I agree with almost everything Chris writes but I think something more needs to be said, which he may or may not agree with. The current rebellion by the Palestinians and the repressive reaction of the Israelis demonstrates something important. There is a great need for a revolutionary socialist-anarchist movement in the Middle East. When I say “movement,” I am including the need for an anarchist organization to spread anti-authoritarian ideas.The dominant ideas of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, on both sides, are nationalist. By “nationalism” I do not mean a feeling of place and a respect for one’s people, its traditions, the democratic and rebellious aspects of its history, or its contributions to world culture. Both the Jews and the Palestinian Arabs have much to be proud of in their histories. This is a sense of “nationality,” which I am distinguishing from the program of “nationalism.” (This may seem arbitrary, but the terms do not matter; it is the concepts which are important.) By “nationalism,” I mean thinking in bloc concepts: the Jews versus the Arabs. If one is Jewish, then you think of all Jews as the Good Guys to be supported against the faceless wall of Arab opposition, which is regarded as continuing, in a straight line, the world’s anti-Semitism, including the Nazis’. If one is a Palestinian Arab, you see all the Jews as a faceless unity, the “Zionist entity,” while wishing all the Arabs to be a united enemy of the Israelis. Such bloc thinking is very useful for authoritarian leaders. The people identify with the leader and are urged to rally around. Arafat, despite his disastrous policies, is still respected by many Palestinians because he is, after all, “their” leader. Israelis are urged to form a national government of unity, bringing into the government the very people who precipitated the current conflict. Nationalist thinking justifies the state. People feel they need the national state to protect “us” against “them.” Meanwhile the ruling elite in each nation uses the state to oppress the majority of each nation. The problem with nationalism is that it papers over the very real splits and conflicts within each bloc. Revolutionary anarchists wish to make these conflicts clear to all. Within Israel, these include the conflict between the workers and the capitalists, the secularists and the Orthodox, male chauvinists and women, war hawks and peaceniks, European Jews and Arabic Jews (Sephardim)--as well as Russian Jews and African Jews, and all the Israeli Jews versus the Israeli Arabs. Among the Arabs, there are the conflicts between the Palestinians and the various other Arab nations and their governments (Palestinians having taken part in internal wars inside Lebanon, Jordan, Kuwait, and elsewhere, as they have been sold out repeatedly by their “brother Arab” rulers). There are the various Palestinian parties, which have at times fought it out; the parties represent various views: secularist, theocratic-Islamicist, capitalist democratic, nationalist socialist, nationalist Marxist. There are differences between the Palestinians who stayed within Israel, the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, and the Palestinians outside of Israeli controlled land. Most importantly, from our point of view, are the conflicting interests of the mass of Palestinians and the capitalists, the landlords, the police, and the bureaucrats, represented by the PLO’s politicians. Arafat has set up a de facto new state, with all the trappings of power and corruption, lacking minimal democratic rights. Meanwhile the workers and peasants, the refugees and small merchants, have gotten virtually nothing. It is in the interests of the working people, the poor and oppressed, on both sides to get rid of the politicians and capitalists who rule them. This is true for the Palestinians, whose leadership has given them seven years of negotiations which have won virtually nothing in permanent gains. This is also true for the Israelis, whose Zionist rulers have led their people into a dead end, alienated from the people of their region, unable to “win” safety by some final war but unwilling to negotiate a lasting peace. While opposing all the states and statisms of the Middle East, anarchists should participate in the struggles of the oppressed and support their democratic demands. Right now the vast majority of the Palestinians accept a two-state solution. Anarchists should defend their right to win this demand, because we believe in democracy and self-determination. But we should not cease to point out the limitations of any form of states and of any sort of capitalist arrangement. We advocate a federation of nonstate self-governing socialist communities throughout the Middle East, with mutual recognition of the rights of all national communities. Similarly we should criticize the Oslo treaty, agreeing with people like Edward Said and Hanan Ashrawi that the specific treaty was a sell-out. But we support the right of the Palestinians and their representatives to make treaties with the Israelis, and the need for some sort of compromise if there is ever to be real peace. So long as the treaty was in place and the majority of Palestinians seemed to accept it, anarchists should not have tried to overthrow it (which would have meant an alliance with Hamas). There are alternatives to either armed uprisings or passive acceptance of whatever the bosses negotiate. These include mass organizing and education (which has been done but only by secular nationalists and by Hamas), demonstrations, rallies, strikes, active alliances with peace-minded Jews, nonviolent resistance campaigns, among other possibilities. There will be future ups and downs in the Middle East, with further rebellions, military conflict, and periods of negotiation. What the latest uprising reminds us is that neither peace nor liberation will be achieved by deals brokered by bourgeois politicians. Peace and freedom require continued popular struggle from below.
