The 1936-39 Arab general strike in Palestine: Working class solidarity and socialism is the only way forward.

The absence of the working class as an independent force on the world stage is adding to the confusion of the left, socialist and otherwise. And by accepting this situation and basing itself accordingly, to the extent that it has any real influence the left is making the situation worse. The left’s response to Israel’s genocide and ethnic cleansing is exhibit number one. In San Jose, California, left supporters of

The call for a rally in San Jose, CA. The text included support for “al Aqsa Flood”

Palestine held a rally on the occasion of the third anniversary of October 7. The call for the rally actually supported Hamas’s “al Aqsa flood” – Hamas’s code name for its Oct. 7 attack. In New York City, left opponents of Israel chanted “long live Hamas” at a similar event. They also booed Mamdani for his criticism of Oct. 7. This is sectarian childishness at best. Rather than consider the traditional methods and organizations through which the working class can lead a struggle, much of the left supports right wing terrorist organizations and methods.

Others don’t go to quite such childish extremes (although in general they don’t object to those extremes). For example, they repeat that “Israel has no right to exist.” What nation has a “right to exist?” Does the United States? Does Russia or China or the UK or India or Myanmar? What nation was not patched together by one imperialist power and/or dominant ethnic or national group?  It’s as if morality has anything to do with anything. Power is what matters, and just like all other nations Israel has the power to exist. “Right and wrong” is best left to the petit bourgeois moralists. Power will be the concern of the working class movement, when it enters the stage of history.

Resolution of Green Party of England and Wales
Rather than engage in a serious study of actual history – historic materialism – the petit bourgeois moralists engage in drawing up abstract formulae. An example of this was the resolution on Zionism recently pushed through at a British Green Party convention. The resolution revolved around statements like “Zionism is a political ideology which called for the creation – and, now it exists, the continuity – of an ethnonationalist Jewish State in historic Palestine to the exclusion and/or domination of the non-Jewish population…. The practice of Zionist ideology, promoting ethnonationalism, privileges one ethnic group on the basis of the subjugation of others. Zionism is Israel’s foundational ideology.”

This isn’t wrong, but it is just preaching to the choir.  Rather than abstract formulae, what is needed is a brief explanation of the history of Zionism:

• How it developed as a right wing European movement in opposition to the Jewish socialist Bund;
•  How it always depended on the political and military protection first of the Ottoman empire and then the British empire;
• How from the very start its aim was to drive Arabs off of their land and out of the workplaces;
• How the first Zionist to propose an independent state – Jabotinsky – was an overt fascist;
• How it never had a real base among European Jews until the rise of the Nazis;
• How tens of thousands of Jews who were fleeing the Nazis only settled in Palestine because of Stalin’s alliance with Hitler up until 1941, when the Nazis invaded Russia, plus the fact that Britain and the United States barred the Jewish refugees.

This is not an exhaustive list of the history, but it indicates the general approach. Workers and young people who are repulsed by Israel’s genocide and ethnic cleansing but don’t know much about and aren’t necessarily opposed to Zionism per se would find this educational and interesting. Instead, the authors of the resolution indulge in the same old echo-chamber methods.

The Green Party resolution calls for “a single democratic Palestinian state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea with equal rights for all.” If the Green Party wants to win wider support, then it must consider British public opinion. Not that it has to bow down to it, but it must consider it. It is hard to find polls that tell us for sure, but according to a google search about 65% of Britons support the “two state solution” vs. 7% who oppose it; 24% support the single state while 37% oppose it. Therefore, if the Green Party is going to call for a single state, it must explain why it does not support the “two state solution”. Simply making the assertion is entirely inadequate, unless the Green Party wants to just join the left echo chamber.

Here is the answer:

Ever since Israel signed the Oslo Accords, Israeli government policy has been to create “facts on the ground” to make an independent Palestinian state impossible. They have done this by expanding the settlements year after year. Also, given the present direction of Israeli public sentiment, even if a Palestinian state were created, it seems most likely this would be followed by mass ethnic cleansing within Israel – something similar to what happened after the partition of India and Pakistan. Finally, an “independent” Palestinian state would be at the economic – and therefore political – mercy of both Israel and the other states in the region including the Arab states, Iran and Turkey.

The absence of even trying to explain their position leaves the suspicion that the writers of the resolution think that a moral rejection of the existence of any Jewish state is adequate. It may be adequate for the echo chamber; it is not for a political party which wants to make a broader appeal, especially to working class voters.

