Distinguishing the various Left positions on the current conflict.

Israelis clash with Hezbollah guerrillas – Yahoo! News

As the conflict in the Middle East continues to escalate and continues to mount casualties, it is important for Marxists to disguish themselves from other Left positions on the Palestinian struggle. Not doing so can result in confusion because make no mistake, opinions are divided and rather radically. I will try to explain three main positions – from a Marxist perspective, of course.

The Marxist position on Israel and Palestine has been quite clear from the creation of the Zionist state following the end of the second world war. The state of Israel does not have the right to exist. The state was founded on the dispossesion of Palestinians, the creation of an ethnically pure state and the backing and support from Western imperialist countries.

Marxists around the world, including many Jews, call for a one-state solution. The dismantling of the Israeli state in favour of a secular state where Jews and Arabs can live together, as they have done for hundreds of years before Israel existed. Under the current capitalist climate, this solution is very hard to acheive, and it is why the liberation of Palestinians can only be acheived through the creation of Socialism – in an international sense, and not the Stalinist distortion.

Another position among the Left, and probably the most popular, is the reformist, two-state solution. Let me make this clear, this is in no way, a solution. The source of the conflict comes from the Israeli state, and as long as it exists, there will be conflict. Even with the success of a cease-fire in the near future, there can be no long term solution via this position. There is also no redeamable solution in the incursion of UN troops. The UN, a farce in itself, has major influence from the U.S. and other major powers. These powers all see an advantage in having a watchdog, such as Israel in the Middle-East.

The final major position from the Left is an utterly insane one, and one that needs to be debunked and it is often confused with the Marxist position. This is the anti-semitist position. These are people who claim to be Left-wing. These racists are parties to more of the conspiracy theory, rather than a postion. They claim that Jews control the World Bank and various corporations. This nut job theory is actually not Left-wing at all. In fact, it is more suited the Nazis and fascists, and yet, many in the Left subscribe to this insane position, and it needs to be attacked with full-force.

This issue, and the various positions surrounding it, are complex and confusing. We cannot predict where this situation will go, and when it will come to end. We will keep you posted.

The kind of thing that blind-sides you on some idle Tuesday

This is an open question to the Eustonist tendency (for I doubt the problem is confined at Harry’s Place):

If the SWP and many other Trotskyite organisations are so fundamentally anti-semitic, why do they call themselves after an ethnic Jew?

Wikipedia has one answer: “Harry’s Place was originally started by Harry Hatchet (aka “Harry” – none of Harry’s Place writers use their full name), who was originally the sole writer. Harry was active in British anti-fascist and Marxist politics in the mid-to-late 1980s, and in this period was also a member of the Straight Left faction of the Communist Party of Great Britain. It is claimed that he took the pseudonym “Harry Steele” as a tribute to Harry Pollitt, former General Secretary of the CPGB, and the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin (though Harry claims it was a “piss-take” and “not a hommage [sic] to anyone”). Under this name he contributed to a number of far-left message boards and mailing lists, including UK Left Network and “The Politburo”, a discussion board for British Communists, the latter of which he set up. In this period he became well-known among fellow contributors for his support for “orthodox” Soviet Communism and his attacks on Trotskyists, in particular the Socialist Workers Party. Some critics felt that his later views on the anti-racism movement were closer to the right-wing than to traditional left-wing politics.”

Using a George Orwell quote (“liberty, if it means anything, is the right to tell people what they don’t want to hear”) seems an odd irony: Orwell was always comparing Stalinism to fascism. Today, the formerly loyal Stalinist spends a great deal of time and effort trying to compare Islam to fascism.

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Which leads me to another question, for those on the anti-Iraq-war left, for lack of a better term:

After Hitler, some ex-Nazis became Conservative politicians.

