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  Zionism at the crossroads
 
 
 Many tears have been shed over Itzhak Rabin (peace to his torturous soul) and prayers directed to the heavens for the good understanding between Arafat and Netaniahu. Thousands of white doves have already left their little shit on the White House lawn. And yet, the politics Rabin conceived with Shimon Peres, and that Netaniahu seems now, if reluctantly, resigned to proceed, has nothing to do peace or with the political authonomy to the palestinian people. The idea is, and has always been, with the most blunt of cynicisms: separation or "separated development", which is the exact translation of the afrikans apartheid. This politics is issued from the contradictions that have always pervaded the fanciful racic zionist project and that stand at the base of its present state of unbalanced political and demographic dynamics. But first, lets make a bit of history.

Having behind it, no doubt, a multi-secular history of anti-semite persecussions (which curiously never occurred in the arab nations, home to many scattered jewish communities) it was in the XIX century that the jewish question, as a glowing political problem, was born in Europe. The jews in Europe have always performed a preponderant role in commerce. They were kind of hibrid of class/ethnic group, a phenomenon not at all uncommon historically, similar, for instance, to what happens today with some indian communities rooted in several countries of eastern Africa. This relationship was kept more or less steadily (except in the Iberian peninsula where the jews were expelled in the XVI century), with many frictions and some violent episodes, until it reached a point of rupture with the ascent of the european nationalist movement of the last century. The bourgeois political project has managed to, somehow, assimilate the jews in western Europe (after breaking their commercial monopoly) but entered in frontal collision with them in the central and eastern parts of the continent. In response to that, was the zionist movement born and officialy created in the Basel congress of 1897, presided by Theodor Herzl.

The idea of creating a home country for the jewish communities faced and tested several hypothesis besides Palestine, though this was naturally the first option. The zionist movement has even had talks with Salazar in view of a possible extensive colonization of the interior of Angola. To this day, Israel maintains vested interests in Africa. This episode is not merelly anecdotal. It illustrates the historical coincidence between the european political crisis caused by anti-semitism and the colonial hunting-party opened on the last quarter of the XIX century and known as imperialism's classical age. The temptation arised then, for solving this purely european problem by exporting it, as if part and parcel (which in a way it was) of the vast expansionist movement of the old continent, expressed in colonial ventures and strong migratory movements. Thus appeared the Balfour declaration of 1917 and, with it, the start of the jewish colonization of Palestine under the british mandate. After WW II, and the revelation of the whole extension of the nazi barbarism, the movement couldn't be stopped, burdening the shoulders of the arab palestinian people with all the weight of the expiation for the unspeakable crimes of the white man. And so the state of Israel was proclaimed in 1948, now under the patronage of the United States, achieved and consolidated by the most brutal and relentless ethnic cleansing.

Meanwhile, the movement of biblical "return" to Palestine was relatively modest, in comparaison with other much more atractive destinies common to the generality of the european emigration of the turn of the century: America and Oceania, particularly the United States. It was here, particularly on the east coast, that an important jewish colony was formed. Today, it has tremendous influence in Washington and is a fundamental articulation of all the yankee imperialist policy for the Middle East. Israel is the darling of the rich american jewish bourgeoisie, a kind of summer motherland in an exotic place, filled with all sorts of historical and "spiritual" evocations. Purely ideological considerations have their importance, even in geo-strategical questions. On the other hand, the north-american bourgeoisie (jewish and non-jewish alike) uses Israel as a fundametal lever for its policy in all this strategic area.

I'm hardly an expert in jewish history but it's quite clear to me that there is no jewish people as such, measured by any scientifically valid criterion, be it biological or cultural. What we have is a jewish religious tradition, spread among several communities resident in Europe, America, Africa and the Middle East. The zionist ideology though is based on a fantasy of race and off-spring, well reflected on Israel's law of "return". As a nationalist project, zionism is atypical in many ways. It didn't grow in place but was grafted there. It could easily be subsumed in the more global colonial phenomenon. But it has nonetheless some special characteristics which granted its survival so far: a strong nationalist project and the support of the U.S.A. (the "anti-colonial" power) as opposed to european sponsorship.

The nucleus of the israelite project is, naturally, the colony that came from eastern Europe (the ashkenazim). They, along with a few people coming from America and western Europe, occupy the upper echelons in israeli society, giving it its distinctly "western" character. The majority of the population, however, is formed of communities that came from arab countries, mostly maghrebians (the sephardim). Black ethiopians (falashas) and ex-soviets immigrants are other important and distinct groups. To all these "jews" we must add a residual but not neglectable component of arab inhabitants of israeli citizenship. Since a new wave of emigration to Israel is not predictable, these will be the components with which the zionist leaders will have to compose a nation in territory conquered by force of arms, in a totally strange continent, subject to the mounting demographic pressure of the surrounding arab populations that grow at a much superior rate.

