Weekly Worker 442 Thursday July 25 2002
Israel-Palestine
Two states, one struggle
At the July 12-13 organising meeting for the European Social Forum in Thessaloniki there was a debate on Palestine. Most of the Palestinian delegates put forward positions more sophisticated than those held by the majority of the left in Britain today. Tina Becker spoke to two comrades - one Palestinian, one Israeli
Thuraya Alayan is a member of the central committee of the Palestinian People’s Party (PPP)
What are your organisation’s origins?
Our party goes back to the Communist Party of Palestine, which was founded in 1919 by Palestinian, Jordanian and jewish communists. When the occupation began in 1943 the Palestinian and Israeli parts of the organisations split. Our comrades in Israel founded the Communist Party of Israel. In 1948 the Palestinian section split even further, reflecting the Israeli occupation: communists in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank were operating in two different parties. Only in 1982 did the two Palestinian sections re-unite to form the Palestinian People’s Party. We chose this name to highlight the priority of the national struggle in Palestine today. But there is no doubt: we are communists fighting for a communist world. In 1997 we joined the PLO.
The PLO advocates a two state-programme: a state for the Palestinians alongside a state for the Israeli jews.
We were the first Palestinian organisation that put forward a programme for two states. I think we were quite influential in pushing the PLO towards this position. Ever since 1948 we have been advocating that there are obviously two people with two very distinct cultures. Why should we force them to live together in one state? Of course as a communist I want to live without borders and I am working towards the unification of all peoples. But today Israelis and Palestinians need to live in two different states.
I am hopeful that Israelis and Palestinians will unite into a democratic, secular state one day, but this will need a long, patient process. For the here and now, the slogan of a ‘democratic, secular Palestine’ is useless. It does not show a way to the future.
It also does not address the Israeli people. What role do you think the Israelis play in this process?
Without the Israeli peace movement the Palestinians will never get a democratic state of their own. The Israeli working class needs to fight for the rights of the Palestinians. We need their help and solidarity, just as they need our help. We have to tell our friends in Israel that we do accept their state if they accept ours. They must understand that without the liberation of the Palestinians the Israelis can never be truly liberated themselves.
We are working closely with the Communist Party of Israel. It is important that the people in both countries have as much contact as possible.
What is your view on the right to return for Palestinians. Does it contradict a programme for two states?
The right to return is very important to us. As a communist I fight for the right of every human being to live where they want to and naturally that includes Palestinians.
This right does not mean that everybody moves back to where their family might have lived many decades ago. Who knows where people want to live? I presume most Palestinians don’t want to go to Israel and give up their friends and families. My own village was totally destroyed in 1948. Why would I want to go back there?
But we must fight for this right to return, because it has a very important political meaning. It means Israel has to accept its responsibility for the unjust way in which this state was founded.
Will the tactic of suicide bombing help the Palestinians reach their aims?
We don’t agree with this tactic at all. We need strong tactics. Advocating that your own comrades blow themselves up is not a strong thing to do. Also I think we should fight our struggle on our own ground.
However, you have to understand how desperate the Palestinian people are. We have no weapons that compare with those of the Israelis. All we have is stones - and our bodies. The political responsibility for the suicide bombings lies with Ariel Sharon. That is the first thing to understand.
But we must also understand that the suicide bombings are actually undermining the Israeli peace movement. We need all the support we can get - from the world, but mainly from the Israeli people. As long as the suicide bombings go on, Sharon has an excuse to deny us all democratic rights. He can use them as a weapon against the Palestinian people - and the Israeli peace movement. It is bad for the people on both sides.
What is your relationship with Hamas and Islamic Jihad, both of which advocate and orchestrate the suicide bombings?
This is not so easy to answer. I am a communist, so I strongly criticise islamic fundamentalism.
On the other hand, the national struggle against the occupation has brought us quite close together. The left in Palestine is unfortunately very weak. A lot of people in Palestine are turning to fundamentalism, because it is the only thing that seems to offer them a little hope. Sharon’s politics have led hundreds of thousands of my people into the arms of Hamas. Sharon is helping Hamas, in the same way that Hamas is helping Sharon.
It is the occupation that sometimes brings communists and religious fundamentalists together. But I am convinced that if the Palestinians had their own state, totally new forms of struggle would emerge: the democrats and socialists against the islamic fundamentalists.
But surely we can’t wait? Surely we need to win people away from their leadership in the here and now? Communists would be amongst the first people a fundamentalist regime would want to get rid of.
The occupation has unfortunately blurred the distinction between opposing political groups on the Palestinian side. But of course I agree and we are arguing very strongly against Hamas and Jihad. Only our voices are very weak and Hamas is very loud.
