It is a grisly truth, but, now, a truth, nevertheless, that there is no future for Palestine, and increasingly, also, for Palestinians, living in all of historic Palestine. As Trotsky emphasised, Marxists should always tell the truth, as we see it, and understand it, based upon our scientific method, no matter how unpalatable it may be. The genocide in Gaza continues, supported by US imperialism, and its subordinates, despite UN Security Council resolutions, decisions of the ICJ, and so on, showing, in blazing clarity, the sham nature of bourgeois-democracy, whether at a national or global level, along with its claims about equality, and the rule of law.
Could there be any clearer message that US imperialism simply wants the Zionist state to get the job done, quickly, whilst attempting to salvage some hope of retaining a shred of credibility (especially for Genocide Joe, as elections approach), that, on the one hand, the US was eventually left with no option but to abstain on a ceasefire vote at the UN, but, then, immediately, and falsely, claimed that it was “non-binding”, and simultaneously continued to supply even more war planes and munitions to the Zionist state, so as to ignore that vote, and continue its murderous rampage against Palestinian civilians.
Its now been admitted that the British government has had legal advice that the Zionist state is committing war crimes. It should mean that they have to stop their supply of weapons and munitions to the Zionists, or else, also, be guilty of war crimes. However, they will not do so, because it is not in the interests of British imperialism, as a subordinate of US imperialism, to do so, and so, consequently, as with the US, will simply ignore the law, because they can, with impunity. They control the state, and US imperialism and its allies control the global para state bodies. The idea that the state can be controlled by bourgeois-democratic means, or public opinion is a liberal delusion that ought to be more apparent as each day passes. As Trotsky put it,
"Where and when has an oppressed proletariat “controlled” the foreign policy of the bourgeoisie and the activities of its arm? How can it achieve this when the entire power is in the hands of the bourgeoisie? In order to lead the army, it is necessary to overthrow the bourgeoisie and seize power. There is no other road. But the new policy of the Communist International implies the renunciation of this only road.
When a working class party proclaims that in the event of war it is prepared to “control” (i.e., to support) its national militarism and not to overthrow it, it transforms itself by this very thing into the domestic beast of capital. There is not the slightest ground for fearing such a party: it is not a revolutionary tiger but a trained donkey. It may be kept in starvation, flogged, spat upon – it will nevertheless carry the cargo of patriotism. Perhaps only from time to time it will piteously bray: “For God’s sake, disarm the Fascist leagues.” In reply to its braying it will receive an additional blow of the whip. And deservingly so!"
At every stage, US imperialism has parroted the blatant lies of the Zionist state, even long after they have been exposed as such, and, even after it had found itself no longer able to credibly vote against UN ceasefire resolutions, then, turned on the UN's Special Rapporteur, and her acknowledgement of the genocide that everyone can see taking place in Gaza, accusing her of “anti-Semitism”, much as US imperialism, simply accepted the lies of the Zionist state about UNWRA, and suspended its funding, and just as the social-imperialists have done, now, for years, in equating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism.
The liberal supporters of the Palestinians, like Owen Jones, can console themselves with the comments by Zionist former military personnel that Hamas is not being destroyed, in Gaza, as much as they like, but the truth is that Gaza, itself, has already been destroyed, its population has been reduced to destitution, and, now, famine, pestilence and plague. The pitiful airlifting, and shipping of aid, is not going to fundamentally change that, in conditions where the Zionist war machine already imposes its will across the strip, able to prevent the movement of that aid, and which uses it, as a means of simply terrorising the starving population, as it machine guns and strafes them, as they clamour for food from the trucks. This is just the equivalent of a particularly cruel form of end of life, Liverpool Plan, for a dying people.
And, of course, its not just in Gaza that this is taking place, only that it is the most blatant manifestation. Long before October 7th, the Palestinians, in the West Bank, were being killed on a daily basis by Zionist settlers, backed by the Zionist state, as their land was turned into a Swiss cheese of Bantustans, each separated by a series of Zionist controlled, military checkpoints, which were just one means of the Zionist state seizing, at will, young Palestinians, so as to terrorise the population, taking thousands of them as political prisoners, and, then, using that as a pretext to demolish the homes of their families, opening the way for further land seizures. The two-state solution was always a reactionary, utopian fantasy, based on liberal delusions, but, over the last fifty years, it was continually, and increasingly, exposed as such, not only as Gaza was devastated, but also as the West Bank was, itself, continually dominated by the Zionist state, and slowly destroyed.
