Palestine: the liberation Palestinian exodus cider the six day war
nationalism, ushering in on behalf of struggle which will not die Syria a new period of greater concilia- tion to the West combined with local manoevering to protect its own posi- tion, and in Egypt a wholesale collapse into the arms of imperialism, with the signing of the Camp David Accords, otherwise. The respective used the 'Palestinian card' in order to gimes, and also to pre-empt the poten- tial threat of the emergence of an inde- Arab leaders had, after all, constantly pendent Palestinian organisation wi- draw popular support behind their re- thinking been waiting for ever since the fiasco of It was the war that would avenge that THIS JUNE marked the twentieth anni- versary of the second Arab-Israeli war. It was the war that the Arab masses, the Palestinians in particular, had the defeats of the Arab armies in 1948.
military bases on its territory, and the handing over of its economy to the tender mer- the 1967 defeat also signalled the emergence of the Palestinians as a major independent political, and to a lesser extent military, force in the re- Middle East politics, the Palestinians But in a not unrelated development, Up until 1967, though the Palesti- nian issue had been a major factor in stationing of Western cies of the IMF. gion. the the Middle East as a whole' thin their own borders. For years they nial Israeli state and heralding the im- had been loudly denouncing the colo- Prepared in this way for a famous profound effect not just on the Palestinians, but 'the six day war had a minent day of its defeat. would regain for the Palestinians their time and again over the air-waves of Saut Al Arab (The Arab Voice); his But in the event, things did not quite turn out this way. With excellent defeat which had led to the establish- ment of the settler Israeli State and homeland. It was the war that Presi- dent Nasser had stridently promised promises repeated by the other Arab planning and superior equipment, Is- rael launched lightning air-strikes on leaders.
movements such as the pan-islamic acted as a strong focus) and movements Socialist Outlook No 1 May/June 1987 themselves played no independent pol- itical role. In so far as they were active at all politically, it was mainly in reactionary religious form, nonethe- less expressed a popular feeling of ex- treme hostility to the West, and for which the regaining of Palestine 'for -principally Nasserism and Ba'athism. movement (which, while adopting various Arab nationalist Islam' victory, the Palestinians were stunned nants of their territory: the West Bank The six day war, as it soon became Middle East as a whole. It brought to a when the awful realisation dawned on that, far from liberating their homeland, this second war had res- ulted in Israel grabbing the last rem- known, was to have a profound effect not just on the Palestinians, but on the close the 1950s era of militant Arab and the Gaza Strip. then proceeded to take on and defeat all the Arab armies in a mere six In purely military terms, Israel's the Arab people however could not be blamed for day one against the air-bases of Jor- dan, Egypt and Syria, wiping out vir- tually their entire airforces before the planes had even left their hangars. With this advantage secured, Israel victory was no great surprise. The 18
Piers Carendish/ Reflex of Arab nationalism - to carry out by the pictures of President Gammal Abdel Nasser which adorned the con- states which, in refusing to 'assimilate' the refugees, were 'heartlessly using them as pawns in their conflict with The overriding factor explaining the lack of organisation among the Palesti- nians before 1967 however, must be found in their widespread belief in the determination and ability of the forces their promises and liberate Palestine. The extent of this belief was signified massive propaganda campaign de- the otherwise inevitable emergence of a Palestinian movement which could challenge Israel's right to usurp their was presented in the We- stern media not as a problem created by Israel for making them homeless, but as a problem created by the Arab they launched, at the same time, a signed to force the Arab regimes to Indeed, on top of this aid 'carrot' assimilate the refugees, into their own countries precisely in order to avoid M In fact the whole C people so many years to organise with the Palestinian struggle, and however much the zion- ists, and to a large extent the Western Palestinians as anything more than It was only after the decisive defeat ' Arab-Israeli' conflict and the beginn- ing of the Palestinian struggle for na- It may at first seem strange that it took the dispossessed Palestinian themselves. After all, however much he Arab leaders wished to identify The Communist parties also gained a partition plan - in line with the basically scuppered their chances of ever gaining a mass follow- of the Arab armies in 1967 that the Palestinians began to recognise, in any number, the crying need for them to organise independently. The six day war effectively spelt the end of the especially in Jordan, where Arab nationalism never became a major force. The support given by the Arab Communist parties to the 1947 UN USSR'S peaceful co-existence policy - media, refused to recognise ing in the Arab world. tional liberation.
Yasser Arafat at the last conference of the non-aligned movement 'Arabs', the Palestinian people them- alone had been thrown out of their homeland and denied their right to national self- knew that they selves
19 later Iraq. That three Arab armies force was widely believed by the Arab small and not well equipped Zionist same time the growing numbers of It was the impact of the Arab defeats in the 1948 war that acted as the spark which finally led to a series of national- istic revolutions in Egypt, Syria and could be defeated by an essentially ever deeper into impoverishment com- bined to produce an explosive situa- santry, but also provided their sole which they exploited ruthlessly. At the small traders and manufacturers were becoming increasingly angered at the special commercial agreements which the feudal rulers guarded for their ex-colonial masters in return for finan- for their of the second world war, while most of north operated under previous colonial ad- ministrations remained more or less intact. A rising class of urban petty- bourgeoisie and a peasantry sinking tion. The feudal rulers acted not only as landlords to a largely landless pea- access to credit — a powerful position Arab nationalism started emerging as a force in 1917 when the French and British, reneging on an earlier agree- the Middle East between them. Bt the end Africa) had finally gained its indepen- dence, the old feudal regimes that had ment, proceeded to carve up the Arab world (excluding cial and military backing crete walls of literally thousands of apparent impotence, and looking back at the history of Arab nationalism it is, nonetheless, easy to see why they had refugee huts. Of course, they were soon to find out just how wrong they were. But measured against their own The market in Jerusalem fused and disoriented refugee popula- Palestinians. Imperialism has, after all, a long record of giving generous deemed necessary in order to dissipate And there is no doubt that the West clearly recognised the human time- bomb constituted by so many refu- gees, homeless, stateless and with no- thing to lose, camped in their thou ponsible for the provision of medical aid, education, food and other necessi- ties, UNWRA removed from the con- tion the most pressing needs to or- It is no doubt true that agencies such as UNWRA were a factor in determin- ing the level of organisation among the struggles or avoid certain upsurges. explanation: for when the PLO did finally emerge, it did so under condi- tions which were far more hostile than nians point to the role of the Red Cross, and particularly the UN. The familiar concrete refugee huts built by the United Nations Works Relief Agency (UNWRA) shortly after the war lent an air of finality to the situation of the refugees which, com- bined with the marginal improve- ments in comfort, helped them to res- ign themselves to their fate. Also res- organisation met with strong repres sion cannot be denied, but nor is it an Looking back on it some Palesti- sands just outside Israel's borders. Socialist Outlook No 1 May/June 1987 humanitarian aid where was the case pre-'67. ganise themselves.
