August 14, 2022
Proletarians of all countries, unite!
A GLIMPSE AT PALESTINE
“After World War II, U.S. and British
imperialism used Zionism as a tool of Expansion in the Middle East. In 1947,
the U.N. General Assembly, manipulated by the United States, adopted a
resolution to set up an Arab state and a Jewish state in Palestine. Israel was
formally created in the following year. More than one million Arabs were driven
out of their homes. From then on the United States has used Israel ceaselessly
to carry out aggression against and threaten the Arab countries.”
“Facts on File: The United Nations – Tool of
U.S. Imperialist Aggression”, Peking Review, No. 3, January 15th 1965
The reactionary Israeli armed forces carried out
a “pre-emptive” series of air strikes onto Gaza in early August, claiming to
stop a retaliation attack, an “immediate threat” after the arrest of an Islamic
Jihad commander. At least 49 people, among them 17 children, have reported to
be dead, after the Israeli armed forces targeted apartment buildings, streets
and a mosque, full of people, children, elderly, going about their day. Shortly
before the attack, Israel cut the transportation of fuel into Gaza, causing
long power outages and endangering the functioning of hospitals, a truly
genocidal act. Once again, the people in Gaza are left with their homes and
livelihoods in ruins, with the reactionary state of Israel carrying out
anti-people attacks to “defend” itself, attacks, that go against the
international laws of the bourgeoisie itself, to quench the blood-thirst of
Yankee imperialism, who is crying crocodile tears for peace and democracy while
soaked in the blood of the oppressed nations. Due to these latest cowardly
assaults by the reactionary Israeli armed forces we will hereby present some
initial analysis of the situation.
The world has been witness to a resurgence in
turbulence in Palestine, which is only the latest sequence of events in what
has been decades of agonizing occupation and genocide against the Palestinian
people. To have a correct position on the question, we must base ourselves on
the scientific ideology of the proletariat, almighty because it is true:
Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, mainly Maoism. By reaffirming the law of contradiction
as the only fundamental law of all things, we see that in order to truly
understand the question of Palestine, it is also necessary to understand the
other side of the contradiction, that is Israel. Therefore, we intend with this
article to provide some insight into certain aspects of the character of
Israel.
Israel is a relatively young state (it’s
foundation was declared in 1948) and so it was founded in the age of
imperialism, an age in which the bourgeoisie as a class no longer is a
progressive force, but a retrogressive one. Moreover, we reaffirm that
imperialism is rotten to it’s core and today it is in an advanced stage of
decomposition, in its final crisis. Due to the nature of imperialism and
subsequently it’s own character, which it has proven to universal history, the
bourgeoisie is no longer capable of waging, leading, and completing the
bourgeois democratic revolution, and so – in the countries where it did not
take place, where it has not been completed – the task and duty has fallen upon
the proletariat as the leading force with the peasantry as the base, to carry
out the democratic revolution of a new type; the revolution of New Democracy.
This, uninterruptedly succeeded by the Socialist Revolution, followed by
Cultural Revolutions, all the way with People’s War until Communism.
In their spheres of influence, their colonies
and semi-colonies, the imperialist states prey on relations stemming from
backward modes of production (the delayed capitalism and feudalism that existed
in those countries), and on this basis develops a particular backward kind of
capitalism: bureaucratic capitalism – dependent and subordinated to foreign imperialist capital. Marxism
teaches us that upon the economic base arises the superstructure of distinct
and peculiarly formed sentiments, illusions, modes of thought, systems of
government, laws, etc. In conjuncture with the thesis of Chairman Mao of
bureaucratic capitalism, we understand that the semi-feudality of
big-landlord-bureaucrat states and it’s correlating incompletion of the
democratic revolution comes to expression in the superstructure in a myriad of
different ways. The most striking of which in the case of Israel is: a lack of
constitutionality (i.e. the absence of a constitution), an absence of multiple
basic demo-liberal rights, as well as an incomplete or improper tripartition
and balance of the legislative, executive and judicial branches of the state.
The creation of a constitution is a task
uncompleted, or “postponed”, since 1950 – that is, for over 70 years. Israel
has passed what it calls a set of “basic laws”, but these are merely a hollow
substitute. In these “basic laws”, several basic demo-liberal rights are
absent, namely: Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Assembly, Freedom of Religion,
and Freedom of Press. Freedom of Assembly and Freedom of Speech are recognized
by the Supreme Court, but regardless – all of these share a common problem.
