Re: AUT: Re: Can 'entrepeneuring capitalists' save Palestinians?

[Scott Hamilton <s_h_hamilton@xxxxxxxxx>]

Harald, as I understand it your position throughout
this debate has been that the Palestinians should
abandon their desire for independence, disarm
themselves, dismantle the institutions with which they
have resisted Israel - the PA, the militias, and the
Popular Committees - and try to win full civil rights
by reforming the Israeli state out of existence and
creating a capitalist East Mediterranean federation.
You argued that many capitalists in the area would
also be well-served by such a federation.

Events of the last twenty four hours have shown how
fantastic this programme is, and how dangerous it
would be if it had any influence. With Labour leaving
him in the lurch, Sharon is looking to the fascist
right to prop up his administration. If he is able to
get support from these elements to stay in power, then
Netanyahu will have to move even further to the right,
to continue to differentiate himself from Sharon and
keep alive his chances of reemerging as Likud leader.

It is not at all unreasonable to think that the ethnic
cleansing agenda of the expulsionist wing of the
Israeli right being courted by Sharon and Netanyahu
could become a reality in the not too distant future.
Leading Israeli historian Martin van Creveld has
described the expulsionist vision thus

"A force of 12 divisions, 11 of them armoured, plus
various territorial units suitable for occupation
duties, would be deployed: five against Egypt, three
against Syria, and one opposite Lebanon. This would
leave three to face east as well as enough forces to
put a tank inside every Arab-Israeli village just in
case their populations get any funny ideas. The
expulsion of the Palestinians would require only a few
brigades. They would not drag people out of their
houses but use heavy artillery to drive them out; the
damage caused to Jenin would look like a pinprick in
comparison."

If ever there was a time when the Palestinians needed
armed self-defence and a massive international
campaign for their independence, this is it. Yet you
tell them to lay down their arms and work for the
peaceful transcendence of Israel by a capitalist East
Mediterranean Federation!

Perhaps an analogy will make the madness of this
advice clear. Imagine telling the East Timorese in
1975, right after their country had been occupied by
Indonesia, that they should lay down their arms,
abandon their backward ideas of national liberation,
and protest along with other people from the region
for full civil rights within a Asian Federation. The
net effect of this call, if it was heeded, would be
the slaughter and total defeat of the East Timorese
national liberation movement. In the same way, your
advice if heeded would mean disaster for the
Palestinians. East Timor needed solidarity from
Western and also Indonesian workers, but without an
armed struggle for national independence it would have
had nothing.

You want to wish away the desire for national
liberation in economic semi-colonies by imagining that
capitalism has the ability to grow enough to transcend
the nation state, but we are living in the era of
imperialism. As Thiago has suggested, capitalism is
incapable of much dynamism in the West, let alone the
semi-colonies. Where do your illusions in the dynamism
of capitalism come from? Wars like the one in
Palestine are not aberrations, but the result of
imperialism. Because crisi-ridden capitalism cannot
transcend it, the nation state will continue to be the
theatre in which crises and revolutions arise.

Of course, as internationalists, we have to spread
revolutions, but we cannot ignore where revolutions
begin. We can show solidarity, but we cannot support
the intifada by starting our own local intifadas in
Norway or New Zealand at the click of a finger. In all
likelihood, intifadas in locales like these will only
begin after the success of intifadas in taking power
in the semi-colonies.

Cheers
Scott











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

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