cient grounds for hope that they would carry through their oft-stated commit- these hopes were finally dashed by the six day war, the Palestinians were Many looked to the example of the Algerian FLN which 5 years earlier had succeeded in liberating their country from the French after a protracted forced to start looking elsewhere. ment to liberating Palestine. N year. This was because of her links with the USSR, her support for African and Asian countries still fighting for her outspoken tened by communism'. Labelling it as tried to destabilise Syria from within, condemnation of the Eisenhower doc- trine - which offered Us financial and military aid to any country 'threa- controlled', their liberation and P masses to be a demonstration of the total corruption and rotteness of the regaining Palestine was thus seen as a very central task of the emerging nationalist regimes. And while it is true that the likes of Nasser constantly not the case - as it was media - that Nasser was nothing but The fact is that the records of Egypt and Syria in standing up to the West at no authoritative leadership capable of defeats and promised the goods on Palestine that he could not possibly deliver, it is constantly presented by the western bluster and hot air whose popularity could be explained only through the that time were impressive. And with pointing out the limitations of the nationalist regimes, the Palestinian and Arab masses could hardly be blamed for believing their inflated pro- The 1950s was the era of the cold extreme gullibility of the Arab people. mises on Palestine. 'old regimes'.
war. The USA was desperately trying to stitch up the newly-liberated third vorld countries into regional pro-West alliances. In Asia this meant SEATO; in the Middle East it was the Baghdad Pact. It was Egypt's refusal to get involved with any such alliance that
dent communities into proud hot-beds guerilla war. Throughout 1968, gue- rooms in the fertile soil of the refugee But the PLO did not just emerge 1967 defeat. It had its origins in many Socialist Outlook No 1 May/June 1987 rilla organisations sprouted like mush- camps which were soon transformed from hopeless, humiliated and depen- of Palestinian resistance. Most of these under the umbrella of the Palestine phoenix-like from the ashes of the diverse sectors of the pre-'67 political scene, all of which were forced to develop in certain ways under the impact of the defeat and were drawn together into a unified Palestinian or- The organisation itself was first set up in 1964 under the sponsorship of Egypt, in what was actually an attempt of the Palestinian refugees. Only after to contain the growing rauicalistation 1967 was it transformed into an inde- pendent Palestinian body seeking ef- fectively to organise and give voice to And it was not ac- tually until 1969 that the largest guer- illa group, Fattah, led by Yasser Ara- fat, gained a controlling majority in Ein-él-Hilwé, Palestinian refugee camp in south Lebanon Liberation Organisation. organisations isolate her from without, and threaten her militarily, with Turkish and Iraqi (Baghdad Pact) troops massed on her Needless to say there was never any truth in the US allegation of commun- ist control. Both Egypt and Syria were, in fact, very hostile to commun- ism within their own borders. Indeed Communist Party activists were liable to imprisonment throughout Nasser's rule in Egypt. Their relations with the Soviet Union were aimed simply at balancing East against West in an effort to maintain their own national independence. Nor was the US una- ware of this fact. But they were also aware that the bourgeois nationalist working classes than of western domi- nation which enabled the USA to use the 'communist scare tactic time and balance in its favour. The tragedy was that the Palestinian and Arab people derstanding the situation with com- regimes were, in the final analysis, more scared of the threat of their own 'non-alignment' had no leadership capable of un- Without such a leadership, and cer- doubts, the Palestinians believed the records of Syria and Egypt gave suffi- tainly with growing cynisism • tilt the parable clarity. quently to Nasser becoming a hero precipitated the series of events which led to the Suez crisis, and conse- Having refused to join a western arms markets closed for him and was consequently forced to turn to the In a predictable retaliatory move, the ing the very considerable funding it had promised for the building of the gious project planned at improving It was in response to this that Nasser refusing to buckle under the threats of perialism. The subsequent invasion of eastern bloc for alternative supplies US reacted by unilaterally withdraw- Aswandam-apopularand prestigious dramatically Egypt's ability to feed announced the nationalisation of the British-French owned Suez canal - a small corridor between the Mediterra- nean and Red Sea, vital to the military and commercial interests of the West. The move took the West by surprise and won the admiration of the deve- loping world. Here at last was a leader the West. Here was a leader prepared to stand four-square and confront im- left Britain politically isolated, and Nasser, covered in glory, emerging as a leading figure in the non-aligned Nor was Syria's record any less convincing. By 1957 she found herself ganda campaign at least on a par with that faced by Gaddafi at its height last Egypt - never backed by the US - the subject of a massive western propa- alliance, Nasser found the throughout the third world. 20
(expecially with regard to regaining ship'. While backing the forces of Amal in their attempt to wipe out the last vestiges of PLO power bases in Lebanon, President Assad of Syria the Golan Heights) saw its chance to make a bid for the 'alternative leader- planned to step in like a fairy God- mother 'just as the last rat was eaten' to present himself to the beaten and divided Palestinians as their only fu- Assad got his answer with the reuni- fication Palestine National Congress (PNC) that has just taken place in Algiers, when all factions of the PLO Z throw the Maronite minority rule which turned its guns on the Palesti- nians. Seeing its interests in weaken- monarch's ultimatum to disarm the that followed, thousands of refugees were killed and wounded and thou- Regrouping in south Lebanon, the PLO forces joined with the forces of the Lebanese National Movement to over- which the French had left behind when they departed in 1953. This time it was Lebanon's powerful neighbour, Syria, ing the strong Maronite hegemony on ME sands more exiled from the country. distanced itself from the struggles of Fattah had its political roots in the pan-islamic movement, but following 1967 it developed rapidly towards bourgeois nationalist politics — a tran- sition which was marked by its adop- tion in 1968 of the call for a 'democra- The most right wing of the groups the PLO, Fattah has always the oppressed within the Arab world, seeking instead to build opportunist Nasserism found its echo within the PLO in the form of the Habbash-led alliances with the Arab regimes. tic secular state' of Palestine.
