Palestine - Bigot's death triggers new Ariel attack
Zionists cash in on "war against terror"
Over the past month, the Palestine conflict has spiralled even deeper into vicious bloodshed, as Israeli PM Ariel Sharon attempted to exploit the west’s "war against terror" to further his own expansionism and terror. This threatened to undermine Bush and Blair’s coalition against Afghanistan to such an extent that both were forced to issue statements in support of the establishment of a Palestinian state; even, in Blair’s case, using the unprecedented term "a viable Palestinian state".
The excuse for Israel’s latest brutality, which saw over 40 Palestinian deaths in the course of a week, was the assassination of Israel’s ultra-nationalist Tourism minister, Rehavam Ze’evi. Ze’evi was a racist thug, whose political "philosophy" rested on one simple line – the expulsion ("transfer") of all Palestinians from Palestine (or, as Ze’evi called it, "the western part of the Land of Israel"), and their resettlement across the river Jordan.
Ze’evi has been regularly re-elected to the Knesset on this platform, and his small party was implacably opposed to any negotiations with Palestinians. Indeed, just two days before his murder, Ze’evi, together with the (if possible) even more racist Infrastructure minister Avigdor Lieberman, of the Russian immigrants "Our Home Israel" party, had resigned from the government in protest at what they saw as Sharon’s lenience and compromises with the Palestinians. Ironically, as some commentators noted, Ze’evi achieved more through his death than he had ever managed alive.
Ze’evi’s death unleashed an orgy of national consensus, as "left" and "right" Zionists united in singing his praises as a great patriot and lover of "the Land of Israel". Indeed, Ze’evi was from the heart, rather than the fringes, of the Israeli establishment.
Like Sharon himself, like the sainted Yitzhak Rabin, and like former cabinet minister and Chief of Staff Moshe Dayan – the sponsor and mentor of Foreign minister Shimon Peres’ political career – Ze’evi was a member of the Palmach, the pre-state Labour Zionist underground which took a leading part in the war of 1948 and the expulsion of the Palestinians.
Ze’evi, who was a member of the unit commanded by Rabin, which expelled Palestinians from the towns of Lydda and Ramleh, noted that he had learned the concept of transfer from the Labour Zionists. He once stated that "We came to conquer the land and settle. If transfer is not ethical, then everything we have done here for 100 years is wrong".
It is worth noting that, in this display of Zionist unity, nobody mentioned Ze’evi’s longstanding links with organised crime and the Tel Aviv mafia. The critics seem to have forgotten that it was these links, rather than his racist views, which led many to oppose his appointment as director of the Tel-Aviv museum.
Ze’evi was assassinated by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), in retaliation for the recent murder by Israel of their leader Abu Ali Mustafa. It is worth noting that, unlike Hamas suicide bombs, and unlike Israeli long-distance shelling and remote control bombs, this was a classic assassination, with two gunmen entering Ze’evi’s Jerusalem hotel, shooting him, and escaping – a severe embarrassment to Israeli security.
Many Palestinians, while welcoming the death of the despised Ze’evi, were critical of the PFLP for providing the Israelis with an excuse to unleash their murderous reoccupation of Palestinian towns. But, as PFLP General Secretary Ahmad Sa’adat notes, "Israeli aggression does not need an excuse to broaden its aggressive operations against our people. The Israeli occupation has never stopped its aggression nor its increasing forceful confiscation and occupation of our lands.
"The erroneous Israeli claim that the killing of Ze’evi has accelerated the violence serves only to reveal Israel’s plan to subdue the Intifada and the resistance movement and ultimately to force the Palestinian people and the Palestinian authority to surrender and to relinquish their national rights and their aspiration to live in peace, freedom, and independence. In other words, the Israelis expect the Palestinian people to mourn Ze’evi as his colleagues and people mourn him".
With this attack, the PFLP has re-established itself as a significant, secular, opposition to the collaborationist policies of Yassir Arafat and the Palestine Authority (PA), and has built on its growing support among the struggling Palestinians in the occupied territories. It has yet to demonstrate, however, that it has a viable strategy for liberation.
The PFLP describes itself as "a political party founded on a progressive vision of the common good, guided by a Marxist interpretation and progressive and democratic values". It calls for "a democratic, pluralist, non-sexist society that guarantees the full protection of the rights of all people".
It has opposed the Oslo sell-out from the start, and has consistently advocated the need for the return of Palestinian refugees to all of Palestine. Although seriously hampered by losses in the first Intifada, by Israeli brutality, and by occasional PA repression, it has maintained its structures, has built significant grassroots bodies, and claims the support of some 10% of the Palestinians in the occupied territories.
However, under the twin pressures of military occupation and PA repression, the PFLP has retreated over recent years from its demand for the establishment of a unitary, democratic and secular Palestine.
In its most recent political statement, it calls for "the establishment of the State of Palestine on Palestinian territory that was occupied by Israel in 1967, with Jerusalem as its capital, and . . . the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people: the right of refugees to return, the right for self-determination, and to demand that the implementation of all relevant international resolutions be an integral component of any future settlement".
It sees this as "transitional measures on the way to establishing a democratic state in historic Palestine".
This stageist approach towards liberation is a complete reversal from the PFLP’s famous slogan of the 1960s and 70s, "From Damascus through Amman to Jerusalem" – a call for revolution through the Arab world as the key to the liberation of Palestine.
The current strategy seems to be to fight more consistently than Arafat and Fatah for a Palestinian bantustan, and then to use this as a platform for waging the continuing struggle against Israel and Zionism.
This strategy will not achieve its aims. The only Palestinian "state" on offer – even Blair’s "viable state" – will be demilitarised, authoritarian, and with strong cooperation with the Mossad and CIA to prevent the emergence of any revolutionary challenge.
It will not be established as a result of any real threat to Israel’s continued existence as a "Jewish state", but in order to relieve the political, military and financial burden on Israel (and its US backers) of continually fighting a low-level war.
It is time for the PFLP to return to its understanding that the liberation of Palestine is an integral part of the liberation of the Arab world as a whole from the repressive feudal monarchies and dynastic republics which govern it in collusion with US interests. The establishment of another such regime would not be in the interests of the Palestinian people; nor, ultimately, of the Israeli Jews.
The PFLP is not an Islamist organisation, like Hamas; it has a vision which we could share of a future society. It is not corrupt and repressive, like the PA. Its members and supporters include many serious activists, it has widespread respect among a broader section of Palestinian society, and it has developed links with parts of the Israeli left.
As such, it deserves our critical support. But such support must be very critical when we see it tail-ending the PA’s rush towards integration in the new imperialist reordering of the world.