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Resolution of the LRCI, 20 October 2000
On 28 September opposition leader and Likud chief Ariel Sharon visited the site of the Al Aqsa mosque on Temple Mount in East Jerusalem, a shrine sacred to Muslims.
This was a calculated provocation by a virulent anti-Arab racist who is practised in the art of butchering Palestinians for four decades. He was overseer of the massacre of Sabra and Chatilla camps in 1982, and architect of Jewish settlements on the West Bank in the 1980s when Minister of Housing.
He went despite warnings and with the full blessing of Prime Minster Barak. Protected by 3000 police in a move that encapsulated the Zionists’ outright rejection of the Palestinian’s claim to a share of the sovereignty of Jerusalem.
At Friday prayers the next day the police occupied the square outside Al Aqsa. Hundreds of youth vented their anger on Israeli police with stone-throwing. Instead of using tear gas and other methods of crowd control, the response was the indiscriminate and close quarter use of rubber bullets that killed four and injured hundreds of the many thousands gathered there for prayer. The armed PNA police did not respond with arms for several hours.
This brutal assault triggered an intifada in the Occupied Terrorities of the West Bank and Gaza strip. In the ensuing three weeks, more than 130 people have been killed, the vast majority Palestinian. One in five of the dead are under 17 years of age; twelve-year-old Mohammed al-Dura was cut down in a hail of bullets in the Gaza strip by Israeli soldiers in full view of the world.
Some were butchered by helicopter gunships and even anti-tank rockets. Others have been killed while working their fields by Israeli settlers. Most have been slaughtered by sniper fire.
Alongside the events in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, there was a spontaneous outburst of violence throughout the Galilee, where most of Israel's Arabs live and form an overwhelming majority of the population. Main roads were blocked, and stone-throwing demonstrators clashed with police. Thirteen were killed either by either by the Israel Defence Force (IDF) or gangs of Zionist thugs on the rampage in Arab suburbs.
The Temple Mount provocation was the spark that has ignited a bonfire of grievances and frustrations that had been stacking up for seven years, ever since the signing of the Oslo Accords in September 1993.
The intifada is a heroic demonstration that after seven years, the implementation of the various stages of those accords has not brought Palestinian national self-determination nearer but have made their national oppression worse. They have been given limited autonomy in parcelled up bits of the West Bank. In return they have witnessed the expansion of armed Jewish settlements, the bulldozing of their homes and theft of their water supplies, arbitrary arrest and torture in Zionist jails, and continued super-exploitation as manual labour inside Israel.
Now they have said enough! The continued existence of the Zionist state of Israel and the full democratic national right of the Palestinians for their own state are incompatible.
The PLO and Arafat have led the people into a terrible catastrophe in league with the Arab bourgeoisie of the surrounding states and under pressure of imperialism and Israel. Between the last intifada in 1987 and the Oslo accords 1,200 Palestinians were killed before, exhausted, the people were led to the September 1993 agreement by Arafat. This time the people of the Occupied Terrorities have the experience of the corrupt and repressive Palestinian National Authority (PNA) behind them.
Sixty percent of the PNA budget is disbursed by Arafat to bureaucracy and security, only 2 percent to the infrastructure. Officially, hundreds of millions of dollars have disappeared into the foreign bank accounts of his supporters. His cronies run commercial monopolies and his armed police jail his critics within the PLO or Hamas militants. The hostility of many to renewed talks with Israel, of ceasefires and a new peace process thus in part reflect growing anger with the PLO and its betrayals. This intifada must not stop until a new leadership is created inside the Palestinian resistance movement and the PLO, Fatah and Arafat are cast aside
The road to the Oslo accords
For twenty years - since the Arab defeat in the 1973 war - the PLO leadership has in principle accepted that self-determination for the Palestinian people would fall short of the destruction of the Zionist state of Israel and its replacement by a secular, democratic state in the whole of mandate Palestine. The idea of the mini-state was born - a plan for a West Bank and Gaza state, possibly in some sort of confederation with Jordan.
This mini-state idea therefore turned self-determination for the Palestinians into a mockery, a denial of its genuine democratic and national content. During the 1980s, the PLO moved further and further towards a compromise with Zionism. In December 1988 in Geneva, Arafat declared to the UN that the PLO recognised the right of Israel to exist.
