Interview conducted by Greek libertarian journal Aftoleksi with Jewish
anarchist Ilan Shalif. Born in 1937, Shalif can be described as theliving history of anarchism in Israel. He was a member of the Israeli
socialist organization Matzepn. After the breakup of Matzpen, Shalif
continued his activities, participating in other initiatives in Israel,
such as Anarchists Against the Wall and the now defunct anarchist
federation Ahdut[Unity]. Despite his old age, he remains firm in his
political ideas and continues his activism. He has authored numerous
articles on direct democracy and antiauthoritarianism, as well as a
fictional novel entitled 'Glimpses Into the Year 2100 (50 years after
the revolution)' - a story about life in a future direct-democratic society.
Submitted by free_demos on May 22, 2024
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Aftoleksi: Let us begin with what is currently taking place in Gaza. The
world is witnessing the massacre of the population of a whole territory,
while Middle Eastern major powers are, as many fear, on the brink of
starting a third-world war (most notably Israel and Iran, but also
Turkey and Saudi Arabia, under the approving eye of the US and Russia).
What is your estimation of the situation?
Ilan Shalif:Israel continues terrorizing and killing the population of
the Gaza strip. It still hopes to force more people to leave Gaza but it
is actually only dragging time and evades the moment of admitting its
defeat, having to release Palestinian prisoners in return for the
Israeli captives, and enabling a new administration that is not in clear
opposition to the Palestinian West Bank administration to manage the
Gaza strip.
The brink of starting a third-world war is nothing more than a silly
exaggeration. Israel cannot start such a war nor even a major
confrontation without the US consent. The low intensity wars between
Turkey and the Kurds, between Hezbollah (used by Iran) and Israel, and
Israel serving as proxy for US interests which try to force the Russians
out of Syria, are not preconditions for the eruption of a world war.
What can the resolution to this grim situation be? What was the initial
proposal of the Jewish left for Palestine?
Until 1948 the Hashomer Hatzair, the main leftist-Zionist force of the
time, said they are for a bi-national State but on the condition that it
will be dominated by Jews. Thus, we cannot speak of real equality. After
'48 they supported the taking of land from displaced Palestinians for
the creation of more kibbutzes. Their leftism was more to deceive young
Israelis born in the country, who were leaning to the left, to keep them
within the Zionist frame. And the truth is that they succeeded for a while.
And then Matzpen comes in...
Matzpen is a whole different thing. It began as a small tendency within
the Communist Party of Israel that opposed the party's mainstream
Zionist-Marxist orientation, its unquestionable support for the Soviet
Union, and Stalinism. Because of these disagreements they were expelled
from the party, and created Matzpen as an anti-Zionist and
anti-capitalist organization. In the following years, due to the lack of
other anti-Zionist organizations, other anti-Zionists joined Matzpen
that belonged to different tendencies: Trotskyists, Maoists, anarchists.
Thus, the organization obtained quite diverse and autonomous political
character, which would later lead to a split by some of the
Forth-Internationalists, Trotskyists and Maoists from Matzpen. But even
after the split there were still some Trotskyists, that would remain in
the organization along the rest of leftists and anarchists. Matzpen was
the most radical leftist and anti-Zionist revolutionary organization in
Israel during its existence.
What was the alternative that Matzpen offered to replace Zionism? Some
sort of a confederalist alternative?
We proposed a revolution of the region (not confined within national
borders), and that after this revolution the communities, without any
government or national entity, would organize society from the
bottom-up. We insisted that there is no place for national entities. The
only viable alternative is one society for Palestinians and Jews (and
other minorities) without any national entities to confederate.
