No, because all the left in Israel is against oppressing Palestinians, children. And that group is perhaps the one that most directly opposes it. It has no political solution. It just says no more oppression of Palestinians. And they are people who are not going to serve, some are going to prison. And then there are some who say that they will serve in the occupied territories but not shoot. We walk with them because they don't propose a political solution, and everyone is OK with them. But on some demonstrations we went as the Mole, as to the funeral of Omar el-Kassem. In other small demonstrations, we went as ourselves. But in big ones, we don't like to go as ourselves, because you have Hala ha-Kibush [Down with the Occupation, a broad militant formation] and umpteen number of parties, so we go with the only group everyone agrees with, which is the Shministim.
• Presumably, members can also have different ideas about what solidarity with the Intifada means?
Yes. We are also in solidarity with Palestinian women, who are oppressed by the Israeli occupation but also by a male chauvinist culture.
• Doesn't that complicate relations with Palestinians?
No. Because the Palestinians we have met with have normally been left wing.; they weren't from the Hamas [Islamic fundamentalists] or the Muslim Brothers. In the Intifada, women are more open; now even they are throwing stones. Before, they were house bound; now they seem to have more power than before. We are in solidarity with the workers, with the unemployed.
• Do you have Palestinian mem-
Yeah. We do have Palestinian members. Not a lot, because we are mainly in Tel-Aviv. But we have half a dozen or so. They are not Palestinians from the territories. Mostly they are Palestinians with Israeli citizenship, because they are allowed to stay in Tel-Aviv.
• You don't have anyone in the
We have contacts. It's hard for them to come to Tel-Aviv. Normally we go to them. We have very good contacts. We
ISRAELI STATE
• Have you done anything on the labor front?
We tried a couple of times, but as far as I know we were not very successful. We tried to go to demonstrations with workers. We did not have much luck. It was very badly organized.
• Under the best of circumstances, achieving a linkup between radical young people and trade-unionists is not easy.
In Israel, the trade unions are a disaster. Histadrut is not really a union. It is an employer. So, the workers don't like His tadrut. Normally, they go to the right, to the Likud. But if we go to them, I think they will like that, to know that somebody cares, that somebody has a belter solution than the Histadrut.
• Do you discuss socialism much in the group?
The group has an open meeting where we bring people to talk about things. We have had discussions about pacifism, about feminism, and sometimes socialism. Every member decides if he or she wants to listen. We are socialists; we do not say that we are communists, because then the group might break up.
• Do you have an actual educational program, or are these discusorganized on an ad-hoc
We organize a program for a month or a month and half.And every week we bring some one to talk. Sometimes, we have seminars. The group is going on a trip to sec some Palestinians. They are going to have a seminar about the second world war. This is not like school, where we are forced to learn. Here we come to listen. And we can go whenever we want. Normally, we meet every Monday. The open meeting is 6:00 to 8:30. Then there is the members meeting, which can go on late. Some come to the open meeting, some just to the membership meeting, some to
• What's the ratio between male and female?
In the beginning, there weren't too many girls, only three or four. Now there are a lot a more. We are very happy about that. We are against chauvinism in all its forms. Now the proportion is around 5050. Maybe there are a few more boys, three or four more. There is always something in our paper about women's oppression.
We don't demonstrate a lot on it, because our main purpose right now is the occupied territories and I think we should also give priority to working on forming a student union. There are other groups in Israel who deal with women's issues, the Women in Black, there is another group tries to he thems o women prisoners and 1 1 tries to help them. *
Crisis explodes in Greek
Communist Party
THE CRISIS which has smouldered for long months within the
Greek Communist Party (KKE) has exploded in a spectacular fashion in recent weeks. After a marathon session the Central