Long live Land Day – a day of protest against Zionist Imperialism!
We commemorate Land Day this year at a time of great suffering for the Palestinian masses, but it is also a time of great hope.
The Israeli military machine has been struck in Lebanon and Gaza, and for this reason Israel carried out the despicable murder of Hamas leader al-Mabhouh in Dubai.
At the same time, the Zionist state continues with the theft of Palestinian lands, and it is working to undermine the Muslims’ holy sites. In its actions it is being exposed as a state of racist colonialist settlers.
The Palestinian masses are ready for another uprising, but the problem is a lack of revolutionary leadership. The perspective of a Palestinian capitalist mini-state coexisting with Israel has proved itself to be a complete failure. Due to the bankruptcy of its strategy, Fatah has turned itself into an agent of Zionist and American imperialism. Lately, another case of collaboration between Israel and the Palestinian Authority has been exposed: two Dahlan activists were involved in the murder of al-Mabhouh in Dubai, and this after the Authority cooperated with Israel in an attempt to block the discussions about the Goldstone Report, which accused Israel of committing war crimes in Gaza. Hamas, which presents itself as a consistent opponent of Zionism, has offered Israel a ceasefire several times, all the while oppressing the masses in Gaza.
But despite the suffering it inflicts, the ruling class cannot stand triumphant. The capitalist imperialist system, which backs Israel as its main cop in our oil-rich region, is suffering its worst economic crisis since the 1930s. A collapse like that of the USSR is what awaits the other imperialist states. US President Barack Obama is being exposed as Bush’s heir. He has received a Nobel Prize while continuing the imperialist wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and supporting the Israeli government headed by Netanyahu, Lieberman, Barak and Yishai, whose acts expose Zionist racism on a daily basis, even as it spits in his face. This shows the worth of the Nobel Peace Prize, for which Hitler was nominated.
The crisis has stirred up the working class in Latin and North America, in Europe, Asia and Africa. In our region as well, the masses are beginning to show their revolutionary potential. In Egypt we have seen demonstrations, strikes, occupation of plants and mass struggles – for example, in the cotton factories in Mahallah. These are struggles against Mubarak’s regime, which not only exploits the Egyptian masses but suppresses the Palestinian solidarity movement, while building a steel fence around besieged Gaza.
In Iran, behind the protest movement against the open dictatorship of Ahmadinejad is the awakening of the working class, which is beginning to show its strength in the struggles of the steel workers in Khodro, of the car industry workers, in the actions of private sector workers in Tehran, and in the heroic struggles of the Taxi drivers and sugar cane workers in Haft Tapeh.
The Palestinian masses alone cannot overthrow Israel, but they can play an important role as the vanguard of the workers and poor of the region. If the masses were in control of the countries neighboring Israel, instead of the treacherous bourgeoisie which seeks cooperation with imperialism, Israel could never maintain its strength.
World opinion today is less likely to accept Zionist propaganda, and it is harder to silence those opposed to Zionism. Many understand already that Israel is a society of colonialist settlers, created by expropriating the Palestinian people of its lands and expelling many of its members, who became refugees. The aim was to establish an imperialist state whose role it is to oppress the Arab masses.
This state is the enemy not only of the Arab masses, but also of the Jewish masses all over the world. For this reason, the demand for a boycott of Israel is becoming more widespread. We support a boycott of military industry, the settlers and their supporters around the world, including lecturers and artists who are working in the service of the Israeli propaganda machine. We encourage the workers of the world to boycott arms shipments to and from Israel and to demand every government ceases any financial support for Israel. But we also oppose tactics which punish Israeli Jewish workers and poor and which push them into the hands of Israel’s rulers.
Over the next years, we hope to be able to convince many Jewish workers and poor in Israel that the road to peace is support for the Palestinian mass struggle against the Zionist state and its replacement with a Palestinian workers state where, after the return of the refugees, the Jewish minority could live in peace without discrimination on an ethnic or religious basis. Unfortunately, we do not expect to convince but a minority of the Israeli Jews.
We support every struggle of the working class and the masses which raises even partial demands on the bourgeoisie. But we live at a time when every partial victory of the masses will be reversed by the bourgeoisie and its reformist servants unless the struggle eventually leads to the overthrow of the capitalist system. In order to understand this one needs only to remember the betrayal of the ANC and the Communist Party in South Africa, who continue to protect the capitalist system to this day, on the backs of the suffering masses. Israel is the twin sister of the apartheid regime, and the lessons of the struggle against it apply here as well.
The working class cannot win without creating an International, a revolutionary internationalist workers party, which can take the struggles forward and lead the masses in a victorious revolution, as opposed to the bourgeois nationalists and the Stalinists. The guiding theory of this party can only be Trotskyism – modern day Marxism. Trotsky’s theory of permanent revolution, which teaches that the struggle for national liberation and democracy can only be successful once the workers overthrow capitalism, is certainly correct in the Middle East, as we have seen over the past decades.
A socialist world of peace and abundance for all is possible. But for this the Fourth International, the revolutionary party created by Trotsky which collapsed in the 1950s, must be re-created. We invite all those who are interested in this perspective to enter our web site and contact us.
FREE ALL PALESTINIAN POLITICAL PRISONERS!
BREAK THE SIEGE ON GAZA!
FOR THE RETURN OF THE REFUGEES!
ZIONISTS, IMPERIALISTS, HANDS OFF THE MUSLIMS’ HOLY SITES!
ALL ISRAEL IS OCCUPIED TERRITORY!
FOR A PALESTINIAN WORKERS STATE FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA!
FOR A SOCIALIST FEDERATION OF THE MIDDLE EAST!
The ISL is a Trotskyist group active in Israel / Occupied Palestine. Our goal is the creation of a revolutionary international vanguard party of the working class. To this end, we are in contact with a Marxist propaganda group in the USA, the League for the Revolutionary Party, which is a member of the Communist Organization for the Fourth International. In our website one can find more details in Hebrew, Arabic and English.