By Yossi Schwartz, Internationalist Socialist League (RCIT Section in Israel / Occupied Palestine), 7.12.2017, http://the-isleague.com/ and www.thecommunists.net
Last Wednesday, US President Donald Trump announced that the US formally recognizes Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and it will begin the process of moving its embassy to the city, breaking with decades of US policy. This is a real provocation against the Arabs and the Muslims and may push the Palestinians to a new Intifada that may reignite the Arab revolution.
According to the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz, at least 22 Palestinians were wounded on Thursday in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza during clashes with Israeli soldiers following U.S. President Donald Trump’s statement.
Seven Palestinians were wounded at demonstrations checkpoint near the West Bank city of Ramallah. Four were wounded by live fire and two by rubber bullets. Eight were wounded by rubber bullets in Tul Karm, three in Bethlehem. Four Palestinians were wounded by rubber bullets in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Shuafat. Confrontations were also reported in Nablus and Jenin. In Gaza, east of Khan Younis, three Palestinian protesters were wounded by live fire, the Palestinian Health Ministry said.
Demonstrations in Ramallah, Tul Karm, and Nablus were attended by many hundreds of demonstrators, some of whom burned pictures of U.S. President Donald Trump. Dozens of Palestinians also protested in the north and center of the Gaza Strip.
In the West Bank cities of Hebron and Al-Bireh, thousands of demonstrators rallied with chants of “Jerusalem is the capital of the State of Palestine“. Some Palestinians threw stones at soldiers. The Israeli military is sending army battalions. (1)
Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, said Trump “destroyed any possibility of peace” and was “pushing this region towards chaos [and] violence. He is destroying all moderates in the region and giving power to extremists,” Erekat told Al Jazeera. “This is the most dangerous decision that any US president has ever taken.” Erekat said Trump had “disqualified his country from any possible role in the peace process. How can he talk about peace when he dictates the future of Jerusalem before negotiations begin, in total violation of international law?“
Erekat said it is “meaningless” to have a Palestinian state without Jerusalem as its capital. The only option remaining for Palestinians, he said, “is to fight for equal rights between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, the area of historic Palestine“. (2)
Very nice words and of course the solution is one state with equal rights to Palestinians and Jews, but how can the Palestinians trust the PA leadership to lead such a struggle when since Oslo agreement it has collaborated with Israel against any popular uprising?
Meantime, instead of leading real mass protest, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas traveled to Amman to meet King Abdullah II of Jordan to coordinate positions on Trump’s Jerusalem decision.
Unlike Abbas, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh called for a new uprising against Israel following the announcement. In reference to Jerusalem, he said Trump’s televised remarks on Wednesday were “a declaration of war” against “the diamond in the Palestinian crown,” and said those who believe that the Palestinian people will reconcile itself to Trump’s newly declared policy “are deluding themselves.”
A new uprising is indeed necessary! For it to win it is necessary to organize in every village in every neighborhood an action committee and self defense committees, but would Hamas be able to do it? It did not organize such committees in Gaza during the Israeli attacks.
To win such a struggle a real revolutionary working class leadership is needed!
Footnotes
(1) Jack Khoury: Palestinians Clash With Israeli Soldiers Over Trump’s Jerusalem Decision, Haaretz Dec 07 2017, https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.827480
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See also: Jerusalem is the Capital of Palestine! Trump’s Recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s Capital “Will Open the Floodgates of Hell to the West”! Mobilize for a Popular Intifada – in Palestine, in the Arab and Muslim World, Globally! Joint Statement of the International Secretariat of the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT) and the Internationalist Socialist League (Israel / Occupied Palestine), 06.12.2017, https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/jerusalem-is-the-capital-of-palestine/
For the analysis of the RCIT and its comrades in Occupied Palestine of the Palestinian liberation struggle, we refer readers to our numerous articles and documents accessed from the Africa and Middle East section of our website: https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/ as well at http://the-isleague.com/. In particular we refer readers to the following documents:
ISL: Al-Aqsa Uprising: Zionists Provoke Global Clash with Muslim World, 25.07.2017, https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/report-al-aqsa-25-7-2017/
RCIT and ISL: Israel Starts Ground Offensive: Defend Gaza! Defeat Israel’s War! Support the Palestinian Resistance! For a Workers’ and Popular International Campaign to Boycott Israel! Down with the Regimes which Collaborate with Israel! For a Free, Red Palestine! 22.7.2014, https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/joint-statement-defend-gaza/
Yossi Schwartz: Israel’s War of 1948 and the Degeneration of the Fourth International, in: Revolutionary Communism, Special Issue on Palestine, No. 10, June 2013, www.thecommunists.net/theory/israel-s-war-of-1948-1
Yossi Schwartz: Israel’s Six-Day War of 1967. On the Character of the War, the Marxist Analysis and the Position of the Israeli Left, in: Revolutionary Communism No. 12, July/August 2013, http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/israel-s-war-of-1967/
Summary of the Program of the Internationalist Socialist League, February 2014, http://www.the-isleague.com/our-platform/
Michael Pröbsting: On some Questions of the Zionist Oppression and the Permanent Revolution in Palestine, in: Revolutionary Communism, Special Issue on Palestine, No. 10, June 2013, http://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/permanent-revolution-in-palestine
RCIT: World Perspectives 2017: The Struggle against the Reactionary Offensive in the Era of Trumpism, Theses on the World Situation, the Perspectives for Class Struggle and the Tasks of Revolutionaries, 18 December 2016, Chapter IV. The Middle East and the State of the Arab Revolution, https://www.thecommunists.net/theory/world-perspectives-2017/part-4/
RCIT: Revolution and Counterrevolution in the Arab World: An Acid Test for Revolutionaries, 31 May 2015, http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/theses-arab-revolution/