WORLD WORLDWIDE AUSTRALIA MELBOURNE News Journal Update - (en) Australia, Melbourne, MACG: For a truly free Palestine - The Anvil, Vol 12, No 6. (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 

As this issue of The Anvil is being prepared, the people of Gaza are
being mercilessly bombed as part of a genocidal assault. The Israeli
military is preparing for a ground invasion and threatening to expel its
remaining inhabitants into Egypt - a second Nakba, larger than the first
in 1948. Meanwhile, armed far-right settlers in the West Bank are taking
the opportunity to take even more land, and kill Palestinians in the
process. ---- The immediate task is obviously to prevent the genocide
and ethnic cleansing of Gaza, but that would still leave the apartheid
regime in place. Where, as anarchists, do we stand on the solution to
this underlying problem?

Resist Genocide

Faced with mass protests, sit-ins, and other obstructive tactics by
those demanding a total ceasefire, some of Israel's Western allies have
called for a "humanitarian pause". They back Israel in its campaign, but
are squeamish about the optics of two million people dying of starvation
and disease in such a short time. The Biden administration has responded
by twisting the arm of the Egyptian dictator, Sisi, hoping that he will
accept the population of Gaza as refugees - the liberal response to the
crisis is to push for ethnic cleansing as the alternative to genocide.

We can't rely on international bodies like the UN or look to
politicians. The only way to halt the invasion and stop Israel's
murderous bombing of Gaza is for the working class to act. At the
moment, the bulk of the Israeli working class is united behind their
military, seeking revenge for the murder and kidnapping of Israeli
civilians during the attack on the 7th of October.

Israel, however, imports the majority of its armaments. This means that
the international working class can act to cripple its military.

Workers in a position to stop guns, bombs, rockets, military vehicles
and all other supplies going to the IDF must do so. A coalition of
Palestinian unions has called for unions in all relevant industries
around the world to refuse to build or transport weapons destined for
Israel. This applies to other supplies necessary for this massacre to
continue, like oil and other fuels. Australia exports military equipment
to Israel - the workers responsible for those weapons getting in the
hands of Israeli soldiers also have the power to prevent their use in
genocide.

These actions would run into opposition from the entire capitalist
class. In Australia, there would be massive hostility from the media and
from the Labor Government. In all probability, the trade union officials
would also be unwilling to translate their tepid support for Palestinian
rights into industrial action on the ground, particularly where it is
illegal. Wherever union officials take this position they should be
opposed and their demands that we be complicit in this massacre ignored.
A union is only worth the name if it is controlled by its members, and
stands against injustice everywhere.

Anarchists Against Apartheid

Stopping genocide and ethnic cleansing still leaves the underlying issue
of the Palestinans oppression unresolved. Israel imposes a regime of
racial domination in the territory between the Jordan River and the
Mediterranean Sea. How do anarchists understand the nature of this
regime, and how can it be overthrown?

First, it is necessary to understand the problem. Zionism (i.e. Jewish
nationalism) became an organised movement in the late 19th Century, but
it didn't gain majority support from Jews for many years. The failure of
the labour movement to prevent the Nazi Holocaust, however, led to
millions of Jews resorting to Zionism. Jewish immigration to Palestine
surged and Zionist organisations decided for a Jewish State. What
followed was a civil war in 1947-48, the declaration of Israeli
independence, and the Nakba: the violent ethnic cleansing of over
700,000 Palestinians from their homes. Support for the foundation of
Israel was an understandable reaction by traumatised people, but that
didn't change the predictable - and intended - results. As the Israeli
historian Benny Morris has noted, the ethnic cleansing of historic
Palestine was "inevitable and inbuilt in Zionism".

Though it is typical to hear talk of Israel's 'right' to exist as 'a
Jewish State', a Jewish State is the moral and political equivalent of a
White Australia or an Islamic Republic. It establishes one group of
people as superior to the others and compels the group in power to rule
over them by force - if they cannot be eliminated entirely. In the case
of Israel, this has been aggravated by the continuing impulse of the
Zionist movement to expand, to acquire more land, and to take the
territory it could not conquer in 1948. Maintaining a Jewish State in a
territory where the majority of the population is not Jewish requires an
apartheid regime, and so this is what has been established. Palestinians
within Israel's internationally recognised borders have some rights, but
are second class citizens, and can never be allowed to become the
majority population (thus refusing refugees the right to return home).
In the West Bank, Palestinians have no rights, face ongoing
dispossession, and are routinely terrorised by murderous far-right
settlers, backed by the Israeli army. Gaza is simply a concentration camp.

