Short video/slideshow: We need to think through what is the long term resolution to ending Zionist oppression. It seems to me that it must be on a regional basis and that the Iranian revolution can play the key role. Here’s why: (Note: see text below)

While we organize to oppose Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza, it is important to think through how the struggle against Zionism can be resolved.

Joe Biden give war criminal Netanyahu a hug as they meet in Israel

Joe Biden and the entire Democratic Party, including its “peace and justice” wing led by the likes of Barbara Lee, call for the “two state solution”. We need to think about that. Biden has made it perfectly clear what he means by it. “Two countries for two peoples,” he’s said. In other words, partition.

There is a history to partition, going back to when Britain left the Indian subcontinent in 1947. At that time, they created “two states for two people” – India for the Hindus and Pakistan for the Muslims. In the first place, there was a bloody reckoning as millions of Muslims were driven out of India. Nor have the longer term results been any better:

Pakistan is ruled by a reactionary, corrupt and repressinve government in which the military, linked with Islamic fundamentalists, is supreme.

Narendra Modi, the Hindu bigot

As for India, the present Prime Minister – Narendra Modi- was largely responsible for the Hindutva riots in Gujarat in 2002. Those riots left over 1200 Moslems dead and some 2500 injured. Today, India is in effect a theocratic regime, run along the lines of Hindu supremacy. Nor is it any accident that Modi is probably Netanyahu’s closest ally.

And how about Israel and its approximately 2 million Palestinians within its border? They compose about 20% of Israel’s total population, and repression against them has increased already. If there were a partition, they would face a fate similar to the Moslems in India in 1947. And in any case, a Palestinian state would be economically and politically dominated by Israel.

But we don’t have to worry about that because Israel’s creating of “facts on the ground” – the settlements throughout the West Bank – make an independent state in that area impossible.

Then there is the call for a single, non-theocratic state with equal rights for all in the entire region – the West Bank, Israel and Gaza, although what would happen with the Golan Heights – which rightfully is part of Syria – is never discussed.

Such a goal would under present circumstances run flat into the deep racism of the great majority of Jews in Israel. And it would be impossible to overcome that racism by force of arms. Who, after all, would organize and lead such a force – al Sisi of Egypt? Assad of Syria? Bin Salman of Saudi Arabia? Or some non-state actor like Hezbollah?

With the exception of the last, the rest have proven that they prefer to strike a deal with Israel rather than oppose it. And anyway, a state controlled by any of them would hardly be an improvement. And there is no chance that Hezbollah could come anywhere close to defeating the Israeli army in an all-out battle. As a non-state actor, they lack an airforce, for one thing.

In any case, any attempt to impose a military “single state solution” on Israel would bind the Israeli working class even closer to the capitalist class, which means even greater racism. It would be fought to the bitter, bitter end, including the use of nuclear arms if they felt it necessary.

These are the reasons why there is a declining belief that inside Israel – including among Palestinians – there is any solution to the conflict. It is also the reason why we must see the issue on a different basis – on a regional basis and linked with the independent role of the regional working class and also linked with socialism.

The Arab Spring was a start, and it had an effect even inside Israel. There, a layer of youth in Tel Aviv staged an occupation to protest against high housing costs. It’s true that the political basis of the protest was extremely limited and didn’t take up the issue of “housing” for Palestinians – the fact that they’re having their land confiscated in the West Bank. But there is no way that that it was just a coincidence that that housing protest happened at the same time as the Arab Spring.

A stumbling block is that any regional Arab protests against Israel’s genocidal war and the fact that the regional governments are doing little or nothing… any such protests would likely be influenced by nationalism and religious fundamentalism. So, the question is: How could the independent role of the working class and socialism find its way into such protests?

Protests against the theocratic state of Iran.

For that answer, we should look to the huge and important countro of Iran. There, the “women, life, freedom” protests are still going on. These protests include opposition to all forms of bigotry – male supremacy, homophobia, and oppression of national minorities. Since they are directly against the theocratic state of Iran, the population has been thoroughly inocculated against Islamic fundamentalism.

How about the question of socialism? In Syria, for example, Assad associates himself with socialism, so there is a certain amount of skepticism against it. And it’s true that the betrayal of the Tudeh – Iran’s communist party – is not forgotten. There, in 1979, the Tudeh supported Khomeini. But even with that, there simply is not the same prejudice against socialism as there is in Syria.

So, a successful revolution in Iran could have a huge impact on the entire region, especially if it is led by the independent role of the working class and if socialism starts to be discussed. That includes in Israel itself, especially if that revolution is entirely hostile to Zionism but reaches out the entire working class of the region on a class basis.

All the world’s imperialist powers would be hostile to and seek to undermine such a revolution. That includes the U.S., Russia, and China. But that means that such a revolution would have a huge impact in all three of those countries.

So, the conclusion is that as we are organizing to oppose Israel’s genocidal war, and to oppose U.S. support for that war, we should find ways to link that up with support for the regional movements, especially that in Iran. We should link up our protests against Israeli genocide with support for the ongoing revolution in Iran.