Re: AUT: the destruction of Israel

[Scott Hamilton <s_h_hamilton@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Nate,

the leaflet I have reproduced below argues that it is
the state of Israel itself which is anti-semitic, as
well as anti-Palestinian, by its nature. As such, it
differs fundamentally from an Arab state with a
bourgeois leadership (say a Palestinian state led by
Arafat). A better analogy would be South Africa or
Northern Ireland. Calling for the destruction of
Israel cannot therefore be anti-semitic. Indeed,
making such a call has traditionally been a litmus
test for revolutionaries, inside and outside of
Israel.

It is natural that you will encounter staunch
opposition to the slogan 'destroy Israel' in countries
like the US, imperialist countries whose working
classes contain a strata which benefits appreciably
from the superexploitation of the Third World, and in
particular of the Arab world. Cheap petrol might not
be so easy to get without Israel!

The true test of the slogan is how well it resonates
with peoples oppressed by imperialism, and there is no
doubt in my mind that it finds a receptive audience
there. In Auckland, I find that the non-white sections
of the population have a hugely different attitude
toward Israel to the rest of the population, though
even the Pakeha (white) population is much less
sympathetic to Israel than it used to be.

The problem with slogans like 'Democratise Israel' and
'End apartheid in the Holy Land' is that they can be
interpreted as saying that Israel can be reformed into
a non-apartheid state, when it cannot be.

At the demo in Auckland on 26/10, which about 600-700
people turned up to, the Anti Imperialist Coalition
had a banner which said 'Independent Palestine, from
the Jordan to the Sea' (AIC advocates a democratic
secular Palestine, but doesn't say anything about
socialism - that's been too way out for some of the
people who turn up). Some of the chants we used were
'Sharon, Sharon, what do you say? how many kids did
you kill today?', 'From Auckland to Gaza, support the
intifada' and 'Free, free Palestine, long live
Palestine'.

I recommend the texts on the site of the Israeli
Socialist Workers League (no relation to the SWP in
the US or UK) for good info and positions on Israel
and Palestine
http://www.swlp.org/

ISRAEL ? NO RIGHT TO EXIST

With Israel?s ongoing invasion of the West Bank making
headlines and provoking protests around the world, the
origins of and solution to the war in the Holy Land
are being debated by many New Zealanders. The Anti
Imperialist Coalition argues that the replacement of
Israel with a free Palestine is the only road to peace
in the Holy Land. Such an argument obviously raises
many questions?

We all know that the Palestinians have had a rough
deal in the Holy Land, and that they deserve their own
state. But doesn?t Israel have the right to continue
to exist in areas where the Israeli Jews are a
majority? Wasn?t this what the Oslo Accords were
about?

There is an immediate problem with this argument. The
Israelis created a majority Jewish population in
Palestine by forcibly expelling Palestinian Arabs in
1947-49 and denying them and their families the right
to return to the territory of their origin. At the
same time, under the Law of Return, Jewish people of
any nationality are entitled to Israeli citizenship
upon arrival in Israel, even if they have never been
there before. The only way Israel could create a
Jewish majority population on its territory was to
drive out 700,000 Palestinian people, prevent them and
their children from returning, strip them of land
ownership, and wage a series of wars against any
Palestinians that resisted. The Oslo Accords, which
were signed by Arafat without the consent of his own
PLO organisation, let alone the Palestinian people
themselves, offered not a viable state but a
Bantustan. Under the terms of the accord, Arafat?s
?state? would have constituted around 20% of the
original Palestine, been broken into 220 pieces by
Israeli roads and been pockmarked with armed Zionist
settlements and Israeli army bases. Devoid of heavy
industry or a proper infrastructure, such a ?state?
could have served only as a crash pad for Palestinians
forced to cross its borders every day to work in
Israel. No wonder so many Palestinians reject the Oslo
Accords today.

Why though do you judge the whole idea of Israel on
the racist policies we have seen so far from people
like Sharon?

The problem is that there is no basis for a Jewish
state except some common religious allegiances. There
is no Jewish people, in the way that there is a
Palestinian people or a Samoan people. The Jews from
Western or Eastern Europe, Yemen, Mesopotamia,
Maghreb, Central Asia, Kurdistan, the Caucasus, South
Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, Australasia,
India or Ethiopia had different histories, cultures,
histories, traditions, religious practices, languages
and races. Some of them evolved in a near complete
isolation from other Jewish communities. There are
many different Jewish religious congregations. The
only thing that unites all of them is their common
belief in the first Testament and in a common
vindication of the old Jerusalem faith. A Jewish state
can be created only around some religious allegiances
because that is the only thing that all Jews share in
common. Because Israel can never be a secular state,
it can never offer equal legal and political rights to
its non-Jewish inhabitants.  Israel must always be an
apartheid state.


At least, though, the Jewish majority of Israel has
legal and political rights. You seem to want to drive
them into the sea. Isn?t that anti-Semitic?

