Bulletin No45 avril 2024 Imaginary, but realistic, debate between an activist of the Communist Revolutionary Party with a worker who wants peace, an end to the massacre of Palestinians and questions
The worker who wants peace and an end to the massacre of Palestinians
You campaign for the rights of the Palestinian people, but you seem not to take the Israelis into account. You equate Israel and Netanyahu's far-right government and you do not condemn the October 7 massacre or the hostage-taking...
The activist of the Communist Revolutionary Party
If you would like, I prefer to come back to the last points, around the attack of October 7.
For the rest, our position is clear. This war does not have the character of an imperialist war like all the others we are experiencing at the moment, whether in Ukraine, Congo or Sudan, or anywhere else. The imperialist blocs are confronting each other indirectly, or directly in Ukraine, and it is only a question of which one will get their hands on the riches. We do not support anyone in these wars, similar to that of 1914, which does not prevent us from affirming that the Ukrainian War finds its source in the fascist coup d'état of Maidan, nor that the champion of the USA, the Rwanda is totally behind the so-called local militias in Kivu, Congo.
The war in Palestine is of a completely different nature. It opposes a colonized people, the Palestinians, and a colonial state, Israel. We, communists, will never be able to put the Zionist state and the colonized people it oppresses on the same level. Colonialism has not disappeared from the Earth, it continues, but in different, neocolonialist forms, where multinationals overexploit indigenous workers directly or through governments in their service. In Palestine, we have a situation similar to that before decolonization, in the 19th and 20th centuries. This is the last place of the old version of colonialism, which is why it is more than important to end this colonial exploitation and free the Palestinians from this yoke.
The worker who wants peace and an end to the massacre of Palestinians
You seem to be saying that all Israelis are guilty. But those on the left, who demonstrate against the far right, are different. Not all Israelis are settlers; before October 7, there were no settlers in Gaza.
Furthermore, the French people as a whole were not responsible for the colonization of Algeria, the same is true for the Israeli people.
The activist of the Communist Revolutionary Party
Let us first clarify that the situation we are talking about is different from the colonization of Algeria by France in that the colonization is taking place within Palestine itself, the country that Jewish settlers partly occupied with aid from the British imperialists in 1948 and which the leaders wish to annex completely. Furthermore, French colonization in Algeria was a classic colonization of exploitation, while Israeli colonization in Palestine is a colonization of substitution, the aim of which is to kill or expel from the territory as many indigenous people as possible, not to keep than those who would agree to live on their knees.
Does this mean that all Israelis are guilty? That's not what we're saying. Those so-called “ Israeli Arabs ” are also considered second-class citizens in this apartheid state, they have no part in the colonization. There are also Israeli Jews who fight for real peace, for the rights of the Palestinians, but they are few in number. The Israeli Communist Party has a totally anti-colonialist position, it is not a Zionist party and we have deep respect for all its activists who fight day after day against colonization and the dehumanization of Palestinians. But a PCI deputy can be interrupted in his speech and chased out of the room by people from the Likud without anyone finding fault.
The question of the collective responsibility of a majority of Israelis arises more and more directly. For example, how can we appreciate the fact that hundreds of young people went to organize and participate in a party not far from the open-air prison in Gaza? A territory that has been the victim of a complete blockade for 17 years where young people of the same age were confined and had no right to participate in this celebration? It was Marx who said it: “ A people which oppresses another cannot be free ”.
The problem is Zionism which is a colonial project and the unilateral creation of the State of Israel in 1948, followed by the Nakba, between 700 and 800,000 Palestinians driven from their lands and their homes, with no possibility of return. , by the Zionist state, not to mention those who were killed, like the victims of the Deir Yassin massacre, perpetrated by the Irgun, one of the armed Jewish organizations.
The worker who wants peace and an end to the massacre of Palestinians
But there are also left-wing Zionists and the creation of the State of Israel was decided by the UN, with the positive vote of the USSR.
The activist of the Communist Revolutionary Party
We must return to history, to reestablish the truth which is not that of the media, neither in France, nor in other Western imperialist countries.
The history of the future State of Israel begins well before its creation. From the beginning of the 20th century, British and French imperialist leaders envisioned the total destruction of the then crumbling Ottoman Empire and planned the “ sale by carve-out ” that would follow. In 1907, the Liberal Prime Minister, Campbell Bannerman, set up a commission within the House of Commons to work on the issue. The conclusion is the need for the creation of a buffer state in the Middle East in order to protect the interests of British capitalist companies and the division of the Arab world. It was only 10 years later, in 1917, during the First World War, that the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Government of National Unity, the conservative Balfour, mentioned in his secret declaration, in order to continue to deceive the wrens Arabs who fight alongside the British army, the idea of creating a “ Jewish national home ” in Palestine. This statement is made in agreement with French leaders and Zionist leaders.
