Rebellion in Palestine
"We are a people"
The latest Palestinian uprising marks a decisive turning point in the history of the Palestine conflict. It has put a definitive end to the period of diplomatic negotiations which opened with the 1990 Gulf War and the 1991 Madrid conference. It also exposes the terminal bankruptcy of the Labour Zionist strategy, with the probable establishment of a broad coalition government, and the likely creation of a new national party led by ex-generals Ehud Barak and Ariel Sharon.
The most significant aspect of this uprising is the massive involvement of Palestinian citizens of Israel. There have been previous massacres by Israeli forces of Palestinian citizens; notably Kufr Qassem in 1956, when 49 peasants were shot for breaking a curfew imposed after they had left for their fields, and Land Day in 1976, when six villagers were killed in a protest at the theft of their land under the official policy of "Judaising Galilee".
What is new this time is both the level of Palestinian anger (with protests and demonstrations in virtually every village, town and urban ghetto), and the clear declaration of a common purpose with Palestinians in the Occupied Territories and those in exile.
Although there are specific reasons for Palestinian protest in Israel (ongoing theft of land, systematic institutionalised discrimination, denial of resources), this was clearly a rising in protest at the killings in Jerusalem. As such, it represents a Palestinian reassertion of the principle first stated, for the Jews, by Theodor Herzl, founder of the Zionist movement: "We are a people - one people".
THE PALESTINIANS are not simply resisting Israel's intransigence in the recent Camp David talks; they are rejecting the whole basis of separation behind these talks, and ultimately behind the existence of Israel as a racist state.
The rising comes barely two weeks after a chain of demonstrations, in Palestine itself, the refugee camps in exile, and around the world (including London), calling for the realisation of the Palestinian right to return. These demonstrations were organised independently of the increasingly discredited PLO, by a generation of young Palestinians, the children and grandchildren of people expelled in 1948.
It is unlikely that these renewed energies will be satisfied with the Bantustan-type solution which was the maximum offered by Barak at Camp David.
The bloodshed started with the provocative visit of Likud leader Sharon to Haram ash-Sharif, the compound in the Old City of Jerusalem containing the Al-Aqsa and Dome of the Rock mosques, and allegedly the site of the biblical temple. But it would be wrong to ascribe all responsibility to Sharon, as some simple-minded supporters of the Israel government are attempting.
Sharon, a famously secular Jew, was not paying a private prayer visit before the Jewish New Year. His visit, accompanied by an estimated 3000 troops, came one day after the decision of the Attorney General not to prosecute former Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu for corruption.
Netanyahu's promised return to politics threatens not only Sharon's position as head of the Likud, but also Barak's own position as prime minister. Opinion polls suggest that Netanyahu would defeat any rival for the position.
BARAK'S WILLINGNESS to provide Sharon with such a huge escort, his crude threats to end the "peace process", to wage war on Syria and Lebanon, and to reoccupy Palestinian cities, and the discussions between Barak and Sharon towards a national coalition government, add credence to the suggestion by some Israeli activists that the entire provocation was a deliberate ploy by the two generals to upstage Netanyahu's political comeback and put an end to the diplomatic process.
But, however much Barak may threaten, it is doubtful whether it is within President Yasser Arafat's power to put an end to this revolt.
In 1987, both Israel and the PLO professed to believe that the Intifada had started in response to an order issued by Arafat from Tunis. To most observers, it was obvious that the spontaneous uprising, despite its verbal support for the PLO, was in reality a threat to Arafat's continued ineffectual diplomatic manoeuvring.
This was the reason both Israel and the PLO leadership were prepared to negotiate a deal in which the PLO would police the occupation on Israel's behalf. As Socialist Outlook has consistently argued, such a deal was inherently fragile, since the maximum Israel was prepared was always less than the minimum Palestinians were prepared to accept.
THE BOURGEOIS PRESS is mistaken to argue that this uprising strengthens Arafat's hand in the diplomatic manoeuvring with Israel. In fact, it leaves his strategy in tatters, and Israeli pressure only deepens this.
If he accepts the Israeli ultimatum, he will be unable to rein in the Palestinian masses, and will become an irrelevance, if not an obstacle to be removed. If, on the other hand, he now takes the side of the Palestinian masses, he will be swept aside by the Israelis, for whom he no longer fulfils a purpose, while being unable to mobilise the masses and outline a clear strategy.
The uprising also puts a definitive end to the dream of a moderate, concessionary Zionism.
It has become clear that the apparently open hand of friendship which Barak offered the Palestinians is in reality the same "Iron Fist" which his mentor Yitzhak Rabin promised during the earlier Intifada. At the last Israeli election, Barak attracted over 90% of the Palestinian vote; enough to give him the post of prime minister. Immense pressure was exerted on the independent Arab candidate, Azmi Bishara, to withdraw in order not to split the "left" vote and let in the right-wing Netanyahu.
But, from the moment of his election, Barak has repudiated his Arab backers, refusing to base his coalition on the Arab parties in the Knesset, and seeking support among those who voted for Netanyahu. Under his government, the pace of settlement activity has increased. Meanwhile, his promise to the Israeli public of "peace with security" has collapsed. Despite his reputation as Israel's most decorated soldier, the man who dressed as a woman in order to infiltrate Beirut and assassinate Palestinian leaders, he is now seen as a political failure.
THE PALESTINIAN UPRISING and the renewed threat of war with Syria are likely to be used as the justification for a new government of national unity, bringing in Sharon as deputy prime minister and possibly defence minister. The real reason for this will be to preserve the political careers of these two Arab-killing generals.
It is also possible that they will attempt to build a new Israeli National party. The ideological differences between them are minimal; Sharon's political career started in the Labour party, before he quit over personal differences in order to found the Likud, while Barak has already dissolved the Labour Party into the non-ideological "One Israel" bloc.
Such a government and party would have the virtue of clarifying the real political issues in the Palestine conflict. Ten years ago, only marginal forces on the left used the term "apartheid" to describe Israel's practices, in the state of Israel as much as in the 1967-occupied territories.
Now the term is common currency on the Israeli left. Not only on the left, in fact. On 28 September, Ha'Aretz the liberal Israeli paper, quoted former Shin Bet (security service) head Ami Ayalon as saying that no "real" Palestinian state (with full sovereignty and economic resources) will be established.
Israel has just two options: "to became a state without any Jewish characteristic, or to became an Apartheid state". At the same time, the demand for the Palestinian right to return was seen as extreme and marginal; it is now clear that no solution which denies this right will be viable.
The increasing politicisation of Israel's Mizrahi population - Jews from Arab countries, who have suffered racism and economic exploitation in the Jewish state, and form the overwhelming majority of the Israeli working class - demonstrates the need and space for a mass class-based party which will take up the struggle against this apartheid, and for a common future for all of the people of Palestine, and those who have been expelled.
HOWEVER, at present the prospect for such a party seems remote. The Palestinian left is dispirited, with PFLP leader George Habash quitting the organisation he led for over 30 years in despair.
The Israeli left is rudderless and demoralised, split between those who see Barak and the Labour Party as preferable to Sharon or Netanyahu and the Likud, and those who see no difference between them.
New forces are developing among both communities, around the right to return, and in opposition to apartheid. The task of the left now is to find a way to knit these two strands together, into a democratic movement for a democratic state in the whole of Palestine.
The alternative is now apparent to all, summed up in the horrific film of the murder of a terrified Palestinian child.