The fact is that Israel oppresses to most of its
Jewish inhabitants as well as all of its Arab
subjects. Like all apartheid states, it has a system
based on different levels of privileges. The Arabs are
the most oppressed. Among the Jews, Oriental Jews are
oppressed by Azkanazim Jews of European origins. Many
of the Yemeni Jews, for instance, were tricked into
emigrating to Israel in the 1950s with promises of
good jobs. When they arrived they were turned into
indentured labourers in the Negev Desert, creating
farmland out of the desert for Azkanazim capitalists.
Many Iraqi Jews fled to Israel after the country?s
secret service planted a bomb in Baghdad?s main
synagogue and blamed ?Arab terrorists?. The Black
Jews, known as Falasha, suffer racism and
discrimination: the Chief Rabbinate does not fully
recognise them as having Jewish status. Because the
laws of Israel are based on the patriarchal Judaic
religion, women suffer institutionalised oppression.
They are forbidden, for instance, to divorce without
their husbands? permission. Lying underneath all of
these oppressions is the exploitation of Israel?s
working class, and the increasing difficulties of
Israel?s employer class. Israel is in deep economic
crisis, with social spending and wage increases being
sacrificed for military spending, and some leftist
analysts see Sharon?s invasion of the West Bank as
partly a response to a rise in working class struggle
that saw Arab and Jewish workers demonstrating side by
side outside government offices. ?Sharon desperately
needs to derail the class struggle into a nationalist
regional war?, says the Socialist Workers League of
Israel. Advocating a secular Palestinian state to
replace Israel is not the same thing as advocating the
ethnic cleansing of Israeli Jews, because Palestinian
identity is not based on religious affiliation. There
are Palestinians who are Muslim, Christian, Jewish,
Druze, Samaritan, Baha?i and of course atheists.
Ex-Israeli Jews could live side by side with other
Palestinians, without the having to face the war,
medieval religious laws, or American domination that
all Israelis currently face.

What?s this about American domination?

Well, America has always supported Israel over the
Palestinians, because Israel is a guaranteed friend
for America in the Middle East. Surrounded by Arab
populations that hate it for its treatment of the
Palestinians, Israel has only ever had Western
imperialist powers like America to turn to for help.
That suits the Americans fine ? they can use Israel as
a foothold in an oil-rich region, in return for
throwing it billions of dollars worth of financial and
military aid yearly. American help might seem on the
surface like a good thing for working class Israeli
Jews, but in reality they pay for Uncle Sam?s ?aid?
with dangerous lives in a  garrison state.

What am I supposed to do about all of this, anyway?
The New Zealand government supports Israel, doesn?t
it? How are you going to change that?

Unfortunately, New Zealand governments have always
supported Israel and its Western backers against the
Palestinians and the rest of the Arab world. The
current Clark-Anderton-Harre outfit has made some
token noises condemning Sharon?s invasion of the West
Bank, but refuses to recognise a Palestinian state.
They refused, in fact, even to join in a recent UN
vote condemning Sharon?s invasion of the West Bank.
What would you expect, though, from a government that
gives ?complete support? to Bush?s ?War on Terror?,
and is busy attacking civil rights at home with the
racist Anti Terrorism Bill? Don?t wait for the
government to do something about Palestine ? get
involved with the New Zealand branch of the global
grassroots campaign to break links with Israel and
recognise and support Palestine.












 --- Nate Holdren <nateholdren@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: >
Hi Scott (Hamilton),
>
> You write in one of your posts on the
> Israel/Palestine thread, about a point
> Harald raised:
>
> "What this means, surely, is the destruction of the
> state of Israel, and this is a worthy goal. But how
> can Israel be destroyed?"
>
> I've not participated in this thread as I know less
> about the situation than
> the participants in this conversation, I've learned
> a lot from you all,
> reading your posts.
>
> I'm curious, though why you use the language of
> 'destroy Israel'? I think
> what you're after is a revolution in the region
> after which the state of
> Israel and Palestinian Authority as they currently
> are would no longer
> exist. Is this right or have I misunderstood you?
> I probably disagree with your picture of what such a
> revolution looks like,
> but aside from that, I wonder at the use of this
> language of destroy Israel.
> (It certainly wouldn't be a worthwhile slogan
> 'destroy the Palestinian
> Authority'.)
>
> The reason I'm concerned is that lately in the US a
> number of fascist groups
> have targeted the Palestinian solidarity movement as
> an arena for fascist
> activity, holding demonstrations against the Israeli
> embassy and so forth.
> Thankfully the movement, or at least the parts I'm
> loosely familiar with,
> have explicitly rejected this and have been at pains
> to demonstrate they're
> not anti-semitic. Anarchist anti-fascists have been
> very active in this
> movement, at least here in Chicago, and have been
> major players  in seeking
> to expose and oppose the actions of fascists around
> this issue.
>
> To be clear, I'm convinced of the rightness of
> Harald's suggested strategy
> and the wrongness of yours, but regardless of that,
> in either case, one
> could describe the result of success (whether of
> Harald's "extend rights"
> position or yours) as 'the destruction of Israel' or
> as 'the creation of a
> democratic, secular, non-racist Israel'. (You might
> add socialist to that
> list, I doubt Harald would.)
> What I'm confused about is why you choose the
> 'destroy' vocabulary. Maybe
> there's not the same problem with resurgent fascism
> in your country as there
> is here? I know for me here I would have little to
> no organizing success
> with anyone who I'd want success with under the
> slogan 'destroy Israel', it
> only plays into the hands of fascists and other
> anti-semites.
>
> 'Democratize Israel' or 'end Apartheid in the Holy
> Land' or even 'free
> Palestine' seem much better (though 'free Palestine'
> at demonstrations
> unfortunately often turns into the uncomfortable
> 'long live Palestine',
> especially when the local vangaurdists have seized
> the means of sonic
> amplification. My personal favorite chant has been
> 'long live the Intidada'
> which some of us have tried to turn into 'globalize
> the Intifada'.)
>
> best,
> Nate
>
>
>
>
_________________________________________________________________
> Choose an Internet access plan right for you -- try
> MSN!
>
http://resourcecenter.msn.com/access/plans/default.asp
>
>
>
>      --- from list
> aut-op-sy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---

=====
"Revolution is not like cricket, not even one day cricket"

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Everything you'll ever need on one web page
from News and Sport to Email and Music Charts
http://uk.my.yahoo.com


     --- from list aut-op-sy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---