After Stalin, it seems that many of his international brigade have become the most dangerous of New Labour MPs, cynics or conservatives. To what degree the Stalinist movement was just the worship of power over people – for Stalin’s atrocities have been known about in Britain since the fifties – is unclear. Some Ex-Trots, by contrast, have become neo-conservatives or : in the exile from the left since the fall of the Soviet Union, political ideologies have changed hands so many times that in many cases they are obsolete.

Given that not even the “Third Way” label seems to work for Blair and Cameron, and the traditional labels of the left refer to the Cold War reality and are becoming ever more abstract as the original thinkers/politicians behind them are ignored – is it not time for us to devise a few more modern labels, which correspond to streams of thought which predominate today? Something equivalent to a Euston Manifesto for the British far left needs to define the post-Soviet consensus, to unite our aims and “sloganize” the way forward. Postmodern and impenetrable though the academic left might be sometimes, this does not need to be our public face.

Lebanon

Preface:

I usually try to avoid talking about Israel, because I have no wish to be accused of anti-semitism. The idea that Israel is a Jewish state established on “the natural right of the Jewish people to be masters of their own fate, like all other nations, in their own sovereign State” (Declaration of the Establishment of Israel) is a big problem for the original inhabitants. However, most of those are without guilt today, and throwing them out of places where they predominate would merely to be perpetuating the same evil. A two – or three – state solution with Gaza and the West Bank gaining independence seems the only reasonable option, especially as Israeli paranoia (however justified by events) has led to the peoples of these regions living under military rule and effectively forbidden to trade with other nations, leading to a spiral of poverty and decay. I am no anti-semite, any more than I am anti-American: it is not the people of Israel who are in the wrong, but the government of Israel, and that is quite clear.

Current situation (via):

Lebanese Flag

Israel invades Lebanon (an illegal “cross-border raid”), and one of Lebanon’s governing parties (like Hamas, a terrorist group turned political party) holds two soldiers as prisoners of war. Israel calls this an act of war and invades Lebanon even more viciously – and the media’s reaction?

“Israeli troops enter Lebanon after Hizbollah seizes two soldiers” – Daily Mail
“Israeli troops enter Lebanon amid kidnap reports” – CNN
“Israel calls Hizbollah capture of soldiers act of war” – Reuters
“Lebanese Rebels Seize 2 Israeli Soldiers at Border” – New York Times
“Hezbollah seizes Israel soldiers” – BBC

Why are Hezbollah a terrorist group?

“For us Lebanese, and I can tell you the majority of Lebanese, Hezbollah is a national resistance movement. If it wasn’t for them, we couldn’t have liberated our land. And because of that, we have big esteem for the Hezbollah movement” – Emile Lahoud, President of Lebanon

Because of Israel’s occupation of Southern Lebanon, which required strong resistance to overcome. You can’t justify what the group has done, at least without recourse to religion, but the reason the group is so popular and powerful is because they helped to liberate their country. It is worth noting that many of the targets of the group were US military forces enforcing Israeli occupation. Hezbollah succeeded, and in May 2000, Israel finally withdrew from Southern Lebanon. Lebanon gained its independence from Syria, who controlled the state with their own armies and secret police forces, in 2005, following popular uprisings.

Why was Israel occupying Southern Lebanon in the first place? Because Lebanon was allowing Palestinian “terrorists” (members of the PLO) who had had their own country stolen from them to hide there.

Why does Iran feel such hostility to Israel and America? Because Lebanon is the one other country in the region which might be considered Shi’a, and it has felt Israeli and American dominance at first hand.

Beirut, capital of Lebanon and byword for anarchy before today’s democratic government came in

Hezbollah now control about a quarter of the seats in the Lebanese government. Since the Lebanese have gained independence, democracy has flourished. It is now much more safe, and religious minorities like Christians get better protection and play a bigger political role than practically anywhere else in the region.

