place the real blame on "Arafat" -- shorthand for the Palestinian struggle. Each new provocation by Israel, together with the daily grinding oppression of life under occupation, gives rise to new acts of resistance that Israel denounces as convenient pretexts for further violence. The arrogant rulers of the world despise the Palestinians' failure to roll over and play dead, like their pet Arabs Mubarak, Abdullah, etc. Israel is not simply a loyal servant of the U.S., nor is the U.S. simply in thrall to Israel (as some Arab nationalists believe). Israel is ultimately dependent upon the U.S. but has a great deal of room to maneuver. They share a common interest in maintaining the status quo of imperialist domination over the region. But while the U.S. usually prefers to maintain a fragile equilibrium, Israel has its own interests: maximizing its own policing role, getting paid for it and ensuring that any Palestinian statelet they might accept as a way to contain the struggle would be subordinate to Israel economically, politically and militarily. Arafat and the other Arab rulers accept that goal to contain the spread of mass revolt. Their own armies are unreliable in any struggle against Arab masses. The Israeli military machine is the proven counterrevolutionary containment force in the Middle East. Defending against the genocidal logic of Zionism requires a winning strategy on the part of Palestinian fighters and their allies. But the sad fact is that no leadership that we are yet aware of has a strategy that offers hope for the Palestinian people. However, the struggle is generating increased understanding. We seek to open a dialogue with revolutionary-minded Palestinians, at home and in exile, about the way forward. As Marxists, we know that it is the class struggle in Palestine and the neighboring states that opens up hope for Palestinian victory. But this has always been rejected by Fatah, whose bourgeois nationalism matched easily with its pledge of non-interference in the affairs of "brother Arab" regimes. The left wing of secular nationalism is little better. Both the PFLP and the smaller DFLP remained for years as Arafat's and Fatah's loyal opposition within the PLO. They have a two-stage theory of revolution, which set aside the working-class struggle for socialism in favor of collaboration with Arafat and his cronies, even at the height of the Oslo "peace process", when Fatah's betrayals of national liberation were most obvious. The abandonment of Palestinian self-determination in the whole of Palestine by nationalists both left and right is confirmation in negative form of Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution, which holds that democratic demands like self-determination can only be secured in the course of the working-class-led struggle for socialist revolution and its extension internationally. The betrayals of the nationalists were predictable; they led to a situation where the only major forces that claim to speak for full self-determination are the Islamists. In despair, many Palestinians have turned to them. But their socially reactionary agenda rightly turns off many more. Their verbal proclamations in favor of self-determination are contradicted by their lack of a real strategy and their defeatist outlook. As economic misery deepens, their hostility to class struggle becomes even clearer. Their suicide bombing tactics drive Israeli Jews further into the arms of their murderous rulers. We do not counsel the Palestinians to be passive until Jewish workers miraculously awake from their Zionist stupor. But any Palestinian leadership must be able to take advantage of the many cracks in crisis-ridden Israeli society. Otherwise the Palestinian masses will be condemned to many more years of bloodshed than is necessary. These cracks are manifest in several ways. The "refuseniks" -- hundreds of Israeli reserve officers who, while professing loyalty to Zionism, have refused to serve in the territories occupied in 1967 -- are just one symptom of Israel's weakening military morale. More significant over the long term is the class division within Israeli society. While the Israeli bourgeoisie has been able to buy the loyalty of Jewish workers with property stolen from Palestinians and the subsidies paid by the U.S., in conditions of economic crisis this is ultimately incompatible with the bourgeoisie's own profits. Revolutionary Way Forward The revolutionary program of a single Palestinian workers' state, as part of a regional socialist federation, is in the immediate interests of Palestinian workers and in the ultimate interests of all workers in the region. The more real the possibility of cultural autonomy and economic advances that benefit all workers, the more likely that Israeli workers can be won away from Zionism. But fundamentally the initiative and the leadership must be in the hands of the Palestinians, and working-class revolutionaries among the Palestinians must be prepared to fight against bourgeois, pro-imperialist forces for that leadership. Above all, the Palestinian masses must be able to live to see the fight through and not be led to the slaughterhouse. They must be able to defend themselves from Israel's assault in an organized fashion, arms in hand, without having to rely upon Arafat's police forces or elite factional militias. Leaders of working-class organizations in Palestine like the trade unions must be challenged to support the formation of mass workers' militias. To expose the present illusions in Arafat, he must be challenged to provide arms to the masses, not comfort the imperialists. A working-class-led struggle in Palestine could outdo the inspiration that the intifada has already sparked among workers in the region. The Arab working class hates imperialism and its pawns, and does not line up behind the right-wing Islamists; they are searching for answers. Above all, a revolutionary Trotskyist party in each country, sections of a re-created Fourth International, is needed -- to lead our class to settle accounts with their rulers and confront the Zionist and imperialist murderers. We in the imperialist countries have a similar task. Self-Determination for Palestine: All of Israel is "Occupied Territory"! For Mass Armed Self-Defense! Down with Anti-Arabism and Anti-Semitism! Smash Zionism through Workers Revolution! Down with Imperialism and the Phony "Peace Process"! For a Socialist Federation of the Middle East! Re-create the Fourth International! No To Sectarian Splitting of Palestine Struggle On Friday, April 5th, several thousand people marched through midtown Manhattan in a militant demonstration of solidarity with the besieged Palestinian people. The next afternoon, an additional 1-2 thousand marched over the Brooklyn Bridge. This would be nothing but inspiring, if it weren't that the demonstrations were separated for seemingly no reason beyond pointless sectarian spite. Apparently determined to keep the split in place, the rival sponsors announced two separate meetings on April 11 in "solidarity" with the Palestinians. This is just one more manifestation of the divisions that have wracked the anti-war and anti-globalization movements. A similar split resulted in two separate demonstrations against the World Economic Forum in New York. Likewise, in the upcoming anti-war protests in Washington, DC on April 20th, a unified rally has been rejected in the name of creating a "safe space" for groups that support the U.S. war in Afghanistan! Enough is enough! This kind of fractured "solidarity" is the last thing the Palestinian people need. Today, most of the liberals that the rival "left" sponsors are saving seats for won't touch Palestine with a ten-foot pole, given the support for Zionism by almost all sections of the U.S. ruling class. But as Israel's racist brutality becomes more clear to workers and the oppressed in this country, a few liberal politicians and bureaucrats will shift with the wind. Until then, the sectarians would rather split the developing movement to be better able to police it and keep it safe for the liberals. In contrast to these false friends of the Palestinian struggle, genuine revolutionaries stand for a united front. This means freedom of discussion and debate, unity in action. We will march with anyone, whatever their political views, who wants to put a stop to the Israeli massacres of Palestinians. All we need to agree upon is the time and the place to do so. Read Other LRP Statements | Return to LRP homepage | Write to the LRP
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