Only the permanent tension with an external and internal (on the occupied territories) enemy allows yet to maintain a semblance of unity and common purpose in the israeli society. It's also that state of affairs that explains a remarkable particularity of israeli electoral sociology: the poor - including 2/3 of the sephardim - vote generally on the right wing parties (eager to reinforce their caste superiority towards the palestinians and arab israelis with whom they compete directly on the work market), while the upper and medium strata generally trust on Labour, that is after all the historical party of zionism. Social polarization and a rigid stratification along ethno-cultural lines have continuously rised in the jewish society. The existence of a sizeable, fanatical and well organized ultra-religious community puts serious obstacles to the very constitutional definition of the israeli state. Finally, 18% of the israeli population lives bellow the absolute poverty line.

It's all these nightmares that explain the beligerant and arrogant politics of "Bibi" when, from the point of view of "pure" international politics, nothing apparently justifies it. The question is open then: will he go to the point of abandoning altogether the Peres-Rabin project of a palestinian bantustization, with total political separation? This is clearly the project of the israeli bourgeoisie and the imperialist pressure in that sense is also steady, if benevolent. But the electoral base of Likud (colons, sephardims, etc.) and the religious integralists are pressing for something more akin to total annexation of the occupied territories.

The poles of zionism's present dilemma have therefore a base and a well defined social content. The objective of ashkenazim bourgeoisie (in the impossibility of simply expelling altogether the near to 3 million palestinians and arab israelis still living on the territory of the old palestinian mandate) is to maintain and strenghten the "western" identity of the country, by jettisoning the burden of a costly military occupation and avoiding the dangers of the palestinian demographic pressure on its cherished jewish "national" identity. The sephardims and other poor jews, however, segregated in their own adopted country by not so subtle forms of daily discrimination, don't feel the israeli national question in quite the same way. This was the "secret" of Likud's electoral victory. Being, for the moment, the stratum more prey to chauvinist rethoric and a faithful support for the "falcons", they could bring, in other circonstances, an important contribute to building a politics of transnational class unity that can, ultimately, transform the political definition of the israeli state.

After the signing of the deal on Al Jalil (Hebron) things looked to be set, with the high patronage of the U.S.A., for a solution of the palestinian question somewhat intermediary between the two tendencies in dispute. The political balance is very unstable now, following the Bar-On scandal. It could either go the way of a national unity government or of a right wing radicalization. In this last case, however, war is innevitable and that wouldn't please the U.S.A. a little bit. So we are likely to continue to see Netanyahu - with Clinton's complacence - pressing the palestinians for more concessions, well on the limit of an innevitable rupture but without crossing it.

This will give us a scenario of Oslo with the adding of a few supplementary refinements of humiliation for Arafat and his "authority". Palestinian political authonomy will be restricted and Israel will do extensive annexations of territory in Cisjordan, including all of Jerusalem and the most important natural ressources. The jewish state will have control over the palestinian's borders and air traffic. For "security" reasons naturally. It will control and aprove all of its foreign trade. There will be no palestinian army. There will be tutellary military and security accords, with important israeli military bases being left behind permanently. The jewish settlements will stay, or even be enlarged. A modern network of roads will shread all of Cisjordan, linking the main settlements to the israeli cities, leaving the arab towns and villages entirely marginalized in its depressed intestices. Most importantly, no sizeable return will be allowed of the palestinian refugees (waves of 1948 and 1967). Rabin's legacy or, as Peres said in his last electoral campaign, the "national imperative" will be, thus, respected on its fundamental lines.

Arafat has no way out, after having come this far. His dreams are now to buid "a kind of Benelux with Israel and Jordan". This candour is almost obscene. It's unbelievable that he doesn't see that he is to become the foreman and super-cop on a giant township of ultra-explored and nationally humiliated workers, a filthy and infected dormitory with no authonomous economic life of its own. IMO, this simulacrum of a palestinian state is not the solution that best suits the interests of the proletariat and poor masses of Cisjordan and the Gaza strip. The arab palestinian people should get rid of its notoriously corrupt elites and unite with the jewish working class, forming a vast popular alliance of all oppressed "national" fragments living in present day Palestine. Only this alliance could pluck away the israeli state from zionism and imperialism, integrating it, as a lay and multi-national state, in a peaceful and harmonious way, with all the peoples of that region.

Unfortunately, this can not be accomplished all of a sudden. For this movement to take place the internal contradictions of the zionist project have yet to explode. As we have seen, peace itself of some sort could be instrumental on this. For it to have consistency, however, it would be important to have the fall of the saudian house and the other monarchies of the Golf, followed by a - regenerative - second wave of arab nationalism throughout the region (Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq) and also in the Maghreb. The autocratic and corrupt elites should be wiped away by an ample grass-roots movement, on which a place of some relevance should be given to the independent organizations of the proletariat.

For all this to happen though, it is necessary start by snatching the banner of popular protest away from the hands of the islamic foundamentalists and other reaccionaries. The zionist-imperialist agression produces and feeds continuously the moslem integralism. From Algeria to Afghanistan, the strategic alliance of these two false enemies is everyday more difficult to desguise. To break this vicious circle, reintegrating the proletariat and the popular masses of the arab nations among the vast world community of peoples in struggle against imperialism, that is the challenge for the next decades.

 

 

 

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