A-Infos (en) UK, ACG, Jackdow #21 - No statist solutions in Israel & Palestine (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

The solution to the conflict can ultimately only be a common, classless 
and stateless society in which people of different religious (and 
non-religious) and ethnic backgrounds can coexist peacefully. The way to 
achieve this can only be through class struggle, with workers uniting on 
both sides to improve their situation and thereby overcoming long-held 
resentments. It is the task of the libertarian communist movement to 
push for exactly this. ---- On both sides of the conflict there are 
actors who see things fundamentally differently, who either want to see 
one side eradicated from the area or pushed back by the settlement 
policy and are prepared to sacrifice the lives of non-combatants in the 
fight for their own interests. We reject both, as it is at the expense 
of the proletarians and only serves to deepen the divisions within the 
class. Resistance is needed against both the Israeli state and the 
Palestinian leadership.

Resistance against the Israeli settlement policy is necessary and 
justified, but this can often be accompanied by anti-Semitic resentment 
and attacks on the non-combatant population. We must reject this. 
Similarly, in other countries, sympathy for the plight of ordinary 
Palestinians and opposition to the Israeli State's attacks on them can 
sometimes attract anti-Semitic fellow travellers, or slogans such as 'We 
are all Hamas.' These elements must be shunned.

We reject the Two State solution, backed even by some socialists, where 
there would be an Israeli and a Palestinian state co-existing. This 
would mean a few shabby Palestinian enclaves, with those Palestinians 
still living in Israel living as at the best second class citizens, and 
those living in Jordan, Lebanon and other Middle East countries 
abandoned altogether.

A One State Solution would produce a constant struggle over which 
bourgeoisie would control the State apparatus. The two sides distrust 
each other so much there would be no peace.

For us, all nation states should be rejected. As our comrades of the 
Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group have written: "The liberation of the 
Palestinian people, without merely reversing the terms of oppression, 
can only come about through a workers' revolution to abolish capitalism 
completely, to make the land and all social resources the common 
property of all, abolishing inequality and all forms of oppression. 
Given the present situation in Israel/Palestine, this is not on the 
immediate agenda, but it does not deny the necessity of the solution. In 
practical circumstances, the initiative will have to come from the 
outside, through workers' revolution in the surrounding Arab countries, 
most importantly Egypt, which has a large working class already. It is 
essential, however, for those workers' revolutions to transcend the 
nationalism of the countries in which they occur, since it is only 
internationalism which will allow the workers to defeat their own 
capitalist rulers; it is only internationalism which will allow Arab 
workers to reach out in friendship to the workers of Israel; and only 
internationalism which can break the Israeli working class from its 
Zionist rulers. The task before the workers of Palestine and Israel is 
thus no different from the task here. It is only to be conducted in more 
difficult circumstances. We must build a working class movement, based 
on liberty, equality and solidarity, and fight for a revolution which 
will re-make society on the same principles. We must abolish capitalism 
and its State, and we must recognise the folly of building another State 
in its wake. We must build Libertarian Communism."

Together with the Russian-Ukraine war, the conflict between Armenia and 
Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh, and the growing tensions of China, 
Taiwan, and the US in the pacific, this most recent conflict in 
Israel-Palestine feeds into the threat to accelerate into a world war.

The USA and its allies, including in the UK, with the Labour Party, are 
openly backing Israel. Trump has followed Biden in giving carte blanche 
to Israel for its siege and attacks on Gaza. Netanyahu, leader of a 
coalition government that includes far right parties in Israel, 
threatens to turn Gaza into "a deserted island."

The attacks by Hamas resulting in many hundreds of dead have created a 
feeling of national unity and has temporarily shored up the weak 
position of the Netanyahu government. This had faced nine months of 
agitation, including a general strike, over unpopular judicial reforms. 
Similarly, Hamas only had minority support in the Gaza Strip, but the 
recent events have boosted this.

This escalation of the conflict in which Israel is the dominant 
aggressor requires international solidarity with the resistance of the 
Palestinian working class. It must also be acknowledged by all who 
strive for the freedom of the Palestinian working class that Hamas, 
being a reactionary Islamist organisation (suppressors of workers 
struggle in Gaza and in league with repressive governments in the region 
such as Iran) will never be able to ensure their liberation. As 
libertarian communists, we are opposed to the Israeli state as we are 
also opposed to Hamas as both are entities that ultimately stand in the 
way of the liberation of the Palestinian working class and the class 
unity of all workers in the region.