In answer to King ment some form of 'autonomy' (Ban- Having failed for so long — despite supported a resolution reaffirming the Hussein's bid for power, the PNC formally abrogated the Amman ac- cords, and so clearly re-established their aspirations towards national self- determination. But most importantly, the PNC was one in the eye for Israel, which over the last twenty years has used every trick in the book to try to establish a local 'alternative leader- ship' prepared to negotiate and imple- tustan) in the occupied territories. that has left no break the occupied Palestinians from PLO's sole right to represent Palestinian family untouched fierce repression next disaster came with the Israeli invasion of the Lebanon in backed the PLO and LNM, but swapped sides when these, in turn, became too The Syrian siege of Tel al- emblance to the similar sieges of the Beirut camps over the last seven against the Lebanese and Palestinian Waging a war of Za'atar in 1976 bore Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine PFLP. A former leading defeat to reject Nasser's bourgeois Arab nationalism in favour of building the slogan "The road to Palestine leads through Jordan", the PFLP identified the overthrow of the Jordanian monarchy as a primary task Perhaps the most advanced conclu- war however, were represented for a short time by the DFLP - a small group that splintered from the PFLP shortly after member of the Nasserite Arab Na- tional Movement, Habbash moved leftward under the impact of the '67 alliances with movements of the op- pressed throughout the Arab world sions to be drawn from the period culminating in the six day confronting the Palestinians.
saw in the Amman accords, the reu- the end of the tunnel. With the latest PNC these hopes have yet again been subject to the most incredible pressu- res from all quarters, they have managed to survive - not just phy- cumstances this in itself must be seen as something of an achievement) but their right to chose their own represen- their total allegiance to the PLO, Israel nion with Egypt, the divided PLO and the Amal attacks in Lebanon, a light in After twenty years of struggle and liberated one inch of their territory. Their victory, however, lies in this: They have not conceded suffering, the Palestinians have dashed. an even greater disaster ognition of Israel in 1979. Arafat then pounded Beirut day in and day out eventually forcing the PLO fighters to leave as a condition for halting the after the evacuation from Beirut, Ara- fat staged a reunion with Egypt - a regime officially boycotted even by such cravenly pro-Western states as Saudi Arabia following Sadat's rec- proceeded to the court of King Hus- with phosphorus and cluster bombs, followed in the wake of this. itself by being the first Palestinian group seriously to attempt to build a principled support for the Palestinian The Syrian Ba'ath movement also found representation within the PLO in the form of As-Sa'iga. It close links with the Syrian Ba'ath Party meant, ment owed more to the rightward shift in the Syrian regime than to the grow- The emergence of the PLO marked a For the first time they now had an independent voice which alone had the authority to speak on its behalf. For the first time they had an independent its formation. The DFLP distinguished great leap forward for the Palestinians. ing militancy of the Palestinians. cause among Jewish Israelis. however, that its post-'67
After the last sky this supplement by Edward Said photographs in and Jean Mohr excellent book (Faber, £6.95) are from the Many of the tional consciousness that twenty years suffering. The task of the Palestinians fight for such a leadership within the firmly in their most oppressed layers, and with a developing understanding and its acute limitations, to carry them The incredible militancy and na- of struggle have forged in every section of the Palestinian population will not easily be eradicated. Without correct leadership, however, militancy and self-sacrifice can only lead to further in the coming years must surely be to framework of the PLO, and rooted of the politics of bourgeois nationalism tatives and they have not conceded determination in their own homeland. forward to victory • was set for the latest crisis: the siege of Amman accords, which, by conceding to the butcher King joint right to and by accepting effective Jordanian ling and suffering for for the last fifteen at this treacherous move, and with the always seen controlling the PLO as an negotiate on behalf of the Palestinians, control over any part of the occupied territories that Israel might care to give up, gave away at a stroke every- With the PLO split down the middle Palestinian military presence seriously weakened in the Lebanon, the stage the Beirut camps. Syria, which has important potential boost to its powers sein. It was here that Arafat signed the thing the Palestinians had been strugg- welcome wherever they organised. For dan and having won the support of the PLO leadership caved in to the democratic organisation to give lea- dership and structure to their struggle. But twenty years on, the question must be asked: what did the Palesti- nians really gain? Emerging into an Arab world of regimes moving rapidly to the right and anxious above all not to be dragged into further conflict with Israel, the Palestinians have been un- he last twenty years they have been led from disaster to crisis, from suff- First came Black September in 1970. Having reached a state of virtual dual power with King Hussein in Jor- large sections of the Jordanian people, Socialist Outlook No 1 May/June 1987 ering to suffering.