Increasingly in the 1980s, the Palestinian bourgeoisie in the diaspora felt that their own narrow class self-determination would be satisfied by the tiniest of territorial enclaves – a fragment of land on which to haul up the Palestinian flag, a flag of convenience; a legal entity in which to register its financial and commercial interests held across the globe rather than simply, or even mainly, inside the Occupied Terrorities.
The last thing in their minds was that this state should be a vibrant, dynamic and self-sustaining economic entity capable of providing for the needs of the masses. What is more, the PLO's paymasters in the conservative Gulf monarchies were always a pressure for settlement, though wary of outright capitulation to an unbridled and ambitious Israel.
The Gulf War of 1991 convinced these petro-monarchies that powerful Arab national states such as Iraq may provide more of a threat to their own rule than Israel. Arafat's support for Saddam Hussein in that war provided them with the opportunity to withdraw their huge funding of the PLO and make Arafat sue for peace.
In addition, the collapse of the USSR and Stalinism removed an ideological and diplomatic prop against the pressure of US imperialism. Finally, the exhaustion of the intifada in the Occupied Territories assisted Arafat.
The PLO neither wanted nor organised the intifada. When it came they tried to direct it in order not to lose control of it to the Islamic groups - above all Hamas. Having used it and exploited it but not armed it effectively, the PLO exhausted it. This gave rise to a deep sense that some political settlement, any political settlement, would bring relief from the daily and grinding brutality of Israeli military occupation.
Labour's election in July 1992 marginalised the Likud "expansionist" wing of Zionism. While little divided the Likud bloc from Labour on domestic economic policies they increasingly differed on the way to solve the Palestine question. Likud favoured more and more settlements leading in the direction of annexation.
At root this project was based on the need for Likud to consolidate its electoral base within the oriental Jewish community of Israel, the growing proportion of whom formed the bulk of the new settlers, having diminishing economic prospects inside Israel.
The Labour Party, by contrast, increasingly feared the consequences that perpetual war would have on the age old cross-class Jewish bloc within Israel.
The marked economic decline of Israel has seen unemployment among Israeli Jews mushroom, which both further undermined Jewish cross-class unity and lessened the need for cheap Arab labour. Prime Minister Rabin's “agrarian” wing of the Labour Party were forced to accept the decisive argument of the pro-European Perez faction: the Labour government could get a solution which did not cede sovereignty to the Palestinians but could end Israel's economic and diplomatic isolation in the region.
Moreover, a settlement acceptable to European and US imperialism would induce them to take financial responsibility for the reconstruction of the Occupied Territories away from Israel's creaking budget. Israel stood to gain considerably from a settlement.
US multinational investment would be added to the $5 billion a year already given by the Clinton administration. Saudi could be expected to stop penalising Arab companies that traded with Israel. In the medium term Israel, through investments and trade with the Arab states – blocked off after the 1967 war - could increase its penetration of regional markets.
Nature of the Oslo agreement
The peace settlement, brokered in Norway and signed in Washington on 13 September 1993, was the biggest blow yet delivered against the Palestinians since they were first driven from their land 45 years earlier.
The first element of the betrayal lay in the PLO's official diplomatic recognition of "the right of Israel to live within secure borders"., which legitimised the pogroms and forced population transfers carried out by Zionism in 1947-48 against the Palestinian people. It sanctioned the results of a war by which Israel was founded on 73% of the territory of the Palestine mandate by 33% of its (Jewish) population.
The new autonomous areas agreed in Oslo were to contain less than 30% of all Palestinian people. The 4 million Palestinian refugees – now the largest and longest existing such population anywhere – were told that they could forget about any idea of return or compensation.
Secondly, this agreement forever confined the 18% Arab minority within the Zionist state of Israel to permanent second class status with no hope of unification with their Palestinian brothers and sisters. Subject to virulent anti-Arab racism, ghettoised and super-exploited in a few sectors of the economy, they are forced into competition for jobs with their Arab brethren across the Green Line.
Thirdly, the PLO betrayed the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. By renouncing real sovereignty over the territory they have been granted by Israel, the PLO abandoned the legitimate national aspirations of the Palestinians for their own state in return for a supervised series of mini-bantustans with limited devolved powers.
The agreement agreed that Israeli troops should be withdrawn from Gaza and Jericho in the West Bank. A PLO police replaced them and Israeli military administration of these areas gave way to PLO administration in tourism, education, welfare, health, taxation. None of these go to the heart of state power _ that is, sovereign political institutions, with control over all areas of civil society, the ability to conclude diplomatic treaties or build an army to defend its borders.