Western imperialism, ludicrously talks about the right of the Zionist state, which it also lyingly describes as an Israeli state, (there are many Israelis who are not Zionists, the Israeli Arabs for a start) to defend itself. That ludicrous lie is also purveyed by the pro-US, social imperialists, and Zionists such as the AWL. It is ludicrous, because the Zionist state, in Israel, is itself a military super-power, not some frail, little country whose existence is threatened by some larger aggressor. Indeed, if that were not enough on its own – the Zionist state is reported to have the eighth largest stockpile of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons in the world – it has been enabled to achieve that status, because it is backed by the world's largest military superpower, the US, as well as by the US's subordinates in Europe, and Japan. It is ludicrous, because the Palestinians have never had any possibility of militarily defeating that Zionist super-power, or even inflicting any serious damage to it, and it is not the Zionists, nor their state that is facing extinction, but the Palestinians, a reality that becomes more evident by the hour, let alone the day.
There comes a point, where, Marxists have to say, enough is enough, and its, now, necessary to save what can be saved, rather than simply venting moral outrage, impotently, whilst an inevitable process wipes out an entire people. Whatever sympathy we might have had for, say, North American native peoples, we would not have done them any favours by supporting them continuing with their doomed wars against the vastly superior forces of Sherman, and the US state, for example. Gaza is as good as destroyed, the rulings of the ICJ, the decisions of the UN Security Council have come and gone, and Zionism continues to slaughter Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, unrestrained, and with the continued support of US imperialism, and its subordinates. Even were it true, as Owen Jones claims, that the perpetrators will be held to account in ten, twenty or thirty years time – they won't – it does no good for Palestinians, today, and tomorrow.
If Palestine were a client of US imperialism, and Israel in the camp of its opponents, it would already have imposed boycotts on Israel, and placed a no-fly zone above Gaza and the West Bank, as it did in Iraq, and Libya. It would, at the least, have been shipping masses of aid and munitions to Gaza, as it has been doing into Ukraine. It could have little to complain about if China/Russia/BRICS were, now, to do that, based on the legalities established by the UNSC, and ICJ. But, as I wrote some time ago, Marxists could not support such a response, because the reality is that were the latter to do so, it would mean WWIII, was at hand. As, again, Lenin put it,
““But we cannot be in favour of a war between great nations, in favour of the slaughter of twenty million people for the sake of the problematical liberation of a small nation with a population of perhaps ten or twenty millions!” Of course not! And it does not mean that we throw complete national equality out of our Programme; it means that the democratic interests of one country must be subordinated to the democratic interests of several and all countries. Let us assume that between two great monarchies there is a little monarchy whose kinglet is “bound” by blood and other ties to the monarchs of both neighbouring countries. Let us further assume that the declaration of a republic in the little country and the expulsion of its monarch would in practice lead to a war between the two neighbouring big countries for the restoration of that or another monarch in the little country. There is no doubt that all international Social-Democracy, as well as the really internationalist section of Social-Democracy in the little country, would be against substituting a republic for the monarchy in this case. The substitution of a republic for a monarchy is not an absolute, but one of the democratic demands, subordinate to the interests of democracy (and still more, of course, to those of the socialist proletariat) as a whole.”
(The Discussion On Self-Determination Summed Up)
It is not going to stop, and whether Gaza simply becomes a wasteland, a buffer zone, pending Zionist colonisation, or that colonisation, by zealots, occurs more immediately, it is not going to be a viable territory for Palestinians again. And, that will simply be the precursor to those settler zealots turning their attention to the West Bank, and inflicting the same fate on it that has now befallen Gaza. The slogan “From The River to the Sea”, is the mantra of the Zionists, too, with the difference being that they have the military firepower to bring it about, and are doing so, right now. There will be a single state “from the river to the sea”, and it will be a Zionist state. The question only arises, now, as to how best to defend several million Palestinians trapped inside it, as second class citizens, and oppressed by it.
Forty years ago, I wrote that the Two-State solution was a reactionary, bourgeois-nationalist delusion, and everything I wrote, in setting out why that was, has transpired in the intervening period. Both the two-state, and single secular state solutions were utopian, bourgeois nationalist solutions, grounded in the Menshevik/Stalinist stages theory. I argued, instead, for a proletarian solution, based upon permanent revolution. In other words, rather as Lenin had argued in relation to the oppressed nationalities within the Tsarist Empire, I argued against the idea of national separation of the workers, implied by the creation of new bourgeois states. Lenin argued,
“As the party of the proletariat, the Social-Democratic Party considers it to be its positive and principal task to further the self-determination of the proletariat in each nationality rather than that of peoples or nations. We must always and unreservedly work for the very closest unity of the proletariat of all nationalities, and it is only in isolated and exceptional cases that we can advance and actively support demands conducive to the establishment of a new class state or to the substitution of a looser federal unity, etc., for the complete political unity of a state.”
