Zionism

http://www.marxists.org/archive/cliff/works/1982/04/isrviol.htm

But the antagonism to the Arabs remained central. No Arab ever entered the kibbutz movement, the so called “socialist” collective farms. The majority of Jewish-owned land belonged to the Jewish National Fund, whose constitution forbade Arab tenants. This meant in whole areas the original Arab populations were driven out.

When I left Palestine in 1946 Tel Aviv, a city of 300,000, had absolutely no Arab residents. Imagine arriving in Nottingham, a similar sized town to Tel Aviv, and finding no English people.

Moshe Dayan, Israel’s defence minister, spent two months in South Vietnam in 1966 advising the American puppet government. Israel supplied arms to Chile, to Ian Smith’s Rhodesia, and to all the countries upon which US president Carter placed an arms embargo for human rights violations.

Israel’s security police advised the Shah of Iran, while its scientists developed nuclear weapons with South Africa. Some people argue oppression always leads to progress. The Jews were horribly oppressed but it didn’t guarantee they became progressive or revolutionary. Indeed, oppression associated with lack of power leads to reaction. When the core of Zionism meant separation from all progressive forces, from the revolutionary forces in Russia to the anti-imperialist forces in the Middle East, the rest of the tale followed naturally.

Now Israel is collaborating with the Phalangists in Lebanon, an openly fascist organisation. I’m not surprised. I remember the 1930s when Begin’s (now Israel’s prime minister) organisation, the Irgun, used the Hitler salute and wore the brown shirts.

The Arab working class is the only power in the Middle East which can stop Zionism and smash imperialism. The existing state can’t do it. The king of Saudi Arabia collaborates completely with America because of oil interests.

The Assad regime in Syria is corrupt and unstable, depending on Saudi Arabian subsidies, while the Egyptian regime rests on millions of impoverished workers and peasants. Millions of workers live in shanty towns and millions of peasants suffer terrible diseases because they lack even basic amenities of sanitation and fresh water.

These regimes can’t fight anything – let alone Zionism and imperialism. The Palestine Liberation Organisation depends on Saudi Arabian money and Syria for physical survival. All the bravery of the PLO guerillas can only lead to an impasse. Arab workers are the key. The Egyptian working class is at least the size of Russia’s working class in 1917. These workers have the power to change the Middle East.