But I personally prefer to use different term from confederalism,
because when people speak of federations they either mean unions of
nation-states, or of independent entities that are not part of a binding
whole. I already made it clear that I reject the former, but I also have
a problem with the latter, because it implies a loose way of organizing
the world. But a society cannot be organized in a loose manner. It has
to be organized in a real and cohesive libertarian-communist
multi-leveled direct democracy - with various levels of committees,
which coordinate things, while decision-making power always remains in
the assemblies of the grassroots communities. This is my idea for an
alternative to the present order, not because I experienced it in the
kibbutz life, but because this is what it can be.
We also examine the project of direct democracy in a similar way with
you, but we think that confederalism is a useful term, although we agree
that it has been used in various, often conflicting, ways. That is, on
the one hand we have nation-states taking over this terminology, so that
they can refer to their centralized bureaucracies as federations
(meaning nothing more than the supposedly "federal" USA or Russia). And
on the other, it is being used by some lifestyle anarchists who use the
term confederation as a voluntarist network, where decisions are never
binding.
Take for example climate change, and the way it is being provoked by a
fragmented, antagonistic capitalist order. To resolve such a crisis, you
cannot have a loose organization. You need a coherent direct-democratic
system of equality to prevent the destruction of our world. It is not by
chance that I chose in my fictional novel for the revolution to have
taken place when the world was on the brink of a climate catastrophe. It
is in the face of this danger that people were faced with the need to
organize direct-democratically in order for the world to be saved. It is
not a matter of this or that group organizing in this way, and forming
loose connections between each other. It requires the radical
reconstruction of societies so that everyone can work together toward
saving the planet.
But let's scale down from such planetary threats and take for example
any moderate-sized town. It has one sewage system, one electricity
system, and other crucial public infrastructures. You cannot manage them
on loose basis. For sure you will need a multi-level direct democracy of
the city community.
Were there collaborations between Matzpen and socialist groups consisted
of Palestinian Arabs?
There were some Arab activists who collaborated with Matzpen. They were
attracted to our anti-Zionist orientation. In response, the Communist
Party tried to frame us as traitors and agents of the secret services.
We had collaborations with Arab people who were loosely related to the
Al-Ard movement - a movement that revolved around the idea of
Palestinians, Jews, and other ethnic groups living in one democratic and
secular country. This was the kind of Arab activists we were in contact
with.
We also worked a lot with village communities. There was a village back
then, called Tira, that has since then grown into a city. And locals
there were joking that if one day Tira becomes a city, they will elect
me as mayor, because we were going there very often to organize
political events and to sell copies of the Matzpen journal, which was
written part in Hebrew and part in Arabic. The Arabs in these
communities accepted us as political friends.
When one of our members was arrested they helped us gather signatures
for his release. They helped us and were in good relationship with us
because they accepted us as comrades in the struggle against Zionism.
After Matzpen was disbanded what other autonomous and
libertarian-communist organizations were created?
All along the years there were small groups of lifestyle anarchists.
They were mostly organized around animal rights and the Anonymous
movement. At the beginning of the 2000s was formed, around anarchists
involved in animal rights and social anarchists, the Anarchists Against
the Wall initiative, which was active up to the late 2010. Also, there
was, for a while during the 2010s, an anarchist federation called Ahdut
(Unity), started by Jews from Russian descent. There were also couple of
Palestinians (one or two) that participated, but we have to keep in mind
that it was too dangerous for Arabs to engage in such activity, so
although there were others that were generally interested, they avoided
getting organized in Ahdut. Unfortunately, it functioned for only 6 or 7
years, and was disbanded after that. When they first contacted me, I
told them that I would be interested only if they are a serious
organization that conducts assemblies on regular basis. After a while
they started organizing more seriously, and so I joined them.
Unfortunately, after some time it began dissolving gradually.
Currently there is one active anarchist group, consisted again mainly by
Russian Jews, called Kompass. But they are a relatively new group...
You were also participant in the Anarchists Against the Wall...