The Zionist project consists of finding a place where the greatest possible number of European Jews, the Ashkenazim, would settle and colonizing it. Several locations were considered, such as Uganda, Australia, etc. But Palestine corresponds to the mythologized Zionist narrative of a secularized Bible used as a historical document developed by the Zionist movement. What followed would be purchases of land from Ottoman or Arab landlords to accommodate Jewish settlers by British and even German Jewish bankers. The result is that, in British Mandatory Palestine, before the Second World War, there lived 1/3 Jews, including a few natives and a majority of emigrants from Central or Eastern Europe.
The UN Security Council votes to partition Mandatory Palestine with a Jewish state comprising 51% of the territory and an Arab state divided into pieces that do not communicate. Indeed, the USSR voted for this project. But, armed for a long time by the British, trained during the repression of the great Arab revolt between 1936 and 1939, the Jewish armed militias, the Haganah and the Irgun took over, driving out the occupants and causing the death of 76 % of the territory and self-proclaimed their State. What remained of Mandatory Palestine, the Gaza Strip, which had become Egyptian, which hosted a number of refugees, and the West Bank, then belonging to the Kingdom of Jordan, were conquered in 1967.
This is why we have published a short history of Palestine which is completely obscured by the dominant ideology [i] .
We insist: the project common to all Zionists is to annex these two territories to form the mythical “ Eretz Israel ” [ii] and to expel all the natives, whether by exile or by death. Golda Meir, then Labor Prime Minister, therefore symbol of so-called left Zionism, declared in 1969: “ We are being asked to evacuate the occupied territories; but there is no such thing: the Palestinian people do not exist. » ? All Zionism is a colonial project based on an original lie: “ A people without land for a land without people ”.
The worker who wants peace and an end to the massacre of Palestinians
But does this justify terrorism? You do not condemn Hamas, yet it is as responsible for the situation as Netanyahu, for the massacre committed on October 7. Don't you believe that this act of terrorists encouraged extremists in Israel to organize what you say is the Zionist project? And what do you say about the hostages?
The activist of the Communist Revolutionary Party
Regarding the attack of October 7, 2023, the first thing we say is that most of the people who talk about it, in any case all those who incriminate Hamas and speak of a massacre are based on a single and only version of events: that of the propaganda of the Zionist State of Israel. This story is forever unverifiable, however, precautions should have been taken by people of good faith, because the story is that of a lying State, built on an original lie, led by a world champion of lies: Netanyahu.
If this was not the case in France, in Israel itself, journalists, notably those from Haaretz, investigated and discovered anomalies. The destroyed houses on the kibbutz could not have been destroyed by small arms, but by tank shells. Who had tanks on October 7? To ask the question, is to answer it. There have been at least two testimonies from released Palestinian captives who saw the army shooting everyone, Palestinian fighters and Israeli captives alike. Some of the dead at the “rave party” were killed by helicopter fire. As for the mythical stories, they turned out to be false: firstly the legend of decapitated babies, which seems to be recurrent in the various war propaganda and that of rape. Note, on this last subject, that the New York Times wrote an incriminating article, without proof, in December 2023, announcing the launch of a major investigation and that we were going to see what we were going to see. The result is that last March, the same newspaper had to admit, in a new article, that neither their investigator nor the Israeli police had found a victim. So, we are not commenting on an event about which those who really know how it happened will never say so.
Then, all Zionist propaganda, widely relayed in our media, consists of making October 7 the beginning of something, without ever looking for the causes, outside of any context. However, nothing began on October 7, the attack by Palestinian fighters is an episode in the long colonial war that, since its creation, the Zionist state has been waging against the Palestinian people. This is not a start, but a response. The Palestinian fighters, who, it is worth remembering, belonged to 5 Palestinian organizations, including Hamas, but not only that, the Marxists were also there (PFLP and FDLP) came out of the cage where they had been locked up for 17 years and objectively allowed the Palestinian question, which everyone had slipped under the carpet, to come to light.
We do not use the term terrorist, straight out of the dominant ideology. It was used by all colonial states to discredit their armed opponents, in Algeria, South Africa and elsewhere. Mandela was a “terrorist” for the USA; not to mention the resistance “ terrorists ” so called by the Nazis. Finally, to quote Pierre Conesa, essayist and former senior civil servant: “ Terrorism is not an ideology, it is a means of action. It was George Bush, after September 11, 2001, who invented the concept of terrorism as an ideological trend . Let us add that this term allows Israel and its relays to assimilate Hamas to DAESH, while one is fighting to liberate a territory and the other is a fascist, mafia organization, used by dominant imperialism.
For us, Hamas is a Palestinian resistance organization. We are much closer to the PFLP, but the Palestinians recognize Hamas as such. And we believe that no one other than the Palestinians can decide who is a Palestinian resistance organization and who is not. Any Frenchman, in the name of Voltaire and so-called Human Rights, who claims that Hamas is not a resistance organization is demonstrating neocolonialism.