Two States or One?

Ever since the 1970s, most states in the world have professed commitment
to a "Two State Solution", where an independent Palestine would sit
alongside an independent Israel. The basic formula, as required by
international law, has been that Israel must retreat to its pre-1967
borders, relinquish control over the West Bank and Gaza (which would
constitute the Palestinian state), and allow for a 'just settlement' for
the refugee population.

A series of peace-talks have been held to resolve the conflict, with
Palestinans conceding to a state based on the 1967-lines. Israel (backed
by the US) has rejected this every time. Their counter-offers have been
appalling for the Palestinians, as they insist on the annexation of key
land and water resources for Israeli settlers. The maps recall the
obscene 'bantustan' system of South African apartheid.

Israel also rejects the right of refugees to return home on
ethno-nationalist grounds. Having drifted to the far-right, even token
refugee resettlement (another concession considered by Palestinian
negotiators) has been taken off the table. By this point, the concept of
a Two State Solution has been rendered farcical by the continued
building of Israeli settlements, which have split the remaining
territory into disconnected, segregated areas. Today, it is typically
advanced only as a cynical substitute for addressing the reality on the
ground.

Meanwhile, the long-held goal of the Palestinian national movement is a
single democratic State in all the territory between the Jordan River
and the Mediterranean Sea. The comparative improvements on a Two State
Solution are obvious: it would allow for free movement, legal equality,
and the return of the refugees. A single democratic state would
represent the end of apartheid, and anarchists are in favour of ending
all such regimes.

But the One State Solution has its own obstacles. Unlike the Black
workers of apartheid South Africa, Palestinian workers do not massively
outnumber Israeli Jews, and Israeli capitalists do not rely entirely on
their labour. Palestinians are certainly hyper-exploited by Israeli
bosses, but this is not fundamental to the Zionist project, which
retains the options of expulsion and genocide. Nevertheless, assuming a
One State Solution were realised, there remains a fatal weakness - and
in this case it is the same one which now confronts the workers of South
Africa. The single, democratic state being advocated is a capitalist
state. This capitalist state would have a ruling class of both Jews and
Palestinians. These two capitalist classes (the Israeli being vastly
more powerful than the Palestinian) hate and fear each other. They would
struggle relentlessly for control of the state apparatus and would no
doubt mobilise support on the basis of nationalism. Palestinian workers,
free from a political regime of racial domination, would have to
continue their struggle against both Jewish and Palestinian bosses,
against racial disparities in the economy, and for binational working
class cooperation. If we are serious about anarchism and communism, we
must recognise that this would be a struggle against the very state
claiming to represent the fulfilment of Palestinian liberation.

The No State Solution

Ultimately, just as the end of apartheid did not free the workers of
South Africa from exploitation, there can be no true liberation of
Palestine within the confines of capitalism. What is needed there, and
in every other country, is a revolution that abolishes capitalism. This,
of course, would mean the Palestinians ditching both the reactionary
zealots of Hamas and the collaborators in Fatah. It is only a working
class movement that can issue a call that reaches across the border and
splits Israel along class lines.

This is not a call for pacifism. The resistance needs to be armed in
self defence, but it must still act ethically. Immoral and politically
reactionary actions like killing civilians and sending rockets into
civilian areas drive Israeli workers more deeply into the arms of their
own capitalist oppressors. Every action needs to be in harmony with
building the iron solidarity that a working class revolution requires.

Only by overthrowing capitalism in the area between the river and the
sea can workers create a truly free Palestine - a society of liberty,
equality and solidarity, where there is no State apparatus to oppress
anyone, and maintain the rule of bosses. Only through a social
revolution can the hatreds of today be consigned to the history books,
along with the capitalist system which generated them.

CEASEFIRE. DOWN WITH APARTHEID. TOWARD SOCIAL REVOLUTION.

https://melbacg.au/for-a-truly-free-palestine
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