For a secular, democratic and non-racist Palestinian state
International Workers League-Fourth International
New epoch. Number 139, May 2008
On the 60th Anniversary of its creation –
End the State of Israel
For the construction of a secular, democratic and non-racist Palestinian state
May 14 2008 marks the 60th anniversary of the founding of the state of Israel. It was founded on the basis of a 1947 UN resolution, occupying 55% of the territory of what was then British Mandate in Palestine.
The legend, created by Zionism, claims that it joined “a people without land” (the Jews) with a “land without people” (Palestine). The reality however, was very different. The World Zionist Organization and the imperialist powers (USA and Britain) with the endorsement of Stalinism in the former USSR, used the tragedy of thousands of European Jewish refugees who had been brutally persecuted by the Nazis, as an excuse to move them into Palestine, in a totally artificial way with heavy financial backing. The project was supported by several European Jewish millionaires such as the Rothschild bankers. The UN resolution legalized this usurpation.
This is how the imperialist enclave was created. That is, a territory usurped the Palestinian nation, in which they settled thousands of immigrants especially from Eastern Europe, was totally dependent on the financial backing to survive and, therefore, was prepared to defend the policy of imperialism in the region. Ben Gurion, one of the main leaders of the Zionist era and first president of Israel, expressed very clearly this deep association of Zionism with U.S. imperialism, “Our biggest concern was the fate that would be reserved to Palestine after the war. Already it was clear that the British would not retain its mandate. If it had every reason to believe that Hitler would be defeated, it was clear that Britain, even victorious, would be severely weakened after the conflict. So I had no doubt that the centre of our forces should move from the UK to North America, which was on track to take first place in the world “[1].
Moreover, Palestine was not “a land without people” but the historical homeland of the Palestinian Arabs, in which they had lived in peace for many centuries with a Jewish minority of Arabic origin. In its founding, Israel was not limited to usurp the land allotted by the UN, the Zionist movement planned and executed an offensive to seize part of a sector given to the Palestinians (an additional 20% of the total area) and expel its inhabitants.
They did so through their armed organisations and used terrorist methods against the civilian population. In the village of Der Yassin, for example, the Zionist militias killed 254 of its 700 inhabitants, a slaughter that was a symbol of how the State of Israel was established. In this way, 800,000 Palestinians (one third of the population of the time) were expelled from their land and how the drama of the refugees began.
It is no coincidence that the Palestinians remember that date as the Nakba (catastrophe) and for it marks the beginning of a painful reality. Currently, the Palestinian people are divided into different categories: those who live inside Israel, discriminated against and treated as second-class citizens; and the inhabitants of Gaza and West Bank who are hedged in and under permanent siege and aggression by Zionism; and the over six million refugees in Arab nations, living in precarious camps, often persecuted and repressed by the Arab governments.
That is why to this day the Palestinian people, as well as the Arab masses, have raised the need to fight for the liberation of their land and the expulsion of the Zionist invaders.
The LIT-CI (International League of workers – Fourth International) unconditionally supports the Palestinian people’s struggle against the Zionist state. In saying this we do no more than maintain the historical position of the Fourth International in 1948, which adopted a resolution against the creation of the estate of Israel and supported the Palestinian claim over its historical territory.
Israel: Military Agent of Imperialism in the Middle East
The aim of imperialism, especially American, with the founding of Israel, was a direct military agent in the Middle East. A region that, besides having the largest oil reserves in the world, was undergoing a strong process of anti-imperialist struggle against corrupt “oil monarchies.” It was about having “own troops” to use against the Palestinian people and the Arab masses.
It is no coincidence that since its establishment as a “military outpost” Israel has been living in a state of constant war, whether officially declared or not. Since 1948 the military actions and aggression and this state have been:
1948: Expulsion by terrorist methods of 800,000 Palestinians. War against Arab nations.
1956: War against Egypt, which nationalized the Suez Canal (secret alliance with France and Britain).
1967: 6 Day War against Arab nations: military occupation of Gaza, West Bank, Golan Heights (Syria) and the Sinai Peninsula (Egypt).
1973: War Yom Kippur against Arab nations.
1982: Invasion and occupation of southern Lebanon (defeated after several years, Israel withdrew “officially” in 2000).
1987-1989: Suppression of the First Intifada (Gaza).
1991: Air attack on Iraq (Gulf War).
