Well, it's not surprising, I'd say. In fact, despite its being not only impossible but pretty horrendous if it had been possible, I myself cannot help but think, instinctively, sometimes, "couldn't they/we all just, you know, leave or something?". But, as I said, it's only natural for people oppressed by a military force which supposedly represents everyone in a particular 'nation' to feel they'd like their oppressors to "go away".
In reality, it is not Israelis who should leave - that may have been an option up until, say, the 1930's - but Zionism which should disappear: that is, the Zionist state, the Zionist and pro-Zionist ruling class, and their meddlesome U.S. and European patrons.
How would you describe the anarchist movement in Israel? And what is it stance on the conflict as a whole? And what about the recent escalation?
Well, from where I'm looking, it doesn't seem toÉ quiteÉ exist. Sure, there are some individual Anarchists here and there, and there's the Anarcho-Punk fan crowd around Tel-Aviv. But there's no Anarchistic or even Socialistic workers' organization of any kind among the non-Arab Israelis (I could use the term 'Jewish Israelis' but that wouldn't be quite true since there are many non-Jews among the Zionists, such as a large section of the Russian immigrants of recent years); among the Arabs the situation can't be much better, and organizations may at best be identified with the DFPE.
(a divergent note about the DFPE &endash; Democratic Front for Peace and Equality, a.k.a. Hadash or Al-Jabhah &endash; they're basically the Communist Party of Israel, ex-Stalinists which for the past 55 years have been little more than the left wing delimiter of Zionism, participating in the Naqba, supporting the Oslo accords and the collaborationist Palestinian Authority, supporting that hideous beast known as the 'Histadrut' &endash; more on that later &endash; etc.)
Besides thatÉ there's not much beyond a claim by some members of the Sons of the Country movement (http://www.abnaa-elbalad.org) that some of its members favor a social system based on popular councils directing social affairs &endash; as was the case in several places in the west bank during the first Intifada &endash; but I have yet to determine if this tendency is indeed something concrete. Anyway, I sent an e-mail to one of my friends in SotC asking him if there was any outspoken Anarchist in his movement who would be interested in this interview.
Oh, and there's the PGA IL / IndyMedia / Green Action crowd. They've got potential to turn specifically Anarchist but since I haven't lived in Tel-Aviv in the last year and a half I can't really tell you a lot more.
So, to some things up, Anarchism in Israel is in a pre-nascent state.
How are the contacts between the left wing communities in Israel and Palestine? And what about the Arabic Israelis?
You mean the parts of Palestine held by Israel before 1967 and those it occupied in 1967? There is quite a lot of contact between various NGO's, focused on emergency assistance with food, clothing, water, human rights, judicial appeals on behalf of Palestinians in the OTs and so on. Politically, there apparently exist ties between the DFPE and the PPP (Palestinian's People Party, don't know much about them except that they're pro-Zionist like Fatah), and between SotC and the PFLP (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, anti-Zionists and supposedly Marxists).
As for the Arab populace, Israel has made an altogether good job of keeping the lid on them. Both times when they sort-of errupted - Land Day 1976 and October 2000 - token demonstrators were gunned down and things 'calmed down'. Also, despite having marginalized them culturally and economically all through its existence, Israel has managed to 'Israelify' many of the Arabs (in large part thanks to the suggestive influence DFPE and the other Arab parties), so that their frame of thought is "how can we make the Israeli government respect our rights as citizens?" rather than "how can we bring down the system which exploits us and drives a wedge between us, our brethern in the neighboring countries and in the OTs, and the Jews?"
How do you define the regions [i.e. those held before & after 1967, OT's, etc]? Otherwise I'm getting confused. Is Israel 'the parts of Palestine held by Israel before 1967' and Palestine 'the parts Israel occupied in 1967'?
Palestine the country is the area that is now divided into the territories on which Israel was sovereign before 1967 and the territories it occupied in 1967, minus the Golan and the Sheb'a Farms regions (and Sinai which was returned to Egypt). Now, it is true that the division of the Arab region into different countries/sub-nationalities is basically the work of the English and the French of the beginning of the 20th century, but calling the land Israel occupied in 1967 "Palestine" is accepting the Israeli claim that the rest of the country is its land.
Outsiders as us see Israelis as all having quite homogenous views on the conflict. But probably this can't be true. Are there, as an example, alternative voices through the media?
(see next answer)
Did the Israelis choose Sharon as their Prime Minister because they supported his views on the Isreali-Palistinian conflict, knowingly of his expected policy? And what is the popular basis of the far right elements in his government?
Israelis are people, and people naturally have heterogenous views of different issues. But with powerful systems of indoctrination, thought control and media filtering most of them (even many Arabs, especially Druze) can be 'brought into the fold' - if not in sense of their particular view, than at least in sense of their viewpoint &endash; their collective memory, their basic assumptions, their prejudices. Given that, they may not always act the same, but at the critical points they'll do the 'right thing' for their masters. Voting for Sharon was such a moment, since Barak was practically begging people to vote the Zionist left out of office. After declaring that Arafat "had been offered everything and refused", and that "his historic role his over" and that he has "turned over every stone in the search for peace" - what were people who believed him to do other than to vote for the right man for the war? And who better to fight a war than Sharon and the right wing?
