Starmer Recognises Existence of A Still-Born Corpse

Starmer's Blue Labour government has recognised a Palestinian state. He has done so, in conditions where the Zionist state, in Israel, has destroyed Gaza, and continues its policy of genocide against Palestinians, now, also, in the occupied West Bank. The Zionist state has made clear its intention of annexing, at least, the majority of the West Bank, which, in reality, means it will annex all of it, simply formalising its existing rule over it, and the continued violent eviction of the Palestinian population by Zionist settlers, backed by the IDF. In other words, Starmer's recognition of a Palestinian state, is merely, a grotesque, performative action, designed for domestic consumption, to recognise the existence of a still-born corpse.

At any point, in the last 78 years, following the creation of the Zionist state, in Palestine, and, thereby, the creation of the Israeli nation state, British and other governments could have recognised the existence of a Palestinian state. They chose not to do so so, despite, for at least the last 50 years, many of them claiming to be in favour of a two-state solution! A Palestinian nation state did, after all, already exist, unlike the Israeli nation state, which came into existence, only in 1947, by itself, seizing a large chunk of that Palestinian nation state, and violently evicting 700,000 Palestinians. A Palestinian nation state existed, prior to that, as numerous Al Jazeera documentaries have detailed. But, it was not an independent nation state. It was already a colonial state, under the control of some colonial power, notably the Ottoman Empire, prior to WWI, and, then, Britain.

As with most colonies, the question is not whether a nation state existed, or not, but whether that state was politically independent. A nation state exists, where there is a nation existing, within defined national borders, possessing a common language and customs, and an administrative infrastructure. All of that applied to Palestine, both under the Ottomans, and under the British mandate, just as much as it applied to, for example, India, under British rule. The existence of this nation state, however, does not imply its political independence, and the anti-colonial struggles of the 19th and 20th centuries, were precisely about the struggle for the independence of those existing bourgeois states, and not, about the creation of new, bourgeois nation states themselves. It is why Lenin, and the Comintern, distinguished between the national question, and the colonial question.

In terms of the national question, what was being discussed was the creation of new bourgeois states, as national minorities, within existing nation states, sought to separate. The position of Marxism, in relation to that, has always been clear, going back to Marx and Engels. We see it as a reactionary demand, which undermines the unity of the working-class as an international, not national class, and does so, by aligning the workers in each nation with their own rulers, against the workers of other nations. Whilst Marxists in the dominant nation, emphasise that they support the right of any oppressed national minority, to secede, freely, they, nevertheless, continue to argue against them doing so, i.e. argue against them exercising that right. In fact, as Marx set out in his 1850 Address to the Central Committee of the Communist League, we oppose, also, the weakening of the political unity of the existing state, in the form of the introduction of federal structures, too, because that is the first step to the break up of the state itself, and is used by reactionary nationalist, bourgeois and petty-bourgeois forces to divide the workers.

“The democrats will either work directly towards a federated republic, or at least, if they cannot avoid the one and indivisible republic they will attempt to paralyze the central government by granting the municipalities and provinces the greatest possible autonomy and independence. In opposition to this plan the workers must not only strive for one and indivisible German republic, but also, within this republic, for the most decisive centralization of power in the hands of the state authority. They should not let themselves be led astray by empty democratic talk about the freedom of the municipalities, self-government, etc. In a country like Germany, where so many remnants of the Middle Ages are still to be abolished, where so much local and provincial obstinacy has to be broken down, it cannot under any circumstances be tolerated that each village, each town and each province may put up new obstacles in the way of revolutionary activity, which can only be developed with full efficiency from a central point. A renewal of the present situation, in which the Germans have to wage a separate struggle in each town and province for the same degree of progress, can also not be tolerated. Least of all can a so-called free system of local government be allowed to perpetuate a form of property which is more backward than modern private property and which is everywhere and inevitably being transformed into private property; namely communal property, with its consequent disputes between poor and rich communities. Nor can this so-called free system of local government be allowed to perpetuate, side by side with the state civil law, the existence of communal civil law with its sharp practices directed against the workers. As in France in 1793, it is the task of the genuinely revolutionary party in Germany to carry through the strictest centralization.”

In his polemic with the Luxemburg and Pilsudski, in relation to Polish independence from Tsarist Russia, Lenin made clear the reactionary nature of that demand, in dividing the working class.

“See to what monstrous conclusions this monstrous logic leads, even from the viewpoint of the programme demand for Poland’s restoration. Because the restoration of Poland is one of the possible (but, whilst the bourgeoisie rules, by no means absolutely certain) consequences of democratic evolution, therefore the Polish proletariat must not fight together with the Russian proletariat to overthrow tsarism, but “only” to weaken it by wresting Poland from it. Because Russian tsarism is concluding a closer and closer alliance with the bourgeoisie and the governments of Germany, Austria, etc., therefore the Polish proletariat must weaken its alliance with the proletariat of Russia, Germany, etc., together with whom it is now fighting against one and the same yoke. 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)

And, that point was made even clearer, by Lenin and the Bolsheviks, in setting out that, as far as Marxists in the nation seeking to separate was concerned, they should emphasise their opposition to any such separation.

“The Social-Democrats will always combat every attempt to influence national self-determination from without by violence or by any injustice. However, our unreserved recognition of the struggle for freedom of self-determination does not in any way commit us to supporting every demand for national self-determination. 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.”

(ibid)

With the colonial question, however, what is being discussed is not the creation of some new class state, but simply the political independence of an existing class state. Other than in the case of the French colonies, colonial empires did not incorporate the colony into the state of the colonial power. The state in India, for example, operated within India, under British colonial rule. There were no elections of Indian politicians to the British parliament, and so on. So, the question of the existence of a Palestinian nation state, is quite different to the question of whether this state was ever an independent state, which, clearly, it was not. The Palestinians, never reached that level of development to establish such an independent state, and, after, 1947, as the Zionist state arose, as itself, a colonialist and expansionist state, backed by powerful imperialist states, it took over that role.

The two-state solution was always a reactionary, bourgeois delusion, as I described 40 years ago, and was, in fact, used by imperialism to distract from any real solution to the problem. Ben-Gurion was clear what the acceptance of the wording of a two-state solution, proposed by the Peel Commission, actually amounted to for the Zionists. In a letter to his son in October 1937, Ben-Gurion explained that partition would be a first step to "possession of the land as a whole". That is what has now played out. At the point that all prospect of an independent, Palestinian state has, now, been clearly demonstrated to be impossible, Starmer, and others, who have continued, and continue to back the genocide and destruction of Palestine, recognise its existence!