Menachim Begin in 1950 THERE IS MORE confusion (even on 'Jewish Question' than possibly any other. Surely - some may think - Jews are entitled to a 'homeland', and to attack Israel, for not being right-wing or capitalist, but for being a Jewish state, runs the risk of developing into an Even left-wing zionists denounce porting the Palestinian people's right while this anti-zionists as anti-Jewish for sup- Left-wing zionists, in common with all zionists, believe that Jews constitute a right in respect of 'the Jewish people'. simultaneously not supporting to national self-determination nation and are, as such, a race. surrounding the Zionism - a distortion of anti-semitic argument. the left)
Katal Gab Anti-zionism and singled out, in particular, for background. In fact, there is Socialist Oulook No 1 May/June 1987 which case the charge is one confronted with anti-zionist in the light of the history of TURKIE looks ai Zionism who deny their history and of being 'self-hating' Jews attack by zionism. JOHN zionists more than being anti-zionists in question anti-semitism happen to be Jewish, in Jews, who are therefore nothing that infuriates Judaism. Post Perdition, it should be apparent just how powerful, acceptable to sympathise and indeed how paranoid, the zionist lobby is in British perspective, it is (just about) at an ideological level almost the charge of anti-semitism. society. From the zionist with the plight of the inevitably leaves one open to Palestinian people. However, to oppose zionism This is so even if the Theodor Herzl, the founder of politi- cal zionism, covered the Dreyfus 'trea- ture: 'in Paris...I achieved a freer Zionism was born in the Russian pogroms of 1882 and the notoriously son' trial as a journalist. In his diary Herzl summed up his reactions in an subsequently echoed and re-echoed in zionist litera- attitude to anti-semitism, which I now began to understand historically, and to pardon. Above all, I recognised the emptiness and futility of trying to Zionism is a very young movement, but this fact does not prevent it from pretending that it draws its origins asserting that it constitutes a reaction to the state of things existing since the How is it that the remedy for a 2000 anti-semitic Dreyfus Affair in France. from a past more than 2000 years old, fall of Jerusalem to the Romans in naturally the best reply to these pre- year-old evil was discovered only at the end of the nineteenth century? Zionism has never posed these ques- tions: why during these 2000 years Palestine? Why was it necessary to wait until the end of the 19th century for a Herzl to succeed in convincing them of the necessity? Why were all the predecessors of Herzl - like the famous Sabbatei Zebi — fiercely pros- Zionist claims to Palestine derive from a distortion of Jewish history and are based on the false question: zion- ism = Judaism. In reality, as long as Judaism was incorporated into the eastern European feudal system, the 'dream of Zion' was nothing but a dream and did not correspond to any real interests of Judaism. Zionism was born in eastern Europe when the feudal system broke down and the persecution of the Jews began in ear- nest. It developed and came to matur- ity with the spread of fascism in we- Zionism's recent birth 'return' ecuted by orthodox Judaism? "combat" anti-semitism.' has Jewish history. attitude which didn't Jews tensions. attitude AD70. 22
century was due to a combination of The tragedy experienced by Jews in eastern Europe in the early twentieth the decline of feudalism and the dege- stern Europe. Zionism could not gain a foothold until the social conditions for its emergence were ripe. It is a Anti-semitism and the myth of Jewish capitalism. product of its time.
neration of capitalism. Hardly born, the capitalist system was already show- ing all the signs of senility. The general decay of capitalism manifested itself in crises and unemployment throughout eastern Europe. Jews began to face great hostility from both the petty bourgeoisie - who saw them as a 'threat' - and the working class who,
Robert Capa Jewish Question: a Rodinson, Israel: a Marion Woolfson, Rosemary Sayigh, Babylon - jews in Further reading on incorporated? Zed Arab lands, Faber Ghasan Kanafani, Zionism in the age Occupation: Israel Pathfinder, £3.95 gun and the olive Edward Said, The Uri Davis, Israel: Abram Leon, The revolutionaries, Palestine, Times Zionism: a false David Hirst, The Arabs, Penguin Palestine, PFLP interpretation, the Middle East over Palestine, The 1936-1939 colonial settler Lenni Brenner, branch, Faber Lawrence Hill Maseer Aruri, of dictators, and zionism peasants to the attitude of Gentiles to the presence Zionist propaganda claims that the extermination of millions of Jews by the Nazis 'proves' the necessity of an exclusive Jewish homeland'. Many According to zionism however, rather semitism is endemic among non-Jews. zionism, came to the conclusion that anti-semitism is a manifestation of a *Judophobia is then a mental disease; and as a mental disease it is hereditary; and having been inherited for 2000 years, it is incurable.' And the zionist historian Yigal Elam writes: 'Zionism has not regarded anti-semitism as an abnormal, absurd, deformed and mar- ginal phenomenon. It has regarded anti-semitism as a natural phenome- non, something given and normal in Leo Pinsker, a precursor of political that the 16 million Jews around the pressed group of people should exist, by definition, to fight their oppressors. than waste time in a futile fight against For many zionist ideologues, anti- non-Jews and concentrate them in a country exclusively their own. It is often claimed that zionism is 'the na- tional liberation movement of the Jew- ish people', a claim which assumes world constitute a national entity. Yet, liberation movement of any op- which is hereditary among non-Jews: virulent anti-semitism, its "solution' Zionism came about in response to being to remove Jews from among persecution could take on such magni- 'Jewish capitalism' is a myth which is why it was so easily 'vanqui- emigrate to the 'Jewish homeland'. "judophobia' A capitulation to racism of Jews in their midst'. tude. shioned into a major component of Simply, we can say that the violent not only expressed the will of the ruling classes, it also expressed the hatred of the middle classes in particu- lar toward foreign' elements within the domestic market. Capitalism used this racism and saved itself by resur- recting the Jew and the hatred of Jews. This elementary anti-semitism of the working and middle classes was fa- fascist ideology. But it is precisely because Jews did not play the role attributed to them that anti-semitic propa- ganda - to the image of the 'usurious' racism against Jews during this period Settlers ariving in Haifa 1949 means of well-orchestrated ('eastern Jews') return to the land of permitted many Jewish immigrants to penetrate branches of business and mic catastrophe of 1929 threw the petty bourgeoisie into a hopeless situa- tion. The primarily commercial and artisan character of Judaism, heritage of a long historical past, made it the principal enemy of the middle classes on the domestic market. The concept of 'Jewish wealth' was (and probably still is) solidly entrenched in the con- sciousness of the majority, and for the racists it was only a question of re- awakening and giving 'presence' - by After grants - most of them destitute poor The Jewish this mass arrival with alarm, and began lobbying for the colonisation of course, but to help the 'poor Ostjuden' In other words, the Jewish bourgeoisie, who with reason rise of anti-semitism, wanted them to go as far away as seeming post-war prosperity artisanry. But not for long. The econo- ment and poverty, blamed Jews for land in the 1920s, the state organised an effort to 'dejudify' and 'Polanise' rible pogroms, which swept through Western and central Europe were also soon to become theatres of a World War One, these countries saw tens of thousands of Jewish immi- bourgeoisie in western Europe viewed suffering from permanent unemploy- their problems. Governments and capitalists engaged themselves in orga- nising anti-Jewish sentiment. In Po- all professions. The universities be- came a favourite arena for anti- semitism. They became places of ter- "The fate of the Jews is Not for themselves inseparable from the fight against racism' frightful rise in anti-semitism. Poland in the 1920s and 1930s. Socialist Outlook No 1 May/June 1987 from eastern Europe. " their ancestors. feared the Palestine. possible. The Robert Caba
guarantee our existence there'. Since as imperia- lism's cop in the Middle East - parti- cularly after the USA took over as the In conclusion, it is incorrect to brand, as do all zionists, any opposition to zionism or Israel as anti-semitic. The an association which allows zionists to label all opposition as anti-semitic — is ish state which has institutionalised the in fact a distortion of Jewish history. The zionist state is an exclusivist Jew- Judaism are one and the same thing — has greatly increased in importance. major imperialist power in the area false assumption that zionism Anti-zionism: anti-racism that time, Israel's role simply the resources of Palestine, but the country itself, for the establish- ment of a new national state which through immigration would create its This strategy is confirmed in the diaries of Joseph Weitz, an important official in the zionist machine in the own classes, including a working class. The indigenous people were not there- exploited, but totally 1940s: 'Between ourselves it should be clear that in this country there is no room for both peoples together...The only solution is Palestine, or at least 'Zionism capitulates to more Jews were saved from the gas camps by escaping to the depths of thing that this proves is that the fate of Russia, or to the USA, or to this coun nated wherever the Nazis reached, and were saved otherwise. The only groups) is inseparable from the fight he late 1930s, under the pressure of try, than by going to Palestine. The simple fact is that Jews were extermi- the Jews (as of other persecuted Even by its own admission, zionism was involved in saving the lives of Jews them over to Palestine as settlers. In only insofar as this meant bringing public opinion, various projects were against racism, fascism and reaction.