For the question of the far right - I don't think there really is a far right. Or, to be more exact, I think everyone to the right of the DFPE is far right. They all support either apartheid or transfer. But it's only the 'far' right which has consistently professed these views out in the open. Labor and Likkud always try to stay on the good side of the world's states (especially the U.S., which is, after all, footing the bill) by presenting the media with a never-ending spectacle of efforts to achieve 'peace'. But as the military actions intensify, the voices calling for transfer are becoming more frequent, and are the topic has been discussed in pundit-panels on some of the lower-rating TV channels. There are even signs that the option of large-scale genocide might come to be reflected in the media; a few months ago defense minister Ben-Eliezer said: "Arafat is leading his people into a holocaust"; a few days ago an IMF infantryman was interviewed as said that he's anxious to go into the cities the Military is encircling, and get some revenge, "we want to go in, and whatever happens - happens".
But Israel is a not a Fascist state (yet), and you can often find alternative programming on less-popular channels such as a documentary on 3 Palestinian widows who live in the same building in Al-Halil (Hebron), or an anti-militarist being interviewed on a feminist-view weekly program, and there's even an hour of 'community programming' which IndyMedia has been able to sneak into (very late at night on Saturday, before the first workday of the week, when there' practically nobody watching the local channel, but it's better than nothing). And on the Internet you have the two IndyMedia's.
You wrote that Fatah is pro-Zionist. Explain please, Zionism seems so much to me right now. How do you define Zionism and why is Fatah Zionist?
Zionism is the movement which was started in Europe in the late 19th century, and which sought to concentrate (European) Jews in a land outside Europe and to have them form a nation. Zionism was able to achieve its goals by acting as a proxy for European Imperialism in the Arab East; in return it was acknowledged as valid and legitimate, and received much support, mostly from Britain. I won't write an entire article on the history of Zionism, but from the get-go it was clear to the Zionists themselves, to their European (and later, American) patrons and to the Arabs that they were brought here as a constant provocator and aggressor on one hand, and a meddlesome diplomatic force on the other hand, to uphold the military, economic and political interests of western Imperialism.
Why is Fatah Zionist? Because it supports a political system in which not only does the Zionist state continue to exist, and not only does it continue to exist on ~80% of Palestine, and not only do the Palestinian refugees receive exactly zilch, but in which the economy of the Palestinian mini-state continues to lie in an Israeli strangle-hold, and the political leadership of that state (i.e. the PA) takes direct orders both from Israel and its U.S. bosses.
And what elements make PFLP anti-Zionist?
The fact that it acts (well, at least claims to act - it seems it had not been that resolute on this point during the Oslo years) with the aim of liquidating the state of Israel.
Who is 'his' in 'his historic role is over'? Did Barak tell that about himself or is he still referring to Arafat, so that Arafat's historic role was over at that time.
Arafat's. But, as is obvious from your misunderstanding, Barak was unconciously implying that his own role as PM was overÉ
Settlements and lasting peace, do they go together?
Look, what are settlements? Suppose Israel were to drive the rest of the Palestinians out of Palestine and let them hang in the wind to dry for a few decades; what do you get? The exact situation in the areas of Palestine held by Israel since 1948. Almost every Israeli kibbutz, moshav, village or town is built on confiscated / conquered land.
The solution is definitely not "let's pack the 1967-2002 settlers in a bag and build them a cottage in one of our settlements in the Galil or the Negev". The only solution can be a re-distribution of the land, a country-level planning of the use of the scanty land resources of Palestine to accommodate Israelis and Palestinians (including the refugees), to allow for intensive and ecologically sound agriculture where possible, to preserve forests and other natural assets where necessary, etc. As for the settlements from before and after 1967 - some of them make no sense economically and socially except as outposts for Zionist encroachments; the rest should be transformed into mixed Hebrew-Arab communities - with the Zionist settlers losing control of the land, of course. (Un?)fortunately, you can't achieve even this meager feat without a revolution and de-partitioning of the country.
Please explain this last sentence [i.e. "let's packÉ"] a little more, I can't catch on.
The Zionist left proposes that all or most of the settlements established on land occupied in 1967 be dismantled, and their residents relocated elsewhere. And that should be no problem for them! There are perfectly nice settlements which are as much as an affront to reason and fairness as the ones in the 1967 OTs - settlements in the Galil and the Negev area, on lands confiscated (or soon-to-be-confiscated) from Palestinians in those parts of the country.
You refer to Hebrew-Arab communities but no Zionists should control the land. Do you mean that non-Zionist Hebrews should control the land then? What would be the practical implications of non-Zionists Hebrews controlling the land? It's that it is really difficult for us to understand the whole scope of elements that resort under Zionism.
