Born in 1937, Shalif can be described as the living history of anarchism
in Israel. He was a member of the Israeli socialist organisation Matzpen(1962- 1983) - a collective that resembled in spirit other important and
influential revolutionary collectives of the time, such as Socialisme ou
Barbarie (SoB) in France, and London Solidarity (LS). ---- There were
also ties that connected all three of these initiatives, most notably
Akiva Orr, who was a member of both Matzpen and LS while working with
Castoriadis of SoB. Matzpen offered Israeli society a break with
Stalinism, blind loyalty to the Soviet Union and Zionism, promoting
instead a non-dogmatic libertarian vision. Matzpen introduced radically
new ideas both as a collective and as an individual. Akiva Orr
translated Castoriadis's essay "The Greek City and the Making of
Democracy" into Hebrew, while Ilan Shalif translated Bookchin's book
"Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism: An Unbridgeable Gap."
After Matzpen disbanded, Shalif continued his activity, participating in
other initiatives in Israel, such as Anarchists Against the Wall and the
now defunct anarchist federation Ahdut[Unity].
Despite his advanced age, he remains firm in his political ideas and
continues his activism today, participating in solidarity actions with
the Palestinian people, as well as in the continuous demonstrations
against Netanyahu with other anarchists, in addition to actively
participating in the editorial team of A-Infos.
He is the author of numerous articles on direct democracy,
counter-power, and psychology. He is also the author of the novel
"Glimpses of the Year 2100 (50 Years After the Revolution)" - a story
about life in a future directly democratic society.
Verbatim: Let's start with what is happening in Gaza today. The world is
witnessing the massacre of the population of an entire region, while the
major powers of the Middle East are, as many fear, on the verge of
starting a generalised war (mainly Israel and Iran, but also Turkey and
Saudi Arabia, under the benevolent gaze of Russia and the United
States). What is your assessment of the situation?
Ilan Shalif: Israel continues to terrorise and massacre the population
of the Gaza Strip. It still hopes to force more people to leave Gaza,
but in reality he is simply dragging out the time by avoiding the moment
when he will admit defeat, when he will have to release Palestinian
prisoners in exchange for Israeli hostages, and when he will allow a new
administration that is not in direct opposition to the Palestinian
administration of the West Bank to run the Gaza Strip. The brink of a
third world war is nothing but an exaggeration.
Israel cannot start such a war, not even a major confrontation, without
the consent of the United States. Low-intensity wars between Turkey and
the Kurds, between Hezbollah (used by Iran) and Israel, and Israel
acting on behalf of US interests seeking to expel Russian military
forces from Syria, are not prerequisites for the outbreak of a world war.
Verbatim: What can be the solution to this sad situation? What was the
initial proposal of the Jewish left for Palestine?
I.S.: Until 1948, Hashomer Hatzair, the main left-wing Zionist force at
the time, said they were in favour of a binational state, but on the
condition that it be dominated by Jews. So we cannot speak of true
equality. After '48, they supported the grabbing of lands abandoned by
displaced Palestinians to create more kibbutzim. Their leftism was more
about deceiving young Israelis born in the country, who tended to the
left, to keep them within the Zionist framework. And the truth is that
they succeeded for a while.
Verbatim: And then comes Matzpen...
I.S.: Matzpen is something else entirely. It began as a small tendency
within the Communist Party of Israel that opposed the party's dominant
Zionist-Marxist orientation and its unequivocal support for the Soviet
Union and Stalinism. Because of these disagreements, the people who
formed this tendency were expelled from the party and created Matzpen as
an anti-Zionist and anti-capitalist organisation. In the following
years, due to the lack of other anti-Zionist organisations, Matzpen was
joined by other anti-Zionist Jews from different tendencies:
Trotskyists, Maoists, anarchists. Thus, our organisation acquired a
completely different and autonomous political character, which would
later lead to the split of some of the Fourth International, Trotskyists
and Maoists of Matzpen. But even after the split, there were still some
Trotskyists who would remain in the organisation along with the rest of
the Marxist left and anarchists. Matzpen was the most radical left-wing
and anti-Zionist revolutionary organisation in Israel during its existence.