2000: Suppression of the Second Intifada (Gaza).
2006: Second invasion of Lebanon (Israel defeated by the Hezbollah resistance).
2006-2008: Threat of lightning air strikes on Iran.
2007-2008: Military attacks and blockade of Gaza.
A militarized state
The objective of the creation of Israel, as expressed in the above chronology, explains why the Israeli population live always on a “war footing”. At the age of 18, every citizen is compulsorily enlisted into military service (three years for men and two years for women). After that they remain as “reservists” until they are 50, with a month a year for mandatory annual training.
For these “military services”, the US “officially” sends $3,000 billion per year and an additional $2,000 for other provisions. This should be added that the funds collected by Zionist organizations worldwide. This is how Israel maintains its balance sheet and manages the trade chronic budget deficit deficit (U.S. $10,000 million).
At the same time, the manufacture of arms and military technology and security over several years has been the country’s main economic activity and the main item of their exports ($12.000 million dollars, 40% of the total) disguised in the statistics as “export of high technology.”
In other words, most of Israel’s population lives directly or indirectly off the military budget and the arms industry and therefore the armed forces are the main state institution. It is no coincidence that most of the most of the states prominent political leaders in its history have been previously military chiefs.
A racist state
Another of the big lies of Zionism is that Israel is “democratic and progressive,” nothing could be more false. At its foundation it was established as a racist state, because of its ideology and its laws for the expropriation of lands and houses of Palestinians.
Israel is officially a “Jewish state”. It is not a state of all who reside in the country or were born there but only of those who consider themselves citizens of Jewish faith or descent. 90% of the land is reserved exclusively for Jews through the Jewish National Fund, whose statute defines that this “land of Israel belongs to this institution and can not be sold or leased, or even worked by someone who is “non-Jewish. “ Palestinians are prohibited from buying or even leasing land annexed by the State since 1948.
Since the founding of the country, there is a system of racial discrimination that dominates all aspects of Palestinian lives. What would be said today of a country whose official policy was to expropriate land from the Jews or simply prohibiting anyone Jewish from settling there or marrying a non-Jew? Obviously, we would see it a blatant case of anti-Semitic discrimination that could be compared to Nazism or apartheid South Africa. However, this is legal in Israel, through a series of institutions and laws that affect only the non-Jewish inhabitants.
The Nationality Act makes clear distinctions in obtaining citizenship between Jews and non-Jews. According to Citizenship Law, no Israeli citizen can marry a resident of the occupied Palestinian territories. If that happens, he or she would lose the rights of an Israeli citizen and the family, if not separated, must emigrate.
According to the Law of Return, any Jew in the World who coses to move to the country, may become an Israeli citizen and gain a host of privileges that non-Jewish natives do not have. But relatives of the Palestinians of the state of Israel who live abroad (many of them or their descendants driven from their lands in Palestine) can obtain the same benefit simply because they are not Jews.
The Law of the absentee allows the expropriation of lands that have not worked for a determined period of time. However no land has ever been expropriated from a Jew. Most of the seizures have been carried out against Palestinian refugees in exile, Palestinian residents living in Israel and every Palestinian who lives on the West Bank of the Jordan River and had land in the area in and around Jerusalem.
The false “Israeli democracy”
The Western press, especially the imperialists, do not tire of repeating that Israel is the “only democracy in the Middle East.” However how can you call a “democracy”, a regime that has persecuted people for their race or religion? How can it be called a “democratic” regime, one in which the original inhabitants were driven out in 1948 and have no right of return to their homes and lands and where the inhabitants of the territories occupied in 1967 have no civil rights?
Where the few representatives of Arab origin cannot criticize Zionism, without Racing long terms of imprisonment or are forced to leave the country, as happened with Azmi Bishara; where In the small minority of Jewish intellectuals who questioned the lies about the origin of the Jewish state, or opposed the atrocities of the Zionist governments are intimidated and prevented from carrying out their research. This happened to Ilan Pappe, who left Israel in 2007 to teach in England, because of the pressure they suffered at the University of Haifa and the death threats received from Zionist groups. Where the physician Mordechai Vanunu, for the alleged “crime” of revealing the existence of secret nuclear weapons was kidnapped in Europe and, after serving a sentence of more than 20 years in prison, is now prohibited from leaving the country and giving interviews.