of Palestinians. The rationalisation of expulsion of Palestinians from their land, daily discriminates against them in every aspect of life, and does not even officially recognise the existence the colonisation of Palestine at the expense of its Arab inhabitants has created an ideology and society which what of the concept of 'the because of the diaspora character of Judaism, Jews constitute a mixture of Jewish people' and their 'right' to national self-determination? Surely, left-wing zionists argue, Jews consti- tute a race and it must be anti-semitic not to support both Palestinian and Jewish self-determination? In reality, western Palestine (later to become Is- rael and the West Bank), without Arabs...There is no other way but to transfer all the Arabs from here to the neighbouring countries. To transfer all of them; not one village, not one tribe should be left behind...For this In order to facilitate this robbery, and to 'preserve the Jewish character purpose money, plenty of money, can found. And only after such a transfer will the country be able to - that is, Jewish supremacy - various racist and discriminatory laws, regulations and practices were absorb millions of our brethren." anti-semitism' other governments for saving the Jews of central and eastern Europe by orga- proposed by the American, British and Post-Ugandan zionism in the crucible of the nising a large-scale emergency migra- torialist danger" (the migration of The zionist movement refused to co- operate and helped shelve these pro- jects. In a recently published book, holocaust, the zionist historian SB Beit- number of cases against the efforts of others, Jews and non-Jews, to save tion to places other than Palestine. mindedness and the fear of the "terri- Jews to countries other than Palestine) led the zionist movement to act in a In fact, zionism has on many occa-
Palestine, Jews far from constituted a 'pure race'. Leaving aside the fact that according to the Old Testament, the Israelites brought a mass of Egyptians with them when they left Egypt, it is enough to recall the numerous races which had established themselves in Palestine - Hittites, Canaanites, Phi- listines ('Aryans'), Egyptians, Phoeni- and the Jews of Russia. The first are There is no racial homogeneity be- tween the Syrian Jews, for example, Oriental in type (Sephardic), while the There are black Jews in India, Ethio- pean Jews (Falasha) and "Troglodite' second are European (Ashkenazy). cians, Greeks and Arabs. the most diverse tion of zionists regarding Arabs as introduced. It is not so much a ques- inherently inferior to Jews, although many zionists do have such views; rather, the point is that in practice, in order to implement the aims of zion- ism, it was necessary to dispossess the Palestinians and to violate not only their national rights as a people but also their human and civil rights as From the start it was clear to Herzl "The "Jewish Race" is a myth' sions used anti-semitism to encourage 1969 issue of the daily newspaper, Yediot Aharanot, stated: 'It is of course public, but many of us felt a tiny bit of joy when we read newspaper reports of Jews to emigrate to Israel. A February not customary to talk about it in the swastika epidemic in Europe in 1960; or about the pro-nazi movement in Argentina'. Zionism is a response to anti-semitism. However, it is a res- According to zionist logic the struggle against anti-semitism should be given up as 'pointless' and the problem 'sol- ved' by segregation, exactly as the ponse which capitulates Zionism as colonisation racists recommend.
Jews in Africa. The 'Jewish race' is a ristics, and it is thoroughly racist to however, zionism shares many of the myth. Judaism has no 'racial characte- Zionism is a false solution to the problem of anti-semitism and is based on a capitulation to anti-semitic argu- ments. Indeed, if you believe that Jews can and should live in freedom and dignity among non-Jews; that anti- semitism can be fought and beaten, then you are thinking as an anti-racist and a socialist. But if you believe Jews should go away 'where they belong' to live 'among their own kind', then you are thinking as an anti-semite. Or a Socialist Outlook No 1 May/June 1987 assumptions of the racists. need the backing and support of the and the other zionist leaders that in order to colonise Palestine they would ingly, they worked hard in order to obtain - from these powers - a Palestine. It takes two to tango, and zionism had to offer something in exchange for such a charter. In the bible of the zionist movement, The would be: 'For Europe we shall serve Asia, and function as the vanguard of author explains what that something' there as part of the rampart against rians... We shall keep our times with all the European nations, who will Jewish State by Theodor Herzl, 'charter' for the colonisation major imperialist the 'natives' were used as a source of Zionism came into being in the heyday of European colonial expansion, when 'colonisation' was not regarded as a dirty word, certainly not in the Euro- middle-class circles in which zionist leaders like Herzl moved. A whose population was not European was regarded as 'uninhabi- ted', 'a land without a people'. In the many places colonised by Europeans super-exploited labour the zionist settlers. The specific feature power in the service of the settlers. This practice was not to be followed by of zionism which distinguishes it from all other modern settler colonisation movements is that it wanted not 24
After being postponed several times, a plenum of January 27-28. Mikhail Gorbachev's marathon six-hour report marked a definite acceleration of taking power, writes ERNEST MANDEL. the Central Committee of the Communist Party the course of reforms that he initiated upon Gorbachev of the Soviet Union (CPSU) was finally held on
GORBACHEV'S and social-moral fields (for example the fight What was new was that the centre of gravity of these latest reforms has shifted from the economic against alcoholism and corruption) toward a strictly political level.
