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Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2002 01:06:28 +0000
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Subject: [infowars] Weekly Worker 416 (24/1/02) - Israeli Workers Key to
Progress
Weekly Worker 416 - Towards a Socialist Alliance Party!
In this week's Weekly Worker, paper of the Communist Party of Great Britain;
Israeli Workers Key to Progress
It is a nauseating sight. Tanks and troops from the misnamed Israeli Defence
Force roll into another Palestinian town and raise the Israeli flag. Houses
are bulldozed, administration offices destroyed, youths are shot.
The pretext for the current offensive was an attack on a bat mitzvah, in the
northern Israeli town of Hadera, by a lone gunman who killed six Israelis
and injured a dozen. In response Israel insisted on "teaching the
Palestinian Authority a lesson it will never forget" (The Guardian, January
19).
This "lesson" - which has been 'taught' many times before - consists of
Israeli attacks on key PA buildings. The headquarters of its media
mouthpiece, the Voice of Palestine, was destroyed by Israeli troops. And in
the West Bank town of Tulkarem, temporarily under Israeli occupation, F-16
fighters reduced the police station to rubble.
Yasser Arafat has been confined for over a month to Ramallah by ab Israeli
blockade. His regime is in deep crisis. Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, the Israeli
defence minister, observed that, "Everyone is fed up with Arafat" (Jerusalem
Post, January 21). "Everyone" included the Likud majority of the Israeli
government. The dovish elements within the ruling coalition itself - wit
foreign minister and Labour grandee Shimon Peres at their head - would
rather deal with a Palestinian people led by Arafat than by Hamas.
The United States has been impatiently urging Arafat to 'get tough', but is
yet to abandon him completely. Having all but completed the first phase of
its 'war on terrorism', the US government now has no compulsion to fete Arab
opinion. Gone is talk of a Palestinian state and criticism of Israeli
'excesses'. In its place is the usual pious rhetoric in defence of the
'region's only democracy', as its right wing admirers glowingly refer to
Israel.
There is no doubt that the Israeli government could, if it chose, move
decisively against Arafat. It could topple his administration or even
re-annex the Gaza and the West Bank. Instead the rabidly chauvinistic Sharon
government is playing a double game. On the one hand, it destroys the PA's
infrastructure under the guise of retaliation against terror attacks and, on
the other, it makes demands of Arafat which are impossible to meet - not
least because of the damage inflicted by the Israelis themselves.
The idea is that failure discredits Arafat in the eyes of the international
community, while compliance diminishes him before the eyes of the
Palestinian people. Whether Arafat is ousted by his own people - perhaps in
a coup from within the PA - or is the victim of a sniper's bullet is of
little consequence to Israel. The cleaner its hands the better but, either
way, the path would be clear for what is left of the PA to be declared a
'failed state' in need of Israeli 'assistance'.
The level of control that Arafat is able to exercise over his own people is
questionable. The al-Aqsa Brigade - a militia linked to Arafat's Fatah
movement - claimed responsibility for the Hadera attack despite the fact
that Arafat himself has declared a ceasefire and condemned the outrage. At
Israel's behest, he had begun - albeit hesitantly - to round up militants
held responsible for such attacks. Prominent among these was Ahmed Saadat,
leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). Israel
holds Saadat responsible for the assassination of the ultra-reactionary
Israeli tourism minister, Rahavam Zeevi.
Saadat's arrest, along with that of other PFLP militants, has prompted the
PFLP to threaten to target PA security chiefs. PFLP supporters took to the
streets denouncing Arafat for his capitulation to Israeli pressure. Together
with Hamas and Islamic Jihad, they issued a joint declaration calling for
Sadaat's immediate release. Neither Hamas or Islamic Jihad have yet to go as
far as threatening PA officials, as neither wants to be seen to be creating
divisions within the national struggle of the Palestinians. However, as one
Hamas spokesperson put it, the PA is "digging its own grave" (The Guardian,
January 17).
For revolutionary socialists and communists neither Fatah nor the
islamicists have any answers for the Palestinian people. One wants to impose
a settlement from above, without regard for democratic rights. The other
uses terror tactics in support of a reactionary political programme. The
indiscriminate suicide attacks on Israeli civilians are reactionary. Attacks
like those on Hadera rally Israel working people around the chauvinism of
Sharon and Likud. For some sections of Israeli opinion, Sharon has not gone
far enough. The Jerusalem Post dismisses the recent Israeli actions as
inadequate: "Such symbols and signals are out of sync with the
post-September 11 world, in which terrorism will not be tolerated". (January
21).
