1. An anarchist position on the Palestinian national liberation struggle can be one which acknowledges a free society is one that’s self-managing through popular committees, not one which is governed by a state and ruling class. Yet such ideals should be the guidelines of a strategy, not the be all and end all, toward what is a complicated and messy affair.

 

2. The “peace process” between the state of Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) has temporarily failed because of a “second Intifada.” This is unfortunate. However, we need to explain clearly, why? Israel and the US should be condemned for behaving arrogantly in these negotiations, demanding veto power over and dictating Palestine’s just goals of self-determination in regard to where the Palestinian capital should be and when they can declare a state.

 

The imperialists’ role in establishing the state of Israel, a white supremacist colonizer state, and their role in a fraudulent type of “bipartisan” negotiations should be condemned. But as we can’t change the past nor the current relationship of forces we need to make a contribution toward a strategy which through direct action can possibly bring about the type of society we would like to see in the future.

 

We should feel uncomfortable saying the type of honorable Palestinian rebellion against the Israeli state, as represented by the waves of Intifada, from “rock throwing” youth to the few armed policemen of the PA who with integrity break ranks with the illegitimate laws, is a bad strategy at this juncture. We are definitely sympathetic and on their side. However, we must be critical of them for they cannot win.

 

The Palestinian fight, like that of other Arab/Muslim national struggles in the Zionist age of hegemony, has been caught between a triumphal defeatism of a militant rank and file and neo-colonial nationalist ruling elites who are happy to draw legitimacy from them at their expense all the while collaborating with the imperialists. An example of the former is a sincere but misguided socialist Arab student who concluded after the 1982 Israeli massacre in two weeks of Palestinians based across the border with Lebanon that they were militarily improving as compared to 1967 Six Day War between Egypt and Israel. The latter is the obviously pioneering articulation of both populist Arab nationalism and later collaboration with imperialism when such did not prove viable by nation-states as

represented by Egypt’s transition from Nasser to Sadat.

 

3. With these historical trends in mind, we must begin to explain how we want to orient to Yasir Arafat and the Palestinian Authority (PA). The PA has already demonstrated it will suppress independent trade union, journalistic, and (not surprisingly) militia type activity, kill and put folk in prison when it deems politically appropriate, which amounts to the whims of Israel/US by way of Arafat as a negotiating ploy. These type of negotiations are the give and take of subordinate neo-colonial nation-states in an imperialist world. Seeing an independent capitalist nation-state as “the free society” needs to be criticized for these exact reasons, as an Arafat or future neo-colonial ruling class representatives is always caught between the just democratic demands of their people who at times choose to rightfully want to overthrow them, and the demands of their imperialist overlords who kindly agree not to assist the people overtly and covertly.

 

4. As anarchists we need to transitionally advocate the “two-state” solution; this is not because we recognize the Palestinian or Israeli ruling classes’ right to exist, but we would like to recognize both peoples’ right to exist in peace which is a precursor for societies based on libertarian self-management. While there are courageous women, children, and elderly participating in the battles, we would be misleading if we were to say such had the maximum political space to do community organizing under these conditions where brute force reigns.

 

The one caveat or warning against a two-state solution would be in the event the Israeli people do not go a long way to repudiating their past white supremacist behavior and support for a white supremacist state. If in mass, with rare honorable exceptions, they continue to not be able to do this, we must support a bloody protracted struggle for a singular Palestinian state should it evolve. As well, this should include a Pan-Arab nation-state coalition against Israel and the U.S.

 

5. We need to support a transitional statist solution not because, like Marxists and revolutionary nationalists, we believe a secular but authoritarian social-democratic welfare-state is the ideal society (in practice it will be structurally underdeveloped under imperialism anyway), and that’s the farthest we want to go—but rather because we need space to forge popular committees for self-management and we need to be realistic about our alternative coalition partners.

 

6. While defending civil liberties for and political prisoners of all persuasions under

any state from a democratic point of view, we as an extreme, if radical, minority, either have to tactically ally with the social democratic bloc or the religious fundamentalist bloc if we are going to be politically realistic and not idealistic and thus irrelevant. We are stuck with the lesser evil of the former. Because we want a secular society, this should not be confused with us not allying with Muslim and/or religious people in Palestine. It will be a tremendous effort convincing the Muslim majority that there is no ideal Islamic theocratic state to be built, and that this does not have to do with what we conceive as a popularly self-managing society. This is because in many respects organizations such as Hamas do advocate popular self-management. Yet this would be under Sharia, traditional Islamic law, which structurally while allowing that there needs to be checks on the arrogance of political leadership and possessors of capital, because it believes in absolute truth and its possession by elite human beings closer to God than everyone else, in practice can not deliver. Such Sharia principles can be interpreted to maximize democracy but in practice those that do this are in a precarious position and in an extreme minority. An Islamic theocratic state would also, as it has in the past, suppress Arab minorities, such as Christians and Jews. Just as Jewish Zionist theocratic state can not allow for minorities to be any more than second class citizens, so too neither can an Islamic state, however ideal. This ideal amounts to maybe minorities not being killed, paying higher taxes, being able to practice their own religion in private but they would be subjected to a public cultural imperialism which would in practice be intolerable at best. We should not support state criminalization of the spread of theocratic ideas and its advocates but we also must not be foolish to think that if in power they would not criminalize us. To ally with religious fundamentalists in smashing the state only to be in an extreme minority under their rule would be suicidal. So despite arguing that we be wise and recognize the anti-imperialist and popular self-management content of religious fundamentalism we need to ally with the social-democratic statists and (gulp) be thankful they are there for now.

