Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2001 01:31:55 +0200 From: Ilan Shalif <gshalif-AT-netvision.net.il> Subject: Re: AUT: Aufheben article on Palestine/Israel Hi People Johnny offered us the link. I followed it... and thought it might be interesting for list people to hear some local person notes in the margins of the text. I wrote some notes on the margins of the first few paragraphs. It is too big project to rewrite the whole article from the point of view of local libertarian communist. Alf Heben wrote: > The recent Aufheben article on Palestine/Israel (from > Aufheben #10) is now available on the Wildcat site (in > English): > http://www.wildcat-www.de/en/material/aufh10b.htm > > Johnny ******In particular the large number of fatalities among the Palestinian population inside 'Israel proper' has brought the Intifada home in a way not seen before, with places like Jaffa and Nazareth erupting in general strikes and riots, and the main road through the northern Galilee strewn with burning tyres in the first days of the uprising. ******** 13 persons murdered by Israeli police in the few days of the demonstration is really unacceptable, but it was with out proportion to the hundreds of Palestinians murdered in the occupied territories. The most outrageous activity was the blocking of the "Wady Aarah" traffic artery in one of the most central roads from the center of Israel to the North East regions. ******** The response of many to the Palestinian problem tends to take the form of an abstract call for solidarity between Arab and Jewish workers. At the same time, the Leninist left legitimizes the nationalist ideology that divides the working class, by affirming the 'right of national self determination' and offering 'critical support' for the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO).[1*********** The position of the Israeli libertarian communist organization (of Jews and Palestinian citizens of Israel) was for about 40 years that only social revolution of the whole region will solve the conflict between the Israeli Jews and the Palestinians and other Arabs of the region. We claimed that the recognition by the regions revolutionaries of the right of self determination of the Jewish working people will enable them to join the revolution with out fear of being victims. ("On the model of the right to divorce make many margins happier".) After the 1967 war our position was - "Israel out of the occupied territories without interfering with what the people there will do". (For long, the Palestinians of the west bank and the East bank wanted to do away with the kingdom, but were deterred by Israeli threats.) The two states for two nations is for long the position of the Zionist extreme left, the various Leninists, and surprise surprise also more than half the palestinian citizens of Israel. > This article will outline some of the material reasons why > concrete examples of Jewish-Arab proletarian solidarity > are few and far between. It is also the case among the Jewish working class. Part of it is it being an immigration country. The other part is that the Israeli working class was till not long ago under the rule of the national socialist labor party who ruled the country till 1977. Most of the Palestinians working people were not allowed to work in the advanced working places which are still reserved to Jews. > Working class Jews have > benefited materially from the occupation, and from the > inferior labour market position of Palestinians, both in > Israel and in the occupied territories. They benefited more by the fast development of the country to the modern capitalism than any other thing. This development was of course possible as Israel was promoted by money and trade conditions to enable it fill the job of imperialist tool in the region (mainly) and the world. The majority of Jews settled in the occupied territories are city dwellers who got there cheaper apartments as initiative. The real settlers of the settlements that are not only there for cheap housing, are not really regular working people. They are extreme religious nationalists subsidized heavily by government budget. Not may of them are working in other than serving their system. The majority of working people just have to see how the government spend the money on the settlements instead of on the working people needs. > Since the mid 1970s > this settlement (which we will call Labour Zionism) has > been in retreat and, increasingly, Jewish workers have > faced economic insecurity. The occupation of the West > Bank and Gaza Strip was necessary in order to > accommodate the Jewish working class in Israel. The retreat of the older Zionist Labor settlements was result of two factors mainly. First, the Zionist Labor party who ruled the country lost to the more national-capitalist right. The second was that only the small minority of these settlements were relevant to security as the borders moved. Though the 1967 war was at the pick of economical recession due to restructuring forced by the world bank & company, it was motivated by the East West conflicts more than any thing. (Like the 1957 Sinai/Sues war) The Jewish working class was most devoted to the state and not in need to being pampered by war spoils. > The settlements in the occupied territories have played the > role of social housing to compensate for the increasing > economic insecurity of Jewish workers, and this has > become an intractable problem facing the architects of > bourgeois peace. After the war, lot of US money and profits from Sinai oil contributed to the flourishing of the economy. Gradual absorbing of the occupied territories markets and work force, contributed too for the bloom. If at all, economic security of Jewish workers increased immensely - including upward mobility from jobs the Palestinians filled. The need and option of bourgeois peace came about during the first Intifada, but even that more because of US and imperialist interests as in Palestine and the other Arab countries the Islamic fundamentalism increased its influence. On the other side, economic boom, development of the capitalist class and the return of the Labor party to the center of government, enabled the first steps towards a bourgeois peace. The real working class people did not gain a thing from the occupation itself. The failure of the "bourgeois peace" in the region was the result of reluctance of the majority of Israeli people - brain washed for years, to let the Palestinians have their own independent state in the occupied territories. (Capitalist interests are not clear cut either as part of the capitalists prefer Bantustan kind of peace.) When it was found that the Palestinian capitalist class cannot convince/force the Palestinians to compromise so much, the bourgeois peace process was stuck. > A typical leftist position is to call for a 'democratic, socialist > state in Palestine in which Arabs and Jews can live in > peace'.[2] This might appear relatively reformist to us, but > a similar call for a 'secular, democratic, bi-national state' > is regarded as a wildly revolutionary demand in Israel - > even by relatively radical activists. As written above we called for social revolution in the whole of the region (called by capitalist Middle East) and not the building of any kind of a state or states. I wonder if you will find more than few people among the Israeli Jews who will support it. You will find more who will support our position.... and of course much more who support really two equal status states for two nations. > Since the start of the > century the struggles of both groups of workers have > more and more come to be refracted through the prism of > nationalism. Nevertheless the dismal spectacle of > proletarian killing proletarian is not predestined; > nationalism in the Middle East emerged and is maintained > in response to the militancy of the working class. Some people Just do not have all the pieces of the puzzle. When my parents immigrated to Palestain from Ukraine, there were here about 600,000 palestinians and 60,000 jews - at least half of them in religious charity status. The build up of about 5 million working class of Jews in industrialized Palestain was mainly through a heavily subsidized process in which Jews of underdeveloped countries and the bankrupt Eastern block were transformed to a working class of a developed country. Of course they all know it was possible because of the robbing of the country from the Palestinians and the services in the region for imperialism. We still have to convince them that they are not going to loose from the reconciliation with the palestinians. The deep economic recession due to the present Intifada may do the trick. > For us, > the ideology of nationalism, as it has manifested itself in > the Middle East, can only be understood in relation to the > emergence of the oil proletariat, and the US ascendancy > in the region. I am not going to open the Arab nationalism subject here in which the Palestinian nationalism is unique part. For sure the replacement of direct rule by British colonialism and oil interests by indirect US imperialism, global interests and oil interests, Naserism, USSR temporary influence in the region, 1957 Suez war... All contributed their share, and especially the intensive education of the palestinians in the refugee camps and universities. > For example, the forms taken by Palestinian > nationalism -notably the PLO - were a practical response > by the exiled Palestinian bourgeoisie to an openly > rebellious Palestinian proletariat. I just wonder... There was very small Palestinian bourgeoisie Before 1948, and not much of it in both the west bank, and the refugee camp. The corrupt leaders of the PLO were more thieves than real bourgeoisie. The Palestinian proletars in exile were mainly the employees of non Palestinians. The form of Palestinian nationalism -notably the PLO - was powered mainly from the inability to absorb the Pa > The US-brokered > 'peace process' developed in recognition of the PLO's > recuperative role in the Intifada, while the collapse of > Oslo, and the apparent dramatic resurgence of Islamist > antagonism towards the USA, is linked to the PLO's > failure to deliver even the basic demands of Palestinian > nationalism. It is not so much the failure to deliver the basic demands of Palestinian nationalism as the failure to keep the quality of life of the people from deteriorating - due to Israeli harsh measures mainly and Palestinian authority corruption as addition. In a way, Most of the problems of the occupation remained and added hardship tipped the balance. --- from list aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
Display software: ArchTracker © Malgosia Askanas, 2000-2005