A Statement by the ISL (Section of the RCIT in Israel / Occupied Palestine), on the Palestinian uprising, 06.07.2021
This weekend thousands of Palestinians organized by various factions and youth organizations have been demonstrating in Al-Khalil (Hebron) and Ramallah against the corrupt and oppressive Palestinian Authority (PA). They demanded the end to the PA, the collaborator with the Israeli and the American imperialists against the Palestinian people.
We of the RCIT unconditionally support these demonstrations.
If anyone had any illusions whether it was Hamas or Israel that had won the war in May this year, this uprising proves that Hamas won, and it is now more popular than ever. A historical law is that when an imperialist state is losing a war against an oppressed nation, there is an uprising of the masses of the oppressed nations and the working class.
In an interview with Fossa Trotsky related to this observation: ” Fossa: What can you say on the liberating struggle of the peoples of Latin America and the problems of the future? What is your opinion of Aprimo?
Trotsky: I am not sufficiently acquainted with the life of the individual Latin American countries to permit myself a concrete answer to the questions you pose. It is clear to me at any rate that the internal tasks of these countries cannot be solved without a simultaneous revolutionary struggle against imperialism. The agents of the United States, England, France (Lewis, Jouhaux, Toledano, the Stalinists) try to substitute the struggle against fascism for the struggle against imperialism. We have observed their criminal efforts at the recent congress against war and fascism. In the countries of Latin America, the agents of “democratic” imperialism are especially dangerous, since they are more capable of fooling the masses than the open agents of fascist bandits.
I will take the most simple and obvious example. In Brazil there now reigns a semi-fascist regime that every revolutionary can only view with hatred. Let us assume, however, that on the morrow England enters into a military conflict with Brazil. I ask you on whose side of the conflict will the working class be? I will answer for myself—in this case, I will be on the side of “fascist” Brazil against “democratic” Great Britain. Why? Because in the conflict between them it will not be a question of democracy or fascism. If England should be victorious, she will put another fascist in Rio de Janeiro and will place double chains on Brazil. If Brazil on the contrary should be victorious, it will give a mighty impulse to the national and democratic consciousness of the country and will lead to the overthrow of the Vargas dictatorship. The defeat of England will at the same time deliver a blow to British imperialism and will give an impulse to the revolutionary movement of the British proletariat. Truly, one must have an empty head to reduce world antagonisms and military conflicts to the struggle between fascism and democracy. Under all masks, one must know how to distinguish exploiters, slave-owners, and robbers!” [1]
The immediate cause of the demonstrations is the murder of the activist Nizar Banat who was beaten to death by the PA so-called “security officers” armed by Israel.
But the deep cause is the repression of the Palestinians for many years by Israel and the PA. The masses demand and rightly so the punishment for those responsible for the death of Banat. They are not afraid anymore from the Zionist repressive army and police nor the PA’s “security officers”. According to surveys most Palestinians support armed struggle against the Zionist state and its servants in Ramallah.
Since the PA has not held elections since 2005 and because it holds power only by sheer force, supported by Israel and the USA, a proper demand would be for a revolutionary Constituent Assembly of the workers and the poor Fellahin.
The real question is what kind of government should replace the PA? To win this heroic struggle it is necessary to fight for workers and the poor Fellahin government as part of the Arab revolution that is engulfing the entire region. While the interest of the international working class is to be on the side of Hamas and the other factions in a war with Israel as the RCIT did last May, Hamas is not the revolutionary leadership that can lead to the smashing of the Zionist apartheid state and its replacement with a red democratic Palestine. Hamas is afraid of popular armed workers and poor peasants’ revolution and for this reason it does not arm the Palestinian masses. For this reason, the Palestinians need to demand Hamas to arm the masses.
