A 1971 debate on "democratic secular Palestine"

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

In response to Bryan Sketchley's request for a "Marxist critique" of
two-state proposals on Palestine:

I participated in a debate around this in the Socialist 'Workers Party in
1971, when the party adopted the perspective of the democratic secular
Palestine which had initially been put forward by Fatah.

The main reports and articles in this debate were authored by Gus Horowitz,
who was then a prominent party leader. They are available in "Education For
Socialists" booklet format under the title "Israel and the Arab Revolution:
Fundamental Principles of  Revolutionary Marxism,"  from Pathfinder Press,
410 West Street, New York, N.Y. 10014. The price is $7 plus $3 postage and
handling.

The booklet also includes a counter-resolution to Horowitz's position
submitted by Bob Langston, Berta Langston, and Jon Rothschild.  They opposed
the demand for a unitary "democratic secular Palestine," calling instead for
a socialist revolution.  On this basis, they argued, Palestine could be
divided into two states -- they did not call for doing so -- if the Jews so
wished.

The position put forward by Horowitz was adopted at the 1971 convention and
the minority resolution was rejected.

In my opinion, the critiques of the "two-state solution" for Palestine in
the Horowitz reports and writings hold up satisfactorily, despite some
tortured straining to force the square peg of the democratic secular
Palestine into the round hole of the "permanent revolution."

The minority charged that the party position represented motion away from
the "theory of permanent revolution."  In retrospect, this was undoubtedly
true, insofar as the "theory of permanent revolution" (both in its pre-1917
and the substantially improved post-1927 versions) embodied elements of
Trotsky's pre-1917 errors on the peasant question, national question, and on
the perspective and possibility of a revolutionary-democratic worker-peasant
regime.

(Trotsky's positions on concrete national and colonial questions --
including his opposition to Stalin's course in China, and  on Mexico, Spain,
the Black question, and others -- were usually sound and in the Bolshevik
tradition despite the errors in some of his theoretical generalizations.
Reading him provides a refreshing contrast to those who later proclaimed
"permanent revolution" to be the raison d'etre of the "Trotskyist"
movement.)

The demand for a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip doesn't
merely derive from the PLO's adjustment of its positions to obtain Moscow's
support, although I'm sure this entered into the picture.  It arises in
large part from the conditions of struggle after the 1967 war as the Israeli
rulers fought to absorb territories where the population remained
overwhelmingly Palestinian and the Palestinians resisted.The demand that the
Israelis get out of these "occupied territories" (of course, all the land
held by Israel is occupied territory) and that the Palestinians establish
there own rule there arose naturally and inevitably.

For a long time the PLO leadership avoided recognizing the RIGHT of Israel
to exist (as distinct from recognizing the existence of Israel which is a
fact that no sane person can deny or ignore).  They called instead for
establishing a state on any territory that was liberated from Israeli rule.
I suspect that the great majority of Palestinians under Israeli rule today
would still agree with this concept.

The two-state "solution"  and "land for peace" became the basic demand as
the Palestinian movement took defeats in Jordan and Lebanon,  and as the
bourgeois nationalist leadership began to rely more and more on U.S.
imperialism to pressure the Israelis to concede them a state.

One of the many problems with the "two-state solution" and recognition of
Israel's "right to exist" is that it has entangled the PLO in a negotiating
framework which assumes that the basic function of a Palestinian state must
be to guarantee Israel's right to exist.  This is, of course, a transparent
formula for Israel's continued domination, oppression and suppression of the
Palestinian people (including in such areas as settlements, water rights,
access roads and other necessities of Israel's settler-colonial
"existence").

Fred Feldman


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