Yes, in the past I was also intensely involved in the Anarchists Against
the Wall. Although there were anarchist activists within it (many of
whom were not of the social, pro-organizational type of anarchism I
abide to), in its nature it wasn't an anarchist initiative. It was born
from a series of joint actions by Jewish activists (some of whom
anarchists) and Palestinian Arabs against the occupation. One of these
activities was organized under the motto of 'Anarchists Against the
Wall'. It got great publicity and they decided to keep the name, because
before that every action went under different motto. So, it was, before
all an anti-Zionist initiative, rather than an anarchist one. But with
the passage of time, some of the non-anarchist participants in the
Anarchists Against the Wall became more acceptive of the libertarian
ideas, some even began calling themselves anarchist.
Do you know of any anarchist group in the West Bank or in Gaza?
I know that there are some Palestinians that abide to anarchism, but
they are afraid to organize, because it is too dangerous. When the
anarchist federation Ahdut was still active we met some Palestinian
activists in some of the villages in the occupied territories who regard
positively our activity. When we printed (and translated) our opinion
about the conflict in the region and gave copies of it to activists of
the Palestinian village Bil'in and to activists of the joint struggle
from other places, nearly all of them expressed their agreement with our
anarchist-communist position. In general, I think that most Palestinians
agree on some form of coexistence with the Jews, not because they like
us too much or anything, but because this is the reality now. They don't
agree with the proposal of the radical islamists to expel all the Jews.
It was to those people, that are in favor of a common future, that we
tried to transmit our message of one society based on direct democracy.
There was a survey in Gaza before the October attack that showed that
approximately one third of its inhabitants were in favor of one society
with Jews remaining in it.
There is, however, one group that pretends to be anarchist - Fauda. But
they are not anarchist. They speak, for example, about God. And neither
are they Palestinian. They are fake. They are a group that pretends to
be both Palestinian and anarchist. There are too many things about them
that point in this direction. I don't know if they are just a bunch of
crazy people from abroad, or a creation of the secret services. I
honestly don't know.
What about the ongoing mass demonstrations against the Netanyahu
government? Do you see potential for something more than just a call to
replace one politician with another?
The ongoing mass demos express the more moderate social-democratic
Zionism against the more right-wing one, that is more chauvinist and
even fascist in character and a proponent of extreme Neo-liberal
capitalism. But nonetheless antiauthoritarian perspectives can emerge
from any ongoing mass demonstration and direct action and so we attend
the gatherings. We persist. The main Zionist part of the demonstrations
has gotten used to us and rarely engages in arguing with us. There were
few hundred people from the radical left at these demos that stood
against occupation. In the beginning I personally counted also 20-30
anarchists, but they attended unorganized. I started carrying a large
black and red flag in these demos all by myself for about a year.
Gradually young Russian Jews joined me and even some of the new young
Russian activists from Kompass joined with their banners too. As a
result, at this year's 1st of May demo we had an anarchist bloc once
again since the disbandment of Ahdut.
And what are your thoughts on the Hamas rule in Gaza until the October
attack?
I think it clearly couldn't be worst, because Israel facilitated the
orthodox Muslim radicals' ascension to power in the Gaza strip. Israel
helped create Hamas in its inner politics against the Palestinian Authority.
What do you think of 'Democratic Confederalism' - the political project
developed in theory and in practice by the Kurdish freedom movement and
the communities of Rojava? What are, in your opinion, its implications
for the wider Middle Eastern region?
The Rojava struggle started as a self-defense struggle against ISIS at
the forefront of which was the Kurdish PKK with Ocalan's new councilist
ideology. It is a struggle for autonomy with feminist and socialist
characteristics. It is a good thing, something like Chiapas, that can
serve as educational tool against capitalism and fascism.
But as for its potential practical implications for the wider Middle
Eastern region I am not that optimistic. In this multidimensional
conflict it could survive only because of US's partial support (as an
effective anti-ISIS power) and the tolerance of Assad as they did not
join forces with those who wanted to overthrow his regime. In my opinion
there is no chance of expanding this project to other countries of the
region, not even to the Iraqi Kurdish region.
