Palestine – insane capitalist savagery resulting from nationalism – so what is the cure for the worker masses there?

The purpose of global capitalism for using such bloodshed against the most defenseless people is to pave the way for the establishment of the most vicious base; which goes against any hopes of the social movement of the working class which could oppose the barbarism in that region.  As a result, the victimization of the Palestinian people is in the hands of rivals; as well as the profiteering of different sectors of the global bourgeois whether Arabic, or Islamic in the Middle East; and the shifting of the struggle of the masses at the expense of the bourgeoisie’s own political dispute within their class; and lastly the domination of the catastrophic and deeply rooted Palestinian nationalism over any right struggle of the Palestinian people.  Each of these issues, certainly, has its own history.  However this article will not address these issues specifically, rather it will focus on why the issue of Palestine has ended up in such a situation and what is the way out of this dreadful human situation.  Furthermore, it would not be necessary to mention the role of global capitalism from the beginning of such a dreadful situation to the present time.  This is due to the fact that it is clear what the brutal bourgeois of Israel and the United States or the Arab States or Iranian governments have done to the Palestinian people.  The chief issue is - why there are 60 years of continued, widespread, and bloodied struggle of the masses under the pressures of exploitation, and the deprivation of any rights is ending in such a dreadful situation right now?  Any dialogue in the name of Palestine and the current human catastrophe of Palestine without focusing on this major axis would not open up any new way to end such an historical, international class tragedy.  The centre of gravity is here, and this issue must be explained.

Palestine is part of the global geography of capitalism.  This is a world which is based on the production of the relation of surplus value, and the exploitation of labour power, where the political order corresponds to the global reproduction and labour-capital relation under the rule of capitalist state power.  The world is full of vicious rivalry among different sectors of the global bourgeois actors which stand firmly against any dissent from the masses and any movement that would challenge or interrupt the stability of the socio-economics of the wage-slavery system.  In this world the emancipation of any worker, any oppressed and any starving human is not only impossible without having a powerful anti-capitalist class movement but also claims of such are pure falsehoods.  It is pure demagoguery and insisting on it is nothing other than sustaining this situation either consciously or not.  The liberation movement of Palestine has bridged its entire fundamental nature on this clear truth, and for decades it is paying the consequences for escaping the truth.

The State of Israel formed as Theodor Herzl [1][1] stated crudely, "We can be the vanguard of culture against barbarianism" (One Palestine Complete, p. 150).  In class struggle language, this is a reactionary base of enforcement with the goal of protecting the existence of wage-slavery as well as to play a main role within the capitalist order in the interest of the most dominant pole of the global bourgeois.  The struggle of the Palestinian people from the beginning and throughout its existence from puberty until the present - was lacking the necessary capacity to challenge such power, that is, the above-mentioned reactionary base.  The Palestinian movement was a declaring protest of wrathful people against the daily crimes of the global bourgeois.  However, this movement was born from Muslim Arab Nationalists.  And, it was headed by Mohammad Amin al-Husayni(s).[2][2]  Subsequently, it was cultivated by Gamal Abdel Nasser an Arab Nationalist.[3][3]  It had been the Nationalism, the Arab reaction, and the pro-Islamics everywhere which had designed the framework of Palestinian lives.  On the other hand all of the secular’s oppositions and lefties were getting directions from Big Brother i.e.the Eastern Bloc countries.  Everywhere this movement would feel the pressure of these forces on its chest.  The Palestinian movement followed these forces - Nationalism or the Lefties - and within the framework of these dismal educational directions, this movement has been turned up side down and pursued in an upside down way.  From the brutality of global capitalism they embraced the reactionary Arab bourgeois.  Alternatively, in order to fight against the inhumane and fabricated homeland of global capital they become Palestinian nationalists. Instead of fighting against the aggression and assault from the bourgeoisie they become anti-Semitic.  The criminal costs of The Sabra and Shatila Massacres (1982), Deir Yassin (1948), and Kafar Qasem (1956) was the subsequent killing of ordinary people in Israel.  In one word, as a result of all these upside down views and directions, and instead of a class struggle against capitalism, they immerse their entire social organism into the false perspective of the National Bourgeoisie; instead of turning to the Arab workers, Israeli workers, and the international working class around the world for such help.  Rather they requested assistance from their ethnic allies, such as Arab countries and nationalists in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, etcetera.

