Re: terror (

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I actually think it is time to stop this thread, and to allow Yoshie to
think through her position and not feel obliged to defend what she said in
the last post against what someone said in the next post. That means I will,
against my combative nature, allow her to have the last word on this issue,
no matter what points she tries to score in her next one.

Yoshie is one of the list members I most admire for her consistent
commitment to backing up her ideas with activism.  The perspectives for the
Palestinian solidarity movement are an important issue, and I think that.
for reasons that are perfectly natural under difficult circumstances, she
has taken a wrong turn on how to advance the movement under difficult
circumstances.

The road to the qualitative advance we would all like to see in the
Palestinian struggle and the solidarity movement in other countries is not
fully open yet, and Yoshie is responding by urging (and implicitly
demanding) that the Palestinians change course in order to open that road.
I am not convinced that there is a change in tactics that will do that yet.
And I am very convinced that the tactical response that will take maximum
advantage of that opening, when it comes, will not come from the solidarity
movement in the United States, or from its influence on Palestinian
fighters.

Yoshie writes: "After three years of the intifada, Palestinian conditions
are worse than ever.  Most devastatingly, the Apartheid Wall -- the
so-called 'security fence' in the Israeli parlance -- is estimated to 'annex
50% of the West Bank' to Israel, leaving 'only 12% of historic Palestine' to
the Palestinian population in the occupied territories (Stop the Wall, "the
Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign Fact Sheet: The Apartheid Wall,"
<http://www.stopthewall.org/downloads/pdf/FS-General-mr.pdf>)."

Yoshie is suggesting, whether she means to or not, that the  current
intifada is a mistake and that the Palestinians are worse off because this
fight has been waged. She dates the growing difficulties  of the
Palestinians from the Intifada, but things have been growing worse since
Oslo (and were probably growing worse before Oslo, too).  I am not one of
those who heaps blame on Arafat's shoulders for the results of Oslo, or
insists that it was a crime to signing the agreement.  But the results prove
that the expansionism of the Israeli state cannot be restricted by
agreements brokered by the US imperialists, but only by a movement by the
Palestinian people, coupled with divisions in Israel, that is strong enough
to impose limits.  That does not exist yet.

Israeli expansionism has increased, not because of Oslo or because of the
suicide bombings, but because of the fundamentally expansionist character of
the Israeli colonial-settler state and the increased support this
expansionism received from the Clinton administration, and now, in a
qualitatively escalated way, from the Bush administration.
.
The suicide bombings are no more the cause of the Israelis expansion than
the September 11 attacks on the US were the causeof the wars against
Afghanistan and Iraq.  Both became targets long before.  Imperialism is not
a response to extremist violence.

This expansionism will continue until it is cracked by a qualitatively
stronger Palestinian movement linked up with deepening social conflicts in
Israel which cannot take place unless the Palestinians continue to fight by
whatever means are within their current capacity.

The intifada only began after the expansion had reached intolerable levels
despite the relatively peaceful response of the Palestinians.  Of course
this only encouraged the expansionists, although the current resistance has
not been strong enough to stop them.

Yoshie makes a potentially fatal mistake, for her as a consistent fighter
against the Israeli regime and its US backers, when she suggests that the
suicide bombings are the cause of the Israeli advance, or that their end
will do anythiung to stop it. That is absolutely excluded. The period after
Oslo, when the fight really did die down, is the proof and the current
struggle shows that the Palestinians have sized up that proof.

Yoshie writes: "It's time for Palestinians and solidarity activists to
reevaluate short-term and long-term objectives, strategies."  This indicates
that Yoshie's starting point is really the apparent needs of the solidarity
movement for broader support among those fired up against the suicide
bombings. For a fighter, this is natural.  Yoshie fights here, not in
Palestine, and runs into problemns here, not in Palestine.  But the tactics
and strategy of the fighters in Palestine can only be determined there, and
they take  priority over the needs of the solidarity movement.

It would be a SECTARIAN error for the solidarity movement to take a stand on
the tactics of the Palestinian fighters.  The movement should have central
slogans that takes sides in the fight regardless of anyone's views about
Palestinian tactics and strategy.. For the solidarity movement to join the
hue and cry against the supposedly inhuman actions of the Palestinians will
only heighten feelings of isolation and justifiable feelings  of being in a
situation that is totally misunderstood even by the best-intentioned people
abroad.


This is my last contribution to this thread.  I operate on the assumption
that Yoshie will have the last word in "defense" of herself.  Personally, I
think everybody should let it go at that.
Fred Feldman




~~~~~~~
PLEASE clip all extraneous text before replying to a message.