DILEMMAS THE THREE MAIN measures proposed concerned political struc- tures in the strict sense. For the first time in 35 years, a special
regional soviets will be modified. (It is not clear if this reform will introduction of the secret ballot will apply also to the election of well as to the election of party congress will be called at the beginning of next year. The form of selecting candidates for the elections to the local and The form of electing party leaders at several ascending levels will also be changed. (Once again, it is not clear whether the A series of such reforms was in the air. These were being discussed not only within the party apparatus but also among the intelligentsia, and even with foreign guests. Some of the pro- posals discussed, on the other hand, have not been upheld (at including in the Central Committee and the Political Bureau, to Nonetheless, it seems that Gorbachev achieved a surprise least, not yet), such as introducing the priniple of compulsory rotation of top party positions and a limitation of terms in office, effect. While the draft report had circulated among Political Bureau members and candidates, precise details of the new modes of election had been omitted from it. It seems that they have had a bomb-shell effect within the Central Committee. extend to the choice of candidates for the Supreme Soviet.) members of the Central Committee of the CPSU.) delegates to party congresses, as Socialist Outlook No 1 May/June 1987 the life of two legislatures.
The 'principle' of democratic centralism as it has functioned since the victory of the Stalin faction (in reality, bureaucratic centralism) was considered the touchstone of the entire political system. Its extension from the party to the mass organisations and the state structures was celebrated as the nec plus ultra zenith] of Marxism-Leninism, with which, of course, it has It is precisely by measuring Gorbachev's aim against the means proposed for achieving it that the dilemma he faces is For nearly 60 years, everything in the Soviet Union has functioned on the basis of a vertical command system, from the top down, without any initiative or self-organisation by the masses. Underlying the bureaucratic dictatorship is the principle that the 'material interest' of the bureaucracy is the driving force nothing to do. And so on, and so on. most clearly highlighted. following the general secretary's report (there were at least 34 of bureaucratic apparatus. It is afraid of any deepgoing change, of resistance Gorbachev is running into from the top echelons of the bureaucracy. The extent of this resistance is also pointed up by the fact that the infusion of new blood into the Political Bureau This resistance is simply the reflection at the top levels of the The surprise effect, the repeated adjournments of the ple- nums, the interruption of the session, the number of speeches them) and the fact that the resolution finally adopted does not mention a number of the more radical proposals all testify to the Shcherbinski remained a of the conservatism of the majority of the any change that is more than purely cosmetic. It is apprehensive about Gorbachev's two central slogans — 'glasnost' (openness, that is more honest, realistic and complete information) and member; Boris Eltsin was not elected. was more modest than expected. bureaucracy of the conservatism
'a relaunching of explicit destalinisation in the style of the twentieth congress is not excluded' political sense of the term, in the life of the state and the party, or All this does not mean that Gorbachev represents a funda- mentally anti-bureaucratic element, a reformer in the socio- that he is largely isolated from the rest of the society. He represents the more lucid wing of the bureaucracy, present above all perestroika (rebuilding, radical reform).
But the ticking of the time-bomb represented by the crisis of Socialist Outlook No 1 May/June 1987 in achieving the plan and turning the wheels of the economic The monopoly of power and material privileges each flow from the other. Logically, therefore, Gorbachev has started from But, the apparatus resists. It demonstrates a ponderousness unsuspected even by its most lucid critics. It sabotages, or worse still, systematically obstructs. So, it has to be shaken up. You start by shaking up the administration administratively. Then you find more obstruction, glaring new manifestations of iner- the system goes on relentlessly. But how can some bureaucrats mobilise the masses against others and control and channel their mobilisations? The risks of such an adventure are confirmed by the examples of Hungary, Czechoslovakia, China; and the most terrifying example of all is the Poland of Solidarnösc. Give them tia, new partial setbacks, new delays and postponements. an inch, and they'll take a mile. the top in applying his reforms. machine. among the intelligentsia and the technocrats but also, it would seem, in the police and military apparatus, which has recognised the gravity of the crisis into which bureaucratic management has If Gorbachev speaks more and more of a veritable 'revolution' it is to save the bureaucratic system, not The differences between Gorbachev and the so-called conser- vative faction arise from the conservatives' criminal underesti- precisely from the standpoint of the interests of the bureaucracy as a whole. Facing a scalpel the Brezhnevites murmur that all that is needed is an Much evidence could be cited of points from Gorbachev's report that his objective is defending the bureaucratic dictator- The principle of the one-party system was stubbornly upheld, as well as the dogma that the party must always play the leading role in politics. Gorbachev sang the praises of the KGB as an institution (a command performance, perhaps?). mation of the crisis, which is 'criminal' because he wants to overthrow it. plunged the Soviet Union. being necessary, injection. ship. 26
social problems. The general secretary certainly did not mince stagnation in all areas, inertia, widespread lack of respect for the law, vast corruption, declining morality, holding back of econo- mic and social progress, blocking positive changes, blindness to Indeed, a relaunching of explicit de-Stalinisation in the style The regular Soviet press is mentioning Lenin's last testament, especially its negative judgement about Stalin. But, for the moment, it is not publishing the full text of the document or raising the delicate question of the Moscow trials, or the composition of the Political Bureau in Lenin's time, or of the testament's generally favourable assessment of the Bolshevik leaders murdered by Stalin, in particular Trotsky and Bukharin. of the twentieth and twenty-second congresses is not excluded. Questioned by Monty Johnstone, an editor of the any words there! US SR (VII Like the liberal empire' of Napolcon I and Napoleon III, or While Gorbache: talks about a crisis of the system in the the ideologues and politicians of the bureaucracy, he is incapable non, a sum of defects and crrors in behaviour, at most a sum or the 'liberal empire' of the czars, Gorbachev's liberal dictator- ship' is literally caught between iwo fires. Divisions within the bureaucracy widen a breach through which sooner or later the gravest of terms, even alarmist ones, he cannot offer an adequate explanation of how the USSR got into this predicament. Like all of presenting and analysing the bureaucracy itself as a social system of inadequate ideas. The social roots of these superstruc- force. For him the bureaucracy is only a psychological phenome autonomous action of the masses can erupt. tural phenomena are covered over