Now let us change topic. You have lived in a Kibbutz. Can you tell us
more about the Kibbutz life?
Have in mind that the kibbutzes were subsidized by the capitalist Jewish
elite, because it was the cheapest way to settle Palestine. But within
the Kibbutz communities there was a level of direct democracy - from
each according to his ability, to each according to his needs. They
usually operated without hired workers until 1948. But there are few
today that even after the privatization of the Kibbutz continue to
adhere to their old mode of organizing.
When the decline of Kibbutzism began?
You see, in 1948 the economy changed. There were a lot of options to
exploit cheap immigrant labor and some Kibbutz communities took
advantage of this. After 1977, when the left-wing Mapai (dominant in the
Zionist project for many years: from before Israel's created in 1948
until 1977) lost parliamentary power the capitalists began pressuring
most of the kibbutzes to increasingly depend on outside capital. Most of
the kibbutzes were in the sphere of agriculture and were not performing
too good because their subsidies were stopped. It was a new era, very
different from the one of 1948, when around 75% of the economy was held
by cooperatives and socialized enterprises within the Zionist project.
So, in a way, this was one of the limitations of the Kibbutz - that they
were too small-scaled and isolated from each other, thus becoming too
dependent on Capital and on the resources of the State? Because of that
they couldn't create a system of their own?
The problem was that from the beginning they were subsidized by the
Zionist system. Few of them flourished economically, but most of them
operated on the brink of bankruptcy. In the Kibbutz even, the leftists
described themselves as Zionist-Marxists (but in reality, were more
Zionist than Marxist), while very few abided to the ideas of libertarian
communism. You see, in the 1950s there was a split within the Communist
Party, which was part of the Zionist establishment that built Israel,
because of the choice of the establishment to align itself with the USA
in the Korean War. So, there was a tendency of Marxist-Leninists that
left the majority Zionist-Marxist Communist Party. Because of this a
mass expulsion of Marxist-Leninists followed in the kibbutzes. There
were probably few hundred that were thrown out. People who have worked
and lived for many years in these Kibbutz were thrown out with no mercy
- simply because they refused to abide to Zionism.
I was probably one of the last ones to be thrown out of a Kibbutz for
having too radical leftist views and anti-Zionist activity. But due to
the political environment of the time and the ongoing persecutions of
political dissidents in Russia, it became unpopular to expel people on
the basis of their ideas. So, there were several months of conflict
within the Kibbutz between those who wanted to expel me and those who
didn't. Although my libertarian-communist ideas were to no liking to the
others, I was among the hardest agricultural workers and was elected
three times as the head of our Kibbutz's political committee for
external affairs. But in the end the Zionist-Marxist side prevailed,
with 60% of the inhabitants of the community voting for my expulsion,
and thus the Kibbutz had to pay me compensation. But I think that after
me no one else was thrown out of a Kibbutz, because the compensations
were mounting and were creating problems for Kibbutz budgets.
Were there disagreements within the Kibbutz regarding the inclusion of
Palestinian-Arabs?
The Kibbutz, because from the beginning they were aligned to the Zionist
system, they almost never accepted Arab members, even the more leftist
Kibbutz. There was a tendency of Arabs who accepted Zionism and some of
them even lived inside Kibbutz, but not as members, but as trainees. And
once their training was finished they were refused membership. No one
gave them land nor piece of the budget.
But despite all these shortcomings the Kibbutz were nonetheles a
laboratory where certain libertarian ideas and practices were tested,
but in a limited scope and timeframe.
Thank you very much for your time!
Source from the
originhttps://www.aftoleksi.gr/2024/05/19/synenteyxi-ton-israilino-anarchiko-ilan-shalif-melos-tis-matzpen/al
Greek material: Aftoleksi
https://libcom.org/article/interview-israeli-anarchist-ilan-shalif
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