It has been almost 60 years since the state of Israel was formed, and since the early period that Palestine was under the control of the British Imperialist colony to lay the foundation for the global bourgeois terrorists as well as for the establishment of the state of Israel.  For 60 years, the Arab inhabitants were displaced to other places and countries such as the Gaza Strip, the east coast across the Jordan River where they are living in cruel conditions, i.e. starvation, poverty, and under the continual bombardment by the brutal bourgeois of Israel and the global bourgeois.  Over the course of 60 years more than 4 million inhabitants of Palestine became precisely that of cheap labour; helpless, despised, displaced, and deprived from every place they seek refuge.  From Kuwait to Lebanon, Syria to Jordan, to Egypt, they are all selling their labour force in the cheapest way to the Arab capitalists who are, of course, very much belonging to the same ‘family’, same ‘race’, same ‘ethnic’, same ‘religion’, and the same ‘language’.     Furthermore, in the Gaza strip, the east coast across from the Jordan River, the same thing is happening to the owners of the factories, farms, and businesses which are all, of course, of Palestinian backgrounds - ‘original compatriots’, fellow citizens.  Millions of workers along with other Middle East workers in the most extreme way are being exploited to produce more profits for capitalists, both Arab and non-Arab ones.  There are more than 650,000 Palestinians who live in Israel alongside Jewish workers who are all the targets of the most brutal exploitation by the Israeli capitalists, and more than 60,000 wage-slavers who live in Gaza Strip must cross the border in order to sell their labour force.    

Four million workers of Palestine alongside other Arabs, and Israeli workers within the fetter of wage-slavery, are in a situation where all of these workers regardless of their race, nationality, and etcetera are deprived from any kind of human rights.  The only thing they are not doing is making a conscious attempt to organize a struggle against capitalism and consequently struggle against the entire structure of the political order of capitalism in that region including the brutal bourgeois government of Israel.  These few million workers have negated their class existence under the pressure of a nationalistic illusion and nightmare, and exhausted themselves due to the reactionary instructions of patriotism.  Furthermore, everywhere they are yelling for ‘Holy land’, ‘Motherland’.  This matter is slipping into a realm of a disastrous illusion which from its depth is not less than the first one, and by the same token its durability makes the first catastrophe longer, more durable and firmer.

     This is a century that the working class movement of displaced people of Palestine has been crucified by the darkness of Nationalism.   During all of these periods the inhumane reactionary pan-Islamism is pronouncing the judgment ‘Fatva’ against the Jewish into the ears of this movement.  It is, on one hand, the secular right wing bourgeoisie that is pronouncing the patriot anthem of Palestine, and on the other side of the token is a left bourgeoisie which is continually doing the same thing on a different scale that is, the achievement of  a victory goes through the framework of a “National Movement’. It is a motto of all left nationalism around world.  These millions of displaced workers for a long time now have paid a high and horrible price due to these directions.

All of these workers regardless of where they live - Israel, Jordan, Syria, Gaza Strip etcetera - are part of the working class and they must know that.  And, the workers do not have any country.  Any form of patriotism is a yoke on our shoulder that has been imposed by capitalism in order to sustain their social order.  The National Movement which is an illusion and reactionary is the container of submission and destruction of the class movement of workers in a sinkhole of bourgeois interests.  This matter not only applies to Palestinian workers but also to other fellow members of its class in Iran, China, Latin America, and etcetera.  The history of the daily lives of any Palestinian worker proves such a claim very clearly.  For just a moment, take a look at what has been called the Government of Palestine from Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement), Fatah (Palestinian National Liberation Movement) Mahmood Abbas, Ismail Hniyeh, George Habah and others.  While the brutal army of Israel was destroying the houses of the Palestinian people including children, the elderly and so on, all of these factions in the name of the state of Palestine and under the flag of the National State of Palestine were fighting amongst themselves for their own rivalry.

The Palestinian worker must start from their own class existence wherever they live.   They are a part of the international working class, and for their liberation from all of these miseries they have to put their hands onto the hands of their own fellow class members against the bourgeois of every country.  The only way out of this situation is to build a powerful anti-capitalist movement in that region with the partnership of Israeli workers against not only the bourgeois of Arab or Israel but against all Nationalism and reactionary religion.  The prerequisite for this task requires a high level of intervention consciously from all anti-capitalist activists around the world, and instead of having nationalistic sympathy and aiding with the dismantling of the worker movement in that area towards a swamp of national and religious opposition’s interest, they must call for the formation of an anti-capitalist movement.