A Marxist Critique of the Two-State Approach to Israel & Palestine
Generally speaking there are two approaches adopted by the Left which purport to point the way towards a resolution of the Israeli- Palestinian conflict. Most of the Left supports struggling towards the formation of a single, bi-national state, which would be secular- embracing Christians, Jews, Muslims and atheists, Hebrew and Arabic speakers, and which would be fully democratic.
Some on the Left though support the establishment of two separate states: a "socialist" Israel and a "socialist" Palestine. The basis of this argument is that Jewish workers must be given the assurance of their own state, and that this is a precondition for solidarity between Jewish workers and Arab workers.
In this article I aim to show why the second option is a corruption of socialist thinking, more in line with a Left Zionist apology for the continuing existence of Israel as a Jewish state.
Israel is a colonial-settler state
The problem in Palestine did not start with the recent onslaught of Israeli military forces, purportedly in reaction to suicide bombings. Nor did it start with the 1967 war.
Israel came into being as a colonial project: an alliance between European Jewish Zionists and the Western imperialist powers. The Zionists asked for European support in settling Palestine, in return for which the state to be established would be a beach-head for Western imperialism.
This project was finally blessed by the United Nations, after collaboration between the United States and the USSR, both of whom hoped to gain the allegiance of the newly-founded state of Israel. The wishes of the Palestinian people did not figure in these dealings. In 1948 Israeli military forces overran the bulk (78%) of Palestinian land. The rest of it was occupied in the 1967 war.
In all of this the absolute bulk of the Israeli/Jewish working class was a conscious collaborator in the Zionist project. The Histadrut- the Israeli peak trade union body-was (and remains) one of the bastions of Zionism. As far as possible Palestinian labour was to be excluded from Jewish enterprises. Where this was not possible, Palestinian workers had to join the Histadrut, but not on an equal footing with Israeli/Jewish workers.
With billions of dollars annually from the USA, Israel has become not only a military, but an economic enclave of imperialism in the Middle East. Ignoring for a moment the extraordinary inequality of Israeli society-which consigns "Israeli" Palestinians, some of the Jews from Arab countries, Ethiopian Jews, African and Asian guest workers, to poverty-the average income of Israelis is around USD $17,000 per year, while that of the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, prior to the destruction of April 2002, was one twentieth of that.
The South African parallel
Apartheid South Africa was founded on White supremacy. The Left in South Africa and internationally understood that national liberation was an essential part of the struggle for a socially just society. The Left there did not argue for the retention of some White territory (a "Volkstaat") to safeguard the interests of the White working class. It argued that the interests of entire working class- African, Asian, Coloured and White-were inseparable from the dismantling of Apartheid.
So why should Israel be treated differently? Why should the interests of the Israeli working class be defended above the quest for national liberation of the Palestinian people under occupation? Why are the "sensitivities" of the Israeli working class placed above the need for a real resolution to the racist nature of the state of Israel? In other words, why is a resolution to the occupation of the Palestinian people subordinated to the supposed interests of the Israeli working class?
Is it so easy to "forget" the clear-cut Marxist tenet of support for the nationalism of the oppressed against the nationalism of the oppressor?
The liberation of the Israeli working class cannot be achieved separate form the liberation of the Palestinian people. As long as the Israeli working class remains attached to Zionism - to the separate existence of an ethno-religiously racist State - it cannot liberate itself. There can be no basis for the building of socialism.
Israel is a racist state
The very existence of the state of Israel is premised on racist supremacy, its core identity is as a state for Jews:
-the state came into being through the colonial, military dispossession of the Palestinian Arabs;
-full citizenship rights and privileges only accrue to Jewish Israelis; indeed they are available to everyone of Jewish family anywhere in the world;
-Israel can only retain its exclusively Jewish character by denying millions of Palestinians the right to return to their land;
-at the same time it cannot resolve its internal problems while occupying the rest of Palestine - the Occupied Territories of East Jerusalem, Gaza and the West Bank, which includes the expansion of Jewish settlements, the creation of Palestinian Bantustans and control over all natural resources.
The very question of borders remains unanswered. Where should they be drawn - along the line of the 1947 United Nations decision? Or as established after the 1948 war? Should Arab communities in 1948 Israel be swapped for Israeli settlements in the Gaza and West Bank? And what of the territory, belonging to other Arab states, occupied after 1967 and 1974?
Are two independent states viable within the historic borders of Palestine?
What is on offer from imperialism to the Palestinians is a semi- autonomous "state" with non-contiguous territories, on less than 22% of Palestine. Palestine would not be truly independent, its labour force and economy would be completely dependent on Israel. It would be disarmed, without international borders, and unable to determine the great environmental and resource challenge of the region. It would lack full sovereignty over energy, water, telecommunications, airspace, fishing rights, trade.
On the other hand, it seems impossible for Israel to retain its Jewish character without some form of forced separation from the Palestinians, or the "transfer" (expulsion or ethnic cleansing) of Palestinian populations across the Jordan River. Already, within the international borders Israel today controls, there are 5.5 million Palestinians, the majority without any citizenship rights, many still exiled from their family homes.
A "socialist" Israel?
For Israel to become socialist a number of things have to be achieved. Israel would have to:
-establish equality of all citizens as individuals and as national groups;
-establish the equality of Arabic and Hebrew as national languages;
-abolish the Law of Return and racist citizenship criteria;
-secularise law, health and education;
-remove all the religious symbols of the state;
-distribute the provision of water, transport, energy and communications equitably;
-recognise the right of return of all Palestinian refugees, restitute their confiscated land and pay compensation;
-expropriate the Israeli bourgeosie and overthrow the military-state apparatus;
-rupture its relationship with U.S. imperialism and establish peaceful relations with neighbouring countries.
However, in carrying out this agenda, a socialist Israel would cease to be Israel, which by definition is a state for Jews.
The slogan of a democratic, secular and bi-national Palestine (adopted by the PLO in 1973) is the proper democratic-national revolutionary demand. But, because of the dynamic of permanent revolution, it is also a transitional demand. In other words, it cannot be achieved without the overthrow of capitalism (the present- day Zionist state) and imperialism.
As long as the Israeli working class maintains its support for Zionism it will be unable to move towards socialism. As long as its loyalty remains towards the bourgeois State of Israel, its interests will remain subordinate to capitalism. No amount of class struggle-in the factories, the universities, etc.-will change that.
Instead it will cling to its privileges relative to the dispossessed Palestinian people.
As Marx once pointed out (in relation to the Irish struggle), the working class of the imperialist nation will remain in chains as long as the colonized countries remain unfree.
-The article above was written by Michael Schembri of Socialist Democracy, which is the name of the Fourth Internationalist group in Australia
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