The Oslo accords were designed to segregate the Palestinians into enclaves surrounded by Israeli-controlled borders, with settlements and settlement roads punctuating and essentially violating the territories' integrity. Theft of land and house demolitions proceeded apace after Oslo.
The settlements – armed to the teeth – expanded: 200,000 Israeli Jews have been added to Jerusalem, 200,000 more in Gaza and the West Bank. The Israelis insisted upon the right to maintain an armed presence outside of Arab population centres but capable of immediate deployment against the Palestinians.
Meanwhile every tiny step taken toward Palestinian sovereignty has been delayed, or cancelled at Israel's will. Naturally the assassination of the architect of Oslo in Israel, Rabin and the election of Likud (opponent of Oslo) to power in 1996, both reflected and channelled the huge social forces inside Israel to any concessions at all to the Palestinians.
These forces ensured that when Barak and Labour came to power in 1998 in a weak coalition government little better could be expected. Indeed, not one agreement on any basic issue has been reached with the Palestinians, and Barak has accommodated the PLO even less than Netanyahu.
The withdrawal from Southern Lebanon in May this year was rather part of Israel’s diplomatic dance with Syria. No redeployment of IDF forces has been carried out in the West Bank, and instead there has been a significant rise in the number of settlers.
No binding progress has been made on any of the major issues - the Palestinian right of return, the status of Jerusalem, the evacuation of settlements, the permanent borders of the Palestinian state, nor even on the question of safe passages between the West Bank and Gaza.
The July summit at Camp David saw Barak and Clinton reject any idea of Palestinian sovereignty in East Jerusalem and Israel’s maximum programme on this was international sovereignty over parts of East Jerusalem’s religious sites. This was unacceptable to the masses of Palestinians and Arafat could do nothing more than reject it.
The provocation on Temple Mount on 28 September also came about as a result of the isolation and desperation of Barak’s government. Lurching from one vote of confidence to another, deserted by its erstwhile coalition allies, Labour increasingly made concessions to appease the more openly hostile anti-Palestinian forces in the Likud and religious right. But beyond these short-term and opportunistic reasons there lies a further profound polarisation of Israeli society.
The cross-class bloc has been hit hard in the 1990s by privatisation programmes, unemployment among Jewish workers, Histadrut general strikes and the course of the “peace process” itself. The intifada may – through a national government - create a semblance of unity among the Jewish people, if not as before all the citizens of the Israeli state, but a continuing resistance and a deepening of the intifada can throw Zionism into mortal crisis.
As the Palestinians awaken to a new class consciousness they must also seek to win allies amongst progressive forces in the Israeli working class and intelligentsia. They must make clear that their aim is not to expel Jewish workers, farmers and professionals from Israel but to create a secular workers' Palestine, where Muslims, Jews, Christians, Druze and atheists have equal rights.
The Israeli workers also suffer increasing capitalist exploitation and many resent privileges given to the Ashkenazis. Palestinian workers and poor peasants should unite with the Israeli workers to fight against imperialism and the bosses. In this way the Zionist alliance of all classes can be broken up, the armed forces of Zionism can be undermined partly from within.
The Palestinian struggle must be defended against the charge of the Zionists and their imperialist allies that the movement is anti-semetic. Some Islamists as well as the oppressed and disoriented masses raise the slogan "death to the Jews". But the taking up of anti-semetic slogans can only damage the Palestinian cause.
It will render tiny the necessary pro-Palestinian movement in the imperialist heartland. Necessary, because if Israel attempts to ethnically cleanse ‘its state’ and parts of the Occupied Territories (the brutal 'separation' solution) then a massive movement is needed in North America and Europe to stop it. It will also require unity between sincere pro-peace forces and Israeli workers
Likewise in Europe and North America no blocs, common demonstrations can be made with anti-semitics forces whether far right, fascist or (non-Palestinian) Islamist. We do distinguish between the 'anti-semitism' of the outraged Palestinian masses - misguided and wrong - and that of the religious fascist, anti-semites outside of the Palestinian community.
From intifada to proletarian revolution
In the five years following the last intifada of 1987 more than 1200 Palestinians were butchered by Israel. Already in two weeks since the start of the new one around 100 have died. This time the sacrifice must not be in vain! This time the uprising must do more than put Arafat and his cronies in power in a Lilliputian state.