They are not of the same quality as that of demo-liberal constitutionalised
rights, as they are subject to change or abolition within the framework of
judiciality, i.e. without extra-judicial measures. This lack in the realm of
basic, cardinal bourgeois-democratic rights and freedoms is also characteristic
of corporativism. Chairman Gonzalo explains: “We understand
corporativism as the setting up of the state based on corporations, which
implies the negation of parliamentarism.”i These corporations are in a sense feudalistic,
or feudal-like; they are reminiscence of, or de facto modelled after the feudal
guilds. Depending on the general qualitative degree of corporativism, this can
also be indicative of fascism (together with a fascist political direction).
Alike is the Histadrut, officially titled “General Organization of Workers in
Israel” presenting itself as the national federation of trade unions in word.
Pinhas Lavon, General Secretary of Histadrut back in the days, defined
Histadrut: “Our Histadrut is a general organization to its core. It is not a workers’
trade union”ii As a corporation it used to have a greater, more
fundamental role in the organization of Israeli society, in coordination with
the state – at its height it encompassed 75-85% of the workforce. Essentially
all the major legal trade unions are still subordinated to the Histadrut.
Israel has two coexisting legal systems; civil
courts and religious courts. The rabbinic courts has exclusive jurisdiction
over matters of marriage and divorce of those recognized as Jewish, and through
this role the patriarchal rabbinate pertains the character of state agency. In
the rabbinic courts, the cases are in addition to civil law also subjected to
‘Halakha’ (Jewish religious law). Additionally, there is a prevalence of
‘Shidduch’ among an unknown portion of Israeli society (particularly among, but
likely not limited to, the orthodox). Shidduch is a system of matchmaking, in
which a religious matchmaker inquires about status and religious aspects of two
potential partners, consults parents, and sets up a handful of meetings as part
of a process of (at least on paper) voluntary arranged marriage.
The economy of Israel is characteristic of that
of a semi-colony, of a bureaucrat capitalist economy. This is evident in
multiple ways, but one can get an impression of this fact even by a simple
glimpse at bourgeois statistics. The Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflow of
Israel is more than double that of the outflow, meaning, the investment by
foreign capital in Israel is more than double that of investment by Israeli
capital (that is bureaucratic, meaning created by foreign imperialist capital)
in other countries. In 2019, the FDI outflow was $8.5 billion, while the FDI
inflow was $18 billion. The principal so-called export and import partner of
Israel is Yankee imperialism (26% of exports, 12% of imports) followed by
Chinese social-imperialism (9% of exports, 11% of imports).
The readily available bourgeois statistics
already indicates this fact, but when we look deeper, it becomes solidly clear
that the economy of Israel is heavily dependent on Yankee imperialism, today
the world’s sole hegemonic superpower. Of the five major banks in the country,
one has a significant presence of Yankee capital among its shareholders, while
the two of the others are outright dominated or controlled by Yankee capitaliii The presence of Yankee capital is however
not limited to banking. The largest company in the country is Teva Pharmaceutical
Industries, which is a subsidiary of Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers
of America. The third largest is the Yankee company Intel. In fact, of all the
countries in the Western Asia and Northern Africa, Israel has the largest
presence of Yankee capital, and moreover, no other country in the region comes
closeiv. Some of the richest citizens in Israel are in
fact Yankee monopolists, which is not surprising given that Israel is one of
the world’s “most generous tax havens” – the words of Israel Tax Authority Director General Moshe Asher.v
Until 1979, Yankee imperialism employed the
Commodity Import Program (CIP) on Israel, a program that funds the purchase of
U.S. commodities – ensuring further dependency. In 1979, the CIP was replaced
by a direct cash transfer in return for the establishment of the Israeli
“Agency for International Development” with the guarantee “that the dollar
level of Israel’s non-defense imports from the U.S. would exceed the level of
economic assistance granted Israel in any given year.”vi Moreover, Israel is in fact the world’s
largest recipient of Yankee “grant funding” since World War II. In the period
from 1948 until 2019, the state of Israel was propped up by a staggering $243.9
billion by Yankee imperialism.
Today, Yankee imperialism funnels to Israel $3.8
billion in military funding annually. On top of that, Yankee imperialism
provides additional funding on request, like an additional $1 billion over the
span of three years for Israel’s “Iron Dome” missile defence systemvii. This way, Yankee imperialism maintains the
military capability of Israel as a bastion of Yankee military presence in the
“Middle East”, and ensures that its lackey is sufficiently capable of running
it’s military errands in the region. Israel is of vital importance
strategically for Yankee imperialism, which plays the role of the
counter-revolutionary world gendarme. As it is written in the article “China
Backs Arab People’s Just Struggle” in the Peking Review, of March 19th, 1965: “Israel is a
tool of aggression created by U.S. imperialism and a dagger pointed at the
heart of the Arab world.“
In Israel the Yankees has an early missile
warning radar station on Mt. Keren, known as the Diamona Radar Facilityviii. In 2017, the Yankees established their
first public permanent
military base in Israel – an air defence base inside the Israeli Air Force’s
Mashabim Air Base west of the towns Dimona and Yeruchamix. Additionally, the Yankees allegedly has six or
more secret military bases throughout Israel, including one at Ben Gurion
Airport and another at Herzliya Pituhx. The exact location of these bases, five of
them being called Sites 51, 53, 54, 55 and 56, are however strictly classified
and are de jure secret.