In a similar situation, the Bolsheviks wrote: “Let us suppose that the people in the towns are imbued with hatred for the government; they can always rise for the struggle if the opportunity offers. That means that quantitatively we are ready. But this is not enough. If an uprising is to be successful, it is necessary to draw up in advance a plan of the struggle, to draw up in advance the tactics of the battle; it is necessary to have organized detachments, and so forth,” (see Akhali Tskhovreba, No. 6) [2]
There are rumors that Mahmoud Abbas is to be replaced by Salam Fayyad who was the prime minister of the West-Bank from 2007, until 2013. He is another servant of American imperialists. He was an important figure of the IMF and under his government his close capitalist friends sold Israel the cement to build the separation walls.
This is the time to organize not only self-defense but a Palestinian working-class party committed to the liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea as part of the Arab revolution that can form a democratic socialist Middle East. A victory of the Arab revolution may even break a section of the Israeli Jewish workers from the racist Zionism to join the revolution. The Bolshevik revolution of 1917 led a section of the Jewish workers to break with Zionism and form a revolutionary workers party – the Communist Party of Palestine that unfortunately degenerated later by Stalinism to the point that it helped to create the Zionist state and to the ethnic cleansing – Nakba of 1948, that was planned by the Zionists.
As a final comment, we recommend a new Israeli movie the Blue Box made by the granddaughter of Yoseph Weitz who was one of the Zionist figures responsible for the land theft, the decision to expel the Palestinians, and the decision by Israel to preclude the return of these exiles by taking over or destroying their villages, often burying them beneath new forests. This movie should be compared with Elle s’appelait Sarah (2010). It deals with French history in 1942 Paris, when French officials rounded up over ten thousand Jews and placed them in local concentration camps. Eight thousand were sent off to German concentration camps. In 2009, a journalist named Julia Jarmond (Dame Kristin Scott Thomas) wrote a story on the deported Jews in 1942. When she moves into her father-in-law’s childhood apartment, she finds out it once belonged to the Strazynski Jewish family that was deported to the camps. Of course, the movie based on Yoseph Weitz’s diaries will not change the Zionist lies spread for example by the ADL (Anti-Defamation League) that the Palestinian refugees simply fled or only some individuals or some groups forced them to flee while it was planned by the Zionist leadership like Ben Gurion. The ADL claims:
“The Palestinian refugee issue originated in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war when five Arab armies invaded the State of Israel just hours after it was established. During the ensuing war, as many as 750,000 Palestinian Arabs fled their homes in the newly created state as a result of many factors. Some of the Palestinian Arabs who fled did so to avoid the ongoing war or at the urging of Arab leaders, and expected to return after a quick and certain Arab victory over the new Jewish state. Other Palestinians were forced to flee by individuals or groups fighting for Israel.” [3]
This lie will end only when the Zionist state will be ended by the victorious Arab revolution. It will provide for the return of the Palestinian refugees and give the Jews living in the country equal civil and political rights but not the right to form another Zionist state in any part of the Palestinian workers state.
Down with the PA!
Down with the Zionist apartheid state!
Organize self-defense!
For a revolutionary Constituent Assembly of the workers and the poor Fellahin!
For a working-class revolutionary leadership!
For Red Democratic Palestine from the river to the sea!
For a workers’ and the poor Fellahin government!
Long live the Arab revolution!
For a socialist federation of the Middle East!
References:
[1] Leon Trotsky Anti-Imperialist Struggle Is Key to Liberation An Interview with Mateo Fossa (September 1938), https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1938/09/liberation.htm
[2] Akhali Tskhovreba (New Life), a daily Bolshevik newspaper published in Tiflis from June 20 to July 14, 1906
[3] https://www.adl.org/resources/glossary-terms/palestinian-refugees
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The RCIT has published many documents on the second wave of the Arab Revolution. These documents can be read on a special sub-section on our website: https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/collection-of-articles-on-2nd-wave-of-great-arab-revolution/
We have also published a number of booklets, statements and articles on the Syrian Revolution which can be read on a special sub-section on our website: https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/collection-of-articles-on-the-syrian-revolution/
Our documents on the Fourth Gaza War are compiled on another special sub-page on our website: https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/collection-of-articles-on-fourth-gaza-war/