Single Palestinian State
The resolution calls for “a single democratic Palestinian State between the Jordan river and the Mediterranean Sea with equal rights for all.” At the very best, that is tone deaf. No matter how it is dressed up by calling for such a state to be “democratic” and “with equal rights for all”, millions will hear “Palestinian State” and interpret that to mean that Israeli Jews must leave. In fact, how could such a state ever be achieved, given the racism that is growing within the Israeli population? By calling for a “Palestinian” state, and by ignoring that question entirely, the suspicion is left that the proponents think it can be accomplished by forcing it down the throats of the Israelis, meaning by military force. In the first place, that is impossible. Who, after all, could force it upon the Israelis? One of the Arab armies? None of those regimes even has the slightest interest in fighting to defend the Palestinian people. And even if any did, Israel would defend itself up to and including the use of nuclear arms. Could Hamas or some group like them defeat Israel militarily? Even if that were possible, which it is not, what would remain is a smoking pile of rubble ruled over by a government that is even worse than the Israeli regime.

Silent on Hamas
The resolution is silent on Hamas and its methods, including the October 7, 2023 attack. Those methods are foreign to the traditions of the working class. They have never succeeded in ending dictatorships nor repression and these methods have utterly failed in the struggle against Zionist ethno/religious nationalist repression. The Palestinians’ struggle against that repression is led by the Arab capitalists. That includes Hamas, which officially opposes both working class unity and “communism” and is financed by the capitalists of the region. Some argue that socialists in “the West” should support any group that oppressed people support, in this case the Palestinians and Hamas. By that logic, those socialists would have had to support Zionism after the rise of the Nazis since that is the group most European Jews supported at that time!

The fact that it was the Zionists who drove the Arab workers and small farmers into the arms of the Arab capitalists and landowners is not the point. The point is where do we go from here? What force has the potential power to liberate the Palestinian people and in what context?

Revolution is never practical, until…
The great Irish revolutionary James Connolly wrote that “revolution is never practical – until the hour of the revolution strikes. Then it alone is practical, and all the efforts of the conservatives, and compromisers become the most futile and visionary of human imaginings.” Nowhere is that more true than in South West Asia North Africa (SWANA), which we call the “Middle East”. All other methods have failed miserably. Terrorist attacks on civilian populations have failed. Negotiations have failed. Dependence on various capitalist outsiders from the U.S. to the Arab States and Iran have failed. After over 100 years, the Arab people of Palestine are further from ending Zionist oppression than ever. That is the result of these failed methods.

The Syrian revolution as part of the Arab Spring: a step towards the alternative to individual terrorism and capitulation.

Arab Spring
The Arab Spring, which started in Tunisia in 2011 and spread like wildfire throughout the region gives a hint at what can succeed. It showed what is possible. A new Arab Spring led by the working class, one which is based on international working class solidarity and socialism would transform the region, including transforming the situation in Israel-Palestine. Inside Israel, there are still Israelis who abhor the Israeli fascist threat and are speaking out against Israeli genocide and ethnic cleansing. A working class socialist Arab Spring would inspire and strengthen those Israelis. It would also give them a basis for a wider appeal to the Israeli working class. Such a renewed Arab Spring would also provide the alternative to both Hamas and the PLO. Internationally, it would transform the left and undercut both the influence of Zionism and of Putin.

We are not saying that anybody has to wait until such a revolution breaks out. On the contrary. There must be forces and groups – even just individuals – in the region who are receptive to the idea of international working class solidarity and socialism. There must be among Jews and Arabs, among Persians, Turks and Kurds and many others as well. It is among those groups and individuals that the basis can start to be laid to end the crimes of  both Zionism and of capitalism in general.

To those who say this is dreaming, we reply: “Every approach of yours in the last analysis is based on a capitalist solution. It has been a complete disaster. It is you who are engaging in fantasies.” In his book Days of Love and Rage, which is about the Syrian revolution, Anand Gopal wrote: “revolution is precisely one of those extraordinary events that can render impractical ideas workable and unthinkable ideas thinkable.” The same applies in this case.

Let us stop reserving socialism for minor reforms and holiday speechifying. Let us apply working class revolutionary socialism to the very real problems of today, including in Israel-Palestine and in South West Asia North Africa as a whole. For a socialist Israel-Palestine as part of a socialist federation of the Middle East/SWANA.

Further reading
For further reading see Michael Donnelly’s “This Small Planet” on support for Hamas within the pro-Palestine movement.

Also see Oaklandsocialist’s What is Hamas? How did it originate? Should socialists give it any support?

The 1936-39 Arab general strike in Palestine: Working class solidarity is the only way forward.