A statement by ISL, RCIT section in Israel/Occupied Palestine, 31.03.2022
In the last few days, we witnessed a sharp increase in the instances of armed Palestinian resistance to the Zionist state and to hysterical nationalist-racist reaction on the part of the ultra- right PM of Israel.
It begun last week in shooting of Israelis in in Beersheba and Hadera, later in Bnei Brak on Tuesday night, an exchange of gun fire in Jenin in the West Bank where a Zionist soldier was wounded and the knifing of a settler after Palestinian attacked him with screwdriver on bus outside Nave Daniel south of Jerusalem making these events one of the most significant resistances since the Second Intifada.
Some of these events were in the nature of terrorist actions against civilians others in the nature of guerilla actions against policemen and soldiers. Israel characterizes all of them as terrorist acts. Echoing the Israeli government the Stalinists announced following the killing of two police officers in an attack by two Palestinian citizens of Israel in the northern Israeli city of Hadera that “The Joint List denounces the deadly shooting attack in Hadera as a “shocking crime.” “There is and can be no justification for harming civilians. These acts have no connection to the political struggle that the Arab public is leading for its rights,” …”our way is for peace and democracy not armed resistance…”
The general secretary of the Stalinists also said: “The terrorist organization the IS has injured all the Arab nations and we prevented its influence. We know who were the international organizations that contributed to this criminal organization and its ideology“
Really the US or Israel stood behind the IS? What a stupid and nonsense is this lies why then IS fought against the US and now against Israel? This lie has originated with Assad and Putin. In addition, in Hadera IS killed two armed policemen, not civilians.
That is why of course they supported the butcher Assad and Russian imperialism in Syria and the military coup of Sisi in Egypt. That is why they brought weapons to the Zionists in 1948 used for the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians and opposed the Algerian revolt against imperialist France and the government of Mollet, not to speak of their long history in support of Stalinists crimes.
While we as revolutionary Marxists say that individual terror is inadmissible because it does not advance the just struggle of the Palestinians against the Zionist apartheid state, we recognize the right of oppressed people to armed struggle against the oppressive forces of the Zionist state. For the same reason we support the right of the Ukrainian people to fight against Russian imperialist invasion.
Trotsky wrote a very interesting article on terror:
“Our class enemies are in the habit of complaining about our terrorism. What they mean by this is rather unclear. They would like to label all the activities of the proletariat directed against the class enemy’s interests as terrorism. The strike, in their eyes, is the principal method of terrorism. The threat of a strike, the organisation of strike pickets, an economic boycott of a slave-driving boss, a moral boycott of a traitor from our own ranks—all this and much more they call terrorism. If terrorism is understood in this way as any action inspiring fear in, or doing harm to, the enemy, then of course the entire class struggle is nothing but terrorism. And the only question remaining is whether the bourgeois politicians have the right to pour out their flood of moral indignation about proletarian terrorism when their entire state apparatus with its laws, police and army is nothing but an apparatus for capitalist terror!… In our eyes, individual terror is inadmissible precisely because it belittles the role of the masses in their own consciousness, reconciles them to their powerlessness, and turns their eyes and hopes towards a great avenger and liberator who some day will come and accomplish his mission. The anarchist prophets of the ‘propaganda of the deed’ can argue all they want about the elevating and stimulating influence of terrorist acts on the masses. Theoretical considerations and political experience prove otherwise. The more ‘effective’ the terrorist acts, the greater their impact, the more they reduce the interest of the masses in self-organisation and self-education. But the smoke from the confusion clears away, the panic disappears, the successor of the murdered minister makes his appearance, life again settles into the old rut, the wheel of capitalist exploitation turns as before; only the police repression grows more savage and brazen. And as a result, in place of the kindled hopes and artificially aroused excitement comes disillusionment and apathy”. [1]
Unfortunately, in the rebellions of the oppressed sometimes innocent people like children are killed. One of the known examples in the Net Turner’s rebellion. “One of the most famous slave revolts in American history came in 1831 when Nat Turner led a bloody uprising in Southampton County, Virginia. Turner was deeply religious, and planned his rebellion after he experienced prophetic visions ordering him to gain his freedom by force. On August 21, 1831, Turner and his accomplices killed his master’s family as they lay sleeping. From there, the small band of about 70 slaves moved from house to house, eventually killing over 50 whites with clubs, knives and muskets. It took a militia force to put down the rebellion, and Turner and 55 other slaves were captured and later executed by the state” [2]
While the slave owners saw turner’s rebellion as manifestation of the primitive blood thirsty nature of the Africans and their kangaroo court ordered to kill and boil Turner, it was the oppression of the slaves that led to the rebellion. One has to take a side of the oppressors or the oppressed, even when not everything the oppressed do is justified and helps the struggle for the liberation of the oppressed.
