STEVE COLLINS seems to get into quite a state about the elementary assertion that "the Zionist state since 1998 has continued to defend and uphold its imperialist position". (Jan 99). First we have the hot air about left-Zionists and how some of them were pro-Moscow. Well, the record of Stalinism in supporting the state of Israel is well documented, and for us, is netther here nor there - except that it confirms our view of the rotten upstarts who used to run the Kremlin.
Then we have the real howler, "What do you think Israel should have done in the face of the gyptian/Iraqi/Jordanian/Syrian/Arab League armies?" It's hard to believe that a marxist geoisie. would pose the question in such a way! (And I have it on very good authority that Steve is: indeed a marxist.)
The facts are (as if we need to restate them) that the very nature of the Zionist project in • is racist, based as it is on the idea of building a racially exclusive "Jewish state" (the point here, of course, is not whether Tews are "a race", but that they're seen as such by the Zion•ists - see, for example, the so-called "right of return"
• is based on the idea of "a land without a people for a people without a land". Well, that land had people who had their land stolen from them • denies the possibility of Palestinian self-determination -there is no "right of return" for them!
• creates a "little Jewish Ulster" in permanent conflict with its neighbours. Can anyone doubt that this is why the US so heavily bankrolls the Israeli state?
This situation is the main obstacle to the unity of Palestinian and Israeli workers.
When some can only wring their hands and see a tragic "nowin" situation, when some can see the only choice as being between bourgeois nationalism and Zionism, between the PLO and the Israeli state, socialists have an alternative - a class alternative. We defend the fight for a bi-national, secular workers' state, as part of a socialist Middle East - the only solution for both Palestinians and Israelis.
Jim Padmore, Spain Age