In itself, this act did not exacerbate the annexationist desires of the Zionists, the project of Greater Israel rid of the Palestinians has existed for more than a century, its implementation has been envisaged at least for twenty years. It would have taken place no matter what, with or without October 7 and would probably have been all the easier if the attack had not existed.
Finally, we do not use the word hostage, but captives, in a war we do not talk about hostages. In this regard, are the thousands of Palestinian prisoners without trial, or with a trial without any real possibility of defending themselves, where the verdict is already decided before the trial, hostages of the Zionists?
The worker who wants peace and an end to the massacre of Palestinians
So, Israel is responsible for everything, it finds no favor in your eyes. Don't you think that this position leads to anti-Semitism, since it denies the existence of Israel, the Jewish State, built for survivors of the Shoah? Moreover, many people who make speeches similar to yours are accused of anti-Semitism in France and accused of advocating terrorism.
The activist of the Communist Revolutionary Party
We said earlier why and by whom the State of Israel was built; as you can easily see, the idea predates the Holocaust. It is only used for propaganda purposes, it has been used by Zionist leaders since 1948 to justify land theft, colonial status and the apartheid regime.
Criticizing the colonial state, with an increasingly theocratic orientation of Israel, has nothing to do with anti-Semitism, it is anti-colonialism. We are aware, and others with us, that the existence of the State of Israel is the main obstacle to peace in Palestine. To say this is not to want to “ throw the Jews into the sea ”, but to campaign for a single secular state, with all the current occupants of the land of Palestine, and the return of the Palestinian refugees of 48 and after.
As for accusations of anti-Semitism in France, we are very clear. These accusations are nothing but an instrumentalization with a view to silencing the voices of the defenders of the Palestinian cause, not those who speak of a general, fictitious peace, without content, but those who, at a minimum, even if they do not speak not always a colonial state, denounce the responsibility of Israel.
As for the complaints for “apology of terrorism”, they are brought mainly by the “European Jewish Organization ”, which is made up of Zionist fascists, an ersatz of Betar. The goal of these people is well known, the famous Greater Israel by driving its original occupants from Palestine. And we also denounce the role played by the French state led by Macron, since Dupont-Moretti gave instructions for all complaints to be declared admissible. This is a crime of opinion. These people, the lackeys of French capitalists like the Zionists, are afraid. The global movement of solidarity with Palestine makes them fear for the future of their great work: the Zionist state rid of the Palestinians, thus being able to continue its role as policeman of the Middle East in the name of US imperialism.
The worker who wants peace and an end to the massacre of Palestinians
Don't believe in the two-state solution? However, it is supported by the entire French left. But then what do you propose?
The activist of the Communist Revolutionary Party
We do not believe in the so-called “ two-state solution ,” because it is an illusion. It's an illusion because no one wants it, neither Netanyahu, nor Biden and Macron, who say they are in favor of it. The first prevents the recognition of a Palestinian state through its veto, the second refuses any diplomatic or economic sanctions against the Zionist state.
This is an illusion because we already know what it is. The Palestinians of Gaza and the West Bank tested what was the solution developed by the Zionists in favor of two states with the Oslo Accords. The West Bank is as large as the department of Ardèche; in this territory, it has one hundred check points!!! And to give an example of what life can be like in this occupied territory in " peace " according to Oslo, a young woman resident in East Jerusalem, living with her parents, who moves to Ramallah to join her lover would lose her title of resident and, therefore, the right to see her parents. This is what the “ peace ” of the Oslo Accords is.
As for what the Communist Revolutionary Party demands, this is what we recall at the end of all our articles on Palestine.
The Palestinian question, the national liberation struggle of its people must remain the major concern of the people and workers of the world. Under these conditions, if it is urgent and fundamental to demand an immediate and permanent ceasefire, as well as free access for humanitarian workers throughout the Gaza Strip, or even the total withdrawal of the occupying forces from the enclave, that cannot be enough.
This is why the Communist Revolutionary Party intends to bring together all those who want an immediate ceasefire so that the massacre of the Palestinians stops and to speak out for peace. For us, this involves supporting the fundamental demands of the Palestinian national liberation movement: an immediate end to Zionist military aggression, the right of refugees to return and the formation of a Palestinian state on the territory of Mandatory Palestine.
[i] See:https://www.sitecommunistes.org/index.php/publications/documents/2538-palestine-ier-partie-guerre-israel-hamas-non
And :https://www.sitecommunistes.org/index.php/monde/proche-et-moyen-orient/2619-palestine-iieme-partie-guerre-israel-hamas-non-le-sionisme-mene-une-guerre- against-the-palestinian-people-for-over-a-century
[ii] Eretz Yisrael means land of Israel, an area comprising all of Palestine and parts of Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, the whole is said to represent the so-called State of Israel from the time of the legendary David and Solomon.