I, similarly, argued in favour of a combined, class struggle, by Jewish and Arab workers, against their respective bourgeois oppressors, and for that class struggle to absorb within it the tasks of the bourgeois-democratic, national struggle, for political rights. Trotsky, sets out the basis for doing that, in relation to the Chinese Revolution, in the 1920's, as I have set out, in my series of posts.
The reality has been, as with the oppressed nations under Tsarism, that the Palestinians, even in their own post-1967 territories of Gaza and the West Bank, have been subject to Zionist rule and domination. For all intents and purposes, Gaza and the West Bank, were, components of a Palestinian state; they had their own state bureaucracy, bodies of armed men, and so on. But illustrating the delusional nature of the reactionary concept of “national self-determination”, in the age of imperialism, there was never any possibility that such a Palestinian state would ever be allowed to function as such. It could only ever exist as a vassal state, a Quisling state, subservient to, and existing only at the whim of, the much more powerful Zionist state in Israel, backed by its US imperialist sponsor.
The bourgeois nationalist demand for two-states was a dangerous delusion, and distraction, for both Jewish and Palestinian workers. As Lenin had pointed out to Rosa Luxemburg, in relation to similar bourgeois-nationalist demands, in relation to Poland.
“See to what monstrous conclusions this monstrous logic leads, even from the viewpoint of the programme demand for Poland’s restoration... This is nothing more than sacrificing the most vital interests of the proletariat to the bourgeois-democratic conception of national independence. The disintegration of Russia which the P.S.P. desires, as distinct from our aim of overthrowing Tsarism, is and will remain an empty phrase, as long as economic development continues to bring the different parts of a political whole more and more closely together, and as long as the bourgeoisie of all countries unite more and more closely against their common enemy, the proletariat, and in support of their common ally, the Tsar.”
(The National Question In Our Programme)
Lenin, instead, argued the need for a combined proletarian struggle, across the Tsarist Empire, for equal political rights for all nations, uniting the workers of different nations in that struggle, on the basis of their commonality as workers, against their class enemy, the bourgeoisie. If, at some point, such a struggle led to a feeling that only separation could fully secure such rights, it would, at the same time, have created the best possible conditions, in relation to the class struggle, for that to occur. Lenin made that clear, in his example of Norway and Sweden.
The starting point for Marxists, is the combined proletarian struggle, and the demand for equal political rights for all workers, a demand inseparable, also, from the demand placed upon, and exposing the sham nature of, bourgeois-democracy, for consistent democracy, and, so, also inseparable from the class struggle itself.
Could such an approach have resulted in a different outcome in Israel-Palestine? Its impossible to say, because, unfortunately, unlike in the time of Lenin, we have no global, revolutionary movement, as existed with the Comintern, for several years. Instead, we have a labour movement that is characterised by petty-bourgeois nationalism, of one variety of another, itself dividing into two global bourgeois camps, rather than there being any independent, international socialist movement and perspective. In 1940, Trotsky, again consistent with the international, socialist perspective of Lenin, wrote in relation to Zionism, and the attempts, at that time, to establish a Jewish state, in Palestine, that it was a reactionary, nationalist venture.
“... the facts of every passing day demonstrate to us that Zionism is incapable of resolving the Jewish question. The conflict between the Jews and Arabs in Palestine acquires a more and more tragic and more and more menacing character. I do not at all believe that the Jewish question can be resolved within the framework of rotting capitalism and under the control of British imperialism.”
And, he noted that the attempt, was both reactionary, and created the conditions for a continuing bloodbath.
“The attempt to solve the Jewish question through the migration of Jews to Palestine can now be seen for what it is, a tragic mockery of the Jewish people. Interested in winning the sympathies of the Arabs who are more numerous than the Jews, the British government has sharply altered its policy toward the Jews, and has actually renounced its promise to help them found their “own home” in a foreign land. The future development of military events may well transform Palestine into a bloody trap for several hundred thousand Jews. Never was it so clear as it is today that the salvation of the Jewish people is bound up inseparably with the overthrow of the capitalist system.”
Despite the fact that a Zionist state was established, in Palestine, Trotsky's analysis was correct. The fact that this state was established did not resolve the problems of Jews. The vast majority of Jews do not live in Israel, unlike the condition for every other nation state on the planet, meaning that the large majority of Jews themselves do not see it as the solution to their problems. Indeed, the Jewish people living in Israel, are, now, distinct, as a people, from Jews living elsewhere in the world. The biggest support for Zionism, today, comes, not from Jews, many of whom are courageously anti-Zionist, but from rabid, “End of Days”, Christian fundamentalists, willing on Armageddon. For the majority of world Jewry, the existence of the Zionist state, in Israel, has, if anything, been a huge negative, and generator of anti-Semitism, as its racist, genocidal behaviour, and its role as bulwark of imperialist reaction, combined with the insistence by Zionists that “anti-Zionism equals anti-Semitism”, has had its corollary that the actions of Zionism become equated with the actions of Jews. The solution for world Jewry has not been Zionism, but their own political struggle within the societies, in which they have integrated.