The working class of Gaza, and Palestine more generally, occupy a unique 
position in the political economy of Israel. As colonial subjects who 
are racialised and dehumanised by the state of Israel (driven by the 
ethno-religious-nationalist ideology of Zionism) in order to justify its 
presence in the land to which they are indigenous, they represent the 
most oppressed section of the working class. This status is used as a 
corollary to their exploitation by the capitalist class of Israel, which 
is reliant upon the devaluation of their labour in order to obtain 
profits, and keep the Israeli proletariat invested in the Israeli state. 
There is a long history of industrial action by Palestinian Arabs. Most 
significantly there is strong political awareness among the Palestinian 
working class. A feature of the 2021  demonstrations were that they 
were: An extraordinary feature of the demonstrations is that they are 
primarily "organized not by political parties or figures, but by young 
Palestinian activists, neighbourhood committees, and grassroots 
collectives". (From +972 Magazine: https:// 
www.972mag.com/sheikh-jarrah-palestinian-youth/www.972mag.com/sheikh-jarrah-palestinian-youth/).

However, this potential was crushed by the violence of the Israeli 
state, which in attacking Gaza attack a population which has a median 
age of 18, with the overwhelming majority suffering from PTSD or other 
mental-health conditions. These conditions are caused by the history of 
Israeli occupation, which sees Palestinian Arabs as a population which 
is inconvenient and undesirable to its aim of maintaining the Israeli state.

Trade unions within Israel have traditionally excluded Palestinian 
workers, with the main trade union centre Histadrut excluding Arab 
workers and contributing to their exploitation as a method of improving 
the material advancement of the Israeli workers they represent. There is 
thus a hierarchy within the Israeli Jewish/ Palestinian-Arab working 
class in which the racialised Palestinian Arab working-class occupy the 
lowest position. This racialisation is also played out within Israeli 
Jewish society, with Mizrahi (those of Middle-Eastern, North African or 
West and Central Asian ancestry; this label being created with the state 
of Israel) Jews generally being markedly poorer than their Ashkenazi 
counterparts, a factor which has led to them comprising a large 
proportion of the lifestyle settlers - those receiving economic 
inducements to settle on Palestinian land. This racialisation enacted by 
the Israeli state which functions in order to stratify the working class 
with the aim of preventing its unity is a prime example of how colonial 
ideology both perpetuates and relies upon capitalism. Furthermore, it 
signifies the limits of nationalism and trade-unionism, demonstrating 
that the nation state necessarily relies upon the exclusion and 
exploitation of certain groups in the working class.

We thus see support of the resistance of the Palestinian working class 
to the Israeli state as a prerequisite to a revolutionary movement in 
the region and believe that such a movement will require the Israeli 
working class to reject an alignment with the Israeli state in favour of 
class solidarity with Palestinians and the working classes of 
surrounding nations. However, currently this is unlikely due to the 
chauvinism of the Israeli Jewish working class, which arises from its 
materially privileged status over the Palestinian working class. In 
complicity with this dynamic the Israeli Jewish working-class are 
shamefully complicit with the oppression of the Palestinian proletariat, 
with whom in reality they have far more in common than their Israeli bosses.

The organisation of Hamas operates in the context of terror and 
repression enforced on the Palestinian working class by the state of 
Israel. Their rise in popularity speaks to the suppression of working 
class Palestinian organisation, both by Israel and Hamas itself. The 
situation in Gaza is one of material deprivation and political and state 
violence resulting in extreme fear and heightened emotion: a climate in 
which reactionary groups such as Hamas can spread their influence and 
authority. This must be stated clearly in order to understand that the 
context of the conflict which is occurring today is a manifestation of 
the level of violence to which the population of Gaza has been 
historically subject to by the Israeli state. This allows us to 
understand that the cessation, not an escalation of violence by the 
Israeli state, is required in order to create the conditions under which 
Hamas can lose influence.

We affirm the right and necessity of the Palestinian working class to 
resist the Israeli state, including through the method of revolutionary 
struggle. The priority is the building of a revolutionary workers 
movement which can distinguish itself from the nationalist forces. This 
affirmation exists alongside a condemnation of a deliberate targeting of 
civilians by Hamas, which obscures the terms of resistance and does not 
advance the struggle. We believe that any proposed solutions which rest 
upon the existence of a state or states will ultimately perpetuate 
oppressive class societies. It is for this reason that we reject the 
idea of liberation under a national banner and thus call upon the 
international working class to organise in support and defence of their 
Palestinian counterparts.

We see thousands slaughtered. These horrendous scenes that we see in the 
media may just be an appalling opener to even worse bloodshed and 
destruction.

Against the barbarism of capitalism and the march towards world war we 
call for working class unity, internationalism and preparation for mass 
movements that can implement social revolution and create libertarian 
communism.

NO WAR BUT THE CLASS WAR!

https://www.anarchistcommunism.org/2025/04/14/palestine-antimiltarist-jackdaw-special-out-now/
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