Yossi Schwartz ISL the section of the RCIT in Israel/Occupied Palestine, 31.10.2023
The demand of the Israeli families that their relatives are captured by Hamas and the demand of Hamas to swap all the prisoners are demands that we support, like also the demand for a cease fire. These are just demands because if won they will help Hamas fighters and the Palestinian in Gaza to recuperate. In the same way we support reforms while struggling for revolution. As Rosa Luxemburg wrote in “reform and revolution” at the time the Marxist revolutionaries were still called social democrats before the betrayal of the second international in 1914:
“At first view the title of this work may be found surprising. Can the Social-Democracy be against reforms? Can we contrapose the social revolution, the transformation of the existing order, our final goal, to social reforms? Certainly not. The daily struggle for reforms, for the amelioration of the condition of the workers within the framework of the existing social order, and for democratic institutions, offers to the Social-Democracy the only means of engaging in the proletarian class war and working in the direction of the final goal – the conquest of political power and the suppression of wage labor. Between social reforms and revolution there exists for the Social Democracy an indissoluble tie. The struggle for reforms is its means; the social revolution, its aim” [1]
We are well aware that the Israeli families that their relatives are prisoners in Gaza support the Zionist war crimes. They think and even say: first swap all prisoners and then kill the Palestinians. We support these demands not because we have any illusions about these families, but because the interest of the international working class is to support Hamas in the war without giving it political support.
Of course, the Zionist state will try to kill the released Palestinians prisoners after they are out of the prisons, like in reforms, the capitalists will try to reverse the reforms. However, it will strengthen the will to fight and destroy the apartheid state and push for the Arab revolution.
Immediate ceasefire!
Swap all prisoners Palestinians and Israelis!
Down with the Zionist apartheid state!
For Palestine red and free from the river to the sea!
Endnotes:
[1] Rosa Luxemburg Reform or Revolution 1900