Saturday, September 3, 2005

Israel, Draft of libertarian communist* statement 03 Sep

Evacuation of colonial settlements from the Gaza strip and the north of the west bank, building separation walls and annexation fences, and the racist policy for defense of the "Jewish majority" - are not steps towards peace, but attempt to disregard reality. The basic facts of the reality of the Mediterranean East have not changed since 5th of July 1967, when the following was written in a declaration of the Socialist Organization In Israel - Matspen, a month after the big victory of Zionism:
The Zionism is essential a movement of colonization - settlement of settlers who came to Palestine from abroad influenced by chauvinistic ideas. The action mode was always the same: create irreversible facts - if needed by physical acts - on the expense of the Palestinians and against them.

As result of the present international situation, the overwhelming majority of the Israeli public adopted the opinion that the military victory enable Israel to enforce a settlement, and this way to arrive into a solution of the Israeli-Arab dispute. This approach is mistaken from its essence, and all the formulas based on it cannot solve the problem.

In spite of the unequal military power balance of the present, Israel remain a small island in the Arab region. Every "settlement" which will be arrived at from the position of power, will be only temporary - and thus pseudo settlement.

We said in the past, and we repeat it now, that the Palestinian Arabs are entitled to decide their political destiny by themselves with out external coercion. However, we warn against the dangerous illusion born in the mind of part of the Israeli public, that now - when Israel rule by force of arms all the area of Palestine in the borders of the British colonial mandate, there created the opportunity to materialize that right for self determination.

The truth is the opposite. These occupations themselves, destroy the base for free choice self determination. The most that can be expected from a Palestinian state which will be built on the base of occupation is that it will be a narrow Geto - a caricature of an independent state.

From the point of principal objection to the Zionist policy of unilaterally establishing facts and forcing them on the Arabs, we hold the opinion that it is an obligation to call the Israeli government to retreat from the occupied territories and the intention to enforce a settlement by brute power.

This call is a test for every progressive organization and individual.

We nurture no illusion that the return to the lines of armistice ("green line" preceding 1967 conquests) will be by itself a solution to the Palestinian problem and the Israeli-Arab relations. This is only essential step without which no advance what so ever towards a real solution will be able. To all these nourishing the illusion we say: no solution is possible for political problems between nations using - openly or in subtle ways - means of economic, social, or political dominance of one group of people over another.
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* Revolutionary antiauthoritarian anticapitalist organization in Israel. Mainly active in the 60s to the 80s.

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