I meant that now, the ruling in Israel class is Zionist, and Jewish. The effect is that Palestinians are denied access to mostly all of their land - as inhabitants of it, as farmers of it - and even when they're not actually denied access they are prevented by government malfeasence from developing industry in their lands, from expanding their villages into towns and cities (many Arab 'villages' with as much as 15,000 people aren't even allowed to build anything more than 4 stories high), from arranging proper intra-city roads, public transportation, sewege and sanitation systems, etc. etc.
The land must be controlled by the people, regardless of ethnicity. The direct control should lie with the inhabitants of a community, with wide-scale projects voluntarily coordinated on a regional or all-country basis.
In Europe, every non-Jewish critic of Israel is called an anti-Semite and every Jewish critic of Israel a traitor. Isn't the use of dangerous terms as anti-Semitism an obstacle if one prefers to create an atmosphere in which an overture could be found?
That's also true here, not only in Eurpoe. And that's especially annoying since when you look into it you find that the Zionists are usually in cahoots with most real anti-Semites unless they're actually slaughtering Jews - and this was as true with Nazi Germany and the Zionisy Yishuv in the 1930s as it is with the state of Israel and Jean-Marie Le Pen today.
When racists and Fascists use Israel's atrocities as an excuse to attack Jews in Europe, Jews should simply disown Israel. Most of them have nothing to do with politically it and should have nothing to do with it. The problem is that in most Jewish communities, the 'leaders' - the richer, more influential people, as well as the religious institutes - usually have close, friendly ties with Israel and drag their unsuspecting community members into the fray by staging pro-Israel rallies in response to racist attacks. That's completely irresponsible.
I heard of this Yishuv organisation. It would be nice if you could tell us more about what happened back then. Was it an organization of weight or just some collaborators?
In Hebrew, the word 'Yishuv' means 'settlement'. In this context it means the entirety of the Zionist presence in Palestine before it became a state.
What is your opinion on the original views of the PLO, being the construction of one state Palestine that is secular and in which Palestinians and Israelis live together?
If you'd have asked me this question a year ago I would have said "eh, they're just another bunch of nation-state-supporting assholes, who gives a fuck about what configuration of states they choose to favor?" but it's more complicated than that.
Of course, my general view as an Anarchist is that no state should exist here, neither Israeli nor Palestinian, neither as a permanent nor as a temporary solution. I believe social struggle should focus on the dismantling of the existing state without replacing it with another. If it weren't for the ethnic divide, this should have been an even more obvious solution here than in normal bourgeois democracies like those in Europe, since nobody can apply the Marxist excuses for keeping the state intact to a bastion of Imperialism like Israel, which can only exist - in the military and the economic sense - with foreign life-support (huge amounts of capital and military equipment are pumped into Israel every year, you know; about 25%, I think, of all workers are employed either in the war industries or in the army).
Now, Socialist militants around here whose views are closer to the nationalistic Arab movements, as well as the Trotskyists, make a plethora of claims to justify their support for the one state of Palestine idea: some of them say we must reach a 'normal' state of affairs, a democratic state, at which point it will be possible to extend the struggle towards Socialism; others quote Trotsky's theory of the permanent revolution, claiming that the revolution will somehow naturally progress from a bourgeois-democratic focus to a Socialistic focus; still others claim that the demand for a single Palestinian state is a good 'transitional demand', something brought up simply to appeal to the masses as a familiar and well-understood slogan, which will be dropped when their political consciousness awakens further.
But I don't buy into all of that. Too often have revolutions been lost (provided that one actually happens here anytime soon) to authoritarianism and opportunism. As a Socialist I know that every state has a ruling class; which class would rule Palestine? The bourgeoisie? They're content either with the way things are now or with having a puppet PA control some Palestinian BantustansÉ the workers, the peasents, the refugees? Not possible. As an Anarchist I know that the masses cannot be the classes in control of a state, cannot utilize the state apparatus to assist a social revolution; only a minority privileged class can rule a state, and such a class is missing, circumstances will provide for its evolution, as they have in the Leninist and Stalinist states.
Therefore, despite the obvious difficulty of bringing together the bleeding and battered Arab and Jewish masses, of which Zionism has made bitter enemies for the time being - there is no other solution but a common revolutionary struggle against Zionism, Capitalism and Imperialistic influence. The problem is that a revolutionary movement is not a lemonade stand - if you hoist up your 'A' flag, people won't just come out of the woodwork to join you; changing the course of existing mass movements, and joining more-privileged and less-privileged people in the same struggle is a daunting task.
Is it true that the Intifadah is a reaction against Arafat's government and policy too?
Yes, though it is unclear to what extent Palestinians themselves are conscious of this fact. The Al-Aqsa Intifadah is a reaction against the situation - a supposed 'peace' agreement seems to be nearing conclusion, their economy is in shambles, new Israeli settlements are built everywhere, along with new roads and road-blocks, no work to be found for decent pay, while a bunch of fat-cats live in posh new villas on the Gaza coast and the heads of way-too-many security apparti drive around in their limousine while all political opposition is oppressed. Arafat carried a lot of the blame for that. And, indeed, his support figures decreased steadily (below 40%, I believe). Now, of course, many have come to see him as some sort of hero, resisting the Israeli siege - while in fact he keeps doing whatever he can to kiss up to them, including giving up the PFLP militants who assassinated Ze'evi as a ceremonial sacrifice.
