31.07.2002

Simplistic anti-imperialism and two states

Twenty-five people turned up to the July 23 Leeds Socialist Alliance debate on Israel/ Palestine. I must admit to thinking at one stage that December 1 had not happened due to the surprising but welcome visit of comrades from the Socialist Party, along with the absence of many of the usual Socialist Workers Party comrades. The Alliance for Workers' Liberty and their contacts also turned out in larger numbers than usual. After we had dealt with our business we moved on to the debate. Clearly this had drawn people not normally regulars at Leeds SA. Phil Goodfield of SWP kicked off with a stinging attack on Zionism and the history of the state of Israel. Comrade Goodfield, a jew, clearly feels passionate about solidarity for the Palestinian cause and the injustices perpetrated by the Israeli state. For comrade Goodfield there is a clear link between the state of Israel and imperialism. Israel was "the creation of imperialism" and therefore one cannot argue for Israeli self-determination. According to the comrade, to do so would be to back imperialism. The PLO's willingness to acknowledge the state of Israel was a demonstration of their weakness, he said - we must argue for a democratic, secular Palestine. To do anything else would be to fail the anti-imperialist struggle - a struggle that is taking place around the world and whose centre of resistance is the Palestinian uprising. Comrade Goodfield, although recognising the growing solidarity movement in Israel, argued that it still backed an Israeli state and he asserted that the Israeli working class and progressive forces must be "broken from imperialism". He did not elaborate on how this was to be done. Pat Murphy of the AWL was our second speaker. What he lacked in passion he made up for in analysis. He made it clear that the debate was not about whether one supported the Palestinian struggle or not, but was about how socialists should intervene in the solidarity movement and what politics they should argue for. Comrade Murphy then went straight onto the offensive against comrade Goodfield's line. According to comrade Murphy, in classical Marxist analysis there were two positions on the rights of nations: firstly, there was the position espoused by Rosa Luxemburg that adopted a principled stand against nationalism - to the exclusion of any support for struggles for self-determination; and, secondly, there was the position of Lenin who, whilst critiquing nationalism, was against national oppression and for the democratic right of nations to self-determination. Comrade Murphy argued that the SWP appears to introduce a new position that chooses which nations have the right to self-determination. It was not good enough to say because Israel was oppressing the Palestinians it had no right to exist. Does that mean that because the Iraqi state oppresses the Kurds it also has no right to exist? He also addressed comrade Goodfield's view of Zionism. Zionism was the result of anti-semitism and the failure of the European left to defeat Nazism. Zionism grew in popularity after the holocaust and to equate Zionism with racism was simplistic and dangerous. The USA's relationship with Israel was also more complex than comrade Goodfield allowed - Murphy argued that the primary reason for US support for Israel was the powerful jewish lobby in the US. The US did not initially provide support for Israel - in fact it was countries from the eastern bloc that initially armed the Israeli state. Imperialism's relationship with different states often vacillates. For comrade Murphy socialists should be seeking to "drain the poison out of communal conflicts". Our job was to think of rational strategies for advancing the struggle for socialism, not to repeat simplistic anti-imperialist propaganda. The two-states argument provides a slogan that can relate to all people in the area. It involves conciliation and compromise, but most importantly it is a slogan around which the Arab and Israeli working class can unite. The issue is to build a position that can be developed as an independent socialist response - recognising the complexities of the issue rather than collapsing into an ideology of goodies and baddies. He also made the observation that proportionately the biggest and most impressive Palestine solidarity movement outside the Arab world is in Israel. When the discussion was opened up for contributions from the floor, a variety of viewpoints were expressed. Comrades from the Socialist Party and the SWP contributed, as did members of AWL and the Left Alliance. But it was some of the non-aligned comrades who clearly expressed their struggle with what position should be developed by socialists. James Dean said he initially supported a two-states position but had changed his mind and made a reasoned defence of the singular, democratic, secular state argument, saying that this was a view that had been agreed by the national council of the Socialist Alliance and could form the basis of a position that he believed could win the Israeli working class. Jim Jackson stated that he was in his heart for comrade Goodfield, but felt that reality meant that a two-state solution might be the only way forward. In response to this I argued that Comrade Jackson was coming to a two-state position from a place of defeatism: when comrades like the AWL and CPGB argue for two states they do so not out of defeatism, but out of wanting to develop a position that can provide a solution from below, a position in which the Arab and Israeli working class can be united and aid the furtherance of the struggle for socialism. It was important, I argued, to distinguish between a two-state position that came from above and as a result of defeatism (ie, Oslo) and one that arose in an attempt to raise class consciousness. The debate and discussion was held in a comradely spirit. As comrade Lesley Smallwood of the AWL pointed out at the end, the fact that we were all gathered in the room debating this issue was in itself an amazing advance for the left in comparison to recent history. Ray Gaston