ISL, RCIT section in Israel/Occupied Palestine, 10.07.2023
The only working-class revolutionary position in the war in Jenin was to stand with the freedom fighters against the Zionist apartheid state. It is part of the revolutionary program of Palestine red and free from the river to the sea. The reasons for it are very simple: Israel is a settler colonialist society and an imperialist state while the young Palestinians fighters in Jenin fight a war of national liberation.
The Zionist myth that modern European Jews are descendants of the ancient Jews is no more than a nationalist fabrication. The Ashkenazi Jews that established Israel are Europeans. Since the Zionists tried to prove by DNA tests that they are the descendants of the ancient Jews, this test shows that the Ashkenazi Jews are simply Europeans.
NBC News reported that “Though the finding may seem intuitive, it contradicts the notion that European Jews mostly descend from people who left Israel and the Middle East around 2,000 years ago. Instead, a substantial proportion of the population originates from local Europeans who converted to Judaism, said study co-author Martin Richards, an archaeogeneticist at the University of Huddersfield in England” [1]
“The team found that four founders were responsible for 40 percent of Ashkenazi mitochondrial DNA, and that all of these founders originated in Europe. The majority of the remaining people could be traced to other European lineages” [2]
But even without this study it is clear that modern Ashkenazi Jews came from capitalist society while the ancient Jews lived in slave society. The Ancient Jews spoke Aramean while the modern Ashkenazi Jews spoke Yiddish.
Trotsky wrote on the question of imperialist wars: “The objective historical meaning of the war is of decisive importance for the proletariat: What class is conducting it? and for the sake of what? This is decisive, and not the subterfuge of diplomacy by means of which the enemy can always be successfully portrayed to the people as an aggressor. Just as false are the references by imperialists to the slogans of democracy and culture. “… The German bourgeoisie … deceives the working class and the toiling masses by vowing that the war is being waged for the sake of … freedom and culture, for the sake of freeing the peoples oppressed by czarism. The English and French bourgeoisies … deceive the working class and the toiling masses by vowing that they are waging war … against German militarism and despotism.” A political superstructure of one kind or another cannot change the reactionary economic foundation of imperialism. On the contrary, it is the foundation that subordinates the superstructure to itself. “In our day … it is silly even to think of a progressive bourgeoisie, a progressive bourgeois movement. All bourgeois democracy … has become reactionary.” This appraisal of imperialist “democracy” constitutes the cornerstone of the entire Leninist conception” [3]
On the revolutionary program for settler colonialist society like South Africa during the apartheid and Israel today Trotsky wrote: “The overthrow of the hegemony of British imperialism in South Africa can come about as the result of a military defeat of Great Britain and the disintegration of the Empire. In this case, the South African whites could still for a certain period – hardly a considerable one – retain their domination over the blacks.
Another possibility, which in practice could be connected with the first, is a revolution in Great Britain and her possessions. Three-quarters of the population of South Africa (almost six million of the almost eight million total) is composed of non-Europeans. A victorious revolution is unthinkable without the awakening of the native masses. In its turn, that will give them what they are so lacking today – confidence in their strength, a heightened personal consciousness, a cultural growth.
Under these conditions the South African Republic will emerge first of all as a “black” republic; this does not exclude, of course, either full equality for the whites, or brotherly relations between the two races – depending mainly on the conduct of the whites. But it is entirely obvious that the predominant majority of the population, liberated from slavish dependence, will put a certain imprint on the state” [4]
The IMT of Alan Woods wrote an article on the Zionist war on the People of Jenin:
“The simultaneous use of air and ground raids was combined with a ground advance in and around the refugee camp using huge military bulldozers. These were used to smash everything in their path: roads, water and sewage systems, crushing cars and damaging buildings. Israeli forces fired live bullets and tear gas into local hospitals on several occasions to “drive out” the terrorists” [5]
Who are the terrorists, the armed forces of the Zionist state or the brave young Palestinian fighters? Why not call the Palestinian fighters freedom fighters or at least warriors?
Then there is not a bad account of the Zionist terror without saying even once that Israel is an apartheid state and the article ends with: “What is required is a revolutionary program, capable of linking the struggle for the liberation of Palestine with the struggle against the bourgeoisie, whether Arab or Israeli.
Only a class-based appeal could drive a wedge into the Zionist bloc, which is currently cemented by the lie that Israeli workers and bosses have the same interests because they are Jews.Only a socialist federation of the Middle East could guarantee freedom and genuine self-determination for all the people of the region” [6]
While it is correct to say that the Palestinians have to fight not only against the Zionist apartheid state and the PA that collaborates with Israel against the Palestinian armed youth, it is wrong to put on the same level the Arab bourgeoisie because this position imply that in a war between Israel and Arab state the working class should not stand with the Arab state that is a semi colony against Israel that is an imperialist settler colonialist society. Also, the over-emphasis of usefulness of the most privileged sections of the working class is a mistake, this ignores the fact that Israeli society is a settler-colonialist one, and that Israeli workers are not “normal” workers. In addition, in an Islamophobic bit, they wrongly refer to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad as the armed wing of Hamas!
What is so called by Roberto Sarti the writer of this article a revolutionary program? Is it two states? A Federation? “Socialist Israel”? The only revolutionary program is socialist Palestinian state with equal civil rights to the Jews who will not escape from the country, as Trotsky wrote on South Africa. Only such a state will be part of a socialist federation of the Middle East, not an abstract and meaningless phrase about “revolutionary program without any contain.
So why not say that the only solution is free and red Palestine from the river to the sea? Because this formulation, the only revolutionary formulation, will split one again the IMT of Woods.
And if Woods wrote an article on Jenin the ISA and its section in Israel that tail the racist protest movement against the most right-wing government of Israel does not bother to deal with it, because if they will take a position in support of the Palestinian fighters, they will be beaten up by the demonstrators that are for the ethnic superiority for the Ashkenazi Jews.
Endnotes:
[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/sciencemain/most-ashkenazi-jews-are-genetically-europeans-surprising-study-finds-8C1135821
[2] Ibid
[3] https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1939/02/lenin.htm
[4] https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1933/04/safrica.html
[5] Israel’s raid in Jenin: they create hell on earth and call it peace | Israel & Palestine | Middle East (marxist.com) https://www.marxist.com/raid-in-jenin-they-create-hell-on-earth-and-call-it-peace.htm
[6] https://www.marxist.com/raid-in-jenin-they-create-hell-on-earth-and-call-it-peace.htm