The PLO was created partly by Jewish Marxists. Can one still see any left-overs of this fact? Does this play a role in the PLO nowadays? What is the position of religion in the PLO?
Although I haven't researched the history of the PLO, I don't think that's true. AFAIK it was created by Palestinians in the context of 'Al-Kaumiun el-Arab' pan-nationalistic movement. There used to be a few Jews in the PLO - Uri Davis was a member of Fatah, and I think some people from one of the Matzpen splinters attempted to join the DFLP (Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine; originally formed as a Marxist tendency within the PLO, later degenrated into a bunch of lap-dogs for the PA). The DFLP supporters got broken up by the GSS and/or the Mossad, and Uri Davis quit because of his opposition to Oslo.
How does the Palestinian terrorism feel? What is its psychological impact?
As for me, personally, I'm not very emotionally involved. To me it's like the chance of dying in a car accident. It can happen (Israel has a very high rate of car accidents, by the way). People are affected in general, though, even barring the obvious effects of the constant anti-Palestinian propaganda. They don't go out often. They shop more quickly instead of hanging around in malls (that couldv'e been a good thing under different circumstancesÉ). But mostly they just turn up the 'I have Arabs' dial in their mind. And they allow the flames of hatred and patriotism to be fanned, ignoring the fact that this war, which was supposed to assure them security but only increased the number of suicide attacks, is fought on their own backs - Israel has cut its budget by as much as 15% in the last year-and-a-half, and unemployment has gone way up, with the government beginning to implement the terrible 'Wisconsin Plan' to deprive people of unemployment benefitÉ the only job in which it's easy to find work is security guard. These have popped up like mushrooms after the rain. There must be tens of thousands of people serving as armed guards (non-police) in various installations and establishments around the country - even restaurants. But I digress.
I often wonder what to think in general on terrorism as a tactic for the Palestinians. I mean, even ignoring moral issues, it alienates Israelis and facilitates the acceptance of far-right racist policiesÉ but, if the Palestinians had simply done nothing other than peaceful protest - what would have prevented Israel from simply repeating what it did to them in 1948 and in 1967, only in peacetime instead of war? For over three decades more and more Palestinian land has been confiscated, the Israeli grip on the Palestinian economy strengthenedÉ it was pretty obvious (to those who weren't blinded by prejudice) even before Oslo blew up where things were goingÉ what were they to do? I could preach on violent acts against property/government installations rather than people, attacks on the military when possible rather than civilians - which is what I think should have been the course of action, like in South Lebanon - but I'm not in the position of ordering the Palestinians to do this or that. I don't justify Palestinian terrorism, but I don't think I can condemn it.
To be honest, I'm more upset emotionally about being in a position where I can't condemn the human bomb attacks - which are basically immoral - because of the more general scheme of things and because of the position I'm in, than about the possibility of my dying in one of these attacks.
No, you don't ;-) [i.e. "I digress"]. You were explaining the economics of the war, which is very interesting. Won't the Israeli people become war-weary soon?
The people may be war-weary, but the ruling class certainly isn't - they're basically fullfilling their destiny - and in this situation, people weary of the war may adopt a "let's just kill'em all" attitude if a peaceful, real solution is hidden from their view by propaganda.
The European media spend quite some attention to the Israeli peace movement. But what are the different segments within this movement and in what do they differentiate? By the way, is there any popular support for the Refusniks? What happens to them?
80% of the Israeli peace movements are Zionists who want to do what's 'best for Israel', i.e. what's best for the civilian economy rather than the war industries, e.g. establish a sort of Pax Americana in the region under which the suffering of the Palestinians would officially be somebody else's responsibility, not ours. Such are Peace Now, Gush Shalom (actually, they're simply Arafat groupies), DFPE, Meretz, and others. A common slogan of theirs is "We don't want to rule another people": that is, the state of Israel is "We", the Palestinians are "them", and it's A-Ok for an oppressive government to do whatever it likes to its subjects, as long as its "their own" people, as long as they're the "moderate" and "democratically elected" leaders (how can people still call someone democratically elected after he's held basically the same position for about 40 years?).
And on the fringes of the Zionist left are the non-Zionist activists. Although there are some of them who have held these positions for many years, most of them, myself included, have just now awakened from the 'hypnotic sleep' the consciousness has been in, and are beginning to look beyond the left wing of the Knesset (Israeli Parliament) and beyond a withdrawal to the 1967 borders for real solutions to our problems.
The Zionist / non-Zionist split exists among the COs (conscientious objectors) as well. The more Zionist group of COs is made up mostly resrvists or IMF officers who were not so deeply influenced by the indoctrination so as to be able to toss their humanity aside in their activities in the OT's. But because they accept the basic premises of the Israeli state, their refusal is overall sterile - at most, they can contribute to the Israeli maneouvering between direct occupation and occupation-by-PA-proxy. They haven't developed any critical perspective or even the not-at-all radical for immediate withdrawal of forces from the land occupied in 1967, and their website (http://www.seruv.org.il/) describes them as acting in what they think is "the best interest of Israel". I'm not dismissing them entirely, mind you - it's just that they're the type of people who didn't have a single complaint up until October 2000.