Two kidnappings of invading soldiers today – worldwide condemnation
“The crisis for the Israelis was compounded by the airforce killing a family of nine people by dropping a 550-pound bomb on a house in a residential area of Gaza City early today. The bomb killed Nabil Abu Salmiah, a lecturer at the Islamic University described by Israel as a Hamas activist, his wife and their five daughters and two sons. Five of the dead children were aged between four and 11. The other two were in their teens.” – The Guardian today – nothing

An Israeli tank fires shells into Lebanon. The American-backed War on Democracy continues

On North Korea and the Bomb

Over at Harry’s Place, the pro-war left who claim that regime change from outside is humane and good (who are nicknamed the “Decent Left” by their adversaries because their viewpoint wouldn’t be out of place in polite society or colonial India) are once again hounding the anti-war left (“Stoppers” to their critics)

The “decents” here are claiming the moral high ground on three counts:

1) That the Communist Party of Britain support North Korea (and have supported all manner of nasty Stalinist regimes) and the Stop the War Coalition, and therefore all people who are against the war are tarnished by association.
2) That the Ku Klux Klan have organised an anti-Iraq War/pro-”white unity” demonstration and therefore all people who are against the war are tarnished by association.
3) That some of the Stop the War Coalition support the Iraqi resistance – therefore they are decisively “non-pacifistic” and all people who are against the war are tarnished by association.

First of all – why do Fascists and racists want to stop the war? For extreme racists like the KKK it can be simple: they don’t like white people getting killed in battle. Fascist organisations like the BNP are also against the war, but for another reason as well.

“[P]rivate enterprise in the sphere of production is the most effective and useful instrument in the interest of the nation” – Mussolini
Fascism is basically an agreement between leaders of big business and government to exploit everyone else in a nation whilst keeping power by using powerful fears of alien groups and respect for symbols of authority, sentiment and patriarchy. In this sense, it might be considered an extremely efficient form of government from the point of view of those at the top. However, because this unchecked merger between state and corporate power is secured through means of racism: even though grabbing oil might enrich a nation and the corporations and leaders within it, the idea of having to share sovereignty over it with other races is a deterrent, at least to today’s hard core of Fascists. Mussolini’s colonial ambitions stretched to trying to take over Ethiopia, so we must conclude that once Fascists are in power, they are much more willing to compromise for the sake of their corporations.

Secondly, the few of the “Stoppers” who support the resistance are doing it because they have a belief that all people should be able to live in their own way unburdened by oppression from outside: the fact that those “Decents” at Harry’s Place unanimously support Israel’s use of force to oppress inhabitants of the West Bank and Gaza Strip makes their claim that Iraq should have been “liberated” from Saddam a rather hypocritical idea.

But in the comments section, we see a further argument:

4) North Korea can’t have nuclear weapons because they aren’t trustworthy.

Let’s look at the facts:

North Korea and Iran are both “extremist” – in that they’re not submitting to the West’s power.

North Korea is a state in which its leaders (we are told) have no cares about anything but their own lives and power. In North Korea, they are told that Western leaders do not care about anything but their own lives and power.

Both North Korea and the West claim that their leaders are honourable and can be trusted with nuclear weapons.

The West claims that North Korea and Iran will use nuclear weapons against it.
North Korea and Iran claim that The West will use nuclear weapons against them.

Neither Iran nor North Korea has ever attacked the West or its neighbours.
When the West attacked North Korea, 11.1% of the total population perished.
After the West overthrew Iran’s first democratically elected leader (for oil company BP), they were able to do it at the expense of only 300 Iranian lives and democracy in Iran – they instituted the brutal Shah as the dictator.
The West recently overthrew the Afghan and Iraqi governments and the death toll from this is still rising.

So why are North Korea and Iran seen as the biggest threats? Why is violence the only answer? And why is the West the only source of morality and political leadership that is acceptable?

Kim Jong-Il, anti-American dictator of North Korea. Unacceptable.

Saparmurat Niyazov, pro-American dictator of Turkmenistan. Acceptable.