In any country on Earth, this situation would be described as a vicious dictatorship barely disguised as “democracy” by Zionist oppressors, in the same way as white South Africans enjoyed “democracy” during apartheid.
The genocide of Palestinians
Israel needs to exert permanent violence against the population it dominates in order to maintain its colonial and racist nature, it cannot tolerate internal resistance or challenges to its borders. Its nature drives expansionism and the suppression of any challenge to its nature.
That is why Israel has always conducted a policy of “ethnic cleansing” of Palestinians and torn from their ancestral lands or severely repressed both those living within its borders as well as those from Gaza and the West Bank.
Around 11,000 Palestinian political prisoners are rotting in Zionist jails, hundreds of them are children and women. One has just given Barth while handcuffed and remains in the prison with her son. 70 prisoners have served over twenty years. Torture is practiced with the permission and the “selective murder” of fighters in the territories is a daily routine.
The LIT-CI describes the Israeli state as “Nazi” because when an entire people is persecuted with the aim of eliminating their identity, to turn them into slaves or drive them from their land, there is no other name that can express the political essence more accurately. The terrible historical contradiction is that the descendants of those persecuted by the Nazis in Europe by Nazism are now applying the same methods against another people.
An overwhelming majority of its population, brought up to be always servicing in the army, accept the reality of permanent military aggression against Palestinians and Arab nations and the entire genocidal policy as something ‘natural’, since only the force of arms can ensure the survival of their colonial enclave.
Gaza: Independent Palestinian Territory
The increasing difficulties faced by imperialism and Israel when trying to defeat the Palestinian resistance led then to encourage the Oslo Agreements in 1993. Then Fatah and the PLO, until then the unchallenged leadership of the Palestinian people, recognised the existence of the state of Israel and legalised the usurpation of most of the Palestinian territory. Thus they abandoned and betrayed the struggle of their nation. In exchange, they received the promise of a future “Palestinian state” and the immediate creation of the PNA (Palestinian National Authority) in the West Bank and Gaza, small isolated areas similar to the South African Bantustans from the apartheid era.
In 2006, Hamas won elections to the PNA. This victory was due to the fact that they maintained the demand for the end of the state of Israel and the call to fight against it. The electoral victory of Hamas placed havoc with the policies of the Oslo Agreements and proved that the majority of the Palestinian people rejected them. It also who had been transformed into unconditional agents of Israel and imperialism.
Despite the conciliatory efforts of Hamas, who called for the formation of a government of national unity with Fatah, by mid-2007 the situation moved towards open clashes between the two forces with a coup d’état organized by Abbas to displace Hamas and take full control of the government. The reaction of the masses in Gaza caused Hamas to expel the military apparatus of Abbas and the Al Fatah police. It was a great victory of the Palestinian masses liberated Gaza because they liberated Gaza from the control of Israel and its agents, transforming it into an independent Palestinian territory, albeit in very difficult conditions of isolation.
Gaza defeat at any price
This situation was totally unacceptable to a state like Israel, which began a combination of military strikes, first to destroy its infrastructure, power generation and water supply and later with direct bombing on civilians, and a blockade to prevent the supply of food, medicines and fuel. No matter what the cost, it was essential to defeat the resistance of the people of Gaza and force them to surrender.
The extreme cruelty of this Israeli policy, the blockade and its genocidal attacks are nothing more than the continuation of the numerous crimes that have been committed by the Zionists in the 60 years existence of Israel. This policy resembles in several aspects, that of the Nazis against the Jews during the Second World War, especially the creation of the Warsaw Ghetto that in 1943 rose against the Nazi occupation. Even an Israeli government minister of the Ehmed Olmert administration went as far as mentioning the need for a “holocaust” in Gaza.
But if the Warsaw Ghetto uprising was violently crushed the resistance of the masses of Gaza remains strong. A few months ago, they tore down part of the wall on the border with Egypt and forced the government of that country, the pro-imperialist dictatorial Hosni Mubarak administration to allow for a time, the Palestinian population to be supplied with food and medicines. At the same time, this resistance maintains attacks with homemade missiles on to Israeli territory and they manage tp prevent some military incursions by Zionist forces, such as the ambush when three Israeli soldiers were killed.
60 years later, the only solution is a single secular, democratic and non-racist Palestinean state
The LIT-CI asserts that the only solution to the situation of permanent conflict in the region is the construction of a secular, democratic and non-racist Palestine, the founding demand of the PLO in the 1970s.