In these bases, the Yankees allegedly has ‘prepositioned’ vehicles, military
equipment, a military hospital, air force fighters and bomber aircrafts, as
well as hundreds of millions of dollars worth of ammunitionxi.
The Israeli port of Haifa is the main port of
call in the eastern Mediterranean for the Yankee Sixth Fleet, and moreover,
Israel provides logistical and maintenance support for Yankee forces in the
regionxii. U.S. Senator Jesse Helms rightly called
Israel “America’s aircraft carrier in the Middle East”, and said that the strategic military foothold
they have in Israel alone justifies the annual military aid of the Yankeesxiii. Additionally, it obvious but important to note
nonetheless, that Israel is far from the only country with Yankee military
facilities in region, as there are others at least in Egypt, Jordan, Saudi
Arabia, Oman, and the Gulf States.
It is noteworthy that the Zionist agencies are
all over the world used to train and assist the anti-people regimes in what
kind of repressive measures or white terror could be applied and how to conduct
it. Here we just mentioned the case of Peru.
There is one more imperialist, the FRG, that has
to be handled in this context. It has been and still plays a decisive role.
This has been denounced by the Peking Review:
“Bonn’s decision to establish diplomatic
relations with Israel is not only a question of enabling West Germany to
claim to be “the sole representative of the German people”, as the Bonn
authorities and the U.S. Government allege. It is a serious move by U.S.
imperialism in intensifying its aggression against the Arab countries.
[…]
U.S. Secretary
of State Dean Rusk recently admitted that “we [the U.S.] have a very
important interest in the security of Israel.” For this reason, the United
States has always strongly fostered Israel politically, economically and
militarily. West Germany is providing Israel with arms and munitions at U.S.
bidding. As the U.S. paper Christian Science Monitor reported. U.S. “pressure”
was the “determining factor” in the West German decision.
[…]
In
supporting West Germany’s further collusion with Israel, the United States
wants to openly step up arming Israel by means of West Germany and set up a
triple force of aggression consisting of U.S. imperialism, German militarism
and Zionism, thus posing a great threat to the independence and security of the
Arab states.”xiv
To conclude, it is evident that Israel is a semi-colony principally
dominated by Yankee imperialism. It is especially dependent on Yankee
imperialism and in it’s sly designs as the worlds sole hegemonic imperialist
superpower and as the world counter-revolutionary gendarme, it serves a special
role. Subsequently, the Palestinian territories subject to Israeli occupation
are therefore areas subordinated to Yankee imperialism. The masses in Palestine
and Israel are oppressed by imperialism, feudality, and bureaucratic
capitalism, and the Arab population is faced with the Zionist genocide for ¾ of
a century.
The settlers-character of Israel and that the population of European origin
therefore live under very different circumstances than the Arabs do creates a
big unevenness. This division of the popular masses is very important.