Reply
(1)
I myself support a two-state policy (it is not a solution) as the
best partial step forward in the present circumstances, and as providing
a better basis than unending war on which to work for a future stateless,
secular Palestinian society (my theses 7, 8, and 9). Wayne appears
to support this only as a concession to Palestinians’ limited conceptions.
He states, “Right now the vast majority of the Palestinians accept
a two state solution. Anarchists should defend their right to win
this demand, because we believe in democracy and self-determination.”
This seems to mean Wayne does not think an independent Palestine alongside
Israel is a good step forward in the present situation, but perhaps
he hasn’t formulated clearly. I would like to know whether Wayne agrees
with my view or whether he would prefer that there be no peace agreement
and no creation of a truncated independent Palestine while anarchists
slowly persuade everyone to favor a stateless secular federation. (2)
Wayne and I also appear to have differences about how we evaluate
Palestinian nationalism. Wayne uses symmetrical formulas to show that
all nationalisms are equally bad: “If one is Jewish, then you think….
If one is a Palestinian Arab, you see…” (paragraph 4); “Within Israel,
[there is] a conflict between…. Among Arabs, there are conflicts between…”
(paragraphs 5-6); “This is true for the Palestinians…. This is also
true for the Israelis…” (paragraph 7), etc. Wayne seems unwilling
to agree that there are differences in character between Zionism,
Israeli nationalism, and Palestinian nationalism. In my opinion, Zionism,
the ideology that supports a religiously-ethnically based Jewish state
in all of Palestine, is what got us into this mess. Zionism taught
its believers that they were right to steal the land, expel its inhabitants,
treat those who remained as third-class citizens, and, today, balk
at allowing a Palestinian state alongside Israel. Israeli nationalism,
in the context of Israeli politics, is a more
liberal trend that believes territory, not ethnicity and religion,
should be the basis for citizenship; therefore it advocates a non-Jewish
Israeli state with equality for Palestinian Israelis, and is at least
more open to the idea of a Palestinian state. Palestinian nationalism,
finally, contains a core of struggle against Israeli oppression and
for self-government, a positive goal. I believe we should support
and identify with this struggle, but still keep the goal of a secular,
stateless Palestine. Overall, I believe I may see the struggle for
an independent Palestine as more positive than Wayne does. If you
say an independent Palestinian state will be authoritarian and repressive,
I agree; if you say this proves that independence is a meaningless
trap, I don’t agree. It is an interim goal, not the final goal, but
it is worthwhile all the same. (3)
Wayne seems to me particularly off-base in seeing a rise in “thinking
in bloc concepts” by both Palestinians and Israelis as the great danger
today (paragraph 4). In reality, most Palestinians have already taken the impressive political step of accepting the
Zionist conquest of half of Palestine as an accomplished fact that
they are prepared to live with, if Israelis can reciprocate. I wish
Wayne would understand that this is an
impressive step, instead of feeling impelled to warn against “thinking
in bloc concepts.” At least until recently, Palestinians did make
the distinction between Israel and Jewish people, and between the
rights of Jewish people in general, however reluctantly conceded,
and the so-called “right” of Jews to settle in Palestinian areas and
take them over for Israel. To illustrate this Palestinian attitude
from another angle, let me refer to a conversation among Palestinian
students some years ago that was reported recently in the New
York Times. The Palestinians agreed
generally that they, not Jews, were native to Palestine and that “the
Jews don’t belong here.” But when asked if that meant the Jews should
leave, they said no: “Israelis don’t have any other place to go” (Oct.
15, 4:1). This was in 1993; recently there has been a rise in outright
anti-Semitism and this seems to be the fruit of Israelis’ stubborn
refusal to recognize Palestinian rights. Even so, it is notable that
the demand Palestinian local leaders threw back at Arafat after the
summit was for continuing the struggle for a state in the West Bank
and Gaza. “We will not stop it [the intifada] until there is sovereignty
and independence for the Palestinians…the only solution to this conflict
is an end to Israeli occupation of the Palestinian people,” says Marwan
Barghouti, the anti-Arafat West Bank leader of Fatah (New York
Times, Oct. 17, A19). Clearly he means independence in and
for the Territories. Even if this view is in part a concession to
greater power, I continue to be humbled by the political realism and
even the humanism with which Palestinians are ready to accept Israel,
if only Israel will take the equivalent step. Similar attitudes are
not unknown on the Israeli side, either. But in its great majority,
the Israeli side has yet to say, “Palestinians don’t have any other
place to go.” This is why I feel it is inappropriate to lecture Israelis
and Palestinians equally on the need to avoid bloc thinking. |
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