Eurocommunist magazine Marxism Today, Fyodor Burlatsky, political commentator on Literaturnaya Gazeta and quite close to Gorbachev himself, still expressed himself in an evasive fashion about a rehabilitation of Lenin's companions who fell victim to ...we must change our style of teaching the history of our party. It is now without personalities. And they must research workers and the workers mistrust the "The Gorbachev team mistrusts the Gorbachev team'
the role of all political leaders, of leading members of the politburo, and explain what happened during Lenin's time, during Stalin's time, dealing with every figure. It is our duty. But I can't answer now about the personalities you mentioned because it is a big question, and it is a difficult question, and Thus, when he condemned the Stalin period in his report to the and purely ideological terms that it seemed an insult to the victims of the Central Committee, he did so in such bland Bland condemnation of Stalin Central Committee, /
27 This is why Khruschev You cannot rehabilitate the victims of the Stalin purges without at the same time condemning en bloc their executioners, their jailers, and those who bore witness against them - that is, accusing finger at this apparatus as a whole without exposing the According to the Italian CP daily L 'Unita of 28 January 1987, a the bulk of the bureaucratic apparatus. You cannot point an mechanisms of political power that made it possible to commit these monstrous crimes and the reasons why the bureaucracy All these questions are not merely historical or symptomatic. maybe we'll have an answer in the not too distant future.' rehabilitation of Bukharin is in the works. They go to the heart of the problem. tolerated (or wanted) them committed. tripped over the same stumbling block. *The circumstances that we are aware of... [in the course of The millions deported? A million Communists murdered? The all-embracing terror? The working class atomised, terro- rised, made incapable of action? The proclamation of the omnipotence of the managers in the factories? The elimination of the right to strike? The enormous growth of social inequality? In these circumstances, it is hardly surprising that the condemnation of the Brezhnev era scems more radical than that which] authoritative evaluations and judgements become un- of the Stalin era. In the case of the tormer, the picture is not out- lined with a few fuzzy strokes but painted in big bold colours - questionable truths that needed only to be commented upon.' All this disappears from the analysis: Socialist Quiook No 1 May/fune 1987)
But how can such guarantees be given while at the same time increasing the rights and powers of the managers and tech- nocrats in the factories and giving full play to material incen- tive', which remains the essential feature of the economic You can see the extent of Gorbachev's dilemma by comparing his situation with that of Deng Hsiao-ping in the People's Republic of China. The Chinese old fox held a major ace. His economic reforms could sharply increase the incomes of the not made up either of peasants or bureaucrats. It is composed of peasantry, even if at the price of growing inequality among the peasants. The peasantry represents the great majority of the However, the great majority of the population of the USSR is simple wage earners. But to these people Gorbachev does not have a great deal to offer on the material level. Improving supply, even of food, by extending the cooperative sector, brings high-quality sausages without having to stand in line. But the price is ten times higher than in the state stores. No workers, not In the 'cooperative stores' opened in Moscow you can find even skilled workers (who earn 300 rubles a month) can afford ten rubles for a kilo of sausages. (The equivalent in Britain something on an institutional level. But the contours and content An interesting discussion is going on today in the USSR on the out, in these conditions, is to offer subject of self-management of enterprises. A notable example is in the article by Lev Tolkunov, member of the Central Commit- tee of the CPSU and chair of the Council of the Union of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, in No. 10, October 1986, of Nouvelle Revue Internationale. The contradictions in the 'official' position they counterpose to the socialist state the self-management of primacy to military- The latter are unacceptable to us because 'Our party...has resolutely rejected the conceptions of 'bar- racks communism' which deny the democratic forms of workers' bureaucratic methods. At the same time, the party has declared and still does, consistently and resolutely against all petty-bourgeois [sic] anarcho-syndicalist theories of "workers' workers' collectives. In reality, as experience shows [sic], the the collectives of the workers, as the instrument for people's that since the victory of the Stalin faction, the principle of socialist state acts in common with the socialist organisations and You can get the full flavour of this hash when you remember management in the enterprises has been the 'unified command' of the managements, that the right to strike or to challenge the managers' decisions has been abolished, and that, as the author himself admits, until quite recently the workers were simply informed of the content of the plans, and not even consulted proclaims grandiloquently: 'As the complete masters on their home ground in the factories, the kolkhozy, the workshops or the farms, the working people must also be masters in the country' (p 65). However, we learn in passing that in the 'radical' reform that is being drafted concerning management structures in enterprises, 'workers' councils' are to be set up that will 'bring together representatives of the administration, the Socialist Outlook No 1 May/June 1987 party organisations, the unions and the Komsomol, as well as team councils, etc... 'it seems opportune to extend eligibility for election to all heads of teams, and then progressively to certain [!] other categories of leaders in the enterprises: foremen, chiefs of posts, of sectors, of workshops....of sovkhoz administrations' of what he offers are far too vague to overcome scepticism. would be £25 to £33 for two pounds of sausages). defended by Tolkunov are glaringly obvious. Discussion on workers' self-management self-management in order to give on a dizzying rise in prices. self-management.' (p 57) Gorbachev's only way population of China. self-management". US S R Stalin: his leadership and the isolation of the Russian That takes us back to the question of the bureaucracy's material in particular their special stores, special hospital rooms, their vacation homes, their dachas and their state cars. There was some talk about these things before the twenty- seventh congress of the CPSU but a veil has been cast over them Gorbachev does not seem to have mentioned these questions in his marathon report to the Central Committee in Here appears the second dilemma facing Gorbachev. He has exposed the veritable 'moral corrosion' that Soviet society has chev's 'goulash socialism'?). He has said that 'Western values' supposedly suffered since Brezhnev (and what about Khrus- and 'consumer society' behaviour have asserted themselves in Groups have grown, including many youth, for whom the narrowed to the search