There is no question that the Palestinians are inspired by the defeat of US imperialism in Afghanistan and the heroic struggle of the Ukrainian people against Russian imperialism. They also see the hypocrisy of Western imperialism that imposes sanctions on Russia and not on Israel. In addition, they see and hate the Palestinian Authority collaboration with Israel and that the summit of Israel, Egypt, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates is aimed against the Palestinian and other oppressed Arabs. As for terror we differentiate between the terror of the oppressed and the terror of the oppressors. Between the white terror of the reactionaries and the red terror of the revolutionary state. While there are cases of Palestinian individual terrorist act, they dwarfed in comparison with the massive terror of the Zionist state. At least 136 children were killed in Russian shelling which is a clear form of white state terrorism. In the 2014 special operation on Gaza Israel killed 530 children. Gaza has 2 million residents and Ukraine 40 million. That is, Israel killings were 80 fold. The response of Bennett the Zionist PM called for civilian volunteers and urged those with gun licenses to be armed. “Keep an eye open. Whoever has a gun license, it’s time to carry the gun,” Bennett said.” [3] This is a call for white terror against the Palestinians.
In 1990, “Thousands of white right-wing South Africans have begun forming local vigilante groups in reaction to new black militancy and out of their own new sense of fear and insecurity. These developments have come in the aftermath of President Frederik W. de Klerk’s decision in February to legalize anti-apartheid groups and free African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela…leaders of the white opposition Conservative Party and of extremist groups such as the Afrikaanse Weerstandsbeweging, or Afrikaner Resistance Movement (AWB), and the Boerestaat Party, or Boer State Party, are calling upon whites to arm themselves to defend their communities and property against what they perceive as a black threat.” [4]
“According to a report by the prestigious South African Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR) on November 19, 1990, ten people are being killed every day in South Africa in political violence. Calling the 1990 death toll “by far the grimmest ever,” the SAIRR said that in the first ten months of 1990, 3,038 people died in political violence. The total number of deaths from September 1984 to October 31, 1990 was 8,577. The SAIRR claimed that “conflict within the black community continues to be the main source of casualties. “According to SAIRR figures, 1,400 Africans were killed in Natal in 1989.5 In 1990, in just the areas around Durban, more than 1,000 were killed.6 In areas near Johannesburg, the death toll for the period from July 1990 to the year’s end is over 1,000.” [5]
In the South of Israel already a fascist militia with the involvement of the fascist Ben Gvir was formed against the Negev Bedouin. Far-right lawmaker Itamar Ben Gvir visited the Temple Mount early On Thursday morning after receiving approval from police to visit the Jerusalem Muslim holy site. “The planned visit by the firebrand MK had sparked concerns it could significantly raise already heightened tensions and spark fresh violence.” [6]
Bennett also called to build 9 new Jewish towns in the Negev in lands the Bedouins claim. Thus, the Israeli government is pushing for major attacks on the Palestinians. The only way for the Israeli civilians to end individual terror is to break with the Zionist ideology and practice and join the Arab revolution. This will happen when Israel will be defeated in a war or when the Arab revolution will win.
The Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) has gone into a state of organization-wide operational readiness following exchanges of gunfire between the PIJ and Zionist military forces in Jenin. Hamas Political Bureau member Husam Badran said on Thursday that the recent attacks proved that Israel is unable to protect itself despite all the capabilities it possesses. He also said that there was popular support for the attacks
The unpopular Palestinian Authority had refrained from publicly discussing the escalating struggle against Israel remaining silent during the events in Beersheba last Tuesday and Hadera on Sunday. “However Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas issued a condemnation of the terror attack that left five Israelis dead in Bnei Brak on Tuesday night, “as dozens of Palestinians rallied in support of the gunman in his West Bank hometown… “Surveys regularly show that large swathes of the Palestinian public view “armed struggle” against Israel as legitimate“. [7]
In New York many hundred pro-Palestinian protesters gathered on Wednesday to protest against Israel-linked organizations on “Land Day,” “an annual Palestinian protest event. The demonstrators gathered outside Grand Central Station in Manhattan, carrying signs that read “Intifada until victory,” “We will free Palestine within our lifetime” and “Resistance until return. A small group of Zionist counter-protesters assembled across the street, with Israeli flags and signs with the images of the 11 Israelis killed in the past week.” [8]
The fear of the Zionists is that a new intifada is on the way. It may be still delayed but it will certainly and inevitably come as part of the Arab revolution against the imperialists including Israel and the local Arab rulers serving the imperialists
Down with the Zionist apartheid state!
Down with all the reactionary Arab local rulers!
For Palestine red and free from the river to the sea!
Endnotes:
[1] Leon Trotsky Why Marxists Oppose Individual Terrorism (November 1911)
[2] https://www.history.com/news/7-famous-slave-revolts
[3] https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-70
[4] https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1990/04/22/armed-vigilante-groups-forming-among-some-south-african-whites/7aab07e2-1452-4d5f-ad39-921b44418a62
[5] https://www.hrw.org/reports/1991/southafrica1/5.htm
[6] https://www.timesofisrael.com/police-okay-temple-mount-visit-by-far-right-lawmaker-ben-gvir/
[7] https://www.timesofisrael.com/breaking-silence-pa-leader-mahmoud-abbas-condemns-bnei-brak-terror-attack/
[8] https://www.timesofisrael.com/intifada-until-victory-pro-palestinian-demonstrators-rally-in-new-york/