The Israeli working class is not the enemy of the Palestinian struggle for
national liberation. In fact the opposite is the case - it is potentially
the Palestinian people's most powerful ally. Despite all their heroic
endeavour, the plain fact is that the Palestinian's second intifada is
doomed to failure unless it can win the Israeli working class to its side.
Communists fight for the unity of the working and the unity of peoples. It
can only be a voluntary unity, forged in the fight for consistent democracy.
Concretely, the Palestinians need their own state with full powers -
something the Zionists aim to prevent at all costs.
But all peoples, including those of oppressor nations, have rights, as Lenin
made clear. Obvioucly, it is the Palestinians whose national rights are
being denied by the Israeli state, not the other way round. However, a
consistently democratic programme must take account of the democratic rights
of those who presently side with the oppressor. To demand a democratic,
secular Palestine - and leave it at that - is completely insufficient. To
effectively deny the right of the Israeli nation to exist would be to
reverse the poles of oppression.
Just as the Israeli working class must be won to champion the right of the
Palestinians to their own democratic state, so Palestinian workers must
insist - in opposition to the nationalists and reactionary islamicists -
that the right to nationhood of the Israeli people is respected.
* Israel out of Gaza and the West Bank.
* For a democratic, secular Palestinian state with full powers.
* For the right of return to all displaced Palestinians.
* For a democratic, secular Israel.
* No to Zionism, no to Islamicist reaction.
* For voluntary unity of the peoples of the Middle East.
Mike Speed
Also in this issue;
'Party Notes: Perspectives 2002' - Mark Fischer looks at the problems and
opportunities facing the CPGB in the year ahead.
'Backing the Working Class' - Peter Manson looks at the Zimbabwean working
class opposition to Mugabe's regime.
'Where Alliance Priorities Lie' - Should we have a Socialist Alliance paper?
Leading SA activist Mike Marqusee was asked for his view after the SA
independent's conference.
'A Couple of Years?' - Mark Fischer responds to Mike Marqusee's statement.
'An Independent Success' - Dave Osler was one of the main organisers of the
Jan 19 SA Independent's conference. He spoke to Mark Fischer.
'Independents Set Up Network' - Will McMahon - a leading independent
activist in Hackney SA, reports on the independent's conference.
'Coy Comrades' - Picking up on themes at the SA independent's conference,
working class politicians have to be robust and thick skinned, argues Mark
Fischer.
'Media Red Scare Shows Alliance Potential' - Michael Malkin reviews the
backgound behind the recent press coverage of the SA.
'WSA Journal to be Launched' - The Welsh Socialist Alliance held it's
conference last weekend. Cameron Richards was there.
'Socialist Party Fails to Split Nottingham SA' - Motions moved at Notts SA
by the SP aiming to disaffiliate the alliance from the national structure
was resoundingly defeated at the first meeting of the new year. Liam Hughes
reports.
'Impatient Sectarians Slink Away' - Red Action has announced it's withdrawal
from the SA. Alan Fox argues that they never really joined it in the first
place.
'DSS Staff Strike for Safety' - After two days of strike action in December
the dispute between PCS members and management has reached a critical
juncture. Mark Fischer spoke to Lee Rock, the PCS London regional organiser
and CPGB member, about the origins of the dispute and the way forward.
'Learn the Lessons' - Derek Hunter reviews Paul Greengrass' dramatisation of
the events of Bloody Sunday.
'Our History: Communists Unite' - The second unity congress.
'US Exacts Revenge' - Eddie Ford looks at the furore surrounding thr inmates
at 'Camp X-Ray' at Guantanamo Bay.
And Letters (Teesside SA, Rail Dispute, Maclean, EU and the Euro,
Argentina), SA statement, Fighting Fund, Bloody Sunday Commemoration and
Action.
This edition can be read at http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/416/index.html
For more information and sub details, go to http://www.cpgb.org.uk , email
[EMAIL PROTECTED] , phone 020 8965 0659, or write to CPGB, BCM Box 928,
London, WC1N 3XX, quoting 'e-ad'.
The Communist Party of Great Britain is a supporting organisation of the
Socialist Alliances in England and Wales and the Scottish Socialist Party.
Please visit
http://www.socialistalliance.net
http://www.welshsocialistalliance.org.uk and
http://www.scottishsocialistparty.org
Sign the statement for a democratic and effective Socialist Alliance. Go to
http://www.cpgb.org.uk/sa/index.html
Please note that the Weekly Worker appears in both normal text and PDF
format.
If this edition of the paper is not up on the web, please return within the
next 24 hours.
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