And, what monstrous consequences have flowed from its creation. Lenin had noted,
“That is why the proletariat confines itself, so to speak, to the negative demand for recognition of the right to self-determination, without giving guarantees to any nation, and without undertaking to give anything at the expense of another nation.”
But, the Zionist state, in Palestine, could only be established, precisely at the expense of another nation, i.e. of the Palestinians. The consequence, was inevitably going to be the never-ending blood-letting that Trotsky warned of. The only deficiency in his analysis, was not being able to foresee the extent to which Zionism, itself, met the needs of other larger imperialist powers, and their global strategic ambitions.
In the 1930's, the Zionists had based their ideology on, and sought support from Nazi Germany, and Fascist Italy. When the USSR entered the war, in 1941, and sent the Nazis into retreat, with the writing on the wall, the Zionists, changed horses, looking towards the totalitarian, national socialism of Stalin, instead. Stalin, first changed position in support of Zionism, and backed a two-state solution, as he saw, the Zionists in conflict with British imperialism, and, then, changed position again, when he saw a greater prize from Arab nationalism, in the region. It was just a repeat, and for the same reasons, as the shift of the British position, described by Trotsky, above.
But, in like manner, the now dominant, US imperialism, was engaged in both dismantling European colonial empires, and their influence across the globe, and seeking to constrain the influence of the USSR, as it gave its backing for assorted national independence movements, particularly in an oil rich Middle-East, in the era of the dependence on oil. The election of Mossadegh in Iran, was enough to prompt the US and Britain into intervention; the rise of Ba'athism in Iraq and Syria, of Nasser in Egypt, was enough to prompt US imperialism to seek to have its own unsinkable aircraft carrier located in the middle of all this, to secure its interests. In the words of then Senator Joe Biden, if Israel did not exist, the US would have to have created it, and in effect, that is what, in the post-war period, the US did.
But, Trotsky's arguments against Zionism, apply, equally, today, to attempts to promote Palestinian nationalism, and the creation of a Palestinian state. Palestinians have no means of creating a single, secular Palestinian state, given the might of the Zionist state in Israel. But, even the idea of creating a separate Palestinian state is a utopian delusion. The Zionist state will not countenance it, and its backers, such as the US, will only ever pay lip-service to it, in order to placate gullible liberals in their own country, and to string along bourgeois Arab leaders, until such time that the Palestinians have been destroyed, and the Zionist state, in Israel can establish normal economic relations with them, as the US seeks to establish a wider economic zone, in the area, under its influence, to counter the growing role of China.
Lenin's words above apply. There can be no such solution “as long as economic development continues to bring the different parts of a political whole more and more closely together, and as long as the bourgeoisie of all countries unite more and more closely against their common enemy, the proletariat”. The Zionist state, itself, is too small, and depends upon the US, which is why the laws of capital demand it expand into the rest of Palestine and beyond. Indeed, the same is true for the surrounding bourgeois Arab states, which require a coming together in a politico-economic bloc of the Middle-East and North Africa. The history of the US, and of Europe, simply presents the picture of the future development of other countries, and regions.
The opportunity to have built an alternative solution based upon the ideas of permanent revolution, linking the Palestinian and Jewish workers across Israel and Palestine has passed. For all of the liberal talk of pacifistic, liberal organisations such as Standing Together, they are insignificant, compared to the strength of the Zionists, and of the Zionist state, backed by US and European imperialism. The very policies of Zionism that encouraged the most rabid Zionists to move to Israel, have strengthened that reality. The role of Zionists, in the West, including those in the labour movement, some of whom have been bought and paid for, in supporting the actions of the Zionist state, and which have equated anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism, have been accomplices in that process, and so share culpability for the genocide against Palestinians now being undertaken. If there were any justice, they would be facing being hauled before the ICC, but, they will not, because, of course, the ICC, as with other aspects of bourgeois-democracy, is a sham.
As Trotsky, noted in relation to resolving the problems of Jews, only socialism, now, offers a sustainable, progressive solution. The problems of Jews and Palestinians, in the Middle-East, cannot be separated from the solution for all Arab workers, of the need for a socialist revolution, and creation of a Socialist United States of the Middle East and North Africa.
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