Palestine faces oppression for centuries. Since the early new ages until
the first quarter of the last century Palestine was subjugated to the reign of
the Ottoman Empire. British imperialism became greedy and in the First World
War local Jews were therefore enlisted in the British army, the Zion Mule Corps
was established in 1915 and they made the Balfour Declaration in 1917, in which
the British government announced support for the establishment of a “national
home for the Jewish people” in Palestine, thereby prompting a wave of Jews to
join the imperialist war on the side of the British, and the formation of the
Jewish Legion in the British army. The British and French after the war
colluded and divided the region among themselves, with the British subjecting
Palestine under their colonial control as “Mandatory Palestine”. British
imperialists establishing the “Jewish Auxiliary Police”, the “Jewish Settlement
Police” and the “Special Night Squads” at the dawn of what is known as “The
Great Revolt” (1936-1939), in which the Arabs of Palestine rose against British
Imperialism. The British colonial authority, true to their nature, brutally
suppressed the uprising and killed uncounted. By one estimate, 10% of the adult
male Palestinian Arab population between 20 and 60 was killed, wounded,
imprisoned or exiled. David Ben-Gurion expressed the relationship between the
British and the Zionist settlers: “For political reasons we should not act like the Arabs … The Arabs are
fighting England, and their political interest is to fight England because they
want to banish it from the land they believe belongs to them. We do not wish to
banish England, on the contrary, we want to get it closer to this land, attract
it, make it purchase this land and help us return to the Land of Israel.” The Palestine Communist Party, Section of the Communist International,
correctly characterized Zionism as “a movement of the Jewish bourgeoisie allied to British imperialism”. Second World War led to the end of the British empire and the Yankees
becoming the sole hegemonic superpower. In this sense the British imperialists
announced their intention of withdrawal from Palestine in February 1947. In
May, a special session was held in the UN on the question of Palestine and the
dissolution of the British Mandate for Palestine. The representative of the
Soviet Union stated clearly: “interests of both the Jewish and Arab populations of Palestine can be duly
safeguarded only through the establishment of an independent, dual, democratic,
homogeneous Arab-Jewish State.” and agreed
upon “the
partition of Palestine into two independent autonomous States” only under specific conditions. Anyway the Soviet Union was the first to
– de jure – actually recognize the State of Israel, three days after its
independence. This has to do with different aspects. One is the feudal Arab
clan society on the one hand and on the other hand quite a number of
progressive Jews living in Palestine who participated in the Spanish Civil War
and in the Second World War. Another point is the international situation,
handling what has been the anti-fascist world front in a way to avoid the
isolation of the Soviet Union after the war, not allowing an atmosphere that
enables the imperialists to attack and explicitly it was clear to each and
everyone that state-policies of the Soviet Union was not binding for the
Communist Parties.
The Palestinian people struggles. Across the world, particularly in the
oppressed nations, few other words harbour such firm and strong connotations to
rebellion in the face of injustice and oppression as the word Palestine.
Through decades of occupation, the Palestinian people has persisted despite
intolerable conditions, and through great uprisings, intifadas, demonstrated
their courageous and rebellious spirit, and moreover, permanently made their
mark in history and in the minds of people all over the world as a people who
refuses to be broken. That the Palestinian people are subjugated to the most
cruel and unscrupulous occupation and genocide at the hands of the State of
Israel, and that the struggle of the Palestinian people is a just one, so much
is obvious.
Likewise obvious is the total lack of a correct leadership but traitors
everywhere at hand. For example in late 2001 the Palestinian Authority (PA),
not as an exception but as a lackey regime of imperialism, had arrested over 60
PFLP-members across the West Bank, including the new alleged leader of the PFLP
(after the assassination of Abu Ali Mustafa), Ahmad Sadaat. On may 1st 2002, President of the Palestinian
Authority, Yasser Arafat, made an agreement with Israel to hand over Sadaat and
five other imprisoned PFLP-members.xv But
still the PFLP did not broke up completely with the “Palestinian Liberation
Organisation” (PLO) or the PA. In general the comrades who are in favour of the
PFLP shall be aware of that they developed as an appendix of the
social-imperialist Soviet Union and how these sinister revisionists acted:
“[…]
in October 1973 when the Arab people broke through the state of “no war,
no peace” imposed upon them by the two superpowers and rose in
resistance to the Israeli aggressors, the Soviet revisionists not only refused
to supply the Arab nations with munitions, but also gave the green light to the
Jews who wanted to ·emigrate from the Soviet Union, with the result that the
immigration of Soviet Jews into Israel reached an all-time high. Many were
recruited into the aggressor army as soon as they set foot on Israeli soμ. The
Israeli aggressors were deeply gratified by this generous aid from the Soviet
revisionists and praised it profusely. After the October War, a large number of
third world countries broke off diplomatic relations with Israel and pledged
support for the Arab people’s just struggle. The Israeli aggressors found
themselves in -dire straits and in a worse state of isolation than ever. Just
at that time. The Soviet revisionists increased their contacts with the
Israelis, both secret and open, which culminated in face-to-face talks between
the Soviet and Israeli foreign ministers.”xvi
Yasser Arafat, as opposed to promoting resistance, signed the Oslo peace
accords, negotiated by the Yankee and Norwegian imperialists. In return,
Norwegian imperialism awarded him the “Nobel Peace Prize” in 1994 for his
treason.
Just last year, the PA arrested multiple people for participation in
protests against the eviction of the residents of Sheikh Jarrah in occupied
East Jerusalem and the Israeli bombardment of Gazaxvii.