We are against the UN proposal of “two states, one Jewish and one Palestinian, that is defended in different variants by several left-wing organisations. Such a “Palestinian state”, limited to the Gaza Strip and part of the West Bank, would have no real possibility of economic or political autonomy. The acceptance of this “mini-state” would also deny the “right of return” to their homeland of millions refugees and the expropriated land would belong to Israel. From the military point of view, this tiny state would live surrounded by a permanent threat of aggression from an enemy that is armed to the teeth.
A United Palestine, secular, democratic and non-racist, without walls or concentration camps, would allow the millions of refugees driven from their land to return and those who stayed and are oppressed would be able to recover their full rights.
Also all Jews who are willing to coexist in peace and equality could live there. With this in mind we call upon the Israeli toiling masses to join this struggle against the racist state of Israel., the gendarme Israel. Although we know that due to the nature of the majority of the Israeli Jewish population as we have pointed out above, it is likely that only a minority would accept this possibility and that the vast majority would opt for defending the current Zionist State to the end with a weapon in their hands.
But the construction of a united Palestine, based on the recovery of their historical territory, has its main obstacle in the existence of Israel as a colonial enclave and state policeman of imperialism. Therefore, the LIT-CI claims that there neither be peace in the Middle East nor any real solution for the Palestinian people until they finally defeat and destroy the State of Israel. That means that until the day that the imperialist cancer is removed. Any other solution would mean the survival of the ‘cancer’ and the continuation of their destructive and lethal action. This historical task, equivalent to the destruction of the Nazi German state or the South African apartheid state, is now on the agenda.
The LIT-CI furthermore asserts that the struggle for a secular, democratic and non-racist Palestine is a fundamental part of the struggles of the Arab masses and a step towards the construction of a Socialist Federation of Arab Republics.
It is possible to defeat Israel?
Following their overwhelming military victories until 1973, until a few years ago, the task of defeating Israel appeared impossible. That was the excuse used by many Arab administrations and the leadership of Al Fata to justify their capitulation to Israel and their betrayal of the Palestinian cause.
We know that the fight against colonial encroachment is always very difficult. For example, the independence of Algeria demanded years of popular rebellion, guerrilla actions and the support a global campaign to achieve not only defeat the French army also the fascist groups such as the OAS, and to force the settlers to accept their defeat.
But much changed much since 1973. Two Palestinian Intifadas and the withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000, were the first signs of weakness. Much more evident than that was the defeat of the Zionist troops in Lebanon against the Hezbollah-led resistance in 2006 which put the defeat to the state of Israel as a task that is now possible.
A weakening was also expressed by the reaction of the Israeli population and a deep political crisis began in the country. For the first time the Zionist army was clearly defeated and worn out by its failure, which opened doubts about the invincibility of the army to confront possible insurgencies and armed attacks by the Arab people.
At the same time, the global image of Zionism as a “progressive” and even “socialist” movement, is falling to pieces and their real nature is being revealed. The destruction caused in Lebanon and the genocidal actions in Gaza have convinced increasing numbers of intellectuals and media sectors, which previously sympathised with Israel, to take more critical attitudes and expose them more overtly. This allowed for much stronger boycott campaigns in England, and more successful actions in Spain against music concerts promoted by Israel. The isolation of Zionism in the World is increasingly important, especially in labour and social movements.
This weakening also occurs in the context of a growing crisis of the Bush “war on terror” policy in the region, bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan and deeply challenged in the Untied States. Israel is a key part of the imperialist military apparatus in the Middle East and as such will be defended to the end by the U.S. But this situation opens a new moment in the region including militarily.
The support of the Egyptian population to Palestinians seeking supplies and the inability of the Egyptian army to defeat them; and the use of weapons and tactics like those used successfully by Hezbollah in Lebanon by the resistance groups in Gaza, show that the situation is becoming increasingly tense in the entire region.
These facts show that the historic task of defeating the racist state of Israel, on the 60 anniversary of its creation remains on the agenda. The condition for that is the development of a united political and military struggle of the Palestinian people and all the Arab and Muslim masses. The LIT-CI is fully committed to that task.
[1] A Biography of Ben Gurion, Michael Bar-Zohar.
Sao Paulo, May 12, 2008
International Secretariat of the LIT-CI