for material well-being, for gain at any cost. The cynical position of such people has taken on the most acute forms and is poisoning the outlook of those around them.' (Summary of the report in So, Gorbachev makes a stirring eulogy to moral incentives and 'the communist ideal'. But how can you fail to recognise that all of that sounds hollow so long as enormous material privileges persist at the top echelons of the bureaucracy? Austerity for the masses, the workers, the producers, pensioners, petty functiona- ries; 'material incentives' for the top bureaucrats and tech- nocrats - can anyone think for a single instant that the people bureaucracy's heart (which lies just below its wallet) and without How can you break out of this dilemma without striking at the of petty-bourgeois opposition to equality) that, in the purest dumping this cynical red herring of a fight against 'petty- bourgeois egalitarianism' (it would be far more correct to speak Underneath this second dilemma there is a third. For a year, Gorbachev has been gradually shifting the axis of economic tion. At the CPU's twenty-seventh congress, a lot of space was still accorded to improving the standard of living of the masses, and in particular to the promise of modern and comfortable housing for everyone by the year 2000. But in the background, a reform from the sphere of consumption toward that of produc- new and mounting productivist pressure can be seen shaping up. This is what makes the workers suspicious. Burlatsky admitted this in a veiled way in his interview in Marxism Today mentioned In order for the economic reform to be accepted by the masses, for the workers to take part in it or become the active force in it, it is not enough to appeal to an "ideal', above all in a society so saturated with scepticism, hypocrisy, double talk, not to say cynicism, as Soviet society is today. The workers need guaran- tees that extra exertions will not rebound against them, above all that such additional efforts will not put in question full employ- revolution led to the system of bureaucratic rule are not going to notice this fraud, with or without glasnost? Bureaucratic privilege versus 'the communist ideal' Stalinist tradition, still turns up in Gorbachev's report? David King collection ment, will not aggravate inequality. L 'Unita of 28 January 1987.) aim of existence has dumping this cynical January 1987. 28
(This is obviously no accident; nor is it any accident that the dictator is presented with features that recall those of Beria more As the crowds leave the movie theatres, groups form discuss- ing the film's message and the balance sheet of the Stalin era vigorously, if not passionately. These discussions seem entirely spontaneous and free. But, at least so far, they have been limited to the past. They have not at all touched on current questions, either on the political structures presently in place or Gorba- an allegorical form, without the dead dictator being named. than those of Stalin.) chev's reforms. US S R
29 February 1987 issue that during a pop concert in a suburb of Moscow, a young singer alluded in his song to the absurdity of and the development of political awareness can arise only out of The British weekly The Observer also points out in its 8 the war in Afghanistan and to the human losses incurred (there is a similar reference in a recent film by Yuris Podnieks). The youthful audience applauded him frenetically. But there was no political discussion. Only the deaths of Soviet youths were For the broader masses, political discussion, political criticism practice and a spontaneous political apprenticeship at the base. Marx laughed at those who thought that under the enlightened absolutism of Prussia they could teach swimming without letting who tried to prepare for vaulting a precipice with a tape measure. Gorbachev's enlightened paternalism is running up without free discussion. For their political apprenticeship, the masses need free activity. Such political freedom is not provided above all the workers and the youth — are waiting for a whole series of tests in order to judge following 13 points, which are given by way of examples • Elimination of censorship. The right for any given group of • Repeal of the articles in the penal code that restrict freedom of the pupils into the water. He ridiculed the jumping teacher' against the same obstacle. Likewise, science cannot progress the real portent of these reforms. These can be summed up in the expression, in particular those that prohibit anti-Soviet agita- • Establishment of habeas corpus. Any persons arrested must be presented with a precise charge within 24 hours of their arrest, and have the right to a freely chosen lawyer to defend them. And these lawyers must have the right to see the evidence on which • As a protection against police arbitrariness, anyone arrested must have the right to appeal to the local soviets. The local person arrested, without the police present. The soviets have to • The right for any group of citizens, above a certain minimum number, not only to propose candidates for election to the soviets (including the Supreme Soviet) in nominating assemblies - that distribute them to all the voters, with no political restrictions, • Free clection of trade-union delegates, members of the terprises, with the right to put forward several candidates, without any restriction. For a transitional period, for the reasons indicated by Gorbachev himself, the freedom of such elections • The right for •he freely elected trade-union members of the soviets must have the right to do their own questioning of any reform is contained in Gorbachev's report to the Central Committee — but to run candidates in the elections themselves. • The right of these candidates to publish their platforms and 'Workers' Councils' and the 'Women's Councils' in the en- citizens (not just writers and journalists!) to freely publish. even if they are different from those of the CPSU. (supplementary points could easily be added): have the right to investigate police operations. would have to be assured by a secret ballot. • Release of all the political prisoners. tion' and 'slandering Soviet power.' Elimination of censorship needed That means that the masses for by Gorbachev's reforms. the charge is based. produce it, or to whom their product is to go. The workers who On both sides, such misgivings by no means reflects any lack of This latter problem is finally being discussed more frankly in the press, instead of being hidden behind hypocritical references ' as was the case It must, however, be stressed that the reappearance of this broader social consciousness in the Soviet Union has not yet been accompanied by a real politicisation of broader mass layers, of groups of citizens who take positions similar to those of the Greens getting permission to organise and express their point of - is the showing of Abuladze's film The workers cannot determine what they produce, how they are the 'complete masters on their home ground in the factories" have only recently been given the right to elect the factory manager, as they do in Yugoslavia, to say nothing of the higher- ups in the trusts and groups or factories. The state, as the instrument of 'people's self-management' is supposed to repre- sent this 'people' over and above the workers' collectives. One What characterises the Gorbachev team is mistrust of the workers. What characterises the workers' attitude is mistrust of This mutual mistrust clearly outlines