This time the mass of arms, the 30,000 members of the PNA police and the tenzim militia in the camps, which are products of the accords (and which explain the ferocity of Israel’s onslaught) must be used as the starting point for an independent and working class resistance to the occupation.
This time the intifada can count for the first time on the open support of masses of Israeli Arabs. For more than 50 years since the nation's founding, Israel's one million Arab citizens lived as second-class, but fundamentally passive, citizens. Only once, in 1976, did serious violence erupt, in the course of a dispute over land expropriations by Israeli authorities. In 1987 there was only passive support among Israeli Arabs for their Palestinian brethren. Now, for the first time, Israeli Arabs are expressing unprecedented hostility towards the Jewish state. The recent protests, reminiscent of the intifada, had never before been seen on this scale inside Israel.
This time, the Palestinians have little illusions in the merit of the Israeli “peace camp”, a collection of middle class and labour aristocratic Israelis who helped sell the Oslo Accords, pacify Israeli Arabs and hold out the illusion that Israel could live in harmony with a Palestinian state. The “peace camp” has condemned the Palestinian intifada and excused or supported Barak’s violence.
But the first step must be for the Arab workers to take the initiative in class actions against the repression and occupation. The need for class independence, a class party, a revolutionary workers' party is becoming a burning necessity.
The PLO must be broken up. The workers' organisations should split from this popular front with the Palestinian bourgeoisie and fight for a workers' party. All elements of the PLO rank and file, especially those who call themselves Marxists or Leninists, must be won to building a workers' party.
ð The Palestinian masses of the West Bank, Gaza and Jordan have a chance throw the Zionist offensive back onto its heels. An immediate and indefinite General Strike across the Territories is needed; the closure of all campuses and shops, mass demonstrations and a reaffirmation of the intifada.
ð For an unconditional and imme-diate end to the military occupation in all of the Occupied Territories! Drive the Zionist settlers – front line troops of Zionist expansionism – back to Israel; there can be no self-determination for the Palestinians while they are there against the will of the Palestinian people. Open the borders between the West Bank and Israel, remove all restrictions on movement. Immediate release of all political prisoners and an end to all repressive and discriminatory legislation.
ð Renounce the Oslo agreement and Wye Accords. No return to the “peace process”. No ceasefire. No to recognition of the state of Israel's right to oppress one million of its population. For the right of return to all Palestinians to their home and to their property. Down with the Zionist racist law of return
ð Immediate building of popular camp, village and workplace com-mittees of resistance to the occu-pation. Build mass defence militia. Put the tenzim under the control of the camp and town committees not the PNA and Fatah. For a revolutionary Constituent Assembly to debate what kind of state and government the Palestinian masses need.
ð Arms to replace the stones! Broaden the intifada to struggle against all aspects of national oppression and super-exploitation. PNA must cease all contacts and collusion with the IDF.
ð Immediate free elections to all bodies of the PLO; recall and replace the traitors who negotiated, signed and voted for the agreement! Break up the cross-class alliance of the PLO; for a party of the Palestinian workers based on the unions. Build a revolutionary workers’ vanguard party among the Palestinian and Israeli-Jewish proletariats, committed to the destruction of the Zionist state and the establishment of a secular bi-national workers' state in Palestine.
ð For unconditional and immediate aid by surrounding Arab states for the intifada! For anti-tank and anti-helicopter gunship equipment now. End all oil supplies to Israel and USA. Break all diplomatic and trade ties with Israel. For a workers’ boycott of goods to and from Israel.
ð In the event of the of an ethnic cleansing push by the Israeli's to clear more territories of Palestinians we call on all the Arab states to not only cut off the oil supplies to the west but to send arms equipment and volunteers to the Occupied Territories to aid the Palestinians and the mobilise the population of Egypt and Syria.
ð The Arab summit in Cairo has betrayed the Palestinians by opting for empty words instead of actions against the Zionist butchers. Throughout the Middle East, the masses must fight against their governments' support for the betrayal of the Palestinians.
ð For mass demonstrations in Cairo, Beirut, Jordan, Damascus against Israel and the passivity of the Arab rulers. The only solution to decades of oppression and war is the permanent revolution, the overthrow of all the bourgeois governments of the region and the creation of a Socialist Federation of the Middle East.
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