Although Hamas likes to portray itself as more militant in its resistance
to Israel, it too is treacherous and opposed to the struggle of the masses. It
reaffirmed its true character very clearly in 2019 as it enacted harsh
repression, arrest and torture against the masses as they protested against the
economic situation and the living conditions.xviii Even
more so when we see their disengagement against the recent slaughters, where
they cowardly denied to participate in the resistance.
The struggle of the masses, in the absence of genuine communist leadership,
is and will be fought under reactionary banners, like we have seen Afghanistan,
in Western Asia and in Africa, and like we have seen in Palestine, and like we
see today. Just recently, on the 27th of March, two shooters presented as having allegiance to the “Islamic
State” attacked Israeli police in the city of Hadera, North of Tel Aviv,
killing two and injuring six.
Some comrades use terms like ‘the Palestinian people is resisting tanks
with stones’ and sure there is this kind of resistance, but these comrades
forget about the much more advanced kind of armed actions, like
suicide-bombings, mortar-attacks, missiles – handmade or “scud” – that passes
the “iron dome”, as well as stabbings or shootings as mentioned above. What
they unintentionally do is to negate in a way the all-round military resistance
that exists, this underestimation is expression of a chauvinist attitude that
is broadly spread in the imperialist countries.
That the masses who clamour for leadership and struggle turn to the
“Islamic State” or similar organisations does not come as a surprise, given the
treacherous nature of the Fatah, Hamas and the whole participants in the “PLO”,
but more importantly, the absence of communist leadership, explicitly neither
the PFLP nor the DFLP is a force that could be acknowledged as such. Although
the combativeness of the masses is subject to ebbs and flows influenced by a
multiple factors, the fact that they will struggle is an irresistible
historical law. The persistency in their struggle, and the degree in which
their struggle is able to attain and achieve emancipation, depends on our
presence and leadership. We see that the masses clamour for it and the ICM has
to answer that cry.
This calls for and reaffirms the urgent necessity of constituting or
reconstituting the Palestine Communist Party as a militarized
Marxist-Leninist-Maoist communist party, because only such a party, armed with
– and applying – the almighty ideology of proletariat, has the competency
required to be able to lead the class and the masses to victory in the
new-democratic revolution in Palestine and thereby fulfil the formation of the
nation by overcoming the absurd and unbearable situation of the existence of
two states or state-like entities, Israel and the PA-territories. The specific
analysis of their society and the definition of the specific road the people’s
war has to undergo are tasks that must be left to the communists of Palestine
to fulfil.
iPCP, “Interview
with Chairman Gonzalo”, 1988
ii“Moed, published
by the Department of Culture and Education of the Histadrut (in Hebrew), 1960,
p.3” as cited from “The Histadrut: Union and Boss” by Haim Hanegbi, 10/02/72
iiiIn chronological
order: 1. Bank Hapoalim (Significant presence of Yankee capital), 2. Bank Leumi
(In 2005, Yankee “Barnea Investments” secured the controlling majority) 3.
Mizrahi Tefahot Bank, 4. Israel Discount Bank (In 2006 after the Bank was
privatized, Yankee “The Bronfman-Schron group” acquired 26% of the shares.
Additionally, the largest shipment of supplies to the bank is from the US.), 5.
First International Bank of Israel
ivBureau of Economic
Analysis / U.S. Department of Commerce
vThe Times of
Israel: “Israel is ‘one of the world’s most generous tax havens,’ complains tax
chief”, 06/03/2018
viJewish Virtual
Library: “U.S. Foreign Aid to Israel: History & Overview”
viiCongressional
Research Service: “U.S. Foreign Aid to Israel”, Updated February 18th 2022
viiiTime Magazine:
“How a U.S. Radar Station in the Negev Affects a Potential Israel-Iran Clash”,
30.05.12.
ixThe Times of
Israel: “In first, US establishes permanent military base in Israel”, 18.08.17
xArutz7 News: “Top
Secret American Military Installations In Israel”, 28.01.04
xiIbid.
xiiUnited States:
External Affairs”, in Jane’s Sentinel: North America 2007. Jane’s Information
Group, 2007.
xiiiArutz7 News
xiv“China Backs Arab People’s Just Struggle”, Peking Review, No. 12, March
19th 1965
xvInstitute
for Palestine Studies: “Interview with Ahmad Saadat: Leading from Prison,
Ending Negotiations, and Rebuilding the Resistance”
xvi“What Is Behind Increasing Soviet-Israeli Collusion?”, Peking Review, No.
44 October 31th 1975
xviiMiddle East Eye: “In wake of Gaza conflict, Palestinian Authority cracks
down on West Bank activists”
xviiiCNN: “Hamas accused of violent crackdown on Gaza protests”, 19.03.19
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