At every meeting I go to I speak out against this most corrupt form of religion. I used to live in Algiers and have seen what islamic fundamentalism can do to a whole people. It wants the opposite of all the things that I am fighting for: justice, women’s rights, democracy. For example, the PPP is currently campaigning for a ‘family law’ which would allow the right to divorce and equal rights for men and women. Hamas and Jihad are very much against this. They fight against all forms of state law, because they recognise the Koran as their only law.
The only way we can win the Palestinian people away from Hamas is by showing them that we have solutions for earth, not just for heaven.
Sergio Yahni is an Israeli jew who works for the Alternative Information Centre (www.alternativenews.org)
I understand your centre is the only cross-border organisation that is still functioning? Can you explain why that is?
A lot of binational organisations stood on very thin ground. ‘Be nice to each other’ seemed to be the basis of their approach. They were paid for mostly by the European Union, which has a totally naive attitude towards the situation in the Middle East. They set up organisations where teachers or policemen from both sides were supposed to talk to each other. However, the question of the occupation was never allowed on the agenda. This situation couldn’t last.
After the second intifada started, a lot of those organisations simply imploded. Some were dismantled, mostly by Israeli authorities. But the vast majority fell apart by themselves, reflecting the political tensions in society. It was mostly the Palestinians who walked out. They demanded of their Israeli counterparts that the question of the occupation be addressed. However, Israeli society is at the moment firmly in the hands of Sharon and his rightwing allies.
What happened to the Israeli peace movement? In 1982 more than 400,000 people marched against the occupation.
The peace movement died during the Oslo peace process. Most on the left in Israel thought that the agreement could bring lasting peace. ‘If Arafat supports it, how can we refuse our support?’ they argued. There were very few voices in Israel criticising the Oslo agreement.
The peace movement had to be reborn. On the first demonstration after the second intifada only 500 people took part. But a couple of months ago, 100,000 people marched on the streets of Tel Aviv. A hundred refuseniks are currently in prison. It is a slow process, but the Israeli left will come back to life again, I’m sure.
Do you think the suicide bombings might be to blame for the small size of the peace movement? Has this tactic alienated Israelis from the cause of the Palestinians?
Maybe many in Israel think that, but I don’t. I am a socialist and of course I don’t like islamic fundamentalism. Of course I am against the suicide bombings. But the responsibility for them lies on the Israeli side. I am an Israeli. I cannot condemn the tactics of my brothers and sisters in Palestine. I have a duty to unconditionally support the Palestinian struggle. If I were Palestinian I would maybe argue differently. But as an Israeli I can’t. I have to criticise my own government and not that of the Palestinians.
But surely as a socialist you also have a duty to criticise a tactic that you think is wrong?
Let me put it this way. I am a refusenik myself. When I was in prison I had a very interesting time indeed. There were 40 of us together in one part of the prison. We set up study groups, organised lectures on quantum physics, and talked politics from morning till night. We discussed the situation in Palestine and we came to the conclusion that both sides should put down their arms. The Palestinians should stop their suicide bombings and the Israeli soldiers should refuse to shoot at the Palestinians. But this is not the majority position outside the prison and it is not the majority position in Palestine, so I won’t argue for it.
But Hamas and Islamic Jihad say, ‘Death to all jews’.
The point is that we can’t tell the Palestinians what kind of rulers they should choose. Of course I prefer socialism, but real socialism comes from below, from the people themselves. The Palestinians must choose.
In my job I work quite closely with some people from Hamas. They are not as united and hegemonic as you might think. When Abu Hunud, one of the highest ranking leaders of Hamas, was shot by Israeli soldiers last December, he was in the process of preparing an agreement with Arafat which would have seen Hamas giving up most of their weapons. There is a struggle going on within Hamas, which cannot be underestimated.
How did Hamas become such an influential force amongst the Palestinians?
I believe Hamas and islamic fundamentalism in the whole region is an expression of the historic failure of the left in the region. Between the 1960s and 1980s a lot of Arab nationalist movements looked at the guerrilla tactics of Che Guevara - and when they applied them to their regions they failed. A number of revolutionary attempts were made, which stopped short of taking real power. Semi-revolutions, which came to nothing, and offered no solution for ordinary people.
Imperialism created a spontaneous reaction from the masses. But there was no strong left into which this reaction could have been channelled. So a lot of ‘anti-imperialists’ started to look to islam as a solution for their misery. I believe that a lot of Hamas members perceive themselves as leftwing, maybe even socialists. It is up to the Palestinians to expose Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
I think you are taking the idea of ‘the main enemy is at home’ too far, but I understand where you are coming from. What do you think, then, is the main task for Israeli jews?
Our rightwing government is as bad for the Israelis as Hamas is for the Palestinians. We Israelis have to fight against the conception that Israel is the only democratic state in the region. Far from it. Israel is not a state based on right. It was founded on injustice. It has no universal citizenship rights. Only ethnic background matters. The fight for revolutionaries in Israel is a fight to make Israel more democratic and a fight for an end of the occupation from within Israel.