 

7. I think we should be comfortable as anarchists saying that the establishment of an inherently corrupt Palestinian state would make the lives of the people transitionally easier, most likely not in a big way economically, but culturally and psychologically. These are very important reforms. Two concrete examples would be a greater freedom to travel with more legitimate recognized passports and a lessening of the educational and media assault of inferiority. For many Palestinians, proper passports (which really from the colonial state’s point of view don’t exist even when they or the PA issue them) are necessary not to go on vacation but to go daily to work without harassment which is a corollary to police brutality. Second, Palestinians, and Arabs in general are under a constant media/educational assault of illegitimacy as “irrational” and “terrorists” that even middle class folk in America of such ethnic descent fear and internalize which impede them taking public political risks.

 

8. It may be instructive that anarchists consider the profile of the Arab/Muslim suicide bomber who attacks in one grand and final act perceived representative imperialist targets. Many of these are extremely poor young men who don’t foresee a viable economic future; often it is promised, most often not falsely, by community businessmen and religious leaders, that their families will never want of anything if they do these acts, such as most recently in Yemen. Theologically it is promised they will go to heaven, and as we’ve seen in recent history while few individuals take this option seriously, obviously a much broader section of the religious fundamentalist community sees this as legitimate and honorable. This whole process, including most importantly organizing provisions for the wives and children of these young men, says much about the concrete practice of popular self-management of Muslim fundamentalist communities and its inherent authoritarian and class limitations. No businessman, educated professional, or Imam ever sees fit to sacrifice himself in this way to the anti-imperialist cause. But it is these folk whom the many see as possessing more wisdom than themselves.

 

 

Response

 

By Christopher Z. Hobson

 

Matthew overall agrees with and adds to parts of my theses. But in working out new ideas (this document replaces an earlier draft that was more critical of what I wrote) he has left some things unclear and, I think, overformulated others. I will comment on only a few of his eight points.

 

Point 2, 1st paragraph: I think this is a bit upside down. The Intifada broke out because the “peace process” was stalled and then broken by Sharon. That is what was unfortunate; the Intifada is not unfortunate (see below). I may have inadvertently contributed to this formulation by writing that I was sorry the “peace process” broke down. I agree with the rest of what Matthew writes here.

 

Point 2, 3rd paragraph: We are on their side a thousand times. We do NOT say they cannot win. We point out the difficulties they must overcome.

 

Point 5: I think Matthew is overformulating. We shouldn’t support a “statist solution”; we should support independence, recognizing that this will mean establishment of a state. The state will solve some problems (day-to-day Israeli rule), not solve others (overall Israeli and U.S. power), and bring some new ones (its own oppressive, i.e., statist, character).

 

Point 6: This section has valuable specific points. I think Matthew is right to feel that overall support to the Islamists on the basis of their militancy, etc., is a disaster. I think he is right that as corrupt and authoritarian as it is, the “social democratic bloc” (he means the PLO) at present offers more room for struggle toward the future we want. But I think he formulates our strategy wrongly. What does “tactically ally with the social democratic bloc” mean? We tactically ally with anyone who is carrying out actions we agree with. We do not politically ally with them. In practice Matthew seems to mean we politically ally with them and I think this is a mistake. If we believe—I do—that the “social democratic bloc” with all its corruption is preferable to the Islamists, we should say that. But we shouldn’t be in a political alliance, which seems to mean, for Matthew, that over a whole period of years we support the “social democratic bloc” as the best leadership available or the only viable choice. We should try to convince people to be anarchists, and, in any case, to organize themselves for their own demands and rights. To the extent that they do so, they will weaken the stranglehold of the “social democratic bloc” without increasing support for the Islamists.

 

Point 7: I think Matthew is right both to be for an independent state, and to emphasize its cultural aspects—but is still uncomfortable with the idea that independence is a step forward, and so plays down what it means. Independence means the end of alien rule. This is not only “culturally and psychologically” beneficial, it is a fundamental right that everyone is entitled to. People in the U.S., which has been independent for over two centuries, often forget what it feels like to be ruled or occupied by people who speak a different language, have a different culture, more or less regard you as dirt, etc. At the same time, independence also means that the oppressiveness of one’s own rulers is demonstrated for the first time, easing the transition toward mass opposition against them. But I want to be really clear that we ought not to support independence only or even mainly because it brings the class struggle to the front—but because it is right.