The rest of the COs are youths before their mandatory draft date. Their opinions are more varied - pacifists, a couple of Anarchists, many people from around the DFPE youth groups, and a great number of people who haven't a strictly-formed political outlook, whose refusal starts with the 1967 occupation and the IMF's current campaign of terror and destruction but who (I hope) are finding that the roots of Israeli aggression lie indeed deeper than 1967. I really can't say how many of them lean towards some form of socialism, though. I was an 'early bird' in relation to the current wave of COs - I quit the service in late 2000, just as the Intifada was starting, and am not part of the group of 'shministim' - the -120 12th graders who have sent their common letter of draft refusal to the Prime Minister.
The treatment of COs by the military is not as harsh as one might expect. The military prisons are (surprisingly) small - can contain no more than about 0.5% of IMF at any one time - and are jam-packed. Most COs get to spend between one and three months in prison before being discharged, with reservists usually getting shorter sentences and often not being tried at all, their commanders having decided to pass up on calling the 'troublemaker' for reserve duty.
In the media, however, they areÉ wellÉ I would say demonized, but it's not done overtly - as with all other people with somewhat radical leftist views, they are almost ignored, and covered mostly by malicious hinting and negative occasional references in news stories; they are refered to as 'mishtamtim', which translates roughly as 'shirks' or 'dodgers'. The media mostly disregards the fact that over 35% of non-Arabs do not even enlist, for various reasons, and continues to hold the military service as a sacred obligation, at the center of the concensus. This attitude is shared by almost all political forces, except for the DFPE which is supportive of objection to serve in the 1967 OTs. A good illustration of what the Zionist peace movement people are like is the quote from Yossi Sarid, leader of Meretz (the staunchest supporter of Oslo, a party a bit to the left of the Israeli Labor party); he responded to the letter of the 'shministim' by saying: "Éwe have always, even in the hardest of times, have resisted the draft dodging and the objection, because were are not Yeshiva-boys, neither are we settlers from 'Gush Emunim' who serve in the IDF 'on condition'. The military service is perhaps the last common denominator of Israeli society, and if it breaks - the entire society crumbles, and we shall not be responsible for this general collapse."
Again the Zionist-thing here. Probably you will be able to point it out quick. But it is really difficult for me to see where the Zionist-element is. It's not that they just want the 'best for Israel' no? I mean, there's nothing wrong (in non-anarchist people's eyes) with wanting the best for your country. Or is is that they want the 'best for Israel', but see this as an exclusive claim? Like 'please stop this war, because that is the best for Israel' and ignoring what is the best for everything outside of their scope, like Palestina?
That would match your statement about the suffering of Palistinians. These peace movements actually don't want the suffering to be the responsibility of Israel. Can I understand this as follows: "Regardless of Palestinians suffering or not, a long as it is not our responsibility"?
Yes.
They want what's best for the 'Israeli Nation', i.e. for the ruling class of the Israeli state. In much the same way as, say, some parts of the U.S. political establishment opposed Vietnam because it was "costing us too much" and because they didn't think it was what was "best for the U.S." - not because they gave a fuck about whether millions of Vietnamese would die or not. One could venture to surmize that they represent the civilan sectors of the economy, for whom the peace process was an essential breath of air. Let me quote a commentator from one of the Israeli daily papers (Moshe Pearl from Ma'ariv:
"It was to be no longer just our little 'ghetto', growing in a rate proportional to the population growth in Israel - it was a dream of a new world, which we will enter via the neighbors. At first, the Palestinian Authority and its population, and then the entire Middle-Eastern space.
The people who understood that, understood the difference between a market of 6 Million and a market of a 100 Million. Do the math: one bag of 'Bamba' [peanut snack] per week for every Palestinian, Jordanian, Egyptian, Lebanese, Syrian child.... Dan Propper [CEO of Osem] couldn't ask for much more than that. And, of course, it wasn't just Osem [manufacturer of Bamba].
This was the making of a Middle-Eastern dream. It wasn't technological, but rather a simple dream of growth potential...."
Now most of the "best of Israel" crowd say this outright. They usually add a lot of apologetics about how they want democracy, and equality before the law, and all other bourgeois-radical demands (DFPE even adds some faintly Socialist rhetoric). And you need to keep in mind that the existence of the Zionist state, unlike that of a 'normal' state, is not merely a matter for debate between Anarchists and authoritarian Socialists about revolutionary strategy. It is similar to the existence of the white regime in South Africa (or even worse, since it's aggressive exterenally as well as internally) - its dissolution is an absolute necessity for any sort of progressive development in the region.
By the way - Osem is now half-owned (or quarter-owned, I forget) by Nestle.
What do you mean by this last sentence? That those people actually didn't care much up until October 2000? Why did they start caring now? I mean, it's not like it is a recent conflict. Is it because of the visibility of the problems?
Before October 2000 (when the current Intifada broke out) everything was going their way - the political forces they support were about to seal the deal with Arafat and lock the gates of the Palestinian Bantustan forever. Sure, none of them was too happy about the physically violent excesses of the occupation - abuses at road blocks, mass arrests, torture and maiming, etc. - but it wasn't enough to really get them going as a movement, plus, these oppressive functions had, to a great deal, handed over to the Palestinian, under the guidance of prominent collaborators like Jibril Rajub, Taufik Tirawi, etc. The Zionist 'left' were politically content with the goings-on.
I can see you're having trouble wrapping your thoughts around this issue, but it is as real as it is fantastic: for -97-98% percent of Israeli Jews, the axis of possible (not necessarily preferrable) solutions ranges from Apartheid and the 1967 borders on the extreme left to transfer or extermination on the extreme right. They do not even begin to consider another option. The Zionist COs are stuck at that extreme left point on the axis; and for most of them, their class positions prevent them from willing to break that boundary and go over to non- or anti-Zionism.
Some time ago the Israeli army arrested Marwan Barghouti. Barghouti was one of the most popular Palestinian political leaders and a regular critic of the corrupt tendencies in Arafat's government. A Belgian newspaper published an article from him in January in which he said he feared for his life. He writes: "Let me be clear on my position, so that the world can not rashly insert my dead into the statistics of the 'war against terrorism' of Israel." His position was one of two states living next to each other with tight cultural and economical relations between them. How must we interpret Barghouti's arrest?
Oh, come on. "Regular critic". What a joke. This guy was heavily involved in the Oslo process, always hob-nobbing with the Israelis, lounging about in the KnessetÉ Nietzsche coined the phrase "physician, heal thyself" - you could tell Barghouti "critic, criticize yourself". I can't say to what extent he really criticized anything (non-Arab-speakers can catch very little of what goes on in the Arabic media), but he was no more than a loyal opposition.
So much for my criticism of Barghouti from the left (although I could go on for hours if I'd have taken the time to research his personal history). It's clear he's no leader for Palestinians to follow, if they are to follow any leader at all. As for his link to terrorism, it's true that the PA and Fatah leadership has been zig-zagging between the masses' wish for action (action which, I'm afraid, have not proved very useful) and the harsh demands placed upon them by their Zionist masters - so on the one hand they were breaking up demonstrations and arresting and torturing non-Fatah militants, and on the other hand, so it would seem, allowed the military groupings, like the Al-Aqsa brigades, to operate.
It's not that Barghouti wasn't involved in/directly in terrorism, it's just that this isn't why Israel is targetting Palestinian leaders. It has a political agenda which doesn't have much to do with preventing Palestinian attacks on civilians, but with creating the conditions favorable to further military action. If we go about arresting all the terrorists, we'd be arresting every second or third Israeli, who has committed blatantly terroristic acts as a soldier in the Israeli Military.
Many saw him as a possible successor of Arafat. At the same time Israel says that it will not talk to Arafat and that the Palestines should appoint a new leader to partake in the negotiations with Israel. But what if they arrest every potential candidate?
Good question. If Anarchism had only caught on with the Palestinians, we might have been able to reach a situation where there would be social movements without any particular overall leader which could be singled out and whose absence would paralyze the masses. But, dreams aside, I assume they'll either let some PA bigwigs live this crackdown out without being harmed, or maybe start looking for the next "moderate", "democratically elected" leader to place at the helm.
Negotiations with Israel are meaningless. There's nothing to negotiate. Israel offers (at best) some variant of neo-colonialism, which isn't any help to anyone - and unceasing military pressure as an alternative. At the moment the first option is not even available - Israel and the U.S. wish to prop up a façade of 'talks' which are somehow supposed to bring resolution to the conflict. Should the Jews have 'talked' with the Nazis? The Indians with the European settlers in America? Such 'talking' would only have been cover for, and prelude to, further attacks.
It seems that western anarchists don't really know how to handle 'national liberation struggles' and questions of nationalism as a social movement. What can we, as western anarchists, do to transform the conflict?
I think by now you've figured out that I myself am not at all sure how to handle the 'national liberation' issue in Palestine. I know the fact that I originate in the opressing side, the side benefiting from Zionism (even though my family is working intelligentia, not bourgeois), blocks my view, to some extent, of much of the goings-on. But I live and I learn, and I try to promote and spread my ideas when and where I can.
As for you, well, something I've noticed about Palestinian activists is that they're very impressed with anti-Imperialistic and even anti-Globalization struggles - but they don't really differentiate between the various currents of the global left: they're rooting for people for having fought the oppressors, regardless of whether they truly attempted to create a free and egalitarian society. As social struggles of Anarchists and Anarchists movements intensify, it would be very benificial to send a clear message to the 'outside world' that social revolutions must include both the overthrow of Capitalism and of the State (and I would also add: "adoption of Atheism", since there's certainly a lot of Judaism and Islam getting in the way of a real revolution here) - and are otherwise ultimately doomed to fail.
First published in the Dutch anarchist magazine De Nar
I was born and raised in Haifa, a city of ~500k residents on the coast of the Mediterranean sea. Haifa has very little in the way of distinguishing features, except, perhaps, its being one of the world's largest Ba'ha'i religious centers (they've got this huge temple and garden complex here), and more recently the failed Jewish working class uprising in the Wadi Salib neighborhood in the 1950's (well, there was the 1948 occupation, but that wasn't a local event).
I spent my first 3 grades 'Ha-Re'ali' Elementary School in the Hadar-Ha-Carmel neighborhood. I was then discovered to be a 'gifted child' and, as such, was admitted into the gifted class ('mehonanim'); one such class exists for the Haifa area, so in the 4th grade I transfered to 'David Yalin' elementary school, and from there (along with the rest of my class) in the 7th grade to the 'Leo-Baeck' Junior High-School and in the 10th grade to the 'Leo-Baeck' High-School (although they're near to each other geographically, those two are not the same - the Junior-High was a public school when I attended it, and the High-School is semi-private, part of a Reform Jeudaism community center).
My 'Bagrut' foci were Physics, Computer Science and Bible Studies.... in which I was half-forced to write a research paper in order to meet the graduation requirements of the 'gifted class'. What I ended up writing was a 230-page exploration of the subject of 'Koheleth in context of the Wisdom Literature in the bible and in the ancient Middle-East'. I must say that, ex post facto, I did rather enjoy writing it (and not only because it got me an extra break from the the basic-training period of my military service). It won first prize in the national contest for High-School research papers in bible studies. Here's a copy, in case you have some time to spare.
As you must already have figured out, I admit, with some measure of shame, that I was not politically or socially aware enough to resist the mandatory draft into the IMF (Israel Military Forces; Orwellianly known as the 'Israel Defense Forces'). I was enlisted on December 6th, 1998 - and from the moment I set foot in the recruitment center I had a gut feeling I was making the biggest mistake of my life.
I endured a grueling one month of basic training ('Tironut', of type 'Rifleman-02', which is the easiest kind, they tell me) in the IMF's in a base near Gaza. Let me tell you - it was hell. I was brought to the verge of tears, literally. You may attribute my dificulties to my being spoiled by my family, never having had to adapat to physical difficulties.... but the atmosphere was simply so repressive that it can't all be blamed on that. Eventually it was over, and I was transferred to my permanent unit, a secret unit in the IMF's Intelligence Corps ('Haman'). It's not much of a secret in itself, but it is involved in a lot of shady deals with questionable elements from all over the world. I'd like to say more, but I have been specifically threatened by the GSS (General Security Service, the 'Shin-Bet' or 'Shabak') that they will extend me their famed tender love and care if I let anything substantial spill out. Oh, well; I guess it's always nice to know you have career alternatives in life.
Now the reason I got mixed up with the GSS is that, during the course of my military service, my political viewpoint became increasingly radical, and I began being socially and politically active, within the framework of Hadash Youth (Tel Aviv), and later - PGA Israel (a self-proclaimed section of People's Global Action). This got the GSS and the IMF's 'Field Security Unit' interested in me. Add to this the fact that I was organizing the enlisted slodiers in my unit to voice a demand for a sum of some 500,000 NIS the IMF owes us and former-soldiers in back-pay, which the military authorities, joining forces with the officers in my unit, conspired to weasel us out of, and the fact the I requested to be demoted from Corporal back to Private, and you will understand that my standing in the unit I was serving in became rather precarious by late 2000.
I was already thinking of unilaterally terminating my service by that time. I had encountered the New Profile bunch (which I am now part of), and, specifically, befriended Lotahn Raz, an ex-Banki Jerusalem (now hangs around Hadash Youth TA) member who spent over 2 months in military prison for conscientious objection to military service (a great guy, very much in harmony with the world.... unlike me - I'm rather bitter and tend to get rather worked up about things). Anyway, I had my notice of departue all typed up on the computer in my room in Ramat-Gan, and every evening I would revise it, update it, modify it slightly, adding or subtracting this sentence or another, each time drawing nearer, emotionally, to the decision to submit it.
In the end, the Military beat me to it. That is, a new unit commander arrived, saw who he was dealing with, called me in, yelled at me for 20 minutes ("What kind of a soldier are you", "So you have time to write letters, do you?", "Don't even mention the General Staff Orders to me", "I'll feed you sandwiches, I will", "Maybe I'll terminate your eligibility for participation in rent, and make you come here from Haifa every day", etc.), and then threatened to recommend that I be released from service if I didn't start to 'behave myself'; I told him he was more than welcome, and, indeed, he told me to report to the unit's 'parent-unit's base near Herzlia the following Sunday. When I did so, I found out that he didn't make that recommendation - he just kicked me out. I guess when you look at it from the Capitalist's point of view (he actually had a degree in management and economic studies), he followed common strategy: if your workers are demanding extra pay, find the active agitator, buy him off or otherwise remove him, and this will probably shut the herd up.
I was placed in the tender care of the parent-unit's adjutant, Major [XXXX]. I was stripped of my security clearance, so it was goodbye forever to my old office.... I realized the jig was up, so I informed the Major that I expected the military authorities to inititate a procedure for my discharge within 14 days, or I would quit the service unilaterally. He, of course, completely ignored this demand, and made a demand of his own - that I show up every day, in uniform, and sit in the office of the Base-Warrant-Officer-in-Charge (the Rasar Ha-Basis) from 08:00 to 17:00. I did so, for the next two weeks, and then, on October 11th, 2000, I came there in civilian clothes, with 3 folded-and-stapled copies of my notice of departure from service (one for the Major, one for the parent-unit's commander, Colonel [XXXX] and one for the Rasar's people); You can also read the English copy of it which I later created. I handed them in, and went AWOL.
Well, that's a bit of a dramatization. I came by the unit's base camp another 2-3 times to see if anyone was willing to talk with me, seriously, about leaving the service; no one did. So I stayed home for about a month, occasionally calling the unit commander's office or the regional Military Police HQ to see what was going on with my case. They would tell me that "Your name hasn't shown up on the computer here, so call back later". Eventually, on one phonecall they asked me to come by the following day to their base in Jalami junction the next morning - but they were too impatient to wait, so they sent 4 gorillas to pick me up from my house at 24:00. Luckily, I was expecting they might pull this stunt, so I had my prison-bag pre-packed.
So they drove me down to Nesher and from there to Jalami (at ~120kph, which is far above the speed limit, by the way). I was held there for the night, then transferred to Military Prison no. 6 near Atlit. I was tried the next day, but got off with only a 14-day incarceration - suspended sentence. That was November 22nd. The prison staff gave me the farewell present of soiling my personal affects with deep-blue, one of the MP's corps colors.
A few days later, I was back at the parent-unit's base camp. I barged into the commander's office; he scolded me for having no manners, told me that if I came into his office uninvited again "I'll deal with you personally, outside of the military framework", and that "I hope I will soon not have to ever see you again, within the Military or without". The Major wasn't so thrilled to see me either, and after I crowded the entrance to his office for the next 2 days he decided to try me for refusal to wear a military uniform - he tried me himself, despite my refusal to be tried before him, and sent me to prison for 2 weeks (and it wasn't an activation of the suspended sentence, since it's not the same offense). This time I was sent to 'Regional Command Detainment Center 391' in Tzrifin.
I won't elaborate about my periods of incarceration here, I still have some notes to consolidate, etc. etc. Anyway, once I was released suddenly the Major at my parent-unit decided to adopt a different staregy, and was now supposedly busy trying to kick out the pest. In the mean time, I contacted the IM's 'Conscience Committee' which is supposed to exempt conscientious objectors from service (but in fact always says: "No, you don't have enough of a conscience to be exempted"), and initiated an appeal to the 'Incompatiblity Committee' for premature release. This dragged on for quite a while, and I would spend 2-3 hours each day wandering about the parent-unit's base camp doing absolutely nothing but eat the food at the nearby base's mess hall.
Eventually the paperwork got approved, and I was ousted from the parent-unit with this letter of slander. This makes me (to the best of my knowledge) the least-decorated soldier in IMF history (an anti-thesis to Ehud Barak, if you will....). They pushed me around for a while, transferring me from this unit to that and back, and I ended up in the 'Ma'avar' (the 'enlisted soldiers transfer hub' unit, if you will) at the Bakum (the IMF's central military induction base). Each time I got there, I would spend the entire morning and half the afternoon waiting outside the reception window for someone to notice me, and then they would usually decide they didn't have anything intersting to tell me, so they'd send me home for another 2 or 3 days.
During this period of about another month and a half, I had my audience with the Conscience Committee. They asked the very same platitude questions they ask everybody:
Q: Don't you feel you have to pay your debt to society?
A: Yes - by opposing the military, not by serving in it; besides, the labor of each individual is a social act - the baker serves society by providing the bread, the paramedic by contributing to public health, and the computer programmer by writing software for people to use.
Q: What about 'National Service'? Couldn't you do that?
A: 'National Service' is a markedly anti-social institution. By using forced labor, the state creates unfair competition for the people who have to actually make a living as paramedics, education workers or social aid workers - they thus have to contend with younger workers who work longer hours for no pay at all.
Et cetera. And they refused my request.
Finally, I managed to use the magic word 'Shabak' on the Ktzim Miun (officer in charge of soldier assignment to units), to convince him that I merit an audience with the 'Incompatibility Committee', which is very hard to get to see. The thing is, though, once you get there, they almost always let you go. I stepped in, sat down, they asked me "Are you so-and-so" "Yes" "Did you have an audience with the Conscience Committee on such-and-such date?" "Yes" "Ok, we're discharging you; wait outside." And that was it. I was finally discharged, officially, on February 22nd, 2001; I walked out of Tel-Hashomer, now somewhat less of a slave, and never looked back.