Verbatim: What was the alternative proposed by Matzpen to replace the
other narrative? Some kind of confederal alternative based on autonomous
communes that federate with each other?
I.S.: We proposed a revolution of the region (not limited within
national borders) and after this revolution the communities, without any
government or national entity, would organise the society from the
bottom up. We insisted that there is no place for national entities. The
only viable alternative is a society for the Palestinians and Jews (and
other minorities) without confederated national entities. Personally,
however, I prefer to use a different term than confederalism, because
when we talk about federations we often misunderstand and mean
associations of nation-states or independent entities that are not part
of a binding whole. I have already made it clear that I reject the
first, but I also have a problem with the second, because it implies a
free way of organising the world.
But a society cannot be organised in a relaxed way. It needs to be
organised with a real and coherent libertarian-communist direct
democracy with various levels of committees, which coordinate things,
while the decision-making process always remains in the assemblies of
the base communities.
This is my idea of an alternative to the current order, not because I
have experienced it inside the kibbutzim, but because it can be done.
Verbatim: At Verbatim we study the direct democracy project in a similar
way to you, but we believe 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 that have understood this
terminology so that they can refer to their centralised bureaucracies as
federations (which means nothing other than the supposedly "federal"
United States or Russia). On the other hand, it is used by some
"lifestyle anarchists," who use the term confederation as a voluntary
network, where decisions are never binding.
I.S.: Take climate change and how it is caused by a divided and
competitive capitalist class. To solve such a crisis, you cannot have
such an organisation. We need a cohesive and directly democratic system
of equality to prevent the destruction of our world. It is no
coincidence that in my novel I chose for the revolution to occur when
the world was on the brink of a climate catastrophe.
Faced with this danger, people were faced with the need to organise
themselves directly democratically to save the world. It is not this or
that group that organises itself in this way and forms weak bonds with
each other.
But let us reduce the scale of such planetary threats and take as an
example any city of modest size: it has a sewage system, an electricity
system and other critical public infrastructure. You cannot manage them
roughly. You will definitely need direct democracy at multiple levels of
the city community.
Verbatim: Were there any collaborations between Matzpen and socialist
groups composed of Palestinian Arabs?
I.S.: There were some Arab activists who worked with Matzpen*****. They
were attracted by our anti-Zionist orientation. In response, the
Communist Party tried to frame us as traitors and intelligence agents.
We had collaborations with Arabs who were loosely associated with the
Al-Ard movement, a movement that revolved around the idea of
Palestinians, Jews and other ethnic groups living in a secular,
democratic country. These were the kind of Arab activists we were in
contact with.
We also worked a lot with village communities. At the time,there was a
village, called Tira, which has since evolved into a city. And the
locals joked that if Tira ever became a city, they would elect me mayor,
because we went there very often to organise political events and sell
copies of the magazine Matzpen, which was written partly in Hebrew and
partly in Arabic. The Arabs in these communities accepted us as
political friends.
When one of our members was arrested, they helped us collect signatures
for his release. They helped us and had good relations with us because
they accepted us as comrades in the fight against Zionism.
Verbatim: After the dissolution of Matzpen, what other autonomous and
libertarian organsations were created?
I.S.: Throughout these years there were small groups of "lifestyle
anarchists". They were mainly organised around animal rights and the
Anonymous movement. In the early 2000s, the Anarchists Against the Wall
initiative was formed around animal rights and social anarchists, which
was active until the end of 2010. There was also, for a time during the
2010s, an anarchist federation called Ahdut (Unity), founded by Jews of
Russian origin. There was also some Palestinians (one or two) who
participated, but we have to keep in mind that it was very dangerous for
Arabs to engage in such activities, so even though there were others who
were generally interested, they avoided organising in Ahdut.
Unfortunately, it only worked for 6 or 7 years and then it dissolved.
When they first contacted me, I told them that I would only be
interested if it was a serious organisation that regularly held
meetings. After some time they started organising more seriously, and so
I became a member. Unfortunately, after some time it gradually started
to dissolve. At the moment there is an active anarchist group, again
mainly composed of Russian Jews, called Kompass. But it is a relatively
young team...
Verbatim: You also participated in the Anarchists Against the Wall...
I.S.: Yes, in the past I was also actively involved in the Anarchists
Against the Wall. Although there were anarchist activists in it (many of
whom were not of the kind of social and pro-organisational anarchism
that I adhere to), in its nature it was not an anarchist initiative. It
was born from a series of joint actions of Jewish activists (some of
them anarchists) and Palestinian Arabs against the occupation. One of
these actions was organised under the slogan "Anarchists against the
Wall". This got a lot of publicity and so they decided to keep the name
because, before that, every action was called with a different slogan.
So it was, first of all, an anti-Zionist initiative, rather than
anarchist. But as time went by, some of the non-anarchist participants
of Anarchists against the Wall became more receptive to libertarian
ideas, some even started to call themselves anarchists.
Verbatim: Do you know of any anarchist groups in the West Bank or Gaza?
I.S.: I know that there are some Palestinians who follow anarchism, but
they are afraid to organise because it is too dangerous for them on both
sides of the wall. When the Ahdut anarchist federation was still active,
we met some Palestinian activists in some villages in the occupied
territories who saw our activity positively. When we printed (and
translated) our opinion on the conflict in the region and gave copies to
activists in the Palestinian village of Bil'in and to activists of the
common struggle in other places, almost all of them expressed their
agreement with our anarchist communist position. In general, I think
that most Palestinians throughout the region (Gaza, the West Bank and
Israel) agree with some form of coexistence with the Jews, not because
they like us too much or anything, but because this is the reality now.
I do not agree with the radical Islamists' proposal to expel all Jews.
There was a poll in Gaza before the October attack that showed that
about a third of its residents favoured a society, with the Jews
remaining in it. There is, however, a "Palestinian" group that pretends
to be anarchists: Fauda. But they are not anarchists. They talk, for
example, about God. And they are not even Palestinians. They are frauds.
It is a group that pretends to be both Palestinian and anarchist.**
There are too many signs pointing in this direction. I do not know if it
is just a group of crazy people from abroad or if it is a creation of
the secret services. I honestly do not know.
Verbatim: What about the ongoing mass protests against the Netanyahu
government that started already last year? Do you see the potential for
more than just a demand to replace one politician with another?
I.S.: The ongoing mass demonstrations express the more moderate social
democratic Zionism against the more right-wing Zionism, which has a more
chauvinistic and even fascist character and is a champion of extreme
neoliberal capitalism. Nevertheless, anti-authoritarian perspectives can
emerge from any mass demonstration and direct action, and that is why,
yes, we participate in the demonstrations. The main Zionist side of the
protests is used to us and rarely engages in bickering with us.
There were a few hundred people from the radical left at these
demonstrations who opposed the occupation. At the beginning I personally
counted 20-30 anarchists, but they participated in a disorganised way. I
started walking around with a big black and red flag at these
demonstrations alone for about a year. Little by little, young Russian
Jews followed me, and some of the young Russian activists from Kompass
also came with their banners. As a result, at the May Day demonstration
this year we again had an anarchist block for the first time since the
dissolution of Ahdut.
Verbatim: And what are your thoughts on the Hamas rule over Gaza until
the October massacre?
I.S.: Of course, I think it cannot get worse. It is not a lie, of
course, that Israel in turn facilitated the rise to power of radical
Orthodox Muslims in the Gaza Strip, helping to create Hamas in its
internal policy against the Palestinian Authority.
Verbatim: What do you think of "Democratic Confederalism" - the
political project developed in theory and practice by the Kurdish
liberation movement and the communities of Rojava? What, in your
opinion, are its prospects in the Middle East region?
I.S.: The struggle of Rojava began as a struggle of self-defence against
ISIS, spearheaded by the Kurdish PKK with the new council ideology of
Öcalan. It is a struggle for autonomy with feminist and socialist
characteristics. It is a good thing, something like the Zapatista
Chiapas, which can serve as an educational tool against capitalism and
fascism.
But as far as its possible practical prospects in the broader Middle
East region, I am not so optimistic. In this multidimensional conflict
this experiment has been able to survive thanks to the partial support
of the United States (as an effective force against ISIS) and the
tolerance of Assad, as they have not joined forces with those who wanted
to overthrow his regime. In my opinion, there is no possibility of
extending this program to other countries in the region, not even to the
Kurdish region of Iraq.
Verbatim: Now let's change the subject. You lived on a kibbutz. Can you
tell us more about life on the kibbutz?
I.S.: Keep in mind that kibbutzim were subsidised by the capitalist
Jewish elite because they were the cheapest way to colonise Palestine.
But within the kibbutz communities there was, in fact, a level of direct
democracy - from each according to his ability, to each according to his
needs. They usually operated without wage labourers until 1948. But
today there are few who, even after the privatisation of nearly all the
kibbutzim, continue to adhere to the old way of organising them.
Verbatim: When did the decline of the kibbutz begin?
I.S.: You see, in 1948 the economy changed. There were many options to
exploit cheap migrant labour, and some kibbutz communities benefited
from this. After 1977, when the leftist Mapai party (dominant in the
Zionist project for many years: from before the creation of Israel in
1948 until 1977) lost parliamentary power, the capitalists began to push
most kibbutzim to become more and more dependent on foreign capital.
Most of the kibbutzim were active in agriculture and did not do very
well because their subsidies were stopped. It was a new era, very
different from that of 1948, when about 75% of the economy was owned by
cooperatives and socialised enterprises.
Verbatim: So, in a way, this was one of the limitations of the kibbutzim
- that they were too small and isolated from each other, so that they
were overly dependent on state capital and resources? Because of this
they could not create their own system?
I.S.: The problem is that from the very beginning they were subsidised
by the Zionist system. A few of them prospered economically, but most
operated on the verge of bankruptcy. In the kibbutzim, the left
identified themselves as Zionist-Marxist (but in reality they were more
Zionist than Marxist), while a few adhered to the ideas of libertarian
communism. You see, in the 1950s there was a split in the Communist
Party, which was part of the Zionist establishment that built Israel
because of the establishment's choice to align itself with the United
States in the Korean War. So, there was a tendency of Marxist-Leninists
leaving the mainstream Communist Zionist-Marxist Party. Because of this,
a mass expulsion of Marxist-Leninists from the kibbutz followed.
Probably several hundred were expelled. People who worked and lived for
many years on these kibbutzim were expelled mercilessly, simply because
they refused to conform to Zionism. I was probably one of the last to be
expelled from a kibbutz because I had very radical leftist views and
anti-Zionist activities. But because of the political environment at the
time and the continuous persecution of political dissidents in Russia,
it became unpopular to expel people based on their views. So there were
several months of fighting inside the kibbutz between those who wanted
to expel me and those who did not want to do so.
Although the rest of the members did not like my anti Zionist ideas and
activilies, I was one of the hardest farm workers and was elected in my
radical Zionist past three times as head of the Political Committee (for
political working out of the kibbutz). But in the end the die hard
Zionist-Marxist side prevailed, with 60% of the kibbutz members voting
in favour of my expulsion, so the kibbutz had to pay me compensation.
But I think that after me no one has been expelled from a kibbutz (for
political reasons) because the precedent of high compensations created
problems for the kibbutz budgets.
Verbatim: Were there any disagreements within the kibbutz about the
inclusion of Palestinian Arabs?
I.S.: The kibbutz, being aligned with the Zionist system from the
beginning, almost never accepted Arab members, even the most left-wing
kibbutzim. There was a tendency of the Arabs to accept Zionism and some
of them even lived inside the kibbutz, not as members, but as trainees.
And as soon as their training was over, they were denied membership. No
one gave them land or part of the budget.
In conclusion, we can say that, despite all these flaws, the kibbutz was
a laboratory where certain libertarian ideas and practices were indeed
tested, but to a limited extent and time.
Verbatim.: Thank you very much for your time!
*Verbatim is a libertarian digital space that started its activity in
the fall of 2019. Since then, it continues to run the website of the
same name with libertarian material and articles. https://aftoleksi.gr/
taytotita/ **The website of the Russian anarchist group Autonomous
Action published an article with similar conclusions on Fauda.
*****
I.S.: Since the begining and in spite Israeli state persecution of
Palestinian citizens who joined matspen there were Palestinian members
in Matzpen.
https://www.anarchistcommunism.org/2025/04/14